Hazel Wood Girl

by Judy May

  Mum asked me to keep a lookout over the kitchen garden today as so much stuff is disappearing, which gave me more time for brooding.

  Sammy-boy sat with me and the pair of us were in it together because he looked really sad and worried too, but we both cheered up a bit after I fetched us slices of lemon poppy-seed cake almost the size of our own heads. It turned out he didn’t know that a poppy is a flower, so seeing as Mum was back by then and no foreign armies had invaded the kitchen garden, I said let’s go to the big, stone barn where some poppies grow wild. When we got there he sat sketching the poppies (which looked amazing because there were about two dozen of them against the long grass at the back of the stone barn) and I walked around the building.

  My plan was to check that it’s in a fit state for the audition. It’s just right where our farm finishes, across a small road from the Egg Farm, about half a mile from the Hazel Wood and a quarter of a mile from our main house. It’s the darkest building in the district and I hated coming here last winter. Dad says the Grangers are really angry because our lawyers are questioning paying for the use of the barn, so to keep away from them. Like as if I was about to invite myself over for tea!

  OK, I know it’s just my imagination making a drama out of nothing (and then pouring some more mystery sauce on top of that), but I was a bit freaked when I saw loads of footprints in the compacted earth below the single barn window. That was weird because there were no footprints around the big double door, and the window is up so high that you could never get in there from the ground. Inside it was all just left-over bales of hay from last winter and a couple of plastic pails. I noticed that the bales were all turned over, as if someone had been looking underneath them. Or maybe just bales get turned over.

  Anyway, back to reality. I suppose Em-J and Beau can just sit on the bales as they audition people.

  On the way back Sammy-boy told me that Christophe works for a farmer across town at different times of the day depending on what needs doing, which explains why I don’t see him all that much. Mum told me that the Hoopers used to live on a noisy housing estate where Mrs Hooper was worried that the boys would start hanging out with a bad crowd.

  I wonder if his work will mean he can’t audition for Em-J’s band (but if he got into the band then Em-J and Beau would ignore me to talk to him, and he’d probably convince them to get someone better to do the organising).

  There I go! Inventing problems ahead of time.

  I must ask Em-J what the name of the band will be. Bands are only ever as good as their names, so if a band is called something crap you can pretty much know they’ll be torture to listen to. I think the simple names are the best.

  Tomorrow is audition day! I am so nervous I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.

  DAY THIRTY-TWO

  We got to the barn a while before we were due to start and already there were at least twenty people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Half with guitars, shuffling around in their best boots, and millions of earrings, and all looking like this was their one big chance to make something of themselves. There was lots of nail-biting, gum-chewing and hair-twisting going on. Mum didn’t let us borrow the dining room chairs when I asked, which was fair enough considering all the muck around the place. I mean the actual mud outside the barn, the people were lovely! And no one seemed to mind standing or sitting on the ground, looking out across the Egg Farm one way and our farm yard the other way. (We were lucky there was no Granger activity all day.) It looked a bit odd really, rocker-invasion down at the farm, the same way a pig walking down the main street of a city would look kind of out of place.

  The first half of the morning had me crazy-busy taking names and getting photos done, so I didn’t pay much attention to how people were performing.

  From the start we called them ‘the hopefuls’ rather than ‘the auditionees’, but after a while Em-J started to call them ‘the hopeless’, which gave me a clue as to how things were going! ‘The hopeless’ all seemed to be much younger or much older than us, and I didn’t recognise anyone from school. I even noticed one of the waitresses from the café there, wearing jeans that were way too tight for her, and it didn’t seem to help her singing either. There was one really gorgeous guy called Glynn, who was so incredibly stylish that when he walked in I could tell Beau was torn between being happy for the band and worried that Em-J might fancy him. But he couldn’t sing to save his life, so that sorted that. I wondered if it was OK to keep the photos and numbers for personal use. Probably not. Mum would call it unethical. But then Dad would call it entrepreneurial.

  Remembering what a tough time I had at the try-outs for the school choir, I made the extra effort to tell everyone ‘great job’, and to say ‘thank you so much’, when they were leaving. I was really confident and chatty. Well done, me! I think I will go to the kitchen right now and reward myself with a soy yoghurt.

  ***

  Yoghurt devoured.

  ***

  Oh my God, this one girl brought her piano-accordion and it was all I could do not to laugh at Em-J and Beau’s ‘serious faces’ while she played, ‘Danny Boy’, all the way through. When they asked her if she knew any rock songs she said she didn’t like rock music, which is a little unexpected at a rock band audition.

  About four cute-ish guys showed up, but they had obviously only started to learn guitar as soon as they saw the audition notice, and were looking at their hands the whole time, and taking forever to change from one chord to another.

  There were loads of groups of nine-year-old girls who giggled more than they sang.

  My personal favourite was the ten-year-old boy and girl twins playing recorders; their mother brought them and stood beside them holding her baby, while they struggled through a verse and a chorus of ‘Greensleeves’. When Beau and Em-J didn’t invite her precious darlings straight into the band, the mother started shouting at them and saying she’d report them to the police for wasting people’s time.

  When the last person left and I closed the door and gave the thumbs-up, we all just burst out laughing and were rolling around in hysterics in the hay.

  ‘OK,’ Em-J finally said. ‘There must be one kick-ass person our age in this town who can sing.’

  ‘What about Poppy?’ asked Beau.

  In order to get that thought right out of their heads I blurted,

  ‘Christophe Hooper, he plays guitar and loves singing, he’s a big Elvis fan.’

  Em-J clapped her hands together,

  ‘Perfect!’ she said, and she marched out of the big, stone barn followed by a confused Beau and a relieved me.

  She quizzed me as we traipsed across to the Hooper’s place.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How do I know what?’

  ‘A) Christophe Hooper and B) that he can sing and play guitar and C) that he likes Elvis. Poppy, chick, that’s a lot of knowing for someone whose said nothing about him the whole time we’ve been planning.’

  ‘Friend of the family … I, um, just found out,’ I muttered, and she let it go.

  I really hope he is The Watcher and that he isn’t all, ‘What? I don’t play guitar!’ When I think about it, he hasn’t actually officially admitted to it being him. He wasn’t in (thank God) so we left him a note with Mrs Hooper and a voice mail message too.

  OK, I’m now exhausted after writing all that. Off to sleep. And after today I’ll probably dream out of tune.

  DAY THIRTY-THREE

  In spite of all the stern talkings-to that I have given myself, I still completely fancy Christophe, and he is not helping matters by probably being The Watcher. As soon as I think of how he is when we’re in the same space, I hate him, and then he goes and does something cool as The Watcher and I fall for him all over again. I know he would never go for someone like me, but it’s nice to have him around to practise fancying someone local. Does that make sense?

  Anyway, this morning I brought a muffin and an apple down to the Hazel Wood for breakfast, and there wa
s a huge piece of paper hanging from the usual note-tree. I could see it from ages away, and ran the last bit. The piece of paper was easily half the size of me, and on it was drawn a huge bunch of flowers, really detailed, coloured every colour of the rainbow and signed ‘The Watcher’. It’s my first ever bunch of flowers (except for when I was Mum’s friend’s flower girl when I was three!), and I don’t care that it’s a drawing. Or that it’s a neighbourly gift and not a romantic one. I don’t care, I love it!

  Again, it sort of proves he thinks of me as a (sort of) friend, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to just do it, but hey, I’m not exactly sad at having a new (sort of) friend, after all the fun and games at school. I hope it makes Mindy jealous when she gets to be his girlfriend.

  I sat there looking at it as I ate my breakfast, and then ran back to the house and upstairs to store it in my room. Then Dad drove me over to Em-J’s house for the next band meeting, and I waltzed in and was mortified, because Christophe was sitting there talking about music with Beau. While I recovered by helping Em-J squeeze some oranges for juice, she explained that Christophe was really into being in the band, and could rehearse in the mornings and late evenings. She said it was a pity I didn’t play an instrument, and I told her that I’m much happier helping out in other ways.

  I stayed and listened while they rehearsed a song that Em-J wrote called ‘Climbing Tall Ladders’, and Christophe made it sound wonderful by inverting the chords. Em-J even took up my idea for changing a couple of the lyrics, which made me feel involved. Of course Christophe didn’t even look at me once or speak to me or anything, so it proves what I thought about me not being cool enough for him.

  The only part of the rehearsal that didn’t work was deciding on a band name. ‘Blue Thunder’, ‘The Rock Stars’, and something like ‘Crawfish Maniacs’, were some of the ideas, but we never got closer than each person liking the name that they thought of, and not liking the other ideas. I didn’t dare come up with an idea because I didn’t want to give Christophe the chance to laugh at it.

  At one point Em-J was working out a backing vocal and said,

  ‘Poppy it’s a shame you don’t sing a bit.’

  I said nothing, just smiled fakely, while Christophe stared at me long and hard. I didn’t look over and he didn’t give me away, which I’m really glad about. At least I now know 100 per cent for absolute certain that he is The Watcher. I think I like that. I think I really like that.

  He is SO funny the way he teases Em-J for being so rocker, and Beau for being so laid back. I wish I had something good about me that would make me worth teasing too. If I was to tease him it would be about the way he jokes around so much with the others. I think it would take some kind of war to wipe the everlasting smile off his face.

  Christophe headed off on his bike at noon, and I finally felt like I could breathe again. I stayed on for a couple of hours with Em-J and Beau and we listened to music and read magazines and just chilled.

  Then Adam came to collect me. That’s the really rough thing about living in the sticks, you need adults to get you places.

  When I got back, Mum was in the living room flicking through seed catalogues and I was so excited telling her how kick-ass the rehearsal was that I didn’t care that she wasn’t really listening.

  I was so grateful and happy that I got to hang out with Beau and Em-J and so sad that Christophe always ignores me, that later in the afternoon I sat on my bed and couldn’t stop crying. Good tears and then sad tears and then back again. I cried and cried until my throat was ragged. As soon as I’d pull myself together again, anything I looked at or thought about would just set me off again.

  It was like all those times when people were mean to me had got stored up inside, and then I just let it all out in one go. Now and then I was also smiling and laughing at the same time, so it would have looked a bit psycho if anyone had seen me. In the end I stopped fighting it and got under the covers and cried it all out until I fell asleep for a while.

  I have decided that I will never let people make me feel left out again. I am not going to take any more notes from The Watcher. I am going to show him that I won’t be treated like dirt any more.

  Later, I went down to the greenhouse. Sammy-boy wasn’t around, but I noticed he had brought over some fantastic history books and Neville Shute novels, with a piece of copy-book paper saying,

  ‘From my Mum for keepsies.’

  in his almost joined-up writing, which is so sweet.

  Liza joined us for tea and I really like her. She is so free with how she jokes around and talks and gets excited. She was asking me questions about things and we were talking so much that Adam said,

  ‘Hey, do I get to talk to my girlfriend too?’

  Which is great because that means she is officially his girlfriend so I’ll get to see her again.

  I know this will sound pathetic, but after she left I went up to my room and stood in front of the full-length mirror and practised looking confident and talking in a smiley way. I went from being Liza to being Em-J and then to being me, but with loads of attitude. I finally get that there’s no point having cool stuff going on in your head if you don’t share it with the world. People only push you around if you let them. I’ll show Christophe Hooper that I don’t need him or his notes! I used to think it was OK that what happens in the Hazel Wood doesn’t really exist outside, but now I know I deserve better. Last Christmas I saw a movie called Sabrina where the girl was nothing much and then she went off to live in Paris and when she came back a few years later, she was elegant and stunning, and the men were making fools of themselves over her. Maybe that’s what needs to happen to me.

  Now that my hair is really long the curls are not so tight and it actually looks good. The sun has made it a bit lighter, even without the help of lemons.

  DAY THIRTY-FOUR

  I went down early again to the Hazel Wood and there was a Watcher note there. It said only one word on the whole page.

  It said,

  ‘Sing.’

  Well, he doesn’t get to tell me what to do!

  I even stayed away from the rehearsal at Em-J’s, just to show him! Instead I’m with Sammy-boy in the greenhouse and we’re reading books and eating raisins and almonds. Mum has forgotten about guarding the kitchen garden, which is a relief because the greenhouse is much more comfy, especially with Hooper cushions added.

  LATER

  So I was just there in the greenhouse writing in this, when suddenly Dad rushed over all frantic looking. When he saw us sitting there he said, ‘Thank God!’ and ran back out and over to the house. Then he came back again a minute later and asked Sammy-boy to run over to his house and tell his mother that he’s OK. We were a bit confused until he said:

  ‘There’s been a big fire in the town hall and no one knows if there was anyone trapped inside. Your brother is at Emma-Jo’s house, Sammy-boy, they just called with the news about the fire and were worried about Poppy.’

  Sammy-boy ran off through the cows.

  I was feeling all shaky and said,

  ‘Em-J’s mum, she works there!’

  Dad then told me that luckily everyone who works there was at a board meeting with people from the tourist office in the hotel across the street. That meant that the only person inside – that they know about – was a college student working as a security guard for the summer. When the fire alarm sounded, this guy rushed out and then ran straight back in to check no one was trapped inside, and ended up in the hospital after breathing in so much smoke. They won’t know for a while if any members of the public had wandered in and got trapped. I hope not.

  Mum, Dad and Adam went back into town without me. It feels weird, not knowing what’s going on.

  LATER

  Mrs Hooper just dropped by.

  She said that Christophe phoned and asked her to make sure I was feeling OK, what with the fire and everything. Just as my heart leaped and I started to feel all good about that, she said,
<
br />   ‘I think he and Sammy-boy think of you as their new sister.’

  Which thrilled her, but didn’t make me feel good. In fact it destroys any hope I might have had that he might one day like me enough to talk to me. But now I know for a fact that he doesn’t even see me as friend potential, let alone girlfriend potential, just as an inconvenient little sister. More proof that he and Mindy will be perfect together.

  When Mum, Dad and Adam got back we found out that the inside of the town hall is completely gutted and most of the brickwork on the outside is burnt too, but only the student security guard guy was inside.

  Dad said all the locals are really angry and sad, mostly because the old archives were kept there, all the papers that said about who got married, and who died, and who owned what, and who owed what money to who in the olden days, and all the history of the town, old photos, and all that stuff.

  I would have thought they would have put it all on computer years ago, but except for the birth, marriage and death stuff, they didn’t get around to many of the papers and photos from before the 1970s.

  Mrs Hooper went home and we all just sat around really quiet all evening, except for Mum who was on the phone being lawyer-y, helping local people to understand that even if the papers were missing, they were still married and born and all that.

  DAY THIRTY-FIVE

  Dad drove me into town after breakfast (back to toast now that Mum is too frantic to make muffins), and Em-J and Beau were standing outside the burnt town hall, behind the yellow, plastic tape that the police had put up to keep people back. There were about twenty people there, all staring, one or two crying, and more than that saying stupid things like, ‘It’s the way they let young people do what they like,’ and ‘If the voluntary fire brigade was paid, they would have saved it.’