I find it harder to decide because the things I want are not actually things I can have. I have always felt this way, ever since the year Dad left and I realized I couldn’t write his name at the top of my Christmas list in case it upset Mum. So what do I want this year? To wear the velvet dresses from Clara’s trunk, to dream of Finch, to step back in time and kiss him on the lips and see if it feels as good as when I dreamt it? I’m not sure Santa could sort that one.
I remember a gypsy-style shawl I spotted in a shop in Minehead, and write that down instead.
The others are still writing, but I abandon my list and raid the kitchen for supplies so that I can make marshmallow s’mores on the open fire. I warm marshmallows on the old toasting fork until they are golden, then sandwich them quickly between two chocolate digestives so that the marshmallow and the chocolate melt together in one perfect, soft-sweet smudge of biscuit and mallow fluff. Coco and Cherry pounce on them, but Summer wrinkles up her nose.
‘Must be about a million calories in those,’ she says. ‘Yuck.’
I stick my tongue out at her and bite into my s’more. Who cares about the calories when it tastes so good anyway?
Mum comes in with a couple of logs for the fire, which is probably just a sneaky way of taking a look at our wish lists.
‘That’s a very small list,’ she says when she sees mine. ‘Stuck for ideas?’
‘I don’t know what I want,’ I shrug, although that’s not strictly true. ‘Something vintage, something cool. I don’t know. A surprise, I guess.’
‘Fair enough,’ Mum says.
I pick up my list, still trying to make the marshmallow sweetness last, and in the corner of the paper, I draw a picture of a little bird, small and neat with a gently forking tail, an image that has started appearing all over my notebooks lately, all over my heart.
‘What’s that?’ Coco wants to know. ‘Are you asking for a budgie or something?’
‘Just doodling,’ I say.
‘It could be a little bird, to go in the birdcage in our room,’ Summer says, flinging herself down on the carpet beside me.
‘I don’t like birds in cages, Summer, you know that.’
‘I know,’ my twin says. ‘I had a brilliant idea, though – we could ask for a birthday party, a special, grown-up one for our thirteenth. What do you think?’
What do I think? Cake and hot chocolate in the Mad Hatter would suit me way better than some awkward teen party where the girls dress up in too-smart clothes and totter around sipping Coke and eyeing up a handful of spotty, oafish lads. I think it sounds like torture, but Summer clearly doesn’t.
I consider smiling and going along with my twin, but when I look back, I can remember going along with a whole lot of things that Summer thought would be cool. There was never much time to spare for the stuff I wanted to do. I don’t want to do that any more.
‘I’m not sure if that’s my kind of thing, Summer,’ I say gently. ‘I’m not really a party girl.’
‘I’m writing it down,’ she says. ‘Perfect prezzie, really, because it’s for both of us … we could have a Valentine’s Day theme!’
I wonder when Summer stopped listening to me, stopped thinking about the things I wanted? A while ago, I think.
‘It’s a lovely idea,’ Mum says, moving the fireguard aside. ‘But parties are a little tricky these days, now that we have the B&B …’
‘Well, I can wish,’ Summer says, grinning. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose, right?’ She walks over to the fire and throws her list into the flames, and the rest of us follow. According to the family tradition, if the draught catches them and pulls them up the chimney, we’ll get what we have asked for. If they fall into the fire, we won’t. Summer’s list flies up the chimney, then Coco’s and Cherry’s.
Mine falls into the flames and is consumed in a puff of blue smoke. Typical.
The foyer of the Exmoor Royal Theatre is crammed with families, all dressed up in their Christmas best, buying programmes and sipping drinks and talking about the show. Earlier, when we dropped Summer backstage, the place was even crazier … little girls running around in elf or fairy or bluebird costumes, their lips scarlet, their cheeks dusted with glitter, hair scraped up into perfect buns; helpers pinning costumes and wiping tears and finding lost shoes; teachers counting children, checking lists, yelling instructions.
I remember it all, the buzz of excitement, the ache of anxiety, the fug of hairspray and hysteria mixed in together. Summer and I would dress and have our hair checked and our make-up done, then check the clock on the wall in the junior dressing room a million times as we waited for our class to be called onstage.
It was often a long wait, so we’d eat the sandwiches Mum made for us and read comics and do puzzles with the other girls, talking about how cool it would be if we were waiting for our curtain call at Sadler’s Wells or Covent Garden Opera House: famous, fabulous, our photographs framed on the dressing-room walls.
I wonder if Summer still remembers that?
This year the show is Cinderella. After the interval, Summer is dancing in the ballroom scenes with the senior classes. I’ve seen her costume, and it’s stunning, a calf-length tutu of pale blue net and chiffon, like a wisp of cloud. She has a silver tiara for her hair and a little blue fan, which is part of the dance.
Before all that, in the first half of the show, she is a student helper for the pre-primary class, who are dressed as bluebirds and just have to flap their wings and point their toes and skip about a bit – Summer’s job is to lead them on to the stage, holding hands with the littlest bluebird, and do the steps alongside them so that nobody forgets.
‘It’s exciting!’ Cherry says, sipping Coke and looking around her. ‘I’ve never actually been to a proper theatre before!’
‘My fault,’ Paddy admits. ‘We used to do the multiplex cinema once in a while, but theatres and ballet … well, I never really thought of it. And we know the prima ballerina too!’
‘She isn’t actually the prima ballerina,’ Coco points out.
‘She will be, one day,’ Paddy says. ‘And she’s a star to me!’
The only person not here is Honey, who said she has sat through enough ballet-school shows to last her a lifetime.
‘Are you really not coming?’ I asked her, earlier, and Honey shrugged. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not with Paddy and Cherry there, Skye. Seriously. I’m sorry.’
‘Tell that to Summer,’ I said, and in the end Honey came with us to the theatre after all, hugging Summer and telling her she’d be brilliant before heading off to town to meet her friends.
We make our way up to the dress circle, find our seats and settle in, flicking through the programme, and slowly the seats around us fill up. Cherry is still scanning the auditorium, taking in the heavy crimson curtains and the gold trim and the old-fashioned seats when suddenly the music stills and the lights are dimmed.
The shows always follow the same kind of formula; the dance school takes a story and choreographs something that follows it loosely, using it as a vehicle for every class to have their moment in the spotlight. Cinderella is a girl from the Intermediate class, the one Summer is joining in January, and the stepsisters are played by two brave girls who don’t mind the garish make-up, hideous wigs and nasty nylon dresses. The prince, according to Summer, has been imported from a dance school in Exeter because there are no boy dancers the right age at her school. The wicked stepmother is played by a man in drag, a friend of Miss Elise’s who works in the theatre for a living, and he narrates the show and throws a few jokes in to link things together with a bit of a pantomime flavour.
When Summer comes onstage holding one of the little bluebird girls by the hand, I am so proud I could burst. She moves so easily across the stage, willowy and elegant in her bluebird costume, while the little ones look up at her in awe.
I know how they feel.
I look at the children and spot a girl in the back row who reminds me of the way I used to be, distracted
and looking in the wrong direction, too busy fiddling with her feathery cap to flap her arms in time with the music. Then the dance is over and Summer is leading them away, and the little girl I was watching trips and panics and starts to cry … my twin runs back and scoops her up and carries her offstage, and the audience coo and clap and cheer.
I smile for the little girl I used to be, and for the way Summer always looked out for me, holding my hand, picking me up when I fell down. That was the plus side of being a twin, and I miss that closeness. It’s like it’s slipped away – so slowly I didn’t really notice.
Later, Summer’s class comes on, each girl dressed in sugar-candy shades for the ballroom scenes. I remember some of these girls, of course. I wasn’t the only one to drop out along the way, but I realize now that not everyone who stayed is naturally talented. Some of them are too stiff, too slow, too awkward. It doesn’t seem to bother them, though, as they swirl around the stage, chins tilted, arms curved into the softest of curves as they move on tiptoe. Perhaps ballet is something I might have stuck with if it hadn’t meant being so very much in my sister’s shadow.
Summer is definitely the best dancer in the group. She even has a short solo, spinning round with the prince in her cloudy-blue tutu, twirling and leaping as if the music has hold of her, as if it’s in her soul.
‘Wow, wow, WOW,’ Cherry whispers as the dance ends and the audience whistle and cheer. ‘She’s AWESOME! Really!’
‘I know,’ I grin, but I think I am realizing it for the first time. Summer is talented, really talented at dance. We all know how the Cinderella story ends, but trust me, that prince would have been crazy not to choose my sister.
20
The house smells of pine needles, warm mince pies and the rich, spicy aroma of mulled wine. The walls are draped with strings of Christmas cards, brightly wrapped presents lie piled up beneath the tree and sprigs of holly and ivy are tucked behind every picture.
In the kitchen, the table is heaped with buffet food – warm sausage rolls, quiche and every kind of sweet treat, from sherry trifle and Christmas cake to a mountain of profiteroles. All around the house, jam-jar lanterns and candles flicker, and a huge tangle of mistletoe and ribbon hangs from the lampshade in the living room. Mum and Paddy have already insisted on using it, which was kind of icky, but then again they are getting married in the summer so it is probably allowed.
The CD player is pelting out Christmas songs and even the weather is trying to play along, because it’s positively arctic, and a thick frost has brushed everything outside with a shimmer of white that sparkles in the fading light.
The B&B is closed until after New Year, so the guest lounge and the breakfast room are opened up for us to use, and I think we are going to need them because the first few party guests have started to arrive and already the place is filling up.
Mum seems to have asked almost everyone. Millie is here with her mum and dad, and Joe the farmer who brought in his digger to help to make the goldfish pond for us back in the summer is here with his family, and there’s a whole bunch of Mum and Paddy’s friends from the village.
Summer, Cherry, Coco and I have tinsel in our hair as we hand out drinks and sausage rolls. Honey is wearing a fluffy jumper and shorts that are so tiny you could be forgiven for mistaking her blue opaque tights for a severe case of frostbite. She has neatly opted out of the tinsel and the helping out in favour of flirting with Joe-the-farmer’s teenage son.
The doorbell rings and I run off to answer it. There on the doorstep are Alfie Anderson, his cute, jumble-sale-bright little sisters and his hippy-dippy mum and dad, so I show them in and ply them with mulled wine and warm cranberry punch.
‘Need a hand?’ Alfie asks, appearing at my elbow as I load up a tray with sausage rolls and mini quiche. ‘I can make myself useful.’
‘Erm – maybe make yourself scarce, instead?’ Summer says, ladling cranberry punch into paper cups.
‘I like that flower thing in your hair,’ Alfie tells her brightly, eyeing up the pink flower hairclip that’s pinning her tinsel headband in place. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘From a friend,’ Summer says, elbowing past him with the drinks tray. ‘A close friend.’
Alfie’s grin is so big it lights up his whole face, but Summer has long gone. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asks, snaffling a sausage roll. ‘A close friend! Summer sees me as a close friend!’
‘Alfie,’ I sigh. ‘She thinks someone else sent it. Don’t get your hopes up. She made a list of possible admirers, and you weren’t even on it.’
‘I know, but she will work it out eventually,’ he insists. ‘And she will notice me. I’ve changed. And the changes are an improvement, right?’
‘Definitely,’ I say, slapping his hand as he reaches for another sausage roll. ‘And you are determined, I will say that for you.’
‘You’ve been brilliant, Skye,’ he says, following me back out into the party scrum. ‘I am learning a lot from you. Pretty soon, I will be irresistible to women, yeah?’
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ I say, smiling sweetly as I try to navigate through the crush. ‘One step at a time. There is someone for everybody in this world, Alfie, I am just not sure if Summer is the one for you.’
‘She is,’ he tells me confidently. ‘She just doesn’t know it yet. And tonight could be the night. I’m not straying far from this mistletoe, OK?’
There can be a very fine line between determination and stupidity, and I think that Alfie Anderson has just crossed it, but I am much too polite to say so. I shrug and smile and hand him one last sausage roll, then leave him to it.
Two hours later, the crowd has dwindled. I have eaten too many mince pies and danced to way too many cheesy Christmas songs and I am now officially partied-out. The living room has been taken over by tipsy adults talking about politics and the scandalous cost of Christmas. The remaining teens and pre-teens are flaked out in the breakfast room playing Truth or Dare, and a few little kids are ransacking what’s left of the cake and racing around the place on a wild sugar high.
Carrying a handful of empty glasses back to the kitchen, I pass Paddy talking to Joe the farmer in the hallway about the best diet for orphan lambs. A little further on I spot Fred the dog eating a stash of stolen sausage rolls behind the sofa and Honey kissing Joe-the-farmer’s son on the stairs. I am guessing this means the Year Twelve boyfriend is history now.
I dump the glasses next to the sink, grab a random jacket from the rack and head out into the darkness, crunching across the frost-white grass to the gypsy caravan. It looks just like the one in my dreams, and right now that dream world is where I’d rather be, so I just about jump out of my skin when I see a hunched figure sitting on the caravan steps.
This is not dream territory, though, trust me.
‘Alfie,’ I sigh. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Keeping a lookout for flying reindeer,’ he says, deadpan. ‘How about you?’
‘Same, obviously,’ I reply, sitting down beside him. ‘The party’s winding down. No luck with the mistletoe?’
‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I am invisible. I stood there so long a bit of the stuff dropped off, and I took it over to where Summer was standing and waved it in the air … she told me to get lost.’
‘OK. That’s probably a no, then …’
Alfie fishes the sprig of mistletoe from his pocket. ‘Can’t interest you, Skye, can I? Might be a cool way of keeping warm!’
I jump back, horrified.
‘Me?’ I squeak. ‘That’s not funny, Alfie. Summer and I may be identical twins, but we are very different people. You can’t kiss me instead of her just because it’s dark and we look alike!’
‘OK, OK, just asking!’
‘You fancy Summer, not me!’ I argue. ‘It would be wrong, Alfie, in all kinds of ways. Let’s just say that whole irresistible-to-women thing hasn’t quite kicked in yet.’
‘Worth a try,’ he sighs, chucking down the mistletoe. ‘I wasn’t tr
ying to be funny. It’s just … well, I’m alone and you’re alone, and I have never actually kissed a girl before, so … I thought it could be another life lesson, maybe – like the stuff about the hair and the practical jokes and not stuffing 103 sausage rolls into my mouth at the same time. We could help each other.’
‘My life lessons don’t extend to kissing practice,’ I say sternly.
What is it with boys? Alfie still has a whole lot to learn if he thinks I am about to be his Christmas Eve consolation prize. Why am I always, somehow, second best to Summer, destined to pick up her cast-offs? When we were little, it was toys and dolls and ballet books she’d finished with; these days it is nail varnish and blue fringey scarves and boys.
Finch, at least, is nobody’s cast-off. He is mine alone, even if he does exist only in my dreams.
‘I still love Summer,’ Alfie is insisting. ‘She is definitely the only girl for me. It’s just that sometimes I get disheartened. I wonder if I’m fooling myself … if it’s all completely hopeless. You’ll understand one day, Skye, when you fall for someone.’
I grit my teeth, exasperated.
‘Who says I haven’t?’
Alfie gawps at me in the moonlight. ‘You’re crushing on someone? Who is it? Tell me!’
‘I can’t tell you,’ I say. ‘It’s nobody you know. And it’s all completely pointless because I can’t have him anyway. If you think your situation is hopeless, forget it. Mine is downright impossible.’
‘Oh, man,’ Alfie marvels. ‘I am guessing it must be someone a good bit older than you, if he is so out-of-reach and impossible. Am I right?’
‘No, I think he’s my age,’ I say. ‘Maybe a year older at most. It’s not that simple, Alfie, trust me …’
I trail away into silence, frowning. Something’s not right, but I can’t work out why. Over the last few weeks, even without the proof the missing letters might provide, I’ve pretty much convinced myself that Finch is a ghost boy, that I am dreaming fragments of memory from Clara’s life. I don’t know why – maybe I am a little bit psychic, like Mrs Lee has always said, and I’m picking up faint memories of the past from Clara’s velvet dresses, her locket, her bracelets?
2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye Page 9