3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream

by Cathy Cassidy

  Miss Elise shakes her head. ‘Summer, that’s not good enough,’ she says quietly. ‘What’s going on? It’s a strong piece of music, but the dance doesn’t match up to it. It’s rough, unformed, amateurish. Haven’t you been working on it?’

  My face floods scarlet. ‘I have, of course,’ I whisper.

  ‘Then work harder!’ Miss Elise says. ‘This is one thing I can’t help you with – it has to be your creativity, your interpretation of the music. The piece you’ve chosen is all about passion, fire … but I’m not getting any of that from your choreography. Your expressive dance has to be perfect for the audition, Summer; you don’t need me to tell you that!’

  No, I don’t … I tell myself exactly the same thing every other minute. I fight back tears. ‘Sorry, Miss Elise.’

  She claps her hands to dismiss Jodie and Sushila, and they shoot me sympathetic glances as they go through to get changed.

  My teacher sighs. ‘You’re one of the best pupils I have had here for a very long time,’ she says briskly. ‘You have potential – good technical skills and a spirited, expressive style that sets you apart. Those are the reasons Sylvie Rochelle picked you out … so where are those qualities now? These last two weeks you’ve been tired, slow, lacklustre. You’ve always struck me as one of the most dedicated, determined students I have, yet you seem to have just stopped trying!’

  ‘No!’ I protest. ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Do you realize what a fantastic opportunity this is?’ she asks. I nod, mute.

  ‘Then show me, Summer,’ she says, exasperated. ‘The auditions are two weeks away. Be ready. Don’t let me down. This won’t happen all by itself – you have to work at it, you have to be serious about it.’

  ‘I am serious!’

  ‘Push yourself,’ Miss Elise says. ‘Find the spark, the passion. You can do it, I know you can!’

  Spark again. That elusive quality I just don’t have – not with boys, not with dancing, maybe not at all. When did I lose it? Can I find it again, set it alight with the fire of my determination? Miss Elise’s words cut deep, but I smile, even though I feel like crying.

  Later Jodie and I sit in the cafe down by the seafront, sipping skinny lattes. ‘Miss Elise was totally picking on you today,’ Jodie says. ‘She can be a real slave-driver sometimes. You danced fine, Summer. Not your best maybe, but everyone has an off day sometimes. You should have told her, you know.’

  ‘Told her what?’ I frown.

  ‘About breaking up with Aaron,’ Jodie says. ‘You said in the changing rooms it was no big deal, but it’s got to have put you off your stride, seeing him with that horrible girl and everything.’

  ‘It was nothing to do with Aaron,’ I say.

  ‘Your mum and stepdad are away,’ Jodie continues, ‘and you’ve got all those film people staying in the house. That’ll be stressful too. You should have explained!’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, stirring my latte. ‘It’s nothing to do with any of that. I don’t get it, Jodie – she thinks I’m not serious, not trying. I mean, is she kidding? I practise every single day, for hours! It’s all I ever think about lately!’

  Jodie licks the strawberry jam off her scone thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you’re trying too hard,’ she considers. ‘Overdoing it. I practise every day too, but not for hours and hours. It’d drive me nuts. Maybe you’re doing too much? Getting – I don’t know, stale? You are looking a bit tired, you know.’

  I sigh. ‘Miss Elise thinks I’m not serious enough. You think I’m working too hard. I can’t win, can I?’

  Jodie shrugs, spooning up a curl of clotted cream. ‘You just seem a bit stressed, that’s all,’ she says. ‘It’s such a big thing, isn’t it? But it’s all down to fate in the end, you know. If it’s meant to happen, it will. If not … well, we have to accept it.’

  This is not what I want to hear. Fate is way too fickle – I can’t step back and allow it to steer my life. Taking control is the only way.

  ‘Do your best,’ Jodie is saying. ‘Obviously. But don’t let it take over your life!’

  It’s a bit too late for that, of course. This dream has been driving my life ever since I can remember, and I have never been closer to touching it. Now is not the time to relax the pressure. Just over a fortnight from now, the auditions will be done and dusted, but until then I cannot, will not stop trying.

  ‘I just want to get a place,’ I say. ‘I have to make them think I’m right for that course. I’m doing everything I can think of!’

  ‘Me too,’ Jodie says, biting into her cream scone. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I’d do anything.’

  Anything but cut back on calories, obviously.

  I must be staring because Jodie raises an eyebrow. ‘Want a bit?’ she asks, holding out her plate with the other half of the scone. ‘I thought you were being a bit strict, just having a skinny latte. This is gorgeous! Home-made, I think!’

  ‘Do – do you ever worry about your weight?’ I ask clumsily. ‘Your shape?’

  A slow flush seeps over Jodie’s cheeks, and I wish I could bite my tongue. Of course Jodie worries – she’s human after all, but I know that she is pretty confident and happy with her body these days. I just wish I could say the same.

  ‘I think I’m OK as I am,’ she says a little stiffly. ‘Dancing keeps me slim, and I like having some curves. What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Nothing!’ I protest. ‘I think you’re fine too, Jodie. But … I’m not sure that I am. I thought that if I could be slimmer, lighter, I might stand more chance at the auditions. And I am trying to cut back. No more cake, no more junk food … but it’s so hard!’

  Jodie blinks. ‘You’re cutting back?’ she echoes. ‘Dieting? But there’s nothing of you to start with!’

  ‘That’s not true!’ I argue. ‘I used to be slim, but these days I’m huge. Maybe it’s puppy fat, but I look like a Labrador in a leotard. It’s gross.’

  Jodie looks horrified. ‘Er, no, Summer,’ she says. ‘There’s no way you look big – you’re not built that way. And you don’t have puppy fat, not a scrap – you’re more whippet than Labrador, trust me. You have lost some weight lately – I thought you were just working too hard. You have to eat. Please don’t lose any more!’

  I look at Jodie. Does she actually want me to be fat? Probably because that way she won’t look so bad herself. I flinch at the thought, but why else would Jodie be so negative? Is she jealous?

  ‘We all get a bit more rounded as we grow up, you know,’ she is saying. ‘That’s normal. You can’t diet that away!’

  I can, I think stubbornly. I will.

  ‘What else have you been cutting out?’ she asks. ‘It’s not just cake, is it? You’re dieting properly, I know you are, and that’s a really, really bad idea. We’re thirteen, Summer – that’s way too young for crash diets. Now, of all times, you need to be strong! You need your vitamins and minerals and protein, or you won’t be able to dance your best!’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Jodie!’ I snap. ‘D’you think I’d take risks with something so important? It’s not a diet, honestly. I’ve just ditched the junk food …’

  I frown. This might have been true a couple of weeks ago, but things have gone way past that point now. I am skipping meals, making excuses, feeding my dinner to Fred the dog when nobody is looking, and fainting. Deep down, I know that isn’t right.

  I don’t think Jodie is fooled either. My eyes blur with tears, and she slides into the booth beside me, puts her arms round me. Words leak out and I cannot seem to stop them.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ I whisper. ‘I have to pass this audition, I have to! I can’t give them any excuse to turn me down!’

  ‘But you’re not eating enough,’ Jodie says softly. ‘That’s why your dance isn’t working, why you’re tired and slow in class. You’re hungry and weak and worn out.’

  I drag a hand across my eyes, furious, swallowing back the tears. ‘I’m fine,’ I say crossly. ‘I wish I hadn’t said anything. I t
hought you’d understand!’

  ‘I do understand,’ she says. ‘You’re all stressed out over this audition. I know how much you want it – I feel exactly the same – but you can’t let it take over. You have to eat!’

  ‘It’s only for a few weeks,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t tell anyone, Jodie, please!’

  ‘I won’t,’ she promises. ‘But … Summer, you have to see. Food isn’t your enemy, it’s fuel. If you starve yourself, you’ll get ill and then you won’t be able to dance at all! I’m getting you something to eat, OK?’

  I stare at the tabletop. I must look a mess, a frantic girl with a pink, tear-stained face, falling to pieces in public. I am normally so cool, so polite, so together … but this is the second time in a week I have lost the plot. What’s happening to me?

  ‘Listen to me, Summer,’ Jodie is saying. ‘It’ll be OK. You just need to eat. I’ll get you something, and then you’ll feel better, OK?’

  As if it could ever be that easy. ‘OK. I’ll try.’

  Jodie goes up to the counter. She is trying to help, I know – isn’t she? I can’t tell any more. What if there’s only room for one of us at Rochelle Academy? If Jodie sees me as a threat and wants to sabotage my chances?

  My head aches with thinking about it all. Jodie isn’t like that, I know. She’s not mean or spiteful or competitive. She’s just worried, and she might have a point because the truth is I didn’t dance well today and I feel so tired, so muddled. Then Jodie sets a tray down on the table, grinning, and it all becomes clear.

  Don’t even think about it, the voice in my head warns. As if.

  A tall glass of strawberry milkshake, topped with fresh fruit and an ice-cream float, a vast slice of chocolate sponge cake, oozing cream and jam and topped with thick chocolate buttercream … I could put on weight just looking at it.

  Is she serious? I look at Jodie’s stupid grin and wonder why I ever thought she was my friend. I grab my ballet bag and slam out of the cafe, and I don’t look back.

  20

  Jodie’s betrayal is like a knife twisting inside me. She doesn’t want me to be slim; she’s jealous because I have the self-control to say no to cake and junk food. Alfie has noticed my eating too, and he doesn’t understand either. How long before Miss Elise notices, before Grandma Kate and my sisters start to ask questions?

  They’ll all try to stop me, if I let them. That can’t happen.

  It’s Saturday, and I’m helping Skye with the room-changes – Cherry is out with Shay and Coco is helping Harry in the chocolate workshop. Honey, surprise, surprise, is still in bed. She was out last night with JJ, and I am pretty sure she came home later than the eleven o’clock curfew too. Grandma Kate didn’t seem to notice, but I did.

  I treat the room-changes as a kind of exercise, stripping the beds and making them up with fresh sheets and duvet covers, dusting, hoovering, scrubbing the bathrooms. I was tired yesterday from dance practice, but still, I couldn’t sleep; dark thoughts kept racing through my mind, doubts, fears, worries. Today I’m so weary I could curl up and sleep on the newly made beds.

  ‘OK?’ Skye asks, popping her head round the door. ‘Finished?’

  ‘Just about.’ For a minute I think about talking to my twin, telling her about the knot of fear that has lodged itself in my belly these last few weeks. But what would I say? That I can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t think straight? That I am chasing a dream, yet afraid to catch it? None of it makes sense.

  Skye hasn’t a clue how I am feeling. I promised myself I’d work on staying close to my twin this summer, but right now we are miles apart. Skye has other things on her mind. She used to know what I was thinking even before I did, but lately, I have fallen right off her radar. I don’t think she’d notice if I fell down dead right in front of her, she is so wrapped up with Finch.

  ‘I’m going down to the crew field to help Jess with the costumes,’ she says. ‘They’re using Finch in quite a few of the main scenes now. Cool, huh? He looks great in all that vintage stuff! See you later!’

  ‘See you, Skye.’

  Grandma Kate has gone to the village to shop, so I take my library books down to the hammock to read. I have to find out how to eat and still lose weight, how to make sure nobody worries or tries to interfere. When you don’t eat, people start to notice – and they don’t like it.

  I will just have to be more careful.

  The books explain it all … which foods are low in calories but high in protein, to help you stay healthy while losing weight. I make a list. Tuna, cold chicken, boiled eggs, cottage cheese, low-fat yoghurt. Salad leaves, tomatoes, sweetcorn, celery. Today I have eaten a boiled egg and an apple, which seems fairly OK.

  Of course the books also tell you to eat bread and potatoes and pasta and rice; cheese and lamb and pork and quiche and pastry and pie; they say that it’s OK to have a slice of pizza or a Chinese takeaway once in a while, or even a square or two of chocolate, a pudding, a cookie, a cake.

  I know better. Those foods aren’t for dancers.

  I like making those things, though, and perhaps if Grandma Kate sees me cooking and baking, she won’t notice I am not actually eating the end results. It’ll take willpower, of course, but I have plenty of that.

  I watch from the hammock as Harry comes out of the workshop in a chocolate-streaked apron to greet the postman, collecting a handful of orders for Paddy’s luxury truffles. Even my new stepdad peddles high-class junk food, fat and sugar parcelled up in pretty boxes. No wonder I’m fat. It’s a miracle the whole family aren’t the size of hippos.

  I list down meal ideas to make for my sisters: pizza, pasta, nachos, quiche … apple tart, trifle, tiramisu. My mouth waters just thinking about them. Next I list practice times and lesson times and times to swim and chill out with my sisters and my friends too. I will not let Aaron Jones or anyone else accuse me of being obsessed or boring, of having a one-track mind. I will not let him tell me that I need to get a life. I will show everyone, myself included, that I can do it all. I will toughen up, learn to hide my fears – I will not lose it in front of my friends, let them see me upset.

  ‘You’re the sensible, organized one,’ Tia has always told me. ‘You’ve got everything under control.’

  Yeah, right. The trouble is that when your friends and family are used to seeing you succeed, they don’t always notice when you start to fail. Maybe they just don’t want to see. Well, fine. I may not have been much use as an extra in the film, but I have pretty good acting skills all the same. I show people what they want to see, hide the stuff they’d rather not know about. So what if the mask has slipped a couple of times?

  I will just have to try harder at keeping it in place.

  I wake up to the sound of Fred barking. The sun is high, my library books have slipped on to the grass and Humbug the lamb is chomping her way through Mum’s herb garden.

  I stretch and yawn and peer over the side of the hammock, and there is Alfie Anderson walking across the garden towards me. I gather up the books in a panic, stuffing them under the hammock cushions and leaning back on them to make sure they stay hidden.

  ‘Skye’s not here,’ I say, as he approaches.

  ‘I know,’ he grins. ‘I came to see you.’

  I struggle to sit up. ‘I’m fine,’ I tell him brightly. ‘Thanks for looking out for me the other day … I think I had a bit of a bug. That’s why I hadn’t eaten, why I felt woozy for a little while. It was kind of you to sit with me.’

  Alfie flops down on the grass beside the hammock, his face unreadable. I’m not sure the lie has fooled him.

  ‘It wasn’t kind of me,’ he shrugs. ‘I wanted to. I’m glad you’re feeling better. How’s the dance practice going?’

  ‘Great,’ I say, with a little more enthusiasm than necessary. ‘Really good.’

  ‘How many days till the audition?’

  ‘Twelve days, twenty-one hours and fifteen minutes,’ I grin. ‘Not that I’m counting.’

  Alfie nods. He looks
thoughtful, sitting under the trees in the dappled sunlight, his floppy mid-brown hair freshly washed after its midweek gel-fest, face scrubbed clean of everything but freckles. I suppose I am not the only one growing up – Alfie has shaken off the scruffy, slightly deranged look I have always associated with him. He is tall and stylish these days in band T-shirts and rolled-up jeans, his grin wide and easy.

  ‘No eyeliner today?’ I quip.

  ‘I’m trying out the natural look.’

  About a lifetime goes by, or possibly just a minute or two, with me swaying in the hammock and Alfie sprawled across the grass. I think about telling him I am busy, that he should go, that I have a dance class in town or have promised to help in the chocolate workshop, but the words won’t come.

  I pick a daisy from the grass, pierce the stalk with my thumbnail and thread another one through. I loved making daisy chains when I was little. I’d make bracelets and necklaces and daisy earrings … I loved the way each tiny flower was perfect on its own but better still linked together. It was the way I felt about Mum and Dad, about Skye and Honey and Coco, all the people I loved.

  ‘Hey,’ Dad said once, one warm day when I’d made a crown of daisies for my hair. ‘My little princess.’

  I really felt like a princess that day. That was before Dad left, of course. I may have been Dad’s little princess, but it didn’t stop him breaking the family up. Daisy chains are pretty fragile, and it turns out that families are too. Sometimes we love people who just don’t love us back – or at least not enough.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Alfie says, watching me make a circle of daisies. ‘Too clumsy. I’m all fingers and thumbs.’

  I hang my circle of daisies from Alfie’s ear. ‘It would have looked better with eyeliner,’ I say. ‘But still, not a bad look.’

  Alfie laughs. ‘You just don’t take me seriously, do you? Still, anything that takes your mind off the audition has to be good …’