Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel (19 page)

It’s not even as if any of this seems
to make my big sister happy.

‘I don’t know why they’re
saying all this,’ she argues, shooting the twins a furious look. ‘I’m
in school every day, I told you. The letter’s a mistake.’

‘Well,’ Paddy says,
‘that’s a relief. But we’ll ring the school anyway, or call in to see
Mr Keating tomorrow morning, let him know we got the letter. We can’t ignore
it, Honey. If it’s some kind of computer error, they’ll
tell us – no harm done.’

‘It’s for the best,’ Mum
agrees. ‘Set the record straight, sort it out.’

I watch Honey’s face crumble, the
confident mask replaced with anger, panic. Suddenly her excuses seem flimsy,
desperate.

‘I knew you wouldn’t believe
me!’ she yells. ‘You never do, any of you! Don’t try and pretend that
you care what I get up to – you really, really don’t. All you care about are your
horrible chocolates and that stupid order. Don’t kid yourself – you’re not
going to make your fortunes. Those truffles will probably
poison
someone and
then you’ll be sorry! Sheesh, this whole family sucks!’

She storms out of the kitchen, slamming the
door behind her.

‘I don’t know what to do,’
Mum whispers. ‘How did I miss this? How did I get it so wrong? Honey needs more
help and support than I can give her – she’s just so angry, so lost. No matter
what I try to do, nothing ever changes.’

‘We’ll see Mr Keating in the
morning, get to the bottom
of it,’ Paddy promises. ‘We
can’t let her throw her life away like this.’

Honey’s timing could not be worse – my
family is stressed and struggling as it is; we really do not need more of Honey’s
dramas. Later, subdued and slightly shaken, we are eating a makeshift supper of cheese
and vegetable pie heated up from the freezer when she flounces back into the
kitchen.

‘I’ve been speaking to
Anthony,’ she announces smugly, holding out her mobile. ‘He’s had
exactly the same letter, and everyone knows he is the biggest swot in Somerset.
He’s probably never missed a school day in his life. So he reckons it is
definitely
a computer glitch because the school has just emailed him to
apologize. So can you check your emails and see if we’ve had one too?’

‘We’re eating,’ Paddy says
patiently. ‘I’ll check in a minute.’

‘This is my reputation at stake
here,’ Honey says. ‘It’s important!’

Mum stands up, tight-lipped, and fetches her
laptop. She opens it, checks her mail, and there, sure enough, is an email from Exmoor
High. ‘
A faulty software installation
on the school IT
system has resulted in some confusion, with warning letters being sent to students
who are in fact performing very well at present
,’ she reads. ‘How
odd … I’ve never heard of anything like that before.’

‘It happens all the time,
apparently,’ Honey says. ‘So. A problem with the software system. OK?
Don’t all say sorry at once.’

‘Well … I am sorry if we
jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ Mum says.

‘Thank you,’ Honey snaps.
‘Now, I have a ton of homework, so I’d better get on with it.’

We watch her go.

‘
If
we jumped to the wrong
conclusion,’ Mum repeats. ‘But I don’t think we did somehow. Take a
look at this …’

She hands the laptop over to Paddy, who
reads it carefully. ‘It’s from the school’s email address all right.
And the header looks official too …’

‘Look closely,’ Mum says.

We look at the address:
Exmoor High
School, Graystone Lane …

‘What am I looking for?’ Paddy
frowns.

‘They’ve spelt
“Greystone” wrong,’ Mum says. ‘And I
really
don’t think the school would make that mistake, do you?’

Paddy raises an eyebrow. ‘Ah,’
he says. ‘Not so good. The punctuation is a bit dodgy too. It’s from the
school’s email, but …’

‘Something odd is going on
here,’ Mum says, her mouth settling into a thin line. ‘Let’s see what
Mr Keating has to say about it in the morning.’

On Friday afternoon, after school, I am in
the music room auditioning for Miss Noble; next door in the hall, the orchestra kids are
warming up in a screech of trumpet blasts and cello twangs and bursts of unruly
saxophone. Soon, with luck, I will be joining them.

I am playing a violin piece I have composed
myself, and Miss Noble is looking quite amazed and very impressed. I think. I hit a few
dud notes because playing violin in a classroom is very different from playing violin in
an oak tree, but I think this just adds to the atmosphere. After all, I am twelve years
old and mostly self-taught. Miss Noble will not be expecting perfection.

I don’t think I will miss riding
lessons at all, not once I am playing violin solos in the orchestra.

The teacher holds her hand up, smiling.
‘Thank you, Coco,’ she says. ‘A very … unusual style of
playing. Full of character.’

I grin.

‘Sadly, I won’t be able to offer
you a place in the orchestra on this occasion,’ she tells me, and my face falls.
‘You have a certain raw talent, but I’m afraid there’s a little way to
go before you reach orchestra standard. You would need to be able to read music too.
Some lessons might be a good idea.’

‘It’s a no?’ I
double-check, feeling as crestfallen as if I’ve just been voted off
The X
Factor
. ‘Are you sure? If I could just play it again, with my gloves on,
because that’s how I usually do it …’

‘Not this time, Coco,’ Miss
Noble says kindly. ‘Take some lessons and try out again at the high
school.’

I put my violin away in its case, pull on my
panda hat and grab my schoolbag. The world is full of disappointments. Music teachers
who do not recognize genius when they see it, landowners who treat their ponies like
dirt, sisters who break the rules, boys who sulk and growl and sign off their texts with
kisses just to confuse you. Lawrie
Marshall actually came up to me
today in the lunch queue and asked how things were at home, and I just gulped and said
everything was fine because I really did not want any kind of fuss with Sarah and the
others around. They noticed anyhow and teased me all day about Lawrie fancying me, which
did not help my stress levels, seriously.

There’s an icy bite in the air as I
trudge out towards the school gate. My heart is heavier than my schoolbag until I spot
three familiar figures sitting on the wall.

‘Coco!’ Cherry calls, jumping
down and running across the playground. ‘Over here! We’ve come to kidnap
you!’

‘We’re taking you for
tea,’ Skye adds, hooking an arm through mine. ‘We went to the riding stables
and some boy with smouldering eyes told us you’d given up on lessons, and that
you’d be here, pursuing your musical career …’

‘Lawrie Marshall,’ Cherry says,
with a knowing look. ‘He is
so
not the way you described him.’

‘He looks quite cool,’ Summer
tells me.

‘Hot, you mean,’ Skye corrects
her twin. ‘Anyway, here we are. Have you got your stuff? Shall we go?’

I allow myself to be led out of school and
down towards
the seafront cafe, my sisters talking all the time. It
feels good to be with them and takes some of the sting out of being turned down for the
orchestra. I remind myself that many great artists and musicians were not appreciated
properly in their lifetimes.

‘So why have you kidnapped me?’
I ask, as we tumble into the warm, brightly lit cafe. ‘Not that I am complaining,
obviously …’

‘Ah. World War Three is raging at
home,’ Skye explains as we order three big hot chocolates with whipped cream and
chocolate flakes and a modest skinny latte for Summer. ‘You do
not
want
to be there right now. Honey’s in
so
much trouble – Mum is furious and
Paddy is banging the table with his fist and they are all waiting for Dad to call from
Australia …’

We slide into a window seat, the sea in the
distance grey and ominous in the dusk, and for once my sisters’ faces are
serious.

‘So … what happened?’
I ask.

‘She’s been expelled from
school,’ Summer whispers. ‘Excluded, thrown out, asked to
leave … and Anthony too!’

I blink. ‘But … why? Skipping
lessons?’

‘Worse than that,’ Skye tells
me. ‘Mum and Paddy went in to see Mr Keating this morning, and everything came
out. Honey’s been truanting for months, going into Minehead on the school bus and
then disappearing off to town. Turns out she’d met this boy who works at the
fairground, and she was hanging out with him and his friends …’

That pulls me up short.

‘I saw her,’ I whisper.
‘After the firework display in town – she was with these scary-looking girls,
talking to a boy with tattoos. She told me she was working on an art project. I believed
her. I am so stupid …’

‘We’ve all been stupid,’
Skye says. ‘Trying to cover up for her, hoping she’d wise up and sort
herself out. It’s been going on way too long.’

‘She’s been fobbing the teachers
off with forged letters saying she was ill,’ Cherry tells me. ‘Really ill –
the letters talked about blood tests and scans and stays in hospital. She didn’t
say what was wrong, exactly, but she implied it was serious. The teachers were really
upset, and nobody wanted to say anything.’

‘Think they reckoned our family had
enough troubles right now,’ Summer says quietly. ‘With me
having … an eating disorder and everything. That’s why they’ve
been asking how she was, passing on worksheets and homework. Anthony was the main
go-between, passing on letters and collecting work. I guess that means he’s been
doing most of it for her too.’

I bite my lip. ‘But … how
come Honey’s school report didn’t say anything?’ I ask. ‘It said
she had perfect attendance, and that her grades were fine. And … what’s
Anthony got to do with all this, anyway?’

Cherry sips her hot chocolate. ‘Mum
and Paddy were there most of the day,’ she says. ‘It was a major
investigation – Anthony’s parents had to come in too, and everyone was trying to
find out what was happening.’

‘Honey’s had Anthony dangling on
a string for ages now,’ Summer goes on. ‘She’s been going down to see
him once or twice a week, in between seeing her fairground friends. Anthony has a crush
on her; he’d do pretty much anything to please her.’

‘And he’s really brainy,’
Cherry reminds me. ‘Some kind of computer genius.’

‘So …?’

Skye dunks her chocolate flake and bites
into the end. ‘You won’t believe it,’ she says. ‘He’s been
hacking into the school computer system. He altered Honey’s report and made it
look like she’d got good grades and perfect attendance, and he tweaked some of her
coursework marks too … scary!’

I almost choke on my hot chocolate, ending
up with a dollop of whipped cream on my nose. It’s not a good look.

‘No way,’ I breathe.
‘That’s … major! No wonder they’ve kicked her out, and
Anthony. She must have known she couldn’t get away with it!’

‘I don’t think she cared either
way,’ Skye shrugs. ‘And Anthony’s clever, he had it all planned out.
He was sending letters to the school, as well, supposedly from the hospital, and from
Mum and Paddy. Nightmare.’

‘Last night’s email blew it
all,’ Cherry explains. ‘If Anthony had got the school address right, they
might never have been found out.’

My head is spinning. Expelled from school? I
don’t think even Honey can wriggle out of this one. Finally, after years
of pushing the boundaries, breaking the rules and behaving badly, my
big sister has reached the end of the line. It’s terrifying but kind of a relief
at the same time.

‘I should have lied,’ Summer
says into the silence. ‘Last night. Said I saw Honey around at school, so Mum
believed her excuses …’

‘No,’ Skye cuts in. ‘You
shouldn’t, Summer. And nor should I. We didn’t drop her in it, we were just
honest. It’s time we dumped that old “sisters-don’t-tell” rule
because Honey needs help, you know that – we’ve all known it for a while. She
wasn’t always this way …’