Hazel Wood Girl

by Judy May

  I have been daydreaming about JL so much that it doesn’t even feel good any more. Like when you sit in a hot bath for too long and go all wrinkly, you want to stick with it, but you know it’s time to move on. Maybe that’s how Dad felt about living in the city.

  DAY TWENTY-ONE

  I ran down to the Hazel Wood to see if there was a note, and it was fantastic –

  Dear Hazel Wood Girl,

  Hmmm, A stick! Ha ha, OK, funny (just about!). Here is a better joke and just as short. What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in a swimming pool? – Bob!’

  I know all those ones from my last school. My favourite is – What do you call a woman with one leg? Eileen. Then what do you call a woman with two legs? – Noleen.

  Then the note said,

  I am not your dad or Mrs Hooper, or the couple from the Egg Farm (Wow, are they a piece of work or what!?), so keep guessing. Maybe when we meet we can think of something outrageous for you to do.

  Another question, Hazel Wood Girl.

  What is the best thing that ever happened to you?

  From, The Watcher.

  I’ve been thinking about that all day, and I think that the BEST thing that ever happened to me was when I sang a song in front of my family, and all my cousins and uncles and aunts at my Grandad’s birthday. I sang one that used to be Grandad’s favourite and he hadn’t heard it in years and there were tears in his eyes. They all kept telling me how great it was, and telling Mum and Dad that I had a lovely voice and must have got it from their side of the family.

  When I read the note I thought how I haven’t really been singing at all lately.

  I tried to get into the school choir when we moved here, but you had to audition in front of all the others who were already in the choir, and my voice went all funny and I didn’t even finish the song. The teacher was really nice and said to work hard in music class and try again next year, but I heard some of the others laughing so I don’t want to be in their stupid choir now. I used to love singing.

  DAY TWENTY-TWO

  I met the tall guy today (well, sort of), and he looks even better close up. Or maybe he just seems to look better because my brain went all fuzzy with nerves. He was in the supermarket looking at the bread shelves and I was with Mum and not paying attention, so I almost walked into him.

  He looked really shocked, I think because I was carrying a sack of sweet potatoes and dropped them when I saw him. He said,

  ‘Hello’, and I was so surprised that I just picked up the sweet potatoes, turned around and walked back to Mum. I could hear him laughing at me as I walked away which shows that he’s exactly like they are in school. Still, I was kicking myself that I didn’t say ‘Hi’ back, or maybe even stand there and say something. I could have suggested a good type of bread or something. No! There, you see, that’s as charming and witty as I can imagine myself being, a bread-suggester, and that’s so ridiculous! Anyway he probably knows I’m The Farmer and it’s everyone’s job to not like me.

  Then, as if that didn’t scramble my head up completely, on the way back to the car I saw Emma-Jo and she was walking hand-in-hand with this guy from the year above me called Beau. They looked so cute together; their hair is almost exactly the same, short and fair and they are the same height. So she isn’t going out with the tall guy, or at least I hope not. Not that he would ever like me, but it would be a bit much if she has loads of boyfriends while all the other girls in town are sitting in their greenhouses, dreaming like idiots.

  Before the supermarket trip, I left a note down at the Hazel Wood saying about the singing day, the good one at Grandad’s party not the whole choir fiasco. I wanted to tell The Watcher about the tall guy laughing at me and how much that hurt, but I can’t do that until I know The Watcher’s identity. It would be amazing if it was a girl my age (a nice one) and I could tell her about things.

  I just this minute went down to the Hazel Wood again, and there was already a note there. It says –

  Dear Hazel Wood Girl,

  Thank you for telling me about your singing, I’m sure you sounded incredible.

  The best thing that ever happened to me was when my dad took me fishing and we sat for hours, sometimes talking and sometimes not. He caught a huge trout and I helped him reel it in, and caught it in the net at the very end. When we got home he told Mum and everyone else that I had caught it, even though it was really him.

  Question: If you could meet one person from history who would it be and why?

  From, The Watcher.

  I wonder if JL counts as a person from history. It feels weird, like I have a friend even though I have never met them. I kidded myself for a while that it might be the tall guy but I know that I never have that kind of luck.

  DAY TWENTY-THREE

  I HAVE FINALLY REALISED. I am an idiot, like as if that’s news. When I woke up this morning, in one single brain-spasm it became glaringly obvious that Barbara and her friends thought of the whole Hazel Wood Girl thing. It’s so obvious that they will be showing my notes all around school, and laughing at me again, and putting them on the noticeboards. I know she’s away, but I bet she paid someone to do this to me. Why? What did I ever do to any of them?

  I wish everyone would either be my friend or leave me alone properly. I feel horrible and wish I could get back to just feeling numb.

  ***

  I did about an hour of French and then sat there looking at the stupid cows. Sammy-boy was doing the same thing from near their house on the other side of the field (staring, not learning French) and for some reason I got up and wandered over. As usual, he had his hands in front of his mouth with his sleeve-ends pulled up over his fingers, so I could just make it out when he said,

  ‘Mum said to ask would you like to come for tea today?’

  I was in the mood for nice normal people so I said,

  ‘Love to.’

  And he said,

  ‘Come on then,’ through his sleeves.

  It was good to sit and talk to Mrs Hooper. It made me feel I could be anywhere. Little Sammy-boy is so adorable. He really loves wild animals, and before I left he told me about a hedgehog he found and has been feeding on worms in their back garden.

  Her other young son, Christophe, wasn’t there, and I am pretty certain that maybe Mrs Hooper has invented a second kid for the purposes of child-support money or some kind of tax relief.

  I die inside whenever I think of the girls from school being behind the notes. Why can’t they just like me?

  DAY TWENTY-FOUR

  I almost fainted. It was eight o’clock in the morning and I was in the kitchen in my red long t-shirt that I wear to bed, and my old sweat pants from four years ago that are really too small, and the tall guy walked through our farmyard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  He talked to Adam for a few minutes and then walked off back down the lane. I couldn’t even move. I’m just so grateful that (especially with me in my PJs) he didn’t come into the house or he would never have spoken to me again. Not that he ever has, or would, but you know what I mean.

  There are some guys that speak to you, and some that don’t. I bet he’s the kind that only talks to whatever girl they want to snog that night, or whoever is the most popular or can do something for them. So that’s me out on all counts, but him walking through the farmyard is still the best thing to happen since that day in early spring when Dad finally worked out the heating.

  Anyway, I am now dressed (too nicely dressed for an ordinary day – sad and pathetic or what??), and am going to find out what he was doing here. Maybe he is one of the people stealing the veggies and eggs and stuff. Mum thinks the magpies are doing it, but I think that’s the defense lawyer in her coming out again.

  ***

  OK. Maybe, just maybe my life is not completely cursed! I just now went and asked Adam and Dad what that guy was doing in the yard and Dad said,

  ‘You mean Christophe Hooper?’

  And then I got it. The tall guy is Mrs Hooper’s
other son. I AM IN SHOCK!! Real shock, the kind they give you brandy for when you’re older.

  But it’s all a bit messed up in my head because I thought Christophe was about ten and the tall guy is at least fifteen, so I was really confused. I think that because there’s two years between me and Mindy I presumed that Christophe must be two years older than Sammy-boy, or something. Maybe it was because Adam said ‘little boys’, and suggested I babysit. I suppose he didn’t know either at the time.

  I have no clue really.

  Anyway, once Mindy gets back they will be best friends because they are both about the same age and she’s popular, and I’ll be left out. I’m not going to even try to be friends with him because I’ll just end up being disappointed.

  So the tall guy is Christophe Hooper and he is my neighbour. I wonder if maybe he knows Barbara and she got him to collect notes from me so that she could use him to help make a fool of me.

  I bet he’s The Watcher.

  I’m not going to write back.

  DAY TWENTY-FIVE

  I was up and dressed and staring out the kitchen window by seven and finally gave up at eight-thirty with a big, long day stretching in front of me. So I was lucky that FINALLY I’ve got something to do. Dad is way more of a softie than Mum, and when I begged him, he let me help get some papers together for a business meeting to do with ownership of the farm.

  Adam is not exactly a business genius and I spent the morning scrabbling around for contracts and letters in the dining-room/office, and found most of them inside old farming magazines and between unpaid bills from the last century almost.

  It was a bit of a shocker to realise that Dad is now in charge of the whole farm. I presumed Adam would be here forever, and that Dad would get so frustrated with the whole muddy mess of farming that one morning he’d wake us up and tell us to pack to return to the city. But, as well as finding out that the farm is now Dad’s, Adam told us at lunch that he’s got a job in the Far East teaching English-as-a-foreign-language. He’s going at the end of the summer.

  This is beyond horrible, my worst nightmare. It feels like a stone sitting in my stomach and like my head is full of nothing but air. Maybe I can run away and become a film star and divorce my parents or whatever they call that. I really hate it here, more than I have ever hated anything, even more than I used to hate violin lessons with the old shouty lady. Farms are fine for little kids, boring people, and old people, but not for teenagers and not for people with dreams and an imagination. I cannot spend a whole summer looking out the kitchen window in case my cute neighbour (who, as if I need reminding, laughed at me like I was the fool of the universe the only time we met) might decide to walk past.

  I think Dad could tell I was in a not-good way, and he brought me to the meeting in the town hall with his lawyer and some other people; I don’t really know who they were. The lawyer made a joke about us being there to sign me over to a new family and I found the idea appealing.

  The town hall was a good place to get away from things because it looks like it’s from somewhere far away, even though it’s on the main street. It’s like a red-brick, German-fairytale castle from a horror movie, super-old and small with turrets, arches, carved wooden banisters and panelling, and mosaic tiles on the floor.

  My backside was in bits waiting on the hard mahogany benches in reception because Dad is always on time for things and the rest of the world is always late. The secretary was really lovely to us, and even in the middle of the meeting she came in with more tea, and gave me the last of the chocolate wafer biscuits.

  Meetings are where people take two hours to say things that could be said in two minutes. The best I can tell, it was about some legal contract with the Egg Farm Grangers, who own the stone barn at the edge of our farm, the one right across the little road from their house and chicken sheds. They lease out the big, stone barn to us (like renting it to us) and Dad says it’s the best one for storing hay.

  For all their shiny shoes they didn’t know much. The lawyer has no clue if the Grangers even own the barn that we are paying them to use. That would be like me collecting rent money for hiring out the café. A bit on the cheeky side to say the least. If that is true than the person that really owns the stone barn could find out and run us off with hunting rifles. Well, they didn’t say that last part, but I bet that could happen. People get funny about their stuff. Like the way Mum is getting pissed off with all the food disappearing from our kitchen garden.

  We have started calling it, ‘The Murderous Mystery of the Vanishing Vegetables’. Dad thinks that it might be a homeless person passing through, except now it’s been happening for more than a week. I think it must be animals. It’s not the same as dogs in the city that eat tinned dog food, or stuff from the deli if their owners are rich enough. The animals here are not polite. A whole row of the early spinach went missing this morning and some of the broad beans. Dad says that small clumps of green wheat have been disappearing too.

  Anyway, the actual real news of the day is that the secretary at the town hall said that she has a daughter my age, and why don’t I come for dinner tomorrow night. Dad said, ‘Yes’, for me, because I didn’t know what to say. I must learn to just say something and then sort out how I feel about it later.

  I do want to go, but I’m scared, in fact terrified, in case her daughter is someone from my school, someone who calls me The Farmer and expects me to scratch my head with my knife and fork. Idiot me didn’t think to ask her daughter’s name. It might be OK, the mum seems really nice and who knows, I might get a few chocolate-wafer biscuits for my trouble.

  It’s not much to ask. Just one full day with no surprises. Please.

  DAY TWENTY-SIX

  The Watcher a note left on the greenhouse door, which weirded me out. I mean, how did they know that I hang out there?

  It started with –

  Dear Hazel Wood Girl,

  I hope everything is all right. Please leave a note here if for some reason you can’t make it to the Hazel Wood.

  Then The Watcher answered the question from the last note, which made me feel bad for not replying.

  It said –

  If I could meet one person from history it would be Elvis, so I could ask him how it felt to be the most popular singer in the world. I love singing too and playing guitar. Since remembering about catching the trout, I have decided to spend today fishing. Please just let me know that you are OK.

  From, The Watcher.

  Right. Now I think it must be Christophe, but what if it isn’t? I have no clue what to do. No clue whatsoever. I think I just want it to be him because I know he’d never talk to me.

  Sammy-boy was wandering like a lost lamb again so I invited him to join me in the greenhouse and gave him some markers and drawing paper. He drew me this amazing picture of a hedgehog and we stuck it up on the wooden tray. I asked him how old his brother is, and he said,

  ‘Just turned sixteen.’

  I’d bet every chocolate biscuit in the known universe that it is Christophe sending the notes, pretending to want to be my friend. I bet he’s doing it to get in with Barbara and her lot. But why would he say things about himself if it was all just to get me in trouble with Barbara? I am now even more extra confused, and that’s saying something.

  I have been writing in this to take my mind off the fact that Adam is driving me to that lady’s house in about ten minutes to have dinner with her and her daughter. I really wish I didn’t have to go, nothing is ever worth the worry. Adam is seeing ‘Liza’ again (Miss Dobbs, who I remember had a habit of wagging her foot until it almost came off) and when I asked him about going to the Far East and leaving her here, he just said that the end of the summer is a long time away. That is so like a man! So not romantic. They think romance is something you buy, like chocolates and flowers, when your woman gets too whingy.

  ***

  LATER

  OK. Good stuff! All marvellous enough for the meantime! Yes, I think I might even have my
first … well not friend exactly, but at least someone to hang out with. And it’s the famous Emma-Jo of all people. Talk about strange and weird and everything. It turns out she’s the town hall secretary’s daughter, and I felt this huge mix of thrilled and freaked when I saw her perched up by their kitchen table. But she looked OK with me being there, so I could tell that she didn’t know she was supposed to hate me, so at least I have a little bit of time. Fingers crossed she doesn’t talk to Barbara on the phone too much.

  We disappeared off into the den after eating, while her mum stayed in the kitchen, so we could talk really, not just that way you do in front of parents. Emma-Jo is easily the best person I have EVER met. Before now I’ve never come across anyone who is so, I don’t know, so in charge of themselves. I know that sounds stupid, but she really knows what she likes and doesn’t like and she says it. She’s crazy into all these old rock bands from when our parents were young, and new ones that have that same guitar sound. It felt like a few minutes, but really it was two hours that we sat and listened to their stuff, with Emma-Jo almost exploding with excitement telling me the deep meaning behind all the lyrics. It’s a bit different to the indie bands we all used to listen to in the city.

  Her life’s big dream is to be a rock star and to live exactly in the same area where we used to live, and I told her all about the shops and people and how much there was going on there, and she couldn’t get enough of it. I think it was the first time that I actually said out loud how much I miss being busy and excited about stuff. She feels the same way as I do about so little going on around here. We agreed that if someone made a film about this place it would have to be one of those very boring arty films with a Norwegian voiceover and dodgy subtitles and lots of gaps and silences with wind blowing and bad clothes.