‘So Honey’s dad has stepped in,’ Paddy says. ‘He’s found a day school in Sydney that promises good grades and one-to-one tuition and counselling for girls like Honey.’
‘What does that mean?’ Summer asks. ‘Who are these “girls like Honey”? Is it some kind of Australian boot camp?’
‘Not at all,’ Mum promises. ‘It’s very strict but very fair, a private school with a good reputation academically. It has an exceptional ethos, though – one that could really help Honey. It’s all about encouraging self-esteem and healing hurts, turning negatives into positives. We’ve spoken with the head teacher, and she seems confident they can turn your sister around.’
‘But … why does it have to be on the other side of the world?’ I plead.
Mum sighs. ‘Because we don’t know of any schools here that offer this kind of help,’ she says honestly. ‘And if we did, we probably wouldn’t be able to afford them. Luckily, this particular school is near to Greg, and the fees are affordable, just about, if both we and Greg chip in.’
‘You’re sending her away,’ I whisper.
Mum’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Coco, it’s just until the summer … we can review things then, see what Honey wants. And, Coco, she wants this – a fresh start, away from bad influences, in a school that promises to get her back on the right track. She wants to be with Greg, you know that. I don’t want this any more than you do, but we have to do something, Coco – your sister is right on the edge.’
I think of Dad, who is so busy with his high-flying business in Sydney that he barely has time to speak to us on Skype at Christmas; he has been known to forget our birthdays, our ages, our interests. OK, he is thousands of miles away in Australia, I know, but even when he lived in London he was kind of hopeless. I sometimes wonder if he’d forget he had kids at all unless Mum was there to remind him.
I really hope the day school is good because if things are left to Dad, Honey won’t be on the edge for much longer – she’ll tumble right over it and go into freefall.
26
Lawrie whistles as I swerve my bike to a halt by the woodland at Blue Downs House just before midnight, stepping through the trees to greet me. ‘Hey,’ he says, looking at me so intently I can’t quite meet his gaze. ‘Everything OK at home?’
‘Not really,’ I tell him. ‘Everything’s about as bad as it possibly can be. I’ll tell you later.’
‘Where do your parents think you are right now?’
‘Sarah’s,’ I say. ‘Trust me, they have so much on their plate right now they won’t even think of checking up.’
‘Sure you want to do this?’
‘Try and stop me,’ I huff. ‘I’m determined to get one thing right this week if it kills me …’
We walk slowly through the woods and past the paddock, up to the edge of the stable yard. We watch the farmhouse until the last lights are extinguished, then unhook the gate and creep softly round the perimeter of the yard.
The ponies are stabled separately, side by side at the end of the block. One is a chestnut, the other a roan, and both are stocky, steady, calm. I falter for a moment; maybe Seddon will treat these two properly? Then I remember the way he treated Caramel, the state Spirit was in, and I know we have no choice but to carry on. The new ponies may be OK right now, but it’s just a matter of time before Seddon crushes their spirit too. Getting these two out will blow the whistle on what he is doing, trigger an investigation and maybe stop him from ever working with animals again.
As we lead them out across the yard a plaintive, whining bark rasps out across the silence. Lawrie swears under his breath. ‘Sheesh … I forgot about the blinkin’ dog!’
He hands me the reins of the chestnut pony and moves towards the skinny mongrel quickly, palm outstretched, whispering softly. The guard dog quietens almost at once, but not before I see the curve of its ribs in the moonlight, the hollow of its belly. The dog is thinner than ever, shivering, cowering, tied to an outdoor kennel with a short rope that keeps her bowl of water tantalizingly out of reach.
‘Think anyone heard?’ Lawrie asks, petting the dog’s head, glancing up towards the house. ‘I hope not …’
Guilt churns inside me. As far as animal cruelty goes, this dog says it all – she’s thin, scared, trembling, yet her tail still wags, hopeful, trusting. I can’t believe we left her behind a fortnight ago; there is no way I can ignore her now.
‘We’re taking her,’ I whisper. ‘We have to, Lawrie!’
He looks at me in the moonlight, his blue eyes unreadable. Two weeks ago he would have curled his lip, said something harsh and cutting about sticking to the plan, but we’ve both changed a lot in that time. We have rescued two ponies and helped to bring a third into the world, and this morning I woke in front of a long-dead fire with Lawrie’s hand in mine. My cheeks burn at the memory.
Lawrie nods calmly and drops to his knees to untie the rope, whispering softly to the dog as he struggles with the knot.
I am watching from the shadows when suddenly a flashlight flares and a shot rings out, splitting the night in two.
‘I’m OK,’ Lawrie whispers. ‘Are you? Get back, quick, so he can’t see you!’
My heart thumps so hard it feels like it might burst right out of me, and I can barely breathe. I edge back into the darkness, leading the ponies out of sight, round the corner, behind an outbuilding.
A tall figure is raking the flashlight across the stable yard, and I make out James Seddon, shotgun in hand, his face a tight, cold mask of fury.
‘What the hell are you doing, Lawrie?’ he roars. ‘Leave the dog be and get in the house! I thought you were one of those blasted burglars!’
Lawrie’s eyes flicker to me once more, and I creep another step backwards, my heart pounding. The ponies clatter back with me, snuffling, shaking their heads, their breath hanging in the night air like smoke.
I don’t understand what’s going on, how Seddon knows Lawrie’s name, why he’s ordering him to get in the house; my head is too scrambled to even try to make sense of it. All I know is that James Seddon is striding towards us in the darkness, his shotgun swinging. I have never been so terrified in my life.
I watch Lawrie’s fingers fumble as the dog whimpers and cowers.
‘What’s going on?’ Seddon growls. ‘I’ve told you before to leave that dog alone! She’s not a pet, she’s a guard dog, and not even a very good one – useless mutt didn’t raise the alarm when those thugs took my ponies …’
Lawrie abandons the rope and tugs at the dog’s collar. It unbuckles suddenly and the skinny mongrel lurches away from Seddon’s grip, yelping with fear, running past me in the darkness. Startled, the ponies snort and huff and sidestep, clattering away from the outbuilding, and abruptly Seddon’s flashlight swoops over us all, trapping us in the dazzling light.
He laughs, and the sick, harsh sound of it turns my bones to water.
‘What’s this?’ he enquires. ‘Don’t tell me, a little rescue party! It’s starting to make sense now. You took the others too, didn’t you? To spite me …’
‘She wasn’t involved,’ Lawrie mutters, nodding at me. ‘Not the first time. And this was my idea too, so just let her go …’
‘Don’t worry, I know very well whose idea this was,’ Seddon growls. ‘You’re a useless, pathetic excuse for a boy. I’ve tried to teach you how to have a backbone, how to be a man, but I can see that mere discipline won’t do it. You need to be broken, just like the horses – you come from bad stock, you see. You’re a loser, a waster, just like your dad.’
Lawrie tries to run but Seddon grabs him, hauling him back, throwing him roughly on to the ground. I t
hink I am going to be sick; nausea seeps through me in waves, making me dizzy.
‘Shhh, shhh,’ I croon to the ponies, trying to calm their panic. ‘Steady, now …’
A light goes on up at the house and a woman and child appear in the courtyard. The woman is pretty, with expensive clothes and carefully styled hair; the child is in pyjamas, sleepy and rumpled, but I recognize her instantly as the frightened girl I saw a fortnight ago.
‘James?’ the woman falters, pulling a mobile from her pocket. ‘What’s going on? Who is that? Shall I call the police?’
‘It’s Lawrie!’ the child shrieks.
Lawrie pulls free, struggling to his feet, but Seddon is too fast for him; furious, he throws Lawrie against the outbuilding wall and he slumps down, gasping, clutching his arm.
‘Leave him alone!’ the woman yells, running across the yard, the child at her heels.
Seddon turns, shouting that the three of them are worthless, ungrateful trash, and before I can understand what’s happening he lashes out, slapping the woman so hard that a river of blood slides down from her pink-glossed lips.
Fury floods my body and logic deserts me. I run forward with the horses, yelling. Terrified, they drag free of my grip, bucking and rearing. The skinny dog appears from the shadows, barking madly, baring her teeth at Seddon, and in the chaos the chestnut pony rears again, catching Seddon on the temple so that he reels back awkwardly, falling to the ground.
We are running then, the child’s small, cold hand in mine, the woman holding Lawrie as he clutches his damaged arm. ‘The car,’ she gasps. ‘Head for the car – I have the keys!’
We race across the stable yard towards the looming shape of a four-wheel drive parked on the driveway leading down to the road. The doors flash red in the darkness, unlocking, and we bundle inside, the skinny dog too.
‘Quick, Mum, he’s coming!’ Lawrie says, and the engine roars and there’s a screech of gravel and we’re driving into the darkness, away from there.
27
‘Is … is everyone OK?’ Lawrie’s mum asks, her voice shaking.
Somehow, everybody is. Lawrie’s mum drives slowly through the darkened lanes. I can tell it’s an effort for her to keep the car steady.
‘We’re going the wrong way,’ Lawrie says after a minute. ‘We have to go to Minehead, Mum, to the police … we have no choice this time!’
‘I can’t,’ she whispers, and I can hear the fear in her voice. ‘We can’t …’
My head is starting to unscramble the jigsaw pieces; a moody, secretive boy who hates bullies, the little sister, a sense of amazement that stepdads could actually be cool. This is why Lawrie was feeding Caramel the first night I went to Blue Downs House, how he knew about Spirit – and why he hates Seddon so much.
He lives with him.
‘Drive to my place,’ I say, taking charge. ‘You’re heading that way, and it’s not far. You’ll be safe there, I promise.’
Eventually the car limps to a halt on the gravel at Tanglewood, and I jump out and lean on the doorbell long enough to make lights spring on all over the house. By the time I have settled Lawrie, his mum and his sister in the warm kitchen and coaxed the frightened mongrel inside too, Mum and Paddy appear in the doorway in PJs and dressing gowns. My sisters crowd behind them on the staircase, wide-eyed.
‘What on earth … Coco?’ Paddy demands, but Mum just surveys the scene and puts the kettle on, fetching warm water and a clean flannel to bathe the woman’s face.
‘I’m Charlotte, and this is Paddy,’ Mum says, matter-of-factly. ‘Your name is … ?’
‘Sandra Marshall,’ the woman says, wincing as the warm water touches her broken skin. ‘Sandy. These are my children, Lawrie and Jasmine …’
‘Lawrie’s my friend from school,’ I add. ‘We were trying to rescue some ponies and it all got out of hand …’
‘Way to go, little sis,’ Honey says. ‘Stepping into my shoes as the rebel-rouser already? I haven’t even gone yet!’
‘Honey, shhh, this is serious,’ Mum says. ‘What exactly happened here?’
‘I don’t know,’ I tell her. ‘But I think Lawrie’s arm might be broken and the horses have gone and –’
‘He hit my mum,’ Jasmine says in a tiny voice. ‘And he shot his gun!’
‘Who did?’ Mum echoes. ‘Sandy, who did this to you?’
The whole story comes out then, the bits I know already and the bits I could only guess at; about the shotgun, the slap, the stolen horses, about a whole year of intimidation and bullying for Lawrie and his family.
They came to Somerset a year ago when Sandy found work with James Seddon’s holiday-let business. Soon Seddon was dating her and moved the whole family in with him. He made them feel special with gifts and days out and endless promises … but before long he began to control everything they did. When Seddon began to show a darker side, a cruel, bullying streak, Lawrie had to stand by and watch as fear pulled his family apart.
‘Where do the ponies come into all this?’ Mum asks. ‘This rescue you mentioned, Coco?’
‘Seddon was the one who bought Caramel,’ I explain. ‘I went to see if she was all right and she really, really wasn’t. Seddon drove her to exhaustion, made Jasmine watch until she fell down in the mud, crying. So I took Caramel away … me and Lawrie. We had to. There was another pony too, a mare in foal. We hid them on the moors, and when Lawrie told me Seddon had bought more ponies we tried to take them too, but the dog barked and Seddon came after us with a shotgun and it all went wrong …’
My sisters have moved into the kitchen, perched on the countertops or leaning against the Aga. Paddy has slipped out of the room. Jasmine has fallen asleep in Sandy’s arms, Lawrie is curled up with the skinny mongrel.
Mum touches Sandy’s hand. ‘You have to call the police,’ she says gently. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I can’t,’ she whispers. ‘I really can’t …’
‘You don’t have to,’ Paddy says, as he comes through the kitchen door. ‘They’re already on their way.’
The night goes crazy. Paramedics arrive and decide that Lawrie’s arm isn’t broken, that Sandy’s cuts will heal and hopefully not scar; the police take a statement from Lawrie’s mum, ask if she wishes to press charges, and dispatch officers to bring Seddon down to the station. It’s daybreak by the time all that is done. My sisters have gone back to bed, and Lawrie and Jasmine are asleep in one of the guest rooms.
‘You and I need a little talk,’ Mum says, catching my arm as I try to slope upstairs. ‘I’m glad you brought Lawrie and Sandy and Jasmine here, but … what on earth have you been thinking, Coco? Stealing ponies, wandering around on the moors in the dark? That was dangerous … I mean, really dangerous!’
Her eyes fill with tears and instantly I am flooded with guilt. Mum is right, of course – I may have acted with the best intentions, but still, I have broken the law and lied and taken so many risks that it has become second nature. Suddenly, it doesn’t look daring or brave so much as downright foolhardy.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I whisper. ‘I just … didn’t know what else to do!’
Mum wipes her eyes. ‘You could have talked to me,’ she says. ‘I’d have listened, Coco, you know that, don’t you? Together, we could have worked something out. But I really don’t think I could bear to have another daughter in trouble. The family seems to be unravelling before my very eyes …’
‘No, Mum!’ I protest. ‘That’s not true! We’re the best family in the world! We may not be perfect, but we’re still pretty amazing, and that’s thanks to you and Paddy. I’m fine, I promise, really I am! I’m so, so sorry!’
> But Mum is crying again, and all I can do is put my arms round her and hold her close and promise I will talk to her if there’s anything, anything at all, I am worried about in future. And I mean it. Forget boys and make-up and cramps and mood swings, this is what growing up is all about – learning from your mistakes, daring to admit that you don’t know everything, and that sometimes, just maybe, you get things wrong.
It’s hard. There’s an ache inside my chest and I want to cry and argue and yell, but I won’t, I can’t. I am going to learn, listen, change. I am going to make Mum proud. I hold her tight and promise that everything will be OK.
In the end, Lawrie and his family stay with us for two weeks. Sandy helps out in the chocolate workshop, and it turns out she is a whizz at organizing and getting things to run smoothly. Pretty soon, the order is back on track.
As well as the police, the RSPCA are investigating Seddon, and the Exmoor Gazette runs a story on it all. Seddon has been shamed into handing the two newest ponies back to their original owner, while Jean and Roy at the stables take on Spirit and Star. Sheba the dog has gained weight and her fur looks glossy and healthy. She curls up in Fred’s basket at night and runs rings round the garden with him during the day.
Lawrie and I are Year Eight heroes for all of five minutes, then targets for endless teasing about whether we are/aren’t an item. For the record, we are not, but Lawrie has chilled out now his mum is away from Seddon; the moody, chippy veneer has dropped away to reveal a quiet, gentle boy who opens up a little more each day.
He surprises me sometimes. When I show Jasmine how to make my secret Coco Caramel cupcakes he joins in, whizzing up flour and eggs and butter and sugar; he sits beside me in the old oak tree, listening to my violin practice, looking at the stars, talking about the past, the future, a hundred different versions of each.
Eventually, of course, the future becomes the present.
The chocolate order is finished, the last consignment driven away. Sandy makes plans to go back to Kendal, staying with her parents until she can find a job and a flat. Jasmine and Lawrie will go back to their old schools, putting the past behind them.
Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel Page 15