‘You can’t keep giving me free ice creams,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll get into trouble.’
‘I’m paying for them with my own money,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You’re worth it.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ I say darkly. ‘Most people think I’m not worth it at all.’
‘I’m not most people,’ he replies. ‘Besides, I’ve seen what can happen when someone gets on the wrong side of you!’
I sigh. Ash is definitely not like most people, but is that good or bad? I’ve only known him for a little while, yet I feel closer to him than anyone else in Sydney, even my elusive dad. But do I really know him? Can I trust him? Is he the kind of person who could hack into a phone and post flirty pictures and stupid comments? I don’t think so, but it’s hard to be sure.
He pushes the sundae dish over to me. ‘What’s up?’ he asks. ‘Is it just this Liane girl, or is something else going on?’
‘It’s everything,’ I say. ‘Home, school, you name it. It’s not just Liane who’s being a pain – half the girls in my year are blanking me because of some stupid SpiderWeb post that appeared on my page. I know I don’t have you on SpiderWeb, but …’
‘I don’t have it,’ Ash says.
‘No? I thought everybody did these days!’
‘Not me,’ Ash says. ‘No laptop, no smartphone, just an ancient computer I share with everyone else in the house. Even getting to use it for school stuff takes planning, so … no SpiderWeb.’
‘You could get a smartphone, surely?’ I say. ‘You work loads of shifts. You must have money saved.’
‘I’m saving for a plane ticket around the world,’ he reminds me. ‘Gap year, yeah? I’d rather have a real life than an Internet one.’
I remember that not so long ago I was too busy breaking rules and staying out all night to bother much with SpiderWeb myself. It seems like a lifetime ago.
‘It’s just a way of staying in touch with my sisters,’ I explain. ‘And with friends … old ones and new ones.’ Not that I have many of either variety, sadly.
‘Cool,’ Ash says. ‘Do you take friend applications from people not on SpiderWeb? If they have good ice-cream sundae skills?’
I grin, scooping up a spoonful of cream and strawberries. ‘Might do,’ I say.
‘Will I see you over the holidays?’ he asks, a little too casually. ‘I’ll be working different shifts, but I’ll be here most days …’
I have a feeling I will too.
Summer Tanberry
to me
Just to let you know your Christmas parcel arrived yesterday … whoop! We have put the presents under the tree and Coco has already poked and prodded hers so much I’ve had to repair the holes with Sellotape. Doing a little bit better with the food stuff.
Love you, big sister.
xxx
17
I have sung carols in the snow a few times, risking frostbite in fingerless mittens as I clutched the songbook, but I have never before dodged heatstroke while singing ‘Little Donkey’. I guess there is a first time for everything.
We break up from school, and I try to get into the Aussie Christmas spirit. I drape fairy lights along the patio and hang up cards with surfing Santas, cards with sleighs drawn by kangaroos, cards with koalas wearing reindeer antlers. It’s kind of surreal. I surprise Emma by teaching her how to bake mince pies and Christmas cake; we have a laugh, but the rich fruit-and-brandy aroma as the cake cooks makes me suddenly, painfully, homesick.
An airmail package addressed to me arrives from home, tied up with string and covered in Christmas stickers; I slice open the box and take out the presents inside, carefully wrapped in white tissue paper with red ric-rac bows. I read the gift-tag messages from my sisters, telling me not to open anything until my Skype call home on Christmas Day, and my throat aches suddenly, as if I’ve swallowed a shard of glass.
The day before Christmas Eve Bennie has a sleepover and we watch cheesy festive DVDs and exchange presents, promising not to open them until Christmas Day; we talk about our plans to hang out at the beach and meet cool boys.
‘We have the whole of January to have fun,’ I tell them. ‘I can’t wait!’
‘About that,’ Tara says. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you before, but Dad says he’s taking us down to the Gold Coast right after New Year for a fortnight’s holiday, then on to Brisbane for my Aunt Lisa’s wedding. I’m looking forward to it, but I’ll miss hanging out with you guys. And the cool boys bit, naturally …’
‘All the more for us,’ Bennie teases.
I’m sorry Tara will be away, but still, I can’t help looking forward to the holidays. Forget the promises I made to Dad – a little bit of romance is exactly what I need right now. As I drift off to sleep I’m not thinking of Riley, with his surf-boy good looks and his hot/cold messages that have fizzled away to nothing. I’m thinking of Ash, with his books and his grin and the way his eyes hold on to mine whenever we’re together. I’ve hardly managed to see him since school broke up – I can’t seem to work out his new shift schedule, but I realize I miss him.
Last year I woke on Christmas morning with Coco jumping up and down on my bed like a maniac, trying to wake me. This year is different. There is no annoying stepdad playing cheesy carols on his fiddle; no bleary-eyed sisters eating chocolate coins and tangerines at six in the morning in front of a log fire; no ancient handknitted stockings hanging from the mantlepiece, bulging with tiny presents. There is just the stillness of the pre-dawn house, the sound of my own breathing.
Christmas morning is not meant for lie-ins, it’s meant for barking dogs and footprints in the soot around the fireplace and wrapping paper torn carelessly to reveal those silly, lovely stocking presents you didn’t even know you wanted. What will my sisters be doing now? Mum said they weren’t having the usual Christmas Eve party … too much bother, she said, after all the hard work at the chocolate workshop these last few months. Too stressful for Summer too.
Will they be down in the village at a carol concert? Watching It’s A Wonderful Life, that mad old black-and-white DVD about an angel earning his wings that Mum loves so much? Setting out a mince pie, a glass of whisky and a carrot for Rudolf, hanging up the stockings? It is 5.05 a.m. in Sydney, and Christmas has begun, but back home at Tanglewood it’s still Christmas Eve. I am a time traveller, lost and far from home, drifting in the nowhere-land of darkness.
I open up my laptop, click on to SpiderWeb. There’s a whole bunch of notifications; the first, surprisingly, is from Surfie16.
Hey, sorry I’ve been neglecting you. Stuff got a bit complicated. I’m away now – home for Xmas – but let’s get together once I’m back, yeah?
Ten days ago, this message would have made my day, but now it leaves me cold. I misjudged Riley. I thought he was an Aussie version of Shay Fletcher, cute and kind and cool, but it turns out he was just another dishwater boy, his messages veering erratically between flirty and malevolent. I click Delete and the message vanishes.
My sisters have posted pictures on my SpiderWeb wall – a photo of the Christmas tree with Mum’s vintage-style fairy on top from Skye; the still-empty stockings along the mantlepiece from Summer; a picture of Caramel the pony with mistletoe behind her ear from Coco. Even Cherry has posted a photo, a shot of the mirror above the fireplace, draped with greenery and fir cones. Miss you, Honey xxx is scrawled on the glass in lipstick.
I love that they’ve thought of me, posted pictures to wish me Happy Christmas even though it’s still Christmas Eve back home. I wonder if there is frost on the grass, snowflakes falling from a velvet sky? Here, the heat is already curling around me like an unwanted blanket, sticky, stifling.
I message back, then shower and dress. Dad gave me money to buy myself something for Christmas to go with the laptop; I went shopping with Emma and picked out a new dress and some art materials. I take out my new sketchbook and paints, position myself in front of the mirror and
begin a self-portrait. A ghost girl takes shape on the paper, jigsaw pieces missing from her face, her body. She looks as if she might fall to pieces, but her eyes are bright and proud.
‘Honey! Breakfast!’
Emma appears in the doorway, and I tidy up my things and go through to the kitchen. Dad is wearing a Santa hat and PJ trousers, making smoked salmon bagels. ‘Happy Christmas, Princess!’ he declares, pulling me in for a hug.
‘Happy Christmas, Dad. Happy Christmas, Emma!’ I say. I hand over presents, a DVD box set of a crime series Dad likes and a gift box of pamper goodies in her favourite fragrance for Emma. What with my laptop, dress and the art materials, Dad and Emma have been more than generous, but I’d give anything for a stocking filled with chocolate coins and tangerines and stripy socks, like the ones we have at Tanglewood. Christmas at Dad’s house is very calm and grown-up.
I open my presents from Tara and Bennie, a cute notebook and a purse in the shape of an owl; they’re the kind of things I’d have picked out back when I was twelve, but I’m stupidly touched. It’s a long time since I’ve had friends who gave me cute presents instead of cigarettes and cider and invitations to all-night parties.
The phone rings and I swoop on it, hoping it’s Mum or my sisters, but all is silent as I hold the handset. ‘Hello? Who’s calling?’ I ask. ‘Coco? Is that you? Stop messing around!’
The line clicks and goes dead.
‘Who was that?’ Emma wants to know.
‘It just went dead,’ I shrug. ‘I thought it might be Mum, but it couldn’t have been. She said they’d Skype me tonight, at eight o’clock our time – they’ll be asleep now.’
‘Just a wrong number,’ Dad says.
Emma’s lips press into a tight line. ‘On Christmas Day!’ she says. ‘Of all days!’
I frown, aware that Emma is unsettled by the call too. Later, she and I are getting the picnic ready, packing cold meats and tubs of salad from the deli. Emma slides champagne and orange juice into the cool bag, wedging them in with ice packs, balancing the box holding pavlova with strawberries and fresh cream on top. The mince pies are long gone, but I finished off the Christmas cake yesterday, cloaking it in golden marzipan and thick white icing that stands up in peaks the way Mum showed me. I wrap some slices in tinfoil for the picnic basket.
‘See if your dad’s ready, will you, love?’ Emma says.
I drift across to the open door. Dad is outside, by the pool, pacing and talking on his mobile. I tilt my head to one side, straining to catch the words.
‘I know, I know,’ he says, his voice low. ‘It’s hard for me too. But I’ve told you before not to call the house phone! What are you trying to do?’
My heart thumps, and unease prickles my skin like sweat. I step back into the cool of the house, smiling brightly at Emma. ‘He’s coming,’ I tell her. ‘Any minute.’
We drive to the beach, one of the busier ones along the coast from Sunset. Christmas lights have been strung along the dunes and a sound system is playing Christmas songs through huge speakers. A giant Christmas tree stands to one side of a festival-style stage, a blackboard advertising the bands playing later.
The beach itself is a patchwork of family picnics, random mini Christmas trees dotted here and there across the sand, the smell of dozens of disposable beach barbies gently charring Christmas dinner. I spot a group of girls my age playing volleyball in red bikinis with white funfur trim, older kids down by the water with surfboards. Everyone is wearing red hats, fake beards, antlers, tinsel.
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Emma breathes. ‘I knew you’d love it, Honey. It’s so alive, so different!’
‘Amazing,’ I echo.
It really is. Not so long ago I’d have loved the bright, brash spectacle of it all. I’d have asked the bikini girls if I could join in with the volleyball game, wandered down to chat to the surfers, stayed out late to watch the bands and found a party to take me through till Boxing Day. Now, though, I am hiding behind sunshades and a floppy hat, smiling an empty smile. I feel hollow, like I left an important part of me behind at Heathrow Airport and haven’t quite noticed until now.
I eat and laugh and say all the right things; I slather on suncream and stretch out in the sand, drink cold champagne mixed with orange juice. Nobody touches my home-made Christmas cake, and when I taste a piece it turns out to be cloying and heavy, too rich, too solid. I abandon the cake on its bright plastic plate and the sun dries it to a rubble of tasteless crumbs.
Eventually, bored and boiled alive, I head for the ocean, swimming up and down dutifully between the green flags until my limbs ache. Wading ashore, I realize I’m miles from where I started.
As I cross the crowded beach towards Dad and Emma, a couple of lads walk past with surfboards, laughing, talking, feet crusted with sand. A third boy follows, blond, tanned, wholesome, handsome; the last boy on earth I want to see right now. My heart flips over. He catches my eye and his face registers surprise, confusion.
Riley is just as gorgeous as I remember.
‘Hey,’ I say, keeping my voice steady. ‘Thought you’d gone home for Christmas?’
‘Home?’ he echoes. ‘I am home. I live in Sydney, born and bred. We’ve met before, yeah? Sorry … I can’t quite remember your name. Remind me?’
I roll my eyes. Riley likes to play games, I know, but this one is ridiculous.
‘It’s Honey,’ I say as brightly as I can. ‘We met in November, at Sunset Beach. You rescued my sketchbook.’
‘That’s it!’ he says, his face lighting up. ‘I asked you to a party and you gave me the flick. Which is just as well because you’re, what, like, fourteen or something?’
‘Fifteen,’ I say. ‘And it can’t have bothered you that much, or you wouldn’t have added me on SpiderWeb.’
Riley frowns. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘That’s your British sarcasm in action, right? I never quite got around to adding you on SpiderWeb. Sorry for that.’
I shiver, in spite of the scalding heat. Either Riley is a great actor or he’s telling the truth, and much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think he’s faking the boredom and indifference as his eyes slide away from me and over to his mates.
‘So. Happy Christmas and stuff,’ he says. ‘Nice to see you again, um … Honey? Gotta run.’ He lopes across the sand towards his mates.
As far as I can tell, the boy I’ve just been talking to is not the boy who sent me flirty messages at 5 a.m., day after day for weeks on end. And if Riley isn’t Surfie16 … then who is?
We leave the beach late afternoon, before the live music begins, and I don’t even care. Dad and Emma are off to a client’s cocktail party; Dad says it will probably be stiff and formal and achingly dull. I take the hint and wriggle out of the invite, but Emma isn’t comfortable leaving me behind.
‘Sure you won’t come?’ she asks, elegant in a chiffon dress, gold-hoop earrings reminding me yet again that my dad is not as perfect as I thought he was. ‘It feels wrong, leaving you home alone on Christmas night.’
‘We’ve been through all this,’ Dad says. ‘She’ll be fine!’
‘I really will,’ I promise. ‘Mum’s Skyping at eight. I can’t miss that!’
Dad tells me to say Happy Christmas to my sisters, and when I ask if he wants to hang on for half an hour and say it himself he looks at me like I am crazy.
‘We can’t be late,’ he argues. ‘It’d be incredibly rude, and Nielson’s a guy I want to keep sweet. He could put a lot of work our way in the New Year.’
Is Dad serious? Work comes before family, even on Christmas Day?
Before I can argue, he swoops in to drop a swift kiss on my hair and steers Emma out to the car. I resist the impulse to throw the rest of the Christmas cake at the back of his head, but only just. That cake is solid – it could do a lot of damage.
As soon as I’m alone, I open my laptop and click on to SpiderWeb. Looking back over Surfie16’s posts, I see how vague he has been each time I’ve asked about uni or where he lives; ho
w he changed the subject if I mentioned the day we met. I wanted him to be Riley, and he played along – but Surfie16 could actually be anyone; his home page gives nothing away. He could be some middle-aged sicko who gets his kicks from flirting with young girls. The thought makes my skin crawl. And then I remember that I asked him to my house, gave him my address and mobile number.
Nausea rolls through me in waves, threatening to sweep me away.
I go to my friends’ list, select his name and press Delete. Relief replaces the sick feeling. I have had a lucky escape, and I’ve learnt my lesson; I’ll never take risks with Internet safety again.
Minutes later, the familiar jangly call-tone of Skype starts up. When I see Mum, Summer, Skye, Coco, Cherry and even Paddy jostling in front of the webcam all the bad stuff melts away and it is finally, finally Christmas. I watch as they open the presents I’ve sent them, then it’s my turn to open my gifts from home. There’s a cute boho slip-dress, a jewellery-making kit, a hairslide adorned with feathers. Here too, at last, are the silly little surprises that make Christmas magic back home: a snow globe, chocolate-flavoured lipgloss, a book by my favourite YA author and a fortune-telling fish that curls up on my palm to predict ‘true love’. Yeah, right.
We talk for an hour, until Mum and Paddy have to go to finish off the cooking, and Coco finally asks about Dad. I tell her he’s gone out, that he said to say Happy Christmas. ‘He did send presents, didn’t he?’ I check.
‘Money,’ Summer tells me.
‘Did you find out who hacked your SpiderWeb?’ Coco whispers.
‘Not exactly, but it turned out my privacy settings were way off … and let’s just say there were a few people on there who weren’t exactly friends. It shouldn’t happen again.’
When the call ends, I take a deep breath. I kept it together, just about. I didn’t cry, I didn’t fall to pieces, I didn’t let on that Christmas dinner at the beach wasn’t a patch on the fabulous, familiar chaos of Tanglewood. I didn’t say that all I really wanted was to be there, with them.
Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey Page 11