Cherry Blossom Dreams

by Gwyneth Rees

  And it wasn’t as if she noticed when we kept going back.

  Over time I had swept and polished up all the wooden floors and cleaned some of the windows. Last summer I’d got some cushions from the charity shop and made a cosy nook in the window seat. Afterwards, the big main room looked particularly beautiful whenever the sun shone in through the huge sash windows – not that Mum ever noticed on her brief visits to check up on the place.

  Now Blossom House sort of felt as if it belonged to us.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ I told Sean firmly. We hadn’t been since we’d got back from Greece and maybe the cherry blossom would be out by now. In any case, I didn’t see why he should be the only one to get to check up on the place.

  Sean just grunted in reply. Frankly, I was starting to feel pretty annoyed with him. I absolutely hate it when he shuts me out like this. When we were younger we’d told each other everything and been pretty much inseparable. It was only after the move to secondary school that things started to change between us.

  He turned towards me suddenly, looking unusually serious. ‘Listen, I’ve got something to tell you that you’re not gonna like …’

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘You’re not in trouble at school, are you? Are you worried about going back?’ In the past I’d always have known when he was in trouble without having to ask.

  ‘It’s nothing like that. I’ve arranged to meet Zack at Blossom House,’ he said.

  I just stared at him. Zack, his new best buddy, was generally viewed as a bit of a weirdo. The main attraction for Sean, as far as I could tell, was that Zack kept lots of weird reptiles and creepy-crawlies as pets.

  ‘You told Zack?’ I finally got out.

  ‘Zack has got something he needs to keep secret and I said he could keep it at Blossom House,’ Sean told me.

  ‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘And what about keeping Blossom House a secret?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sasha. Zack won’t tell anyone about Blossom House,’ he assured me, ignoring the first part of my question. ‘Look, I’m a bit late so I’m going to run. I’ll see you there.’ He glanced down at my feet as he spoke. He had seen me trying to run in my flip-flops while we were in Greece and he knew there was no way I’d be able to keep up.

  I felt anger boiling inside me as he tore off ahead of me along the pavement. Sean and I had both sworn a solemn oath not to tell anyone about Blossom House, not even our best friends. I hadn’t even mentioned the place to Lily.

  I thought back to the beginning when the two of us had first started hanging out there, letting ourselves in and out with our own keys. I’d known that what we were doing was wrong, but I’d let my brother persuade me that we were acting as house-sitters, protecting the house from squatters and the like.

  For ages we visited the house once or twice a week, mainly at the weekends but sometimes after school too. In the summer holidays we’d bring little picnics with us and I’d read a book on a rug in the garden while Sean lazed on the grass doing stuff on his phone. Sometimes I’d go there on my own – especially after Lily and I had argued, or when Mum or Granny were driving me mad.

  We’ve always had to be careful not to put on any lights after dark or do anything else which might alert the neighbours, but because Blossom House is detached, with trees and a thick hedge on either side, and with a back garden that isn’t overlooked, we’ve always felt pretty safe. And though we had to be prepared for unexpected house viewings, there were hardly any, and as time went by Blossom House began to feel more and more like our very own private hideaway.

  We had escaped to it a lot, right up until recently, when our own home had become a much cheerier place to be again. We’d stopped hanging out at Blossom House quite so often, but it had still remained our own special secret.

  Until now …

  When I eventually reached the house I stopped briefly to admire the magnolia tree, its branches heavy with blossom. There was no sign of Sean or Zack so I hurried down the weedy gravel drive, past the front porch with its sandstone pillars and round to the tall wooden side gate, which my brother had left unlocked. I walked right past the sign saying ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’. I’d never thought that meant Sean and me.

  When I reached the back garden I couldn’t stop myself breaking into a massive smile. The cherry blossom trees were in full bloom and for a moment all I could focus on was the mass of beautiful pastel-coloured petals. Mum says that even as a baby I always loved flowers, and that my dad was always taking pictures of me holding them or smelling them or sitting in a field full of them. And sometimes when I see beautiful flowers or blossoming trees I get this silly dreamy notion that my dad is looking down on me from heaven, or wherever he is, and smiling along with me.

  I looked at the house and my smile faded as I saw my brother and Zack through the window of the downstairs back room. They were looking at something on the floor.

  I had a bad feeling as I opened the back door. I kept thinking of how Sean’s eyes would light up with excitement as he described how Zack’s pet tarantula, Tallulah, had a very hairy bottom to sense any predators that were sneaking up behind her. Or how cool it was feeding live crickets to Zack’s two lizards, Tex and Mex. Or how awesome it was to watch Zack’s corn snake, Percy, swallowing his weekly meal of a dead mouse. Sean and Zack had actually filmed Percy swallowing a mouse (head first) and added a soundtrack of spaghetti-sucking noises when Percy got to the tail. They’d posted it on YouTube and they were always checking to see how many hits they’d got. (Really, twelve-year-old boys are totally gross.)

  I burst into the back reception room.

  They were both squatting on the floor next to a large plastic box. That’s when my worst fears were confirmed. Well, not my worst, because that would have been the tarantula, but when I saw the snake on the floor in front of them, I let out a loud and very genuine scream.

  Sean looked cross. ‘Shut up, Sasha. You’ll scare him.’

  ‘Me scare him?’ I took a wobbly step backwards.

  ‘It’s OK, Sasha, he’s not dangerous,’ Zack said at once.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ I pointed to the snake, which had a suspicious-looking lump a short way down its long body.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sean said. ‘We just fed him.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I snapped.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Zack said, quickly defending his pet. ‘It’s perfectly natural. You eat dead animals, don’t you?’

  Before I could reply, Sean said with a stupid laugh, ‘Not whole ones, she doesn’t. You know … with the skin, and the eyes and the ears, and the cute little hands and feet and tail.’

  ‘Shut up, Sean,’ I hissed at him.

  Zack didn’t look fazed. ‘The point is she still eats them.’ He looked gravely at me. ‘And in any case, you have a choice about what to eat, Sasha, because you’re an omnivore. Monty isn’t.’

  ‘Monty?’ I was keeping my gaze fixed steadily on the snake, which had quite attractive gold, brown and black patterned scales. ‘I thought he was called Percy. He’s a corn snake, right?’ Mum and I had already looked up ‘corn snake’ on the internet just to satisfy ourselves that they were as harmless as my brother claimed.

  ‘Percy is a corn snake,’ Zack said. ‘But this isn’t Percy. This is Monty and he’s a ball python.’

  ‘A python!’ I only just stopped myself from screaming again. ‘Oh my God! Isn’t that poisonous?’

  ‘You mean venomous and no … he isn’t,’ Zack replied calmly. ‘Pythons are constrictor snakes.’

  ‘You mean the kind who coil round you and squeeze you to death? Oh my God!’ I had stepped right back to stand outside the room now.

  ‘Oh, quit being so dramatic, Sasha,’ Sean said abruptly. ‘He’s way too small to constrict you!’ He actually stroked the snake as he added, ‘Don’t let her get to you, Monty – you just keep chomping away.’

  ‘Digesting away,’ Zack corrected him. ‘He doesn’t have teeth, remember.’
/>   ‘Sorry, professor,’ Sean said, as it thankfully clicked with me that the snake’s mouth probably was quite small compared with the size of a human head.

  ‘Monty isn’t mine,’ Zack told me. ‘This guy I know wanted to get rid of him so I said I’d take him, but when I asked Mum and Dad they said no. Mum read something about how a huge python in Africa swallowed a child in some village or something. I keep telling her that Monty is too small to swallow a child but she won’t listen. Plus she’s worried about my sister’s new kitten …’

  Before I could speak, Sean said, ‘So I told him we could keep Monty here. It’ll be cool, Sasha. Mum’s way too scared of snakes to ever let me have one at home. I reckon this’ll be the next best thing.’

  ‘Are you crazy? What if Mum has to show someone round?’

  ‘We’ll hide him.’

  ‘Where?’ I demanded. Zack was already placing the snake back inside its container on top of a towel with something rubbery poking out from under it. ‘Is that a hot-water bottle?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Zack replied. ‘Snakes like to be kept warm. But the hot-water bottle’s just to keep him comfy while we transport him. When we get him upstairs I’m going to plug in his heat mat. There is somewhere to plug it into, right?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sean said. ‘This cupboard I told you about has a plug socket just outside. We can plug it into that and run the cable under the door. Come on. Let’s take him upstairs.’

  ‘It shouldn’t take me too long to find him a permanent home,’ Zack said. ‘You never know. I might be able to talk my mum round.’

  ‘Listen, I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ I exclaimed as I followed them up the staircase.

  I knew where we were going. There was a huge walk-in cupboard in the main front bedroom on the first floor and one rainy day, when Sean and I had been exploring the house, we’d discovered three old dresses and a stack of old board games inside. There had been a few bits and pieces like that left behind in various places around the house and I was guessing they were things that the old lady’s son hadn’t wanted but hadn’t quite had the heart to get rid of either.

  ‘It’ll be OK, Sasha. Stop worrying so much,’ Sean said impatiently as he opened the cupboard for Zack.

  Zack obviously spotted the board games straight away because he read out, ‘Tiddlywinks … Ludo … Beetle … Snakes and Ladders …’ He added with a laugh, ‘Well, Monty, I reckon that’s the one to go for if you get bored.’

  I waited while they lifted up the snake and took out the hot-water bottle and towel, leaving only a thin layer of newspaper on the bottom of the container for Monty to lie on. Then Zack produced a small heat mat out of his bag and plugged it in.

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ I queried. ‘I mean, what if it starts a fire or something?’

  ‘That’s why there’s the thermostat with it,’ Zack said as he plugged that in too and showed us how it worked. ‘Now it can’t overheat … the heat mat goes under the box, like this,’ he added as he showed us how to position the mat with the container half on and half off it.

  ‘Don’t worry, Monty, you’re going to be fine with Uncle Sean and Auntie Sasha,’ Sean joked as he went to fill up a big bowl of water to put in the container.

  ‘Watch out for those dresses – they’re really old and delicate,’ I warned Zack as he disappeared inside the cupboard, carrying Monty’s bulky box.

  I was pretty sure the dresses we had discovered along with the games dated back to the 1950s. I’d looked them up and in the 1950s all the women had beautifully styled hair and wore masses of lipstick, and even when they were really young they looked so glamorous, like film stars, and they all had ever so tiny waists. The old lady must have been very small and slight when she had worn the dresses, because they actually fitted me – though on me the skirts were more ankle length than calf length. One dress was made of emerald green satin with a stiff bodice and a softly pleated, three-layered swishy skirt trimmed with green ribbon. Another had a fitted black velvet bodice and a fuchsia-pink silk skirt, covered with a fine layer of black netting that was studded with tiny black gems. But my favourite of the three was a halter neck red taffeta dress, which had a fitted bodice decorated with red sparkly beads and a very full floaty skirt.

  ‘Monty should be fine in here for a while,’ Zack told my brother as he came back with the water. ‘It’s nice and warm and he won’t need to be fed for another week. But watch you leave those air holes uncovered.’ He made a big thing of sliding the three dresses along the rail away from Monty’s box as if he was afraid they might slip off their hangers and cut off Monty’s air supply.

  As Zack came out of the cupboard I said anxiously, ‘Listen, Zack, you have to leave now. And you have to swear not to tell anyone you came here. Do you promise?’

  Zack gave me an exasperated look. ‘Sasha, just chill, OK? Of course I won’t tell anyone. It’s your friends you need to worry about. If Lily and her pals ever find out about this –’

  ‘They won’t,’ I snapped, practically pushing him ahead of me down the stairs to send him on his way. ‘Just go, will you?’

  After Zack had left – checking his watch and swearing when he saw the time because apparently his parents were really strict about him being home at whatever time they said – I turned and yelled my brother’s name. I was ready to murder him. How could he bring Zack here without even asking me? This was where we came when Mum was moody or we needed to escape. It was the only place where Sean and I really talked together like we used to. And to actually let Zack bring that snake …

  Sean and I were walking back to our house in icy silence, when I spotted Lily in the distance.

  She was walking towards us with Clara and Hanna, two of the popular girls in our year who she hangs out with. Needless to say they are both super confident and good-looking. Clara is tall with short dark hair and she’s already pretty busty. After school she always hikes up her skirt to well above her knees to show off her super-long legs. Hanna is shorter and slimmer with a mop of bushy red hair, and the only reason she doesn’t do the same with her skirt is because she’s scared her mum will find out. I prefer Hanna to Clara, but to be honest both of them make me feel like some sort of social misfit.

  I knew Hanna had just spent her Easter holiday in Poland with her grandparents, leaving Clara and Lily to hang out together at home. Which was a pity because Clara is my least favourite of all Lily’s friends and now she had her arm around Lily’s shoulder as if she owned her.

  ‘There’s Leo’s car,’ Sean said as we approached our house. ‘Mum said he was bringing pizza. I hope he’s remembered extra pepperoni on mine.’

  Just then Lily saw us and waved. I waved back.

  ‘You’re honoured today, Sasha,’ Sean teased. ‘Looks like the A-list might be going to pay you a visit.’

  ‘Shut up, Sean.’

  I had a sudden horrible thought that maybe Lily had told the others about Mum and Leo getting engaged. But I told myself to stop being stupid. Lily likes a good gossip, so you have to make it clear when something you tell her is a secret, but if she promises not to tell, then she never does. At least she never has so far.

  I saw Lily glance at Leo’s car. I knew that she knew it was his. Did the other two? Mum was always reminding Sean and me that if anyone spotted Leo at our house I was to say that he and Mum were friends and that we knew Leo because he’d been Sean’s tutor.

  I stopped to readjust my flip-flop while I waited for them to reach me. If we had to have a chat, then I didn’t want it to be right outside my front door. Sean had already gone on ahead.

  I really hoped Lily wasn’t about to embarrass me in front of her friends. Not that she’d do that on purpose. It’s just that Lily isn’t always very subtle in the way she goes about things. I know she means well when she tries to demonstrate to her other friends that I’m not actually as dorky as they think, but she usually just makes things worse.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, standing up str
aight as the threesome approached. ‘What are you lot doing here?’

  Oops! I’d been aiming for super-casual but it had clearly come out kind of aggressive, judging by the way Lily frowned at me.

  ‘Don’t worry – we’re not calling in for you, Sasha,’ Clara replied sharply.

  ‘The girls called round for me just after you left,’ Lily told me quickly. ‘We’re on our way to Ellie’s house. Did you know she lives at the other end of your street?’

  I shook my head. Ellie is new to Helensfield High. She joined midway through the previous term and I don’t really know her since I’m not in any of her classes.

  ‘Ellie’s mum’s a beautician,’ Hanna informed me. ‘Isn’t that cool?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. One of Mum’s friends was a beautician and had promised to help if I had trouble with my skin when I hit my teens. ‘It’s handy knowing a beautician,’ I continued, trying my best to have the sort of conversation I thought Lily wanted. ‘Especially when you have bad skin.’

  The three of them just stared at me.

  ‘Oh … no … I didn’t mean any of you have bad skin. I just meant …’ I trailed off as Clara self-consciously touched a spot on her chin and gave me a glare before stalking off with Hanna. Not that they stalked very far when they saw Lily wasn’t following.

  Lily snapped, ‘Sasha what is wrong with you? Why do you have to sound so snotty?’

  ‘Sorry … it just came out wrong,’ I whispered. ‘They make me nervous …’ I’m pretty sure Lily’s new friends don’t rate me very highly, even though Lily tries to deny it, which is one of the reasons I always avoid hanging out with them. I prefer to stick with the people I feel comfortable with, and who I know like me just the way I am, even if that does make me a bit of a nobody on the social front.

  Before I knew it, Lily was reaching into my jeans pocket where she knows I keep my phone, pulling it out and slamming it into my hand. ‘You never check your texts either. I sent you one half an hour ago.’