Hazel Wood Girl

by Judy May

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Helen.’

  Which made me really confused too. Within a minute Em-J was grilling him alone in the kitchen under the guise of having him help bring in mugs of peppermint tea. She phoned me once I got home and reported that Christophe doesn’t have a girlfriend and hasn’t had since he got here, so we have no clue what Sammy-boy was on about. That time he was late for rehearsal was because he had to fix a mistake that another farmhand had made.

  Now I am combing over everything that has happened in the last couple of weeks and rethinking it with this new information. I still can’t work out if he is into me or if he’s just being his usual friendly self. Guys are lucky, their heads work in straight lines like tractors while mine dances about in every direction.

  DAY FIFTY-FOUR

  Over breakfast Adam told me he has great plans for the Egg Farm, which he’s now calling the Egg Ranch because it will be so different. He doesn’t like doing any of the business side of things, and jokingly asked if me and Em-J wouldn’t mind leaving school and coming to work for him. Sammy-boy, who had just shown up, said,

  ‘My mum was a business lady before,’ and then toast got in the way of him saying any more. It was enough though, and Adam went off to make a call.

  I decided to find out about this ‘Helen’ girl that Sammy-boy said was going out with Christophe.

  Through more mouthfuls of toast, he thought for a second before saying,

  ‘No, not Helen, uuummmm … Hazel, yes,’ he giggled with his secret, ‘He writes her love letters and leaves them on a tree, and sometimes he’s happy when he comes in and sometimes he isn’t happy and he says, “Girls! They are such a mystery!” like this …’, he rolled his eyes and grinned in a perfect imitation of his brother.

  I realised then that Sammy-boy must have seen some of his notes to me, or mine to him, and doesn’t know that I am the Hazel Wood Girl. It still doesn’t mean that Christophe actually likes me, but hey, it’s a start. I can’t believe how ridiculously relieved I am that he isn’t ‘girlfriended’ after all.

  I just chilled out in my room all day, and at dinner Adam said that Mrs Hooper is going to run the business side of the new Egg Ranch, which should mean plenty more money for the Hoopers. She has been feeling so much better since they moved here and even if she has to take some time off, there are loads of people around to help out.

  It’s now about eight-thirty at night and I’m off on a mission to the old Egg Farm to check there are no cats, canaries or other animals that need looking after, ones that we missed when we saw to the chickens.

  LATER

  I just got back, and ended up with SO much more than the one-eyed, mangy old Golden Labrador that’s probably lying at the end of Sammy-boy Hooper’s bed right now.

  The dog was filthy and cowering in the kitchen of the Egg Farm, and not until I’d fed him would he come to me. I looped my belt around his collar and was leading him out down the lane and across by the stone barn when I noticed Christophe and Sammy-boy walking towards me. Probably because I knew that he might like me and didn’t have a girlfriend, I felt really nervous, as bad as that day in the supermarket when he was looking at bread.

  ‘Hey, what are you up to?’ Christophe grinned and Sammy-boy looked from one of us to the other like he was working something out.

  ‘Just rescued this poor old soldier. I don’t suppose anyone wants a slightly yellow dog?’

  ‘Yes, me! Me! I want a yellow dog!’ Sammy-boy jumped up and down and started giving me a list of all the reasons he should have a dog, with gestures to demonstrate. It was great to see him so happy and excited and I kept pretending I was unconvinced, which made him even more determined. My personal favourite (with actions) was,

  ‘And, and, and, I can chop down a little tree and throw it for him to catch, and then make him eat a ham sandwich, like that.’

  When he got to,

  ‘No, because, Poppy, I can run really fast like vvvhhuuum!, and he can run with me and be my friend, and I’m the boss and I’ll tell him not to step on the hedgehog.’

  I handed him over, and Sammy-boy darted off with the dog to ask his mum if it was alright. I could never say no, and I don’t think his mum will either.

  Christophe yelled after,

  ‘Bath, Sammy-boy! You and the dog.’

  That left me and the guy I was by now madly insane over, standing there in silence without a dog to pretend to talk about.

  We sort of both looked at the ground for a few seconds and then Christophe said,

  ‘Look …’ before pausing and then starting again.

  ‘I was just about to leave a note in the Hazel Wood,’ he said, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘What does it say?’ I asked, with a straight face at first, but then I couldn’t help starting to smile.

  He crumpled it up and stuffed it into his back pocket, took a deep breath, a really deep breath and launched into,

  ‘It says––

  Dear Poppy,

  I know I have really messed things up, right from the start. But I hope you can forgive me and not just think of me as some idiot who isn’t worth your while talking to. I really fancy you, and would like you to be my girlfriend. Am I being a complete prune or do you fancy me too?’

  ‘Who’s it from?’ I smiled, faking an innocent look.

  He didn’t reply, instead he playfully picked me up and carried me over to the barn wall and kissed me and kissed me. They were kisses that I couldn’t have dreamed of, they felt that good. I still can’t believe it.

  Yup, just checked my head again, still can’t believe it.

  Later, I retrieved the original note from his back pocket and it actually said,

  Dear Hazel Wood Girl,

  Thank you for being such an angel.

  Love from The Watcher

  I’ve kept it and put it up beside the bunch of flowers picture and the cartoon of me.

  Then we went to sit on the hay-bales and I had to know why he had ignored me for so long, and not wanted to talk me. I was totally floored when he said that he was just too nervous and shy, and that he thought I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him when the others were around, because he knew I was such a sophisticated city girl. It just goes to show how we can all really mess things up just by thinking! Also he was feeling really bad about moving here and thought that I was already in with people like Beau and Em-J and that I thought he was just an outsider. The laughing at me was from nerves, and he thought that he came across as an idiot in the supermarket and at the fish barbecue.

  Anyway, I soon told him my half of things and we spent the next couple of hours talking and kissing and singing, before he walked me back here and quickly kissed me again before running off home across the field. I could hear him shout, ‘Yes!’ in the darkness which was so lovely.

  I can’t take it in (did I mention that yet?). I never thought this would happen. I wonder why there’s no word that means the exact opposite of lonely? Whatever it is, that’s how I feel now, like the spaces are all filled up. I looked at his pictures until my eyes were too heavy.

  DAY FIFTY-FIVE

  Mindy came home this morning, and we caught up with what we’d been up to for the past few weeks (except about Christophe). For the first time I wasn’t just listening while she gabbed on, and it meant that sometimes we talked over each other, but she listened a bit too. After a while she laughed and said,

  ‘So you’ve learned to talk then!’

  That would have bothered me before, I would have thought she was criticising me, but this time I just said,

  ‘Yes, and in French too.’

  She couldn’t believe it and after my little demonstration, said that I probably learned more French than she did. I can tell that she will make room for me now, I just need to insist more. I need to let her know that she can’t walk all over me like before.

  I was a bit nervous (well actually, sick with nerves) that she would flirt with Christophe and he’
d fall for her, but they met this lunchtime in our kitchen when he dropped in, and afterwards she dismissed him, saying he’s too ‘nice’ for her, that she likes mean‘n’moody older guys. He didn’t seem that interested in her either and spent most of their conversation telling her about what a good singer I am. It’s funny how you can worry yourself half to death about something and then it doesn’t even happen.

  I’m glad she’s back and already I feel much stronger around her, like she can’t take the shine off me. We hung out in the greenhouse for a while and she said that she might move some of her stuff in, take down the kids’ pictures and have friends around. I said firmly, but not in a mean way,

  ‘No Mindy, not possible. This place belongs to me and Sammy-boy. You’re welcome to visit, but you’ll have to find your own den.’

  I was expecting a huge fight, but was amazed when she just shrugged and said, ‘Whatever, it’s not that great anyway.’

  Then, very Mindy-style, she talked for an hour about these two boys that she couldn’t choose between, before heading off into town, surprised at the big hug I gave her as she left.

  DAY FIFTY-SIX

  Yesterday Christophe and I met up in the Hazel Wood and walked all around the whole district. He showed me the farm where he works, and I recognised most of the people from when they were at the gig.

  Later, in the café, we got seriously mushy, staring into each others’ eyes over cold cups of tea. He told me that hazel were his favourite colour eyes. I guess that’s the colour they are, a real colour after all. But it didn’t stay romantic for long as loads of people kept coming over and telling us how great the gig was, and one guy asked could he buy a Farmer t-shirt. Christophe said they’d be for sale at the next gig.

  Right now at this moment, Christophe, Em-J, Beau, Sammy-boy and I are all lying or sitting in the summer cattle-field, the end that looks toward the Hazel Wood. And I can just make out the shape of a note, waiting there for me.

  The cows are way up the other end of the field and have taken all the flies with them.

  We finished a game of rounders a while ago, stopping only when the chair-leg bat broke in two. Now Beau is asleep, Sammy-boy is wrestling with Mr Puddles (that’s what he called his nervy new dog after one too many accidents on the kitchen floor), Christophe is sketching the new Farmer t-shirt design, Em-J is flicking through a magazine and chipping her black nail polish with her teeth, and I’m writing this. When they realised it’s a journal, Christophe got all excited and asked,

  ‘Am I in in it? Can I read it?’

  ‘Yes, you’re in it. You even have a bit of a starring role,’ I teased him, ‘And no, you can’t read it.’

  ‘That’s right, super-chick,’ Em-J said, ‘Keep your mystery.’

  ‘Yes, we girls are such a mystery,’ I smiled, as Christophe looked at me sideways.

  I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks, getting ready for the Harvest Nights at the café with Farmer. It’s funny that I’m really not worried about school, because I know things will be really different. It’s a shame that Christophe and Sammy-boy will be at Em-J’s school, but it’s not like they’ll be a million miles away.

  Mum has allowed me to take charge of the geese and I’m selling the eggs to a deli in town. By the autumn my hazel trees will have a harvest of hazelnuts which, if the squirrels and birds don’t get them first, the deli will sell for me too. We are all saving up so that a year from now Farmer can play a gig in Paris, first stop on Em-J’s well-scrawled paper napkin. Mrs Hooper and Liza are going to help us out with organising that, and we’ll all stay with Christophe’s dad.

  I know that all sorts can happen between now and then, that down things will follow up things, and around it will go once again. But these days I can open my mouth and talk out whatever’s going on inside, even sing it if the mood should take me.

  ‘All good, super-chick?’ asks Em-J.

  All good. Because now, I have friends.

  Plenty.

  It’s official.

  Hope you enjoyed Poppy’s story,

  now meet Tia in Blue Lavender Girl

  DAY 6

  This morning the post arrived after Mum and Dad had left for work. I read my end-of-year report and binned it. I know they won’t ask. I used to get really good grades, As and Bs, and now I do really badly. I just can’t be bothered. Anyway, don’t need to think about it for another six months at least.

  Parent-teacher meetings are in the bag. When my folks get the letter from the school asking why they weren’t there, I say that I definitely told them about it last week. They know they forget about a lot of things when it comes to me and they feel guilty. They say they’ll call in and talk to my teachers at some other time, but they never do (luckily for me!)

  I think they peaked with my brother Aidan, I’m like that second Mars Bar when you are full from the first one – OK, but not really worth it.

  LATER

  Mum and Dad have either

  a) found my report in the bin

  b) had a phone call

  c) heard something on the radio about teenagers

  d) decided my frozen pizza pockets for dinner were so bad that I must be evil …

  Or anyway something has made them feel like making a decision about me.

  Now I have three days to come up with a ‘constructive and educational’ plan for the summer or I am being sent to Aunt Maisie’s for six weeks.

  Aunt Maisie is a proper aunt, she buys me things, leaves me alone when I need it, doesn’t ask awkward questions, talks to me, doesn’t boss me about … did I mention she buys me things?

  She is more fun than the rest of us put together and being with her instead of Mum and Dad would be bliss. BUT I couldn’t stand to live in the countryside.

  Mum says it’s not the middle of nowhere (but it is) and that there is plenty to do. There is plenty to do if you are a granny, not if you are a teenager. I do not consider making rag dolls from old socks to be a ‘fun activity’, even if I did love it when I was seven. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I’m not going. I’m off to talk to Kira’s mum, she’s a genius at coming up with stuff to get me and Dee off the hook with our folks.

  DAY 7

  FACT: I am now just about angry enough to do something reckless, but too angry to think what that might be. If not even Kira’s mum is on my side, then it’s safe to say that everyone is against me.

  Kira was sitting there too and we were all drinking chamomile tea because they had just read up about it. While Kira’s mum said, ‘Tia, I think it would be a really good idea for you to get away for a while,’ Kira was nodding like she was the wise woman of the west or whatever.

  Then they both started this double-attack about me not being happy. Well, show me anyone who is happy! They are not even happy, they’ve just got more feel-good sayings and CDs than the rest of us. Really.

  I called Dee and said that if I can get out of this Aunt Maisie plan then we can both go into town this weekend and hang out at the market stalls and see if we can pretend we are sixteen and get jobs. She said that she was hanging out with Timmy this weekend, except that it took her half an hour to say it because she kept going on about all the cool things he said about her.

  I called Aidan and he was out.

  INTERESTING INFO: If you get my dad away from my mum you can sometimes encourage him to have an independent thought. But the plan was bigger than the both of us and he said that he and Mum would visit every second weekend, which for some bizarre reason was supposed to make me feel better.

  no one wants me here.

  Well FINE!

  I will probably be dead in two days anyway from having eaten nothing but cornflakes. I even had to make milk out of yogurt and water tonight, which doesn’t really work.

  DAY 8

  I’m glad I didn’t waste brain cells thinking of anything else to do for the summer, because I just found out that I’m going to Aunt Maisie’s anyway. She always comes here so I’ve never seen her place.
Mum tells me it’s a large cottage in its own grounds, but if she thinks that will change me into one of those Pride and Prejudice girls she’s very much mistaken.

  I’m sort of relieved though, because I hate everyone right now, but I won’t let them know that.

  I need to use every minute I have to make it so they won’t go into my room while I’m away. That way they can’t pull another stunt like the salmon-coloured, flowered wallpaper that appeared when I was off on the weekend school trip to that farm. I am going to push all the mess near the door so it’s impossible to get through.

  I put all my favourite clothes into a big suitcase and then took them all out again deciding to wash everything first in case she doesn’t have a washing machine. I know she will, I just … God, I don’t know.

  I went around to meet Kira and Dee at the burger place, but they sounded worse than my mother. They kept saying that I’d have a good time and they wish they were going and that I might find a boyfriend there. I told them I don’t want a boyfriend, but I didn’t say that I didn’t want to be all ridiculous like they are over the Timmys. The other guy’s name is not actually Timmy I just can’t be bothered learning any more names of guys they like, so from now on they are all just Timmy. Once we are all ancient and they get to the altar, then I’ll learn the guys’ real names.

  I didn’t even get to say goodbye properly because Dee’s brother’s friends arrived in, and this needed the girls’ full attention in case things don’t work out with the current round of Timmys.

  I had to ask Dad for money and he said ‘How much?’ That bugs me because he should really have thought of it and then he should have given me more than I asked for just to make sure I was OK. Instead he gave me exactly what I said and counted it out really carefully like it was a million.