Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel

by Cathy Cassidy

  Lawrie shoves his way out of the kitchen, but not before I see the glint of tears on his cheeks in the flickering lamplight. That shocks me more than anything because boys like Lawrie just don’t cry.

  It takes him half an hour to calm down, half an hour of clattering about in the dark, filling buckets with fresh water from the stream, chopping back overgrown branches with a pair of secateurs. Well, at least he doesn’t storm off down to the road without me.

  I stay put, ploughing through my maths homework, hoping that if I am patient he will cool off and bluff his way forward as though the outburst never happened. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ Grandma Kate used to say, and it’s good advice. I have learnt the hard way that with a boy like Lawrie, patience heals a whole lot faster than panic ever can.

  ‘You coming then?’ Lawrie asks a while later. ‘It’s getting late; they’ll be sending out a search party for you.’

  ‘Some people will do anything to get out of doing an English essay,’ I quip, packing up my rucksack. ‘Moonlit gardening, huh?’

  ‘Don’t recommend it,’ he says. ‘I almost pruned Caramel in the dark there. She could have ended up with a topiary tail …’

  We walk down across the moors in silence, but when we reach the hazel copse Lawrie turns to me, his face shadowed beneath the bare tree branches.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ he says. ‘I don’t understand why you stick around. You keep coming back, keep asking awkward questions and making me say stuff I really don’t want to talk about. You drive me nuts and I think I drive you nuts too, but …’

  His breath huffs out in a cloud of white, hovering in the icy air, and his brows draw together in a frown. ‘I just don’t get it!’

  I sigh, wheeling my bike out on to the lane, hook a foot over one pedal.

  ‘We’re friends,’ I tell him, pushing off into the darkness.

  I think it’s true.

  At school, Lawrie mostly acts as though I don’t exist, though if I pass him in the corridor or see him in the lunch hall he drags up a grudging ‘hello’. He is a loner, dark wavy hair falling across his face, mouth unsmiling, blue eyes guarded. Sometimes I think he’d like to be invisible, but he’s not, not to me.

  On Thursday morning, Sarah, Jayde and Amy corner me at break.

  ‘Did you see the newspaper?’ Sarah asks, spreading a copy of the Exmoor Gazette out across the table. ‘There’s a big piece about the missing ponies. You’re famous! Or infamous, maybe …’

  ‘Shhh!’ I hiss. ‘Keep your voice down!’

  I look at the headline – Reward Offered for Stolen Ponies: Horse Owners Urged to be Vigilant – and my heart begins to pound.

  ‘Ten days ago near Hartshill, heartless thieves stole a small girl’s birthday pony, leaving her inconsolable,’ I read out. ‘The much-loved family pet was taken, along with another valuable trekking pony in foal, in a well-planned midnight raid. Local landowner James Seddon is offering a cash reward for information leading to the return of the horses, and police fear the thugs may strike again …’

  ‘Are you sure they were being ill-treated?’ Amy asks.

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ I splutter. ‘That article is rubbish! Trekking ponies? Spirit’s only half-broken, and she was so petrified when we – I – first took her that I didn’t think she’d ever calm down. And it’s a miracle she is still in foal, after the way she’s been neglected. As for the little girl, she looked as scared of Seddon as the ponies were. Honestly, I wish the newspaper knew what was really going on.’

  ‘Offering a reward is bad news,’ Jayde points out. ‘People will be watching out for those ponies now. You shouldn’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Especially not Jayde,’ Amy grins, nudging her friend with an elbow. ‘She talks too much. Walls have ears, right?’

  ‘Huh?’ Jayde asks. ‘What walls? What are you talking about?’

  ‘She’s telling you to keep your voice down,’ Sarah says, stuffing the paper into my schoolbag before anyone can see what we were reading, and glancing around furtively. ‘We have to be extra careful now. Coco, are the … um … refugees definitely in a safe place?’

  I blink. ‘Refugees?’

  Sarah lowers her voice. ‘You know what I mean! I don’t want to say the word “horse”. People might be listening!’

  ‘Nobody’s listening,’ I tell her. ‘I think they’re safe, but … well, it’s impossible to be sure, isn’t it?’

  ‘Better step up security then,’ Sarah warns. ‘Or you’ll make the headlines again, as the youngest horse-thief in Britain.’

  My day goes from bad to worse.

  Mr Wolfe springs a spot-test on us in history, and I barely scrape through. In art I spend an hour making a carefully coiled clay pot and then drop it on the floor, squashing it flat; and in science I can’t concentrate at all and almost set Sarah’s hair on fire with a Bunsen burner. Sarah screams and Lawrie rolls his eyes at me across the lab and I end up with a punishment exercise to write out the legend I must learn to respect laboratory equipment one hundred times. Great.

  ‘What about respecting my hair?’ Sarah wants to know, but to be honest she has frazzled it more herself with excessive use of straighteners, so one small singed bit is not going to matter. Much.

  I think the stresses of being the youngest horse-thief in Britain are beginning to tell.

  After the bell, Lawrie corners me by the lockers.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he demands. ‘You’ve been jumpy all day. Something wrong?’

  ‘This is wrong,’ I say, showing him the newspaper. ‘We’re in big trouble.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Lawrie says, scanning the Gazette. ‘Seddon was always likely to go to the press, always going to lie. We have to stay calm. It doesn’t change anything.’

  I bite my lip. ‘I know. I do – it’s just hard not to worry.’

  Lawrie frowns. ‘Tell me about it,’ he says. ‘I heard some bad news myself today. Seddon’s bought two more horses. They’re not in foal and they don’t need breaking, but …’

  My heart sinks. It feels like the final straw.

  ‘Can we rescue them?’ I ask. ‘Get them out of there?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Coco,’ he tells me. ‘We may have got away with one rescue – so far – but trying another would be madness. The police think it’s opportunist horse thieves at the moment – target the same place again and it’s going to look very different. We can’t risk it – it would put Caramel and Spirit in danger, blow the whole thing!’

  ‘I hate him,’ I huff, kicking at the wall in frustration. ‘I really, really hate him.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Lawrie says. ‘Look, we’ll talk about this later …’

  Sarah appears at my side and Lawrie gives her a dark look before striding away.

  ‘What did he want?’ she whispers.

  ‘Just making some snarky comment about me burning the school down if I don’t pay more attention,’ I lie. ‘He’s such a charmer.’

  ‘He fancies you,’ Sarah says. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you. All dark and smouldering.’

  ‘That’s the way he looks at everyone,’ I tell her.

  ‘Maybe,’ Sarah says, watching Lawrie disappear into the scrum of kids heading for the school gate. ‘Maybe not. He likes you. Mark my words.’

  I worry about that all the way home.

  22

  Back at Tanglewood, the little chocolate factory is silent and for the first time in almost a fortnight there is no aroma of melted chocolate drifting on the air. I head for the kitchen to make a flask of hot chocolate to take up to the cottage as usual, b
ut the moment I step inside I can see that something is very wrong. Mum and Paddy are sitting at the big pine table, their faces grim.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I ask. ‘Things going to plan with the order?’

  ‘Factory’s running like clockwork,’ Paddy says. ‘Thank goodness. We should have everything shipped off by the end of next week, but I’ve had to let the workers go early today, obviously …’

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ Mum states flatly. ‘I’ve been kidding myself – so wrapped up in the business that I didn’t notice what was going on right under my nose!’

  ‘What was going on?’ I ask warily.

  Is this to do with the newspaper article? Have the police been round asking questions? Have Mum and Paddy worked out that I am not seeing my friends every afternoon, but wandering around the moors in the dark with a boy I barely know and a couple of stolen ponies?

  I really hope not.

  It’s not even as though our rescue has changed anything – Seddon has just bought more ponies who will suffer in exactly the same way as Spirit and Caramel. There is no way to stop him, and the knowledge makes me feel crushed, hopeless.

  Mum looks tired, with shadows under her eyes, smudged eyeliner and a hopeless, defeated tilt to her shoulders. Fear curls in my belly.

  ‘Mum? What is it?’

  She picks up a letter typed on the school’s headed paper, her hand shaking. ‘Oh, Coco … I was so proud of her, so sure she’d turned the corner. And now this!’

  The penny drops.

  ‘Honey,’ I say flatly, and Paddy nods.

  ‘We’ve been asked to come into school to discuss her continued absences and erratic grades,’ Mum says. ‘But her report was excellent – how can things have gone downhill so fast? It doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘Let me ring the school and find out,’ Paddy suggests.

  ‘Not yet – we have to give Honey a chance to explain,’ Mum argues. ‘Perhaps it’s a mix-up … there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for it all.’

  ‘Charlotte, if we just speak to Mr Keating …’

  ‘No,’ Mum pleads. ‘We’ll talk to Honey first. If something’s been going on, I want to hear it from her. I’m her mother, she’ll tell me the truth!’

  I doubt that somehow, but I stay silent and put the kettle on. Instead of making a flask of hot chocolate I brew a pot of tea and raid the cupboard for Jammie Dodgers.

  Family trouble, I text Lawrie quickly. Mum upset. Might be a bit late getting to the meeting place.

  Will go without you, he texts back. Family comes first. Take care xx

  I stare at the message, wide-eyed. Two kisses? Does that mean anything, and if so, what? I would never have imagined that Lawrie was the kind of boy to add text kisses – after all, he can barely dredge up a smile for me most days.

  By the time I’ve poured the tea and arranged the biscuits on a plate, Skye, Summer, Cherry and Honey come clattering in. Their chat fades to silence fast as they see Mum’s face, tight-lipped.

  ‘So … Honey?’ she grates out, handing over the letter. ‘Tell me this isn’t true!’

  Skye, Summer and Cherry huddle beside me, out of the line of fire, and Fred the dog nudges my hand with his nose. I stroke his ears and he leans against me, whining softly.

  ‘It’s a mistake, obviously,’ Honey says, scanning the letter dismissively. ‘Ridiculous. You’ve seen my report!’

  ‘They can’t both be right,’ Mum says. ‘What’s going on, Honey?’

  ‘Nothing! The computers at school must have been playing up, that’s all – loads of things have been going wrong these last few days. Or maybe some stupid secretary has picked up last year’s file? I am doing fine this term, you know I am!’

  ‘We thought you were,’ Paddy sighs. ‘Now we’re not too sure.’

  Honey flings him an angry glance. ‘Look, it’s fine, all right?’ she says. ‘I was on the bus to school this morning – ask the others. And I was on the bus home; you can’t argue with that. I haven’t missed a day all term. Right, Summer? Skye? Cherry? We may not be in the same year but you must see me in the corridors sometimes …’

  Cherry shrugs, and her eyes slide away from Honey’s, evasive. She does not want to answer, and nobody can blame her – Honey has made her life a misery from day one.

  Beside me, I can feel Summer shrink into herself, hiding behind her hair, arms wrapped around her body as if for protection. She was always the sister who stuck up for Honey, even when the rest of us despaired of her, but I’m not sure she will defend her now.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says in a whisper. ‘I’m not at school all of the time any more, Honey, I have the day clinic thing twice a week. I … I can’t say …’

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ Skye chips in, taking the pressure off her twin. ‘Once or twice. Maybe. Not for quite a while, though …’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Honey growls.

  My sisters have never looked more uncomfortable. Nobody wants to break the ‘sisters-don’t-tell’ rule, but all of us know it’s time to stop covering up for Honey. I am glad I’m not at the high school, that nobody asks me. I would not want to tell how I see Honey come and go at all hours of the day and night, getting lifts from boys whose cars blare loud music and laughter. I would have to mention how she has been hanging out at the fair with hard-faced girls and tattooed boys, working on an art project that may or may not exist.

  It’s not even as if any of this seems to make my big sister happy.

  ‘I don’t know why they’re saying all this,’ she argues, shooting the twins a furious look. ‘I’m in school every day, I told you. The letter’s a mistake.’

  ‘Well,’ Paddy says, ‘that’s a relief. But we’ll ring the school anyway, or call in to see Mr Keating tomorrow morning, let him know we got the letter. We can’t ignore it, Honey. If it’s some kind of computer error, they’ll tell us – no harm done.’

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Mum agrees. ‘Set the record straight, sort it out.’

  I watch Honey’s face crumble, the confident mask replaced with anger, panic. Suddenly her excuses seem flimsy, desperate.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me!’ she yells. ‘You never do, any of you! Don’t try and pretend that you care what I get up to – you really, really don’t. All you care about are your horrible chocolates and that stupid order. Don’t kid yourself – you’re not going to make your fortunes. Those truffles will probably poison someone and then you’ll be sorry! Sheesh, this whole family sucks!’

  She storms out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Mum whispers. ‘How did I miss this? How did I get it so wrong? Honey needs more help and support than I can give her – she’s just so angry, so lost. No matter what I try to do, nothing ever changes.’

  ‘We’ll see Mr Keating in the morning, get to the bottom of it,’ Paddy promises. ‘We can’t let her throw her life away like this.’

  Honey’s timing could not be worse – my family is stressed and struggling as it is; we really do not need more of Honey’s dramas. Later, subdued and slightly shaken, we are eating a makeshift supper of cheese and vegetable pie heated up from the freezer when she flounces back into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve been speaking to Anthony,’ she announces smugly, holding out her mobile. ‘He’s had exactly the same letter, and everyone knows he is the biggest swot in Somerset. He’s probably never missed a school day in his life. So he reckons it is definitely a computer glitch because the school has just emailed him to apologize. So can you check your emails and see if we’ve had one too?’

  ‘We’re eating,’
Paddy says patiently. ‘I’ll check in a minute.’

  ‘This is my reputation at stake here,’ Honey says. ‘It’s important!’

  Mum stands up, tight-lipped, and fetches her laptop. She opens it, checks her mail, and there, sure enough, is an email from Exmoor High. ‘A faulty software installation on the school IT system has resulted in some confusion, with warning letters being sent to students who are in fact performing very well at present,’ she reads. ‘How odd … I’ve never heard of anything like that before.’

  ‘It happens all the time, apparently,’ Honey says. ‘So. A problem with the software system. OK? Don’t all say sorry at once.’

  ‘Well … I am sorry if we jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ Mum says.

  ‘Thank you,’ Honey snaps. ‘Now, I have a ton of homework, so I’d better get on with it.’

  We watch her go.

  ‘If we jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ Mum repeats. ‘But I don’t think we did somehow. Take a look at this …’

  She hands the laptop over to Paddy, who reads it carefully. ‘It’s from the school’s email address all right. And the header looks official too …’

  ‘Look closely,’ Mum says.

  We look at the address: Exmoor High School, Graystone Lane …

  ‘What am I looking for?’ Paddy frowns.

  ‘They’ve spelt “Greystone” wrong,’ Mum says. ‘And I really don’t think the school would make that mistake, do you?’

  Paddy raises an eyebrow. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Not so good. The punctuation is a bit dodgy too. It’s from the school’s email, but …’

  ‘Something odd is going on here,’ Mum says, her mouth settling into a thin line. ‘Let’s see what Mr Keating has to say about it in the morning.’

  23

  On Friday afternoon, after school, I am in the music room auditioning for Miss Noble; next door in the hall, the orchestra kids are warming up in a screech of trumpet blasts and cello twangs and bursts of unruly saxophone. Soon, with luck, I will be joining them.