Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (3 page)

I roll over, stretch out an arm and check
my mobile. It’s 3.55 a.m. Aussie time, and jet lag has me by the throat. I
read Summer’s text and smile; of all the good things about moving to the other
side of the world, finally being out of earshot of the screeching, sawing racket of
Coco’s violin practice has to be near the top of the list.

My eyes are gritty with lack of sleep
but every time I close them they spring wide open again against my will. I feel
exhausted, yet my head is buzzing with a million thoughts, ideas, worries; I’m
like a little kid who has overdosed on Coke, hyper and fractious and fizzing with
trouble.

I check my mobile again. A whole two
minutes has crawled by.

Back in Britain, it is late afternoon.
My sisters will be spreading homework books out across the kitchen table, drinking
hot chocolate, chatting. I think of Coco, playing mournful violin in the oak tree,
and suddenly there’s a lump in my throat and an ache to match it.

I spoke to Mum yesterday, queuing at
immigration to have my passport checked, to let her know I’d landed, but
suddenly that doesn’t seem like enough. I can’t call now, not without
waking Dad and Emma. My mobile says 4.05 a.m. Jet lag, you suck.

I slide out of bed and tiptoe to the
kitchen, pouring myself an orange juice from the fridge. The house is strange,
alien, silent. There is no familiar clutter, no mongrel dog lurking, ever hopeful,
on the lookout for a morsel of cheese or a leftover sausage roll. I can’t
imagine Dad and Emma having pets.

Back in the bedroom, I pick up my iPhone
and fire off a quick email to Mum. Rather than emailing Summer, Skye and Coco I copy
them into Mum’s message, but maybe my SpiderWeb page would be a better plan in
the long run? I can post lots of pics and keep everyone up to speed on life in
Sydney.

I haven’t used it for ages. I log
in to the page, wincing at the flirty profile picture and the photos of my
fairground boyfriend and his mates. I thought Kes was special; I thought his friends
were cool. Sadly, they didn’t think the same about me.

Kes called just twice after Mum found
out about the truanting and school expelled me. The first time was to ask if I was
coming to his mate’s party, which I couldn’t, of course; I was grounded
for life, guarded by my sisters, my stepdad, an ever-changing squad of concerned
social workers. The second time was to tell me he thought we should finish, that
I’d be better off without him; oh, and besides, he’d met someone
new.

As for his friends, some sent the odd
half-hearted text, but I could see them fading before my very eyes, like the cheap,
rainbow-striped T-shirt I’d once washed on a ninety-degree cycle by mistake.
Well, hey – their loss.

I take a deep breath and press
Deactivate, and just like that my old SpiderWeb page is gone.

Creating a new page is like inventing a
whole new me. I pick a username, SweetHoney, the name of the honeycomb truffle Paddy
invented for me on my fifteenth birthday. I ate precisely half of one truffle and
pretended I didn’t like it, but actually it was amazing. I just didn’t
want Paddy to know that.

I like the name too. In a slightly
ironic way.

I pick out a new profile picture, a
close-up of me on the beach from earlier today. The picture is bright, smiley,
wholesome, a big contrast to the flirty, in-your-face images on my old page. I fill
in my details and fire off friend requests to Summer, Skye, Coco. I hesitate over
the names of old classmates and ex-boyfriends, but this is a new-leaf moment and I
decide on a clean break. If people from back home find me and add me, fine;
otherwise I’ll treat this page as a way to communicate with my sisters,
nothing more and nothing less.

My old page had almost 500 followers,
but where are they now? Where were they then, come to think of it? I always thought
I was a popular girl, but the ‘bad’ kids forgot about me the minute I
was no longer available for drop-of-the-hat rabble-rousing; the ‘good’
kids ditched me when I got expelled from school. Who knows, my wickedness could have
been contagious.

A new page with no followers at
all … at least this way I get to find out who my real friends are. The
whole thing takes a while because I’m working on a smartphone, and there are
some SpiderWeb features I can’t access, but eventually I have a cool-looking
page. I write a quick status about arriving in Sydney and add a picture of me
standing on the steps of Sydney Opera House.

I open up a new page in the journal
section of SpiderWeb, but before I can write anything my mobile starts to ring and a
picture of Tanglewood flashes up on the screen.

‘Honey?’ My sister
Coco’s voice shrills into my ear. She sounds like she could be in the next
room, not on the other side of the world, and suddenly I’m grinning in the
dark. ‘Hang on,’ I whisper, padding through the silent house.
‘I’m going outside. It’s the middle of the night, I don’t
want to wake everyone up.’

‘Everyone?’ Coco echoes, not
missing a trick. ‘Who’s everyone? Who else is there?’

Outside the air is soft with the promise
of another hot day, but the flagstones are cool beneath my bare feet. Above the
rooftops I can see the sky flush pink.

‘Nobody,’ I tell Coco, then
falter, unsure why I’m hiding the truth from her. It’s the kind of lie
that might be difficult to maintain. ‘Well … just Dad’s
girlfriend, Emma.’

‘Emma?’ Coco says.
‘Wasn’t that the name of his PA at his old job, when he lived with
us?’

‘Don’t think so,’ I
huff. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘I thought it was,’ she
muses. ‘Still … a girlfriend. That must be a bit weird for
you.’

‘Nah, she’s cool,’ I
bluff. ‘I’m fine with her.’

Really, I have the knack of lying down
to a fine art.

‘So, tell me about
Australia,’ Coco rushes on. ‘Is it amazing? Is it hot? Have you seen a
kangaroo?’

‘Not yet,’ I laugh, deciding
not to mention the kangaroo steak Dad polished off in the restaurant. ‘And
yes, it’s epic. And hot. It’s the middle of the night right now – well,
five in the morning, anyhow – but it’s still warm. I’m sitting out in
the garden in my PJ shorts and vest …’

‘Why are you even awake at five in
the morning?’

‘Because you rang, little
sister,’ I say patiently. ‘And because I’m a bit jet-lagged. It
takes a while to adjust to the new time zone. Are you missing me?’

‘Like mad,’ she says.
‘Everything is just too … well, calm. No yelling. No door slamming.
Nobody hogging the bathroom before school and using all the hot water!’

‘I have my own bathroom
here,’ I tell her. ‘And I haven’t yelled or slammed a door once.
I’m a reformed character.’

Coco laughs. ‘Don’t believe
you. Not possible. You are a lost cause!’

I smile. I have vowed to put my rebel
days behind me, but Coco is right, it will be hard to let go. I kind of like my old,
rebel-girl self, brave and wild and dramatic.

‘Are Skye and Summer there?’
I ask.

‘Summer’s gone off somewhere
with Alfie,’ my little sister says. ‘Skye’s at Millie’s, and
Mum and Paddy are in the workshop. Cherry’s around somewhere … want
to speak to her?’

‘What do you think?’

‘That’s a no then,’
Coco sighs. ‘Seriously, Honey, you can’t hold a grudge
forever.’

‘Can’t I? You’d be
surprised …’

I expect my little sister to laugh, but
there’s just a crackly silence in my ear and suddenly I feel very tired and
very far away.

‘You said you were a reformed
character,’ Coco points out accusingly.

‘Give me a break!’ I argue.
‘I’m not a saint. You can’t expect me to forgive Cherry, not after
what she did. Look, must we have this conversation now?’

‘When will we have it then?’
Coco wants to know. ‘When you get home? When will that be?
And … well, what if you never do?’

‘Of course I will!’ I
promise. ‘One day. Or maybe you’ll come out here …’

‘That won’t be for years and
years,’ my little sister whimpers. ‘You’ll forget what I look
like. You’ll forget all kinds of stuff, miss all kinds of stuff. Families
aren’t meant to live thousands of miles apart!’

‘Look, Coco, I didn’t have a
choice –’

‘You had a choice,’ she
says, and her voice sounds muffled and wobbly. ‘You just didn’t choose
us! I want to be happy for you, Honey, but I can’t help it, I’m not. I
wish you hadn’t gone. It’s rubbish without you!’

‘Don’t be like
that!’

‘Why not?’ she sniffs.
‘It’s true, it is. It’s like when Dad left, all over
again.’

An ache of sadness lodges itself inside
me. I remember how we felt when Dad went, of course I do. We were lost, hurting,
wondering what we’d done wrong, what we could do to make him come back.

‘This is totally different,’
I say.

‘It’s not,’ Coco
chokes out. ‘I miss you!’

If I could, I’d put my arms round
my littlest sister and tell her everything will be fine, but hugs don’t really
work at long distance.

‘Hey, I’ve just made a new
SpiderWeb page and sent you a friend request,’ I remember. ‘We can chat
on there. Tell the others, OK? Don’t get all mushy on me, Coco. I’m
relying on you to keep everyone in order!’

There’s a snuffling sound at the
end of the line, and I imagine Coco biting her lip, wiping a sleeve across her face.
Unexpectedly, my own eyes prickle with tears. It’s only the jet lag, of
course.

‘I have to go,’ I say
abruptly. ‘Dad’s calling.’

‘I thought you said it was the
middle of the night?’ Coco argues, but I blurt out a hasty goodbye and end the
call, pushing Coco’s words from my head. I can’t think about those
things. I am in Sydney and my mum and sisters are in Somerset, and Coco’s
right, this is what I have chosen.

A new start, a new me.

Beyond the rooftops the sky is streaked
with pink as the sun begins to rise. I abandon all hope of sleep and dip a toe into
the pool, experimentally. It is cold enough to make me shiver, but I don’t
allow myself the luxury of cowardice. I curve my body forward and dive right into
the turquoise water, gasping at the shock of it.

I swim lengths until my jet-lagged brain
finally switches off and my heavy heart lifts and lightens, then I roll on to my
back and stretch my arms out wide, water swirling past my pale limbs as I float. The
sky is brighter now, wisps of pink and gold barely visible against vivid blue.

I smile, imagining a future filled with
sun and cool water, sunshades and polka-dot bikinis. Back in Britain, autumn is
sliding into winter, but here in Sydney the summer is just beginning. Perhaps by
flying halfway round the world, I really can turn the clock back, wipe out the
mistakes of the last few months?