Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (4 page)

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m
at Sunset Beach, the little surfers’ cove near Dad’s house. I have
packed my rucksack with picnic food, iPhone, pencil case and sketchbook, and
I’m hiding behind a wide-brimmed hat and sunshades.

I’ve had two full-on days with Dad
and Emma; we’ve watched a modern dance production at the Opera House, driven
out to the Blue Mountains and hiked along the trails, met the neighbours at an
impromptu barbie and even crammed in a lightning-fast shopping trip for some truly
hideous school uniform. Today Emma was seeing a friend so Dad promised me a day at
the beach together, but at the last moment an important business client flew in from
Singapore to talk about some big deal, and he had to drop everything.

He’ll be out until late, but I
don’t mind. I’ve been itching to get out by myself, explore properly. I
scope out the beach cafe, all shiny-new and open at one end with glass and decking
and outside tables with sunshades. The boy behind the counter is about my age, a
skinny Asian kid with blue-black hair that dips down over his eyes and a kind,
crooked smile. He looks cute and friendly in a boy-next-door kind of way, but
boy-next-door is not my type. I generally go for bad-boy cool, with a side order of
mean ’n’ moody.

I order a fresh fruit smoothie and the
boy raises an eyebrow.

‘You British?’ he asks,
chucking strawberries, banana, milk and chipped ice into a blender and hitting the
button to smoosh it up.

‘How can you tell?’ I ask,
mock-surprised. ‘My English rose complexion? The tourist map peeking out of my
rucksack? My epic fail on the whole beach dress-code issue?’

He laughs. I am probably the palest
person on the beach, and the only one dressed in a flowered minidress and strappy
sandals instead of a swimsuit or shorts/vest-top combo. And yes, I have a map.

‘All of that,’ he says.
‘And the accent – dead giveaway. I like the hat and the sunglasses. Are you in
disguise?’

‘Might be,’ I tease, tilting
the hat back and peering at him over the sunglasses. On closer inspection, I can see
that he has killer cheekbones and melted-chocolate eyes that take him right out of
the boy-next-door category, and I smile.

‘I could be a British spy,’
I tell him archly. ‘Or a movie star who doesn’t want to be spotted, or
one of those food critics who write secret reviews for the papers …’

‘I’d better do a good job
then,’ he says, decanting the finished smoothie into a glass. ‘Seriously
– are you on holiday?’

‘Not exactly – I’ve just
moved here.’

‘Cool,’ he says.
‘Sydney’s a great place to live – I’d offer to show you around,
but I’m tied up most days with school and family stuff and shifts at the cafe.
Which school d’you go to?’

‘I’m starting at Willowbank
on Monday,’ I say. ‘It’s all girls and pretty strict, my dad
says.’

He decorates the smoothie with a slice
of fresh mango and a couple of straws, sliding it across the counter while I count
out my dollars and cents, trying not to look too clueless. A small queue is forming
behind me.

‘You’ll be right,’ the
boy says. ‘What’s your name, anyhow?’

‘Honey Tanberry …’

‘OK, Honey Tanberry,’ he
says, turning away to serve the next customer. ‘I won’t forget a name
like that!’

I am halfway across the cafe when he
shouts after me. ‘My name’s Ash, by the way, in case you were
wondering!’

I laugh. ‘I was,’ I yell
back. ‘Obviously. Just too shy to ask!’

I’m smiling as I snag a table on
the decking with a slightly wilting sunshade and set down my smoothie, spreading my
drawing stuff out around me. Sunset Beach is a perfect slice of golden sand edged by
a silver-blue ocean, inspiration on a plate. There are families picnicking, little
kids building sandcastles, kids playing football or running into the sea.

I open my sketchbook and pick up my
pencil. I love drawing people, and pretty soon I lose myself in the process. I
sketch a group of girls sunbathing, smoothing suntan oil over long, tanned limbs,
turning themselves like chicken on a barbecue. I draw the cute waiter with his
dipping fringe and his tray of smoothies, and a middle-aged woman standing on one
leg, doing yoga on the sand. A knot of teenage boys are yelling and splashing around
in the ocean with surfboards, trying to catch a wave, and I draw them too, my pencil
lingering over lean legs and broad shoulders, buzz-cut hair and toothy grins.

Suddenly, a stray football flies past,
knocking my sketchbook on to the decking.

‘Whoa,’ a voice says, and a
boy dips down to rescue the sketchbook, dusting away a scatter of sand before
handing it back. ‘Close one!’

He’s older than me, lean and
tanned and still glistening with seawater, blue eyes as vivid as the sky, damp blond
hair raked back from his face. Not that I am looking, of course.

He turns and hooks the football up with
one bare, tanned foot and kicks it back along the beach to where some little kids
are waiting. They grab the ball and scarper, laughing.

A couple of the surfer boys are watching
the whole scene play out. ‘Hey, Riley!’ one yells. ‘Chatting up
the girls again? Don’t keep her all to yourself!’

‘Ignore him,’ the boy says.
‘He’s just jealous. You British?’

‘Yeah … I’ve just
moved here to live with my dad.’

His eyes catch mine and for a moment I
think I might drown in their bright, clear blue. He likes me. He’s
good-looking, in an edgy, surf-boy way … he’s like an Aussie version
of my ex, Shay. And that’s a good thing, trust me.

There are yells from further down the
beach. Half a dozen surfie boys are running towards us across the sand, all brown
limbs and streaks of sunblock, surfboards beneath their arms. They skid to a halt
beside us, spattering wet sand everywhere like boisterous, unruly dogs.

‘Riley! C’mon, man,
we’ve gotta bail, we’ll be late. Leave the poor girl alone!’

‘We’re supposed to be over
at Donny’s for six – party time!’

‘Slow down,’ Riley says.
‘This is … uh … I didn’t catch your name!’

‘Honey,’ I tell him, and his
eyes flash, amused.

‘Honey? I like it.
Sweet!’

Not so sweet
, I think,
remembering my ironic new SpiderWeb name. But who knows, maybe a boy like Riley
could halt the slow curdle of hurt inside me that turns sweet to sour? Maybe.

‘Honey’s new in town,’
Riley is telling his mates. ‘All the way from Britain! We should invite her
along to the party, show her a bit of Sydney hospitality!’

‘Why not?’ one boy agrees.
‘Pretty girls are always welcome!’

‘British?’ another declares.
‘Cool. You doing that uni exchange scheme? Come to the party, for sure, just
don’t take any notice of Riley – I’m way more your
type …’

My heart begins a drumbeat of
anticipation. This is a game I am expert at – a few cool boys, the push/pull of
flirtation. There is just one problem: I am supposed to be off boys, possibly for
the rest of my life. I made a deal with Dad – no boyfriends, no parties, no trouble.
I am supposed to be squeaky clean. I can’t break that promise on my very first
week in Australia. Can I?

Dad and Emma won’t be back till
late. I could go to the party for a few hours and they’d never know. I’m
torn, but the new-leaf me knows that this is not a good idea. ‘Thanks,’
I say. ‘Sounds great, but … I can’t. Sorry!’

The boys laugh and roll their eyes and
pretend to be heartbroken, and then they’re heading on up the beach and
I’m forgotten. That’s boys for you.

Deflated, I take out my iPhone and open
up my new SpiderWeb page, pretending I couldn’t care less. There’s a
post from Coco on my wall:

Hey, big sister, don’t forget
our Skype date tonight. I know you’re starting school tomorrow and I know
it is one of those crunchy granola places where you call the teachers by their
first names, but … I want to wish you good luck. Break a leg, as
Summer would say. Only … well, don’t actually break a leg.
Obviously. Skype call is 9 p.m. your time, OK?

Your Adoring Sister,

Coco

xoxo

I’m about to tap out an answer when
a shadow falls across the table: Riley.

He rakes the damp blond hair back from
his face. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Tonight’s going to be a bit
crazy – don’t blame you for giving it a miss. Maybe another time?’

‘Maybe …’

His face lights up and there’s a
charge in the air between us, heavy but invisible. We once did an experiment about
magnetism in primary school with a horseshoe magnet and iron filings, and I remember
thinking it was pure magic the way one pulled the other to it. This is the same kind
of magic, and I think it is working both ways.

You cannot fight that kind of thing,
right? And Dad need never know …

‘Riley!’ one of his mates
roars from the sand dunes. ‘She’s not interested in you. Come
on
!’

Riley glances at my phone.
‘You’re on SpiderWeb?’ he asks. ‘Cool. What’s your
SpiderWeb name?’

‘SweetHoney,’ I say, and
Riley laughs and says that figures.

Out of nowhere, Ash, the beach-cafe boy,
appears at my table with a tray, collecting up my empty smoothie glass.
‘OK?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, I’m fine!’

He wipes the tabletop down with
exaggerated swipes of his cloth.

Riley rolls his eyes. ‘Got a
problem, mate?’ he asks.

‘No problem,’ Ash says
lightly. ‘Just doing my job.’

Riley turns back to me.
‘You’re an art student, right?’ he says. ‘I live quite near
to COFA, so maybe I’ll see you on campus. We can grab a coffee.’

He thinks I’m older, that
I’m at some kind of art college. I’m about to nod and say I’ll
look out for him, but even though I’ve just met him I feel weird blatantly
lying in front of the beach-cafe boy. I’ve just told him I’m starting at
Willowbank, after all.

‘I’m not a student,’ I
hear myself say to Riley. ‘I’m fifteen. Still at school.’

His face clouds, and the magnetism
fizzles away to nothing right in front of my eyes. He’s not interested in
schoolkids. Why would he be?

‘I’d better be getting
off,’ he says, sounding bored now, embarrassed. ‘See you around,
maybe …’

‘Me and my big mouth,’ I say
to the cafe boy as he gives the table one final polish. ‘Blown it.’

Ash shrugs. ‘His loss,’ he
says.

I raise my hand to wave as Riley jogs up
the beach to join his friends, but he doesn’t look back.