Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel

by Cathy Cassidy

  PUFFIN

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Hiya …

  Have you ever wanted to change the world? Coco Tanberry reckons she might just be able to do it, armed only with an old violin, a fluffy panda hat, a rucksack full of cupcakes and a LOT of determination. Sadly, she has reckoned without surly loner Lawrie Marshall, who seems to think everything she does is ridiculous. When the two of them find themselves working together to rescue some ill-treated ponies, there’s bound to be trouble …

  Coco is a tomboy with big plans and bucketfuls of enthusiasm. She cares so much about so many things and wants to fix them all, but she’s impulsive – she doesn’t always think before she acts. While she’s busy trying to save the world, her own family is falling to pieces – but Coco can’t help the big sister she loves without drawing attention to herself and the tangle of lies and deceit she has woven to hide the dangerous risks she is taking.

  Coco reminds me a lot of myself back at the age of twelve. I am still crazy about animals and hate injustice of any kind … and like Coco, if I thought I could save the world with cake, I’d definitely give it my best shot!

  Coco Caramel is the fourth book in the Chocolate Box Girls series … a story of growing up and finding the courage to do the right thing, even if the ‘right thing’ turns out to be a little different from what you first imagined. Curl up with a cool chocolate milkshake and let the adventure begin …

  Books by Cathy Cassidy

  The Chocolate Box Girls

  CHERRY CRUSH

  MARSHMALLOW SKYE

  SUMMER’S DREAM

  BITTERSWEET

  COCO CARAMEL

  DIZZY

  DRIFTWOOD

  INDIGO BLUE

  SCARLETT

  SUNDAE GIRL

  LUCKY STAR

  GINGERSNAPS

  ANGEL CAKE

  LETTERS TO CATHY

  For younger readers

  SHINE ON, DAIZY STAR

  DAIZY STAR AND THE PINK GUITAR

  STRIKE A POSE, DAIZY STAR

  DAIZY STAR, OOH LA LA!

  Thanks …

  To Liam, Cal and Caitlin for being generally awesome, and to Mum, Joan, Andy, Lori and all of my fab family. Thanks to Helen, Sheena, Fiona, Jessie, Lal and Maggi for the hugs, the chocolate and the pep talks, and to all of my lovely friends for putting up with me.

  Thanks to Ruth my ever-patient PA, to maths-guru Martyn and to my brilliant agent Darley and his team. Hugs to Alex, my editor, and Amanda too; also to Sara for the stunning artwork. Huge thanks to Adele, Jayde, Julia, Emily, Samantha, Helen and all of the creative, clever team at Puffin.

  Special thanks to Roy and Jean for letting me borrow their names for the story. Jean ran the riding school I went to back when I was nine; I had zero talent at riding, but Roy and Jean have been much loved family friends all these years. Last but not least, thanks to all my lovely, loyal readers – YOU make all the hard work worthwhile!

  1

  They say that families are like chocolate – mostly sweet, with a few nuts. More than a few, in my family’s case … and they say that I’m the crazy one? Yeah, right.

  They also say that life is like a box of chocolates, and that you can’t expect every one you pick to be exactly the way you’d like it to be. This seems a little ridiculous to me – and as my mum and my stepdad Paddy run a chocolate business, well … I think I should know. Better just to pick out your favourites, even if they don’t come in a fancy box. With a little planning, you can get what you want, with no nasty surprises. Simple.

  I lean back against the tree trunk and rest my violin across my lap.

  I have just finished my practice. I have only been playing for a year and because my family is not especially musical and not especially tolerant of beginner violinists, I am banned from playing indoors.

  Our house, Tanglewood, is a B&B, and Mum says that my playing might disturb the guests, and that she cannot afford to lose custom because of it. This shows you the kind of thing I have to put up with because only one or two guests actually complained, and that was ages ago, when I was just starting out. These days I am lots better and my playing sounds nothing at all like cats being strangled.

  The B&B business is winding down a little lately now that the chocolate business is taking off, so why anyone cares about losing one or two guests who are probably tone-deaf anyway is quite beyond me. Still, I am banished from the house and so I have to practise outside, perched in my favourite climbing tree, an oak. It is quite a comfortable tree because there is a wide branch that meets the main trunk almost at a right angle. I have added a cushion from one of the garden chairs, and if you want to you can pull your legs up and lean back as if you are sitting in a lumpy old armchair.

  Or you can let your legs dangle, the way I am right now, and look down through the oak leaves at the ground below. It is October, the end of the half-term break, and the leaves are a hundred shades of gold and burnt orange and crimson. There is a definite chill in the air, and I am wearing a scarf, a jumper and a beanie hat. It’s not quite cold enough yet for gloves, but it will be soon. If you have ever tried playing a violin wearing red and black striped woolly gloves, you will know that this is not good.

  You’d think my family would take pity on me and let me practise indoors, but there’s no chance of that. Sometimes I think they are philistines.

  My friends at school think my family is cool, but they don’t know the half of it. Mum and Paddy are always hassled and busy, juggling B&B stuff with chocolate orders and new truffle ideas and designs for the handpainted boxes. As for having four sisters … well, that can be seriously hard work, especially when you are the youngest.

  Like I said, my family is mostly nuts.

  Honey, my eldest sister, is definitely more sour than sweet – she looks cute on the outside, but inside she’s pure rebel. It’s like she has no limits, no rules. She accidentally caused a fire back in the summer and tried to run away; a few weeks after, she stayed out all night and skipped the first day of school. Everyone thought she’d run away again and the police and social services got involved. Scary stuff. Honey seems to have quietened down again now, but for how long?

  My stepsister Cherry is cool, but when she first arrived last year, she had a few problems sorting fact from fiction. She also had a problem staying away from Honey’s boyfriend, and now the two of them are an item. This is great for Cherry, but not so great for Honey – since Shay ditched Honey she has dated practically every boy in Somerset, the more unsuitable the better. Cherry and Shay broke up recently
for a week, and rumour had it that Honey was responsible … but they’re back together now and stronger than ever. Don’t get me wrong, I like Cherry a lot, but still, I can’t help wishing she hadn’t fallen for Shay Fletcher.

  So. My sister Skye likes to dress in dead girls’ dresses, or ‘vintage’ as she calls it. Last year she had a crush on some imaginary ghost boy; this year she has a long-distance boyfriend up in London, and they are always writing and texting and emailing. If you want my opinion, I think she should have stuck with the ghost boy.

  As for Summer, Skye’s twin – I used to think she had it all; looks, talent, popularity, big dreams, determination. She had a scholarship for a boarding ballet school this term … but she threw it all away, cracked under the pressure. Her dream turned into a nightmare, and she is still struggling to break free of it. These days, Summer is like a shadow girl, frail, fragile, lost. She picks at her food as if she thinks it could be poisoned, and we have to creep around her pretending nothing is wrong when we all know that things are very wrong indeed.

  Summer hangs out the whole time with Alfie Anderson, who is a million miles from cool, the kind of boy who puts salt instead of sugar in your hot chocolate and thinks it’s funny. I really don’t, and I have no idea what Summer sees in him.

  Boys are nothing but trouble – if they vanished off the face of the earth right now, Honey, Cherry, Skye and Summer would probably be a whole lot happier and much more fun. Personally, I think animals are far more reliable and rewarding.

  I peer down through the leaves at Fred the dog, who is waiting patiently at the foot of the tree, while Humbug my pet sheep munches grass nearby. You see? Animals are loyal. They don’t care if you play a few dud notes when practising the violin. They never judge you, and they don’t let you down.

  People can learn a lot from animals. I know that my sisters are not perfect, but I love them and I am loyal to them. If someone else says anything at all against them, I will defend them to my last breath.

  The problem with being the youngest is that people don’t take you seriously. You are stuck forever as the baby of the family, which can be very annoying indeed. I’ll show them, though. I have my life all planned out and I am pretty sure it’s going to be amazing.

  I want to work with animals – I will do voluntary work and save endangered species. I have started on this task already because let’s face it, time is running out. I am having a cake sale at school on Monday, in aid of endangered pandas, and before half-term I started a petition to save the white rhino. I collected 233 signatures, and sent them all off to the government with a first-class stamp.

  Once I have saved the panda, the white rhino and a bunch of other threatened animals, I will train to be a vet and eventually I will live in a big house by the sea (a bit like Tanglewood) and have my own horses and play the violin whenever I like. Indoors and out.

  I know what I want, and it doesn’t seem too much to ask.

  If life is a box of chocolates, I will just make sure that I pick carefully. Why waste time on nougat and jaw-breaking toffee brittle when you can have something you really love instead? I like most of the truffles that my stepdad Paddy makes for his business, The Chocolate Box, but the caramel truffle he invented for me back on my twelfth birthday a while ago is without a doubt the best of all.

  If my life is going to be a box of chocolates, I will plan ahead and make sure I choose caramel, rich and smooth and sweet, every time.

  2

  I set up a table in the foyer of Exmoor Park Middle School, cover it with a red and white checked cloth and drape my handpainted banner, Save the Giant Panda, across the front of it. Then I set out the plates and arrange my home-baked cupcakes, which I have iced with little black and white panda faces. Who could resist?

  ‘They look better than the whale ones you made last time,’ my friend Sarah comments. ‘These ones are actually quite cute. What are we charging? Ten pence? Twenty pence?’

  ‘Thirty pence, or two for fifty pence,’ I decide. ‘It’s for charity, isn’t it?’

  It is the first day back after the October holiday and Sarah and I have been allowed out of history ten minutes early to set up our stall, so that we can make the most of the breaktime rush once the bell goes.

  Sarah unpacks a plastic box of chocolate fridge cake and I set out a slightly dented Victoria sponge, a tin of chocolate crispy cakes and a tub of rock buns that are a little too rock-like for comfort. My friends always rally round at times like this and manage to contribute something. I arrange my handmade leaflets, explaining why the giant panda is endangered and needs our help. I have learnt the hard way that my fellow pupils are rarely impressed by my efforts to raise funds with sponsored walks or silences. They are much more likely to part with their cash if cake is involved.

  ‘OK,’ Sarah says. ‘Thirty seconds and counting. Watch out for those Year Six boys, I’m sure they nicked my flapjacks last time!’

  ‘Nobody will dare swipe so much as a crumb while I’m watching,’ I promise.

  I pull on my fake-fur panda hat with the sticky-up ears and square my shoulders, ready to do battle.

  ‘Here we go,’ I say to Sarah. ‘For the pandas!’

  The bell rings and the foyer floods with kids. They can scent cake, and they swarm round the stall, grabbing panda cupcakes and wedges of Victoria sponge, shoving warm, sticky coins into the collection tin.

  One cute little Year Five girl buys up the whole tin of chocolate crispy cakes for £5 because it’s her mum’s birthday. Then I spot a weaselly Year Six boy trying to pocket a couple of chunks of chocolate fridge cake and grab his wrist firmly. ‘Fifty pence, please,’ I say sweetly. ‘All proceeds go to help the giant panda!’

  ‘Help it do what?’ he asks, reluctantly handing over his cash.

  ‘Survive,’ I explain patiently. ‘They are almost extinct because bamboo forests are being cut down and pandas eat mainly bamboo shoots.’

  ‘Why don’t they eat something different then?’ the kid asks. ‘Fish ’n’ chips. Big Macs. Chocolate fridge cake.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘They can’t,’ I explain. ‘They are pandas, not people. They are supposed to eat bamboo shoots, and people are destroying their habitat. It’s up to us to save them!’

  The boy’s face hardens. ‘If that’s true, you really shouldn’t wear a panda hat,’ he says. ‘That’s just sick.’ He walks away, scoffing fridge cake.

  Boys really are infuriating and dim, especially Year Six boys.

  And Year Eight boys are not much better. Lawrie Marshall has edged his way to the front of the crowd and is reading my panda leaflet with a sneery, disgusted look on his face.

  Lawrie is the scratchiest, surliest boy I’ve ever met. He’s a loner, radiating waves of simmering anger that keep both kids and teachers at arm’s length. If he were a chocolate truffle, he’d be one of Paddy’s disastrous experiments – dark chocolate filled with gherkins and liquorice, or something equally horrific.

  He must have a sweet tooth, though, because he always turns up at my cake sales.

  ‘How come you think you can change the world with cake?’ he snarls, bundling four cupcakes into a paper bag and handing over a pound coin.

  ‘I just do,’ I say. ‘I care about the pandas, and anything I can do to raise awareness and raise money has got to help.’

  ‘Huh,’ Lawrie says. ‘What’s the black and white icing supposed to be, anyway? Badgers?’

  ‘Panda faces,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Right,’ he grunts. ‘Don’t give up the day job, OK?’

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘Like the hat,’ Lawrie sneers, stalking
away. I resist the temptation to throw a rock bun at the back of his head – but only just.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Sarah says. ‘He has a chip on his shoulder.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘You know,’ she shrugs. ‘It’s just one of those things that people say. He’s angry at the world. Snippy with everyone. Don’t take it personally.’

  The teachers drift over, buying the last few cakes for the staffroom, and I hand out the remaining leaflets to anyone who will take one.

  ‘There has to be twenty quid in there, at least,’ Sarah says, grinning at the collection tin, and suddenly I feel doubtful, disappointed. Twenty quid isn’t a whole lot really, especially considering all the flour and eggs and sugar and food colouring I’ve forked out for to make my cupcakes. It’s not enough to save the giant panda, I am pretty sure. Looking around the table, I notice half a dozen discarded panda leaflets lying on the ground, and my spirits dip still further.

  Saving the world with cake may actually be harder than I thought.

  I glare at Lawrie Marshall as he stomps away along the corridor. I don’t think he has a chip on his shoulder so much as a whole plateful of the things, drenched in vinegar.

  3

  Once we’ve counted it up properly it turns out that we have made almost £30 from the cake sale, so my mood has recovered a little by the time the last bell rings. When I get home, I will ask Mum to make a cheque out to the panda charity, and it will make a difference, I know it will. I expect £30 could plant a whole load of bamboo.

  There’s a steady drizzle falling as I walk down to the bus stop, but when I reach into my rucksack for my panda hat it isn’t there. Maybe I left it in my locker? Once I get off the school bus in Kitnor, it’s quite a long walk up to Tanglewood, and without my hat I will get wet.