2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye (6 page)

‘I’m busy,’ I tell him. Which is true because we are having a beach bonfire on Saturday, and there is no way on earth I am asking Alfie along to that.

When I was little, we used to have a bonfire in the garden every fifth of November. We’d dress up warmly in woolly hats and scarves and eat sausage and mash from tin plates. We’d write our names in the air with sizzling sparklers and Dad would stress and growl as he set up flashy rockets and fireworks brought down from London.

Then Dad left, and everything changed. We started going down into Kitnor for the annual firework display instead, and it was still cool, but not as cool as the bonfire days had been.

This year, Mum and Paddy have decided to have a DIY bonfire again, but down on the beach instead of in the garden – a new tradition, a new beginning.

‘So … Sunday?’ Alfie Anderson persists.

‘Homework,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

‘Next Saturday then?’

I sigh. Alfie is not about to give up, I can see that, and to be honest he could do with a few lessons in how to behave around girls. Around anyone, in fact.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.

Without warning, Alfie Anderson flings his arms round me in a messy hug that smells of Lynx bodyspray and school stew. In case you are wondering, this is not a good combination. Over his shoulder, I can see Summer, Millie and Tia, pulling disgusted faces and pretending to make themselves sick.

‘Alfie!’ I yell sternly. ‘Get off!’

He pulls back hastily, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘OK, OK, don’t get excited,’ he says. ‘We’re just good friends, remember? My heart belongs to another.’

On reflection, I am very glad about that.

Later, when we’re back at Tanglewood, Summer is practising pliés and pirouettes in the bedroom while I paint my nails with a cast-off nail varnish she’s just given me – a shimmery purple shade called Misty Sunrise. It’s not really my style, but I don’t want to seem ungrateful.

‘He fancies you, y’know – Alfie Anderson,’ Summer says carelessly, pointing a toe. ‘Unlucky!’

I chuck my pillow at her, and she catches it neatly before it crashes into the vintage birdcage, which is now hanging from the ceiling by the window. Summer has put a little climbing plant inside, one whose leafy tendrils twine up and around the powder-blue bars as well as hanging down. It’s pretty, even if it is swinging a little wildly right at this moment.

‘Watch it, vandal,’ Summer says, and chucks the pillow back at me.

I reach for the cotton wool and nail-varnish remover. ‘You’ve smudged my nail varnish. Typical.’

‘Not my fault you have violent tendencies,’ Summer smirks. ‘Better make sure your nails are perfect if you want to hook Alfie!’

‘Don’t be mean,’ I say. ‘I do not want to hook Alfie Anderson, and trust me, he does not fancy me. He was just asking my advice because he has a crush on someone else.’

‘Yeah?’ Summer asks. ‘Believe that and you’ll believe anything. Don’t encourage him, Skye – boys are nothing but trouble. I am definitely sticking to ballet.’

‘I won’t encourage Alfie,’ I say. ‘He is the least romantic boy I have ever met.’

‘Romance is trouble too,’ Summer warns, resting her arm on the window sill to run through her barre work. ‘It always ends in tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet, or Shay and Honey … Or Mum and Dad …’

I finish repainting my nails and waft them about to dry.

‘Well, how about Mum and Paddy?’ I argue. ‘Not all love affairs are doomed. They’re getting married in June!’

‘There’s always the odd exception,’ Summer shrugs. ‘Paddy’s OK, I admit. But mostly, these things end in tears. Look at your creepy Clara and her gypsy boy …’

I think of a boy with blue eyes and a red neckerchief and tanned hands holding mine, and my heart races. I let go of the thought abruptly.

‘She’s not “my” Clara,’ I say. ‘And she’s not creepy! She’s … well, an ancestor of ours. It’s family history, Summer, and it’s so sad. She must have loved her gypsy boy a lot, to risk everything like that.’

‘And he let her down,’ Summer reminds me. ‘Typical boy.’

8

Saturday feels like the first day of winter.

Summer has a ballet class and Honey is holed up in her room, but Coco, Cherry and I help Mum with the guest breakfasts and room changes, and then head down to the beach where Paddy is building a bonfire for later.

There’s a raw wind blowing in from the ocean as we scour the beach for driftwood. We find weathered branches washed pale by the sea, dragging them back along the sand while Fred the dog runs circles around us, barking, his tail thrashing madly.

Paddy builds a pyramid of storm-worn wood, and Coco, Cherry and I hang lanterns from the handrail of the cliff path that leads down from the garden to the beach, so we don’t trip and fall in the darkness.

‘Is Shay coming?’ Coco dares to ask. ‘Because that might mean Honey won’t come, and Mum asked her specially, and she said she would …’

‘I told him not to,’ Cherry says. ‘The last thing I want is to make Honey feel like she can’t come to her own family’s bonfire party.’

‘She might not come anyway,’ I say. ‘You know what she’s like, lately. It’s as though she doesn’t want to be a part of this family any more.’

‘That’s my fault,’ Cherry says sadly.

‘Only a little bit,’ I say. ‘I don’t suppose you meant to fall for Shay, did you? And he didn’t plan to fall for you. Cupid has rotten aim sometimes, that’s all. If things had been good between Honey and Shay, there wouldn’t have been a problem.’

Cherry shrugs. ‘I guess,’ she says. ‘I can’t help thinking about it, though. Back in the summer, when Dad and I first arrived, Honey said something to me about trying to muscle in and take her place. That’s not what I was trying to do, not at all, but … well, it must look that way to her now.’

I fix the final jam-jar lantern into place. ‘Look, Honey’s
hacked off about Shay, obviously, but that’s just a part of it. She’s still struggling to accept Paddy, and she’s gutted about Dad moving to Australia …’

‘We all are,’ Coco says. ‘Did you know it takes a whole day on a plane just to get there? That sucks!’

‘Majorly,’ I agree. ‘Look on the bright side, though. We’ll be able to go out and visit him when we’re older. Do a gap year or something.’

‘D’you think he’ll want us to?’ Coco asks.

‘Of course!’ I say, although I have no idea if that’s true.

He’s my dad and I love him, but there’s no getting round the fact that he is hopeless, and always has been. Even when we were little he was away in London, working, a lot of the time. When he finally moved out, it felt like he had chosen work instead of family, and that hurt.

Only Honey can’t seem to admit he’s a disaster at being a dad. It seems like she’s looking for anyone else to blame but him, and Cherry and Paddy are easy targets.

Just then Summer comes running down the steps towards us, breathless and grinning.

‘Guess what?’ she says. ‘They’re going to let me do pointe classes in the New Year! Miss Elise says that I’ve been doing
really well at Intermediate Foundation, and that my feet are strong. She thinks I’m ready. She says I don’t have to worry about taking the exam in June because she’s going to move me up a class and put me in with the Intermediate lot. She says she has very high hopes of me!’

‘That’s brilliant, Summer!’ I say. ‘Wow!’

‘Fantastic!’ Cherry and Coco chime in.

Dancing on pointe is Summer’s dream, and it used to be mine too, before I sussed I had two left feet. Miss Elise, who runs the ballet school in town, may well have ‘high hopes’ of Summer but she once told me I danced like a fairy elephant. Nice.

‘I can get pointe shoes for Christmas,’ Summer says, eyes shining. ‘Finally!’

‘Awesome,’ I grin. ‘Miss Elise must be really pleased with you to move you up a class too. How cool is that?’

‘Pretty cool,’ Summer says. ‘A bit scary too, though. There’s only a handful of girls in the Intermediate class, and all of them are older than me. What if it’s too hard?’

‘When has anything ballet-related ever been too hard for you?’ I tell her. ‘My superstar sister!’

But later that night as we are getting ready for the party, Summer puts down her hairbrush and sighs.

‘Skye …?’ she starts tentatively. ‘Have you ever wanted something so badly you were almost too scared to wish for it?’

I frown. This doesn’t sound like my twin.

‘Moving up to this class is a lot of pressure,’ Summer says. ‘It makes me nervous. Everything is going so well, but it just feels so … I don’t know, fragile. One wrong move and it could all fall to bits.’

I have spent so long admiring Summer’s talent for dance – and yes, OK, envying it too – that I’ve never stopped to imagine how it might feel to be in her shoes.

I don’t think her doubts will last more than a moment, though. I know better than anyone how driven my twin can be, how hard she works, how much she loves what she does … she’ll cope fine.

‘Nothing’s going to fall to bits,’ I tell her. ‘Miss Elise wouldn’t suggest moving up a class unless she knew you could handle it. You’re one of her star pupils, Summer!’

Summer looks unsure, but just as quickly the doubts and shadows vanish. She laughs and pulls the brush through her
gleaming hair, confident, determined, in control again.

‘I suppose I can’t quite believe it,’ she tells me. ‘All the things I dreamed about, starting to come true!’

‘Believe it,’ I say, smoothing the skirts of my white cotton petticoats. ‘You’re going to be a prima ballerina one day, and I will be an archaeologist maybe, or something like that, and we will both be rich and famous!’

‘You bet!’ Summer laughs.

I slide on an armful of Clara’s silver bracelets and lift the emerald-green wool coat out from the old pine trunk, with the faintest waft of marshmallow, quickly gone.

My twin pulls a face. ‘You’re not wearing that awful coat, are you? Because I can just about see the appeal of the petticoats and the bracelets, but that coat is ancient! And creepy, obviously.’

The closeness I felt for my twin a minute ago dissolves instantly. Sometimes it feels as if I always have to be there for her, yet never the other way round. Can’t she try to understand the things that matter to me sometimes too?

‘It’s vintage,’ I say reasonably. ‘And warm. And a coat can’t be creepy, OK?’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘But I do.’ I twirl round so that the heavy fabric spins out around me and a flash of satin lining and cotton lace peeps through.

Clara Travers wore this coat. Did she wear it to walk hand in hand with her fiancé, to go to the theatre, the opera, the ballet? Or did she pull it around her on a cold, dark night to run down to the woods, searching for the flare of golden flames in the darkness, the smell of woodsmoke, the warmth of a boy’s hand in hers? For a moment, I’m back in the dream again, in the firelight, watching a boy with blue eyes that take my breath away …

I think my imagination is working overtime.

‘Please, Skye?’ I hear Summer ask, and I snap back to the present. ‘I can’t explain. I just don’t like that coat, OK?’

My twin’s face is creased, troubled, and to keep the peace I shrug off the emerald-green coat and hang it on the clothes rail, pulling on a boxy jacket instead.

Summer nods her approval. She takes a fringey blue scarf from her side of the wardrobe and wraps it round my neck, letting the ends trail down behind. ‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘In fact, you can have it. I don’t wear it any more.’

The scarf’s not really my kind of thing, but I thank Summer and tell her I’ve always liked it. I have – but on her, not me.

Summer rewards me with a smile. But all I can think about is a very different smile, and a boy with wild, dark hair and laughing eyes …