‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.
Without warning, Alfie Anderson flings his arms round me in a messy hug that smells of Lynx bodyspray and school stew. In case you are wondering, this is not a good combination. Over his shoulder, I can see Summer, Millie and Tia, pulling disgusted faces and pretending to make themselves sick.
‘Alfie!’ I yell sternly. ‘Get off!’
He pulls back hastily, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘OK, OK, don’t get excited,’ he says. ‘We’re just good friends, remember? My heart belongs to another.’
On reflection, I am very glad about that.
Later, when we’re back at Tanglewood, Summer is practising pliés and pirouettes in the bedroom while I paint my nails with a cast-off nail varnish she’s just given me – a shimmery purple shade called Misty Sunrise. It’s not really my style, but I don’t want to seem ungrateful.
‘He fancies you, y’know – Alfie Anderson,’ Summer says carelessly, pointing a toe. ‘Unlucky!’
I chuck my pillow at her, and she catches it neatly before it crashes into the vintage birdcage, which is now hanging from the ceiling by the window. Summer has put a little climbing plant inside, one whose leafy tendrils twine up and around the powder-blue bars as well as hanging down. It’s pretty, even if it is swinging a little wildly right at this moment.
‘Watch it, vandal,’ Summer says, and chucks the pillow back at me.
I reach for the cotton wool and nail-varnish remover. ‘You’ve smudged my nail varnish. Typical.’
‘Not my fault you have violent tendencies,’ Summer smirks. ‘Better make sure your nails are perfect if you want to hook Alfie!’
‘Don’t be mean,’ I say. ‘I do not want to hook Alfie Anderson, and trust me, he does not fancy me. He was just asking my advice because he has a crush on someone else.’
‘Yeah?’ Summer asks. ‘Believe that and you’ll believe anything. Don’t encourage him, Skye – boys are nothing but trouble. I am definitely sticking to ballet.’
‘I won’t encourage Alfie,’ I say. ‘He is the least romantic boy I have ever met.’
‘Romance is trouble too,’ Summer warns, resting her arm on the window sill to run through her barre work. ‘It always ends in tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet, or Shay and Honey … Or Mum and Dad …’
I finish repainting my nails and waft them about to dry.
‘Well, how about Mum and Paddy?’ I argue. ‘Not all love affairs are doomed. They’re getting married in June!’
‘There’s always the odd exception,’ Summer shrugs. ‘Paddy’s OK, I admit. But mostly, these things end in tears. Look at your creepy Clara and her gypsy boy …’
I think of a boy with blue eyes and a red neckerchief and tanned hands holding mine, and my heart races. I let go of the thought abruptly.
‘She’s not “my” Clara,’ I say. ‘And she’s not creepy! She’s … well, an ancestor of ours. It’s family history, Summer, and it’s so sad. She must have loved her gypsy boy a lot, to risk everything like that.’
‘And he let her down,’ Summer reminds me. ‘Typical boy.’
8
Saturday feels like the first day of winter.
Summer has a ballet class and Honey is holed up in her room, but Coco, Cherry and I help Mum with the guest breakfasts and room changes, and then head down to the beach where Paddy is building a bonfire for later.
There’s a raw wind blowing in from the ocean as we scour the beach for driftwood. We find weathered branches washed pale by the sea, dragging them back along the sand while Fred the dog runs circles around us, barking, his tail thrashing madly.
Paddy builds a pyramid of storm-worn wood, and Coco, Cherry and I hang lanterns from the handrail of the cliff path that leads down from the garden to the beach, so we don’t trip and fall in the darkness.
‘Is Shay coming?’ Coco dares to ask. ‘Because that might mean Honey won’t come, and Mum asked her specially, and she said she would …’
‘I told him not to,’ Cherry says. ‘The last thing I want is to make Honey feel like she can’t come to her own family’s bonfire party.’
‘She might not come anyway,’ I say. ‘You know what she’s like, lately. It’s as though she doesn’t want to be a part of this family any more.’
‘That’s my fault,’ Cherry says sadly.
‘Only a little bit,’ I say. ‘I don’t suppose you meant to fall for Shay, did you? And he didn’t plan to fall for you. Cupid has rotten aim sometimes, that’s all. If things had been good between Honey and Shay, there wouldn’t have been a problem.’
Cherry shrugs. ‘I guess,’ she says. ‘I can’t help thinking about it, though. Back in the summer, when Dad and I first arrived, Honey said something to me about trying to muscle in and take her place. That’s not what I was trying to do, not at all, but … well, it must look that way to her now.’
I fix the final jam-jar lantern into place. ‘Look, Honey’s hacked off about Shay, obviously, but that’s just a part of it. She’s still struggling to accept Paddy, and she’s gutted about Dad moving to Australia …’
‘We all are,’ Coco says. ‘Did you know it takes a whole day on a plane just to get there? That sucks!’
‘Majorly,’ I agree. ‘Look on the bright side, though. We’ll be able to go out and visit him when we’re older. Do a gap year or something.’
‘D’you think he’ll want us to?’ Coco asks.
‘Of course!’ I say, although I have no idea if that’s true.
He’s my dad and I love him, but there’s no getting round the fact that he is hopeless, and always has been. Even when we were little he was away in London, working, a lot of the time. When he finally moved out, it felt like he had chosen work instead of family, and that hurt.
Only Honey can’t seem to admit he’s a disaster at being a dad. It seems like she’s looking for anyone else to blame but him, and Cherry and Paddy are easy targets.
Just then Summer comes running down the steps towards us, breathless and grinning.
‘Guess what?’ she says. ‘They’re going to let me do pointe classes in the New Year! Miss Elise says that I’ve been doing really well at Intermediate Foundation, and that my feet are strong. She thinks I’m ready. She says I don’t have to worry about taking the exam in June because she’s going to move me up a class and put me in with the Intermediate lot. She says she has very high hopes of me!’
‘That’s brilliant, Summer!’ I say. ‘Wow!’
‘Fantastic!’ Cherry and Coco chime in.
Dancing on pointe is Summer’s dream, and it used to be mine too, before I sussed I had two left feet. Miss Elise, who runs the ballet school in town, may well have ‘high hopes’ of Summer but she once told me I danced like a fairy elephant. Nice.
‘I can get pointe shoes for Christmas,’ Summer says, eyes shining. ‘Finally!’
‘Awesome,’ I grin. ‘Miss Elise must be really pleased with you to move you up a class too. How cool is that?’
‘Pretty cool,’ Summer says. ‘A bit scary too, though. There’s only a handful of girls in the Intermediate class, and all of them are older than me. What if it’s too hard?’
‘When has anything ballet-related ever been too hard for you?’ I tell her. ‘My superstar sister!’
But later that night as we are getting ready for the party, Summer puts down her hairbrush and sighs.
‘Skye …?’ she starts tentatively. ‘Have you ever wanted something so badly you were almost too scared to wish for it?’
I frown. This doesn’t sound like my twin.
‘Moving up to this class is a lot of pressure,’ Summer says. ‘It makes me nervous. Everything is going so well, but it just feels so … I don’t know, fragile. One wrong move and it could all fall to bits.’
I have spent so long admiring Summer’s talent for dance – and yes, OK, envying it too – that I’ve never stopped to imagine how it might feel to be in her shoes.
I don’t think her doubts will last
more than a moment, though. I know better than anyone how driven my twin can be, how hard she works, how much she loves what she does … she’ll cope fine.
‘Nothing’s going to fall to bits,’ I tell her. ‘Miss Elise wouldn’t suggest moving up a class unless she knew you could handle it. You’re one of her star pupils, Summer!’
Summer looks unsure, but just as quickly the doubts and shadows vanish. She laughs and pulls the brush through her gleaming hair, confident, determined, in control again.
‘I suppose I can’t quite believe it,’ she tells me. ‘All the things I dreamed about, starting to come true!’
‘Believe it,’ I say, smoothing the skirts of my white cotton petticoats. ‘You’re going to be a prima ballerina one day, and I will be an archaeologist maybe, or something like that, and we will both be rich and famous!’
‘You bet!’ Summer laughs.
I slide on an armful of Clara’s silver bracelets and lift the emerald-green wool coat out from the old pine trunk, with the faintest waft of marshmallow, quickly gone.
My twin pulls a face. ‘You’re not wearing that awful coat, are you? Because I can just about see the appeal of the petticoats and the bracelets, but that coat is ancient! And creepy, obviously.’
The closeness I felt for my twin a minute ago dissolves instantly. Sometimes it feels as if I always have to be there for her, yet never the other way round. Can’t she try to understand the things that matter to me sometimes too?
‘It’s vintage,’ I say reasonably. ‘And warm. And a coat can’t be creepy, OK?’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘But I do.’ I twirl round so that the heavy fabric spins out around me and a flash of satin lining and cotton lace peeps through.
Clara Travers wore this coat. Did she wear it to walk hand in hand with her fiancé, to go to the theatre, the opera, the ballet? Or did she pull it around her on a cold, dark night to run down to the woods, searching for the flare of golden flames in the darkness, the smell of woodsmoke, the warmth of a boy’s hand in hers? For a moment, I’m back in the dream again, in the firelight, watching a boy with blue eyes that take my breath away …
I think my imagination is working overtime.
‘Please, Skye?’ I hear Summer ask, and I snap back to the present. ‘I can’t explain. I just don’t like that coat, OK?’
My twin’s face is creased, troubled, and to keep the peace I shrug off the emerald-green coat and hang it on the clothes rail, pulling on a boxy jacket instead.
Summer nods her approval. She takes a fringey blue scarf from her side of the wardrobe and wraps it round my neck, letting the ends trail down behind. ‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘In fact, you can have it. I don’t wear it any more.’
The scarf’s not really my kind of thing, but I thank Summer and tell her I’ve always liked it. I have – but on her, not me.
Summer rewards me with a smile. But all I can think about is a very different smile, and a boy with wild, dark hair and laughing eyes …
9
Later, I wish I had stuck to my guns and worn the green coat because it’s freezing on the beach. I move closer to the bonfire, which is roaring, sparks flying out into the velvet-dark sky.
Paddy sips a bottle of beer and rakes the scarlet embers, setting foil-wrapped potatoes to bake while Mum ladles steaming soup into tin mugs. Cherry, Coco and Summer sit close to the fire, faces bright in the flickering light. Honey is sitting apart from the rest of us, huddled on the bottom step of the cliffside path, a sad, shadowy figure in the soft, pooled light of the lanterns.
I walk across and sink down on to the step beside her.
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ I say.
‘Neither did I,’ Honey sighs. ‘Mum made such a fuss. This big lecture about being a part of the family and giving Paddy and Cherry a chance. She really doesn’t get it, does she?’
‘I think she does,’ I shrug. ‘She knows it’s hard for you. We all do. But she’s right, Honey – you are a part of this family, even though you act like you don’t want to be. I miss you!’
Honey laughs. ‘I miss you too, little sister,’ she says. ‘I bet you don’t even know how cool and cute and funny you are, do you? But you’ve got it all wrong, I do want to be part of the family … I did … only Mum and Paddy and Cherry have made that impossible now. They’ve pushed me out, replaced me. Can’t you see that?’
‘Nobody could ever replace you,’ I say, and it’s true – Honey has always been the brightest, boldest, most beautiful sister. She is impulsive, reckless, dramatic, emotional … it’s what we’ve always loved about her. But then Dad left, and Paddy and Cherry arrived, and all of the things that once seemed so lovable have begun to turn sour.
‘Cherry has,’ Honey states coldly. ‘She’s taken Shay, and she’s taken Mum, and she’s taken you and Summer and Coco too … she has you all fooled, doesn’t she? You think she’s so sweet –’
‘That’s not the way it is,’ I argue. ‘I know she’s hurt you, but she didn’t plan any of that, and if you actually got to know her –’
‘Boy, has she got you suckered,’ Honey says. ‘Poor little Cherry, with no mum of her own, no sisters, no boyfriend … I bet you felt sorry for her, right? Only while you were making her welcome, she moved right in and helped herself to everything she wanted!’
Honey looks across to the bonfire, where Summer, Cherry and Coco are laughing, talking, drinking soup from tin mugs, their faces flickering in the firelight. I see my new stepsister, her confidence growing, starting to feel a part of things; Honey sees a con artist, a liar, a thief.
I don’t know if I will ever get her to see things any differently.
Tears brim in Honey’s eyes and spill down her cheeks like rain, but when I try to put an arm round her shoulders she shakes me off roughly, jumps to her feet and runs away up the lantern-lit steps towards the house.
Maybe I didn’t handle things too well.
Summer appears at my side. ‘What did you say to Honey, Skye?’ she wants to know. ‘She was crying! Why did you have to upset her?’
‘I didn’t … I just … I was trying to tell her how much we need her, that’s all. I said that if she’d just give Cherry a chance …’
Summer raises an eyebrow. ‘Tactful,’ she says. ‘The last time Honey gave Cherry a chance, what happened? Cherry stole her boyfriend!’
‘It wasn’t like that!’ I protest.
‘Maybe not,’ my sister shrugs. ‘I bet it looked that way to Honey, though. And you’ve always made it pretty clear you’re on Cherry’s side.’
My mouth opens and then closes again, shocked. Summer and I don’t argue or wind each other up, not ever. We are always on each other’s side, no matter what – or at least we were, until the silly disagreements about Clara’s dresses and the emerald-green coat.
‘I’m not on anyone’s side!’ I tell my twin. ‘How could I be? Honey is family!’
‘I’m guessing she might not feel that way right now,’ Summer says.
‘Let’s not fight,’ I say. ‘Please, Summer. I just want us all to get along! That’s what I was trying to say to Honey.’
My twin sighs. ‘Look, Skye,’ she says. ‘Relax. I wasn’t blaming you, just trying to think how Honey might be feeling. Forget I said anything.’
She nudges me, trying to make me smile, but I’m not sure that smiling is an option right now. Nor is forgetting.
‘C’mon, Skye, I didn’t mean to upset you!’
She hooks an arm round my shoulders and pulls me over to the fire, and my panic begins to fade. Paddy plays the violin, a soft, haunting tune, while Coco, Cherry and I skewer marshmallows on long sharpened sticks and toast them in the bonfire. We eat the marshmallows sticky and smoky and melting hot, a taste like memories.
I gaze into the flames and imagine a boy with a sweet, crooked smile and laughing blue eyes, a boy called Finch. I close my eyes and wish I could conjure up the dream again. It would feel a whole lot less complicated than r
eal life at the moment.
We light sparklers, and Summer winds me up by writing Alfie in the air right in front of me, and I use my sparkler to scribble through it before tracing out the name Finch when nobody is looking.
Then Paddy lights the fireworks and they begin to rocket skywards, exploding with soft popping sounds, scattering stars across the darkness. As I watch the showering fountains of silver sparks fall back down to earth, I try to shake off the horrible feeling that my family is unravelling. I never fight with anyone, and I’ve nearly fallen out with my twin …
Maybe it’s because Summer has had a long day, a tiring day, what with all the changes to her dance schedule. Maybe she’s just feeling a little prickly? Millie says that we are full of hormones right now because of growing up, and those hormones can make us moody or sad or tearful for no particular reason.
Whatever just happened between Summer and me, it wasn’t anything serious. Was it?
10
Finch is waiting for me beside the gate where the mallow plants arch upwards, waist high, starred with blush-pink flowers with ragged, silken petals. He picks three or four of them, carelessly, and threads them gently into my hair, then takes my hand and leads me down through the woods.
A glimmer of orange flickers through the trees and there’s the sound of singing, laughter. I can see the caravans, and there’s a flash of swishing skirts, white petticoats, bright stockings, as women dance in the firelight. One man plays a violin, another holds an accordion, squeezing wild, wonderful, wistful sounds from it.
We watch the dancers for a while, stamping our feet and clapping in time to the music, breathing in woodsmoke, watching the sparks fly. When Finch pulls me into the middle of it all, I forget that I don’t know the steps, that I don’t like dancing. I follow him, knowing I would follow him anywhere, anywhere at all. We laugh and whirl around in the firelight, a girl with flowers in her hair, a boy with laughing eyes, until we are breathless and dizzy, hearts thumping, and not just from the dancing.
I wake in a tangle of duvet, the silver bracelets pressing hard against my cheek. A thin, wintry light trickles through the curtains, and Summer is at the dressing table, plaiting her hair, dressed for ballet practice.
2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye Page 4