2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye (12 page)

Millie has always liked Summer, but in a sweet, star-struck way, as if my twin was slightly out of her league. They’re
not friends in the way we’re friends – Millie and I understand each other, we’ve always been close.

Suddenly, it’s starting to look a little different. Did Millie want to hang out with Summer all along? Am I second best to my own twin – again?

‘Maybe she was in town anyway,’ I say, looking for an excuse so it won’t seem like my best friend is ditching me.

‘Maybe,’ Summer agrees. ‘I just thought I’d say. She is hanging around me and Tia a lot these days. It’s weird, and it was weird it being the three of us today, without you.’

Summer and I don’t say any more about it, but I am starting to feel more and more like a shadow girl. First Alfie, then Millie, both crushing on my twin in their own ways. Why does nothing ever seem to be truly mine?

Predictably, Honey doesn’t appear at supper. We eat the cream cakes, but the rich, sweet taste can’t take away the sourness from the day.

Before I go to bed I leave the cake box with Honey’s lone chocolate eclair just outside the door of the turret bedroom, a peace offering, and in the morning, sure enough, it’s gone.

17

The following weekend we go to pick up the Christmas tree. It may not be the tallest one in Somerset, but it’s big all right. It takes all of us to lift it off the roof of Paddy’s minivan and carry it into the house, hauling it upright in a slow battle with spiky branches running their fingers through our hair.

Honey is the only one not helping, but at least she is still speaking to me, thank goodness. She used to love putting up the Christmas tree, when we were younger, but these days everyone knows it’ll be way less stressful without her.

‘It’s the best tree we’ve ever had!’ I declare.

‘We might need more tinsel,’ Summer says.

‘And another string of lights,’ Coco says, deflated. ‘We’ll have to wait to decorate it. I wanted to do it now!’

‘We can,’ Paddy says brightly. ‘We’ve got our stuff from the Glasgow flat! There’s plenty of tinsel, and baubles, and another string of lights. Cherry, I think our box of decorations is in the storeroom next to the workshop …’

‘Ours is on top of my wardrobe if someone wants to fetch it,’ Mum says. ‘And then I think we need the Christmas CD …’

We take our time with the decorations, listening to cheesy Christmas songs and draping coloured lights and shiny baubles and the brightly painted wooden decorations that belong to Paddy and Cherry in among the branches. We add the home-made decorations too, the lumpy salt-dough shapes we made when we were little, the sequinned felt hearts, the little criss-crossy twig stars sprayed with fake snow.

There are even six beautiful birds, made from glittery card with carefully folded paper tails that look like Japanese fans, Cherry’s origami-inspired contribution.

Mixing two boxes of decorations together feels good, like combining our two families to make one patched-together one. It’s like adding 2 + 2 and coming up with a whole lot more than 4, if that makes sense.

‘Which angel?’ Mum asks as we look at the two contenders, the Costellos’ cool sparkly shop-bought one and our papier-mâché ballerina, dressed in vintage silk and net. We’ve had it forever – Mum made it herself, back in her art student days, and I have always loved it.

‘It has to be your ballerina one,’ Cherry says firmly. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

Paddy lifts Coco up to place the ballerina angel on the top of the tree and Summer switches the lights on and we cheer. The tree looks magical, like something from a storybook.

‘It smells so good,’ I breathe. ‘Like Christmas!’

‘We’re doing it properly this year,’ Mum grins. ‘Our way. New traditions to suit ourselves, mix it up a bit, make it special!’

‘Will we still hang up stockings?’ Coco wants to know. ‘I know we are practically teenagers now, but we have to have stockings.’

‘Me and Skye will be thirteen in February,’ Summer points out. ‘You are only eleven, Coco. You’re miles behind us.’

‘But we’re definitely not too old for stockings,’ I put in. ‘Any of us. Along the mantlepiece?’

‘I used to have a pillowcase at the end of the bed,’ Cherry says. ‘But stockings along the mantlepiece would be cool!’

‘We always write lists for Santa and throw them into the fire and see if the wind takes them up the chimney,’ Coco says. ‘Can we still do that?’

‘Can we have yule log instead of Christmas pudding?’ I request.

‘And no sprouts?’ Paddy chips in.

‘And nut roast instead of turkey because I am vegetarian?’ Coco adds.

‘Anything you want,’ Mum laughs. ‘Nut roast is fine, but the rest of us might still want turkey, Coco! And I’d quite like a Christmas Eve party, invite some of the friends and neighbours. Fancy it?’

‘Cool!’ Summer says. ‘And you’ll all come and see me in the dance-school Christmas show, won’t you?’

‘Wow – yes please,’ Cherry says. ‘I’ve never been to a ballet before!’

On Friday, Summer discovers Alfie’s card and present in her locker. (The lockers at Exmoor Park Middle School
never actually lock – we lost the keys so often Mr King got all stressed out and did away with them completely.)

‘Who could it be?’ she asks, wide-eyed. ‘It’s beautiful! But it just says
a secret admirer
, so I have absolutely no idea …’

She shows me the card, which features a ballerina girl wearing a Santa hat and a red dress trimmed with white fun fur. I spot Alfie across the corridor, watching, his lips twitching into a smile as Summer slides the pink flower hairclip into her hair.

‘Wow,’ Millie breathes at my elbow. ‘This is so, so romantic!’

‘Could it be Aaron Jones?’ Summer muses. ‘He’s in my French class. Or Carl Watson? Or Sid Sharma?’

‘Or someone else completely,’ I say carefully, trying not to catch Alfie’s eye.

‘Shall I ask Aaron?’ Millie offers. ‘Go on, Summer, I don’t mind. You need to know, and I will be very subtle.’

‘No, it’s OK, Millie,’ Summer says, and that’s a good call, because Millie is about as subtle as a leopard-skin bikini. ‘Aaron’s cute, though. Tia’s always saying she thinks he might fancy me. But then, Carl did wink at me yesterday in the dinner hall, and lots of girls are crushing on Carl.
Then again, Sid’s little sister does ballet, so I see him at the dance school sometimes, and he is SO much nicer out of school.’

‘Summer,’ I say. ‘I thought you weren’t interested in boys?’

‘I’m not,’ she shrugs. ‘Just … curious, y’know! You would be too, if it was you!’

‘It’s not me, though, is it?’ I say, and somehow it comes out kind of sad and mean, so I laugh to take the sting out of my words.

‘It will be,’ Summer grins. ‘Soon, I bet. I can’t explain, Skye, it makes you feel all tingly and happy inside to know that somebody … well, y’know. Likes you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Millie chips in. ‘We grow up at our own pace, all the magazines say so. I expect you’ll catch up soon, Skye!’

I try to smile, but a fizz of anger simmers inside me. I feel much older and wiser than Millie, sometimes. Growing up is not all about glittery lipgloss and clumpy shoes and dissolving into giggles whenever a boy looks in your direction, surely? But Millie’s words make me feel about five years old.

As for Summer – well, I do know about the tingly, happy feeling she’s talking about, even if it is only from my dreams.

All week the dreams have been running through my sleep like an old movie, a Technicolor window on someone else’s past. And ever since Mrs Lee’s weird prediction last week, thoughts of Finch are refusing to stay confined to dreams. They seep out into the daytime too.

It’s like having a secret crush, but one who is even more unattainable than a movie star or an indie-band boy. I don’t believe in ghosts, so how come I am crushing on one?

‘What if the present isn’t from Aaron or Carl or Sid?’ I ask my twin. ‘What if it’s someone ordinary? Or … someone annoying?’

Summer frowns. ‘Well, it won’t be, will it?’ she says, puzzled. ‘It’s definitely someone cool. You can tell because of the thought that’s gone into it.’

‘Right …’

‘Someone like … well, like Alfie Anderson, for example, would never think of this,’ she says. ‘If he was trying to impress someone, he’d give them chewing gum that made their tongue go blue, or a stink bomb or something.’

In the distance I see Alfie gazing over, starry-eyed. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

‘Let’s meet at lunchtime,’ Millie is saying to my twin. ‘We can make a list of possible boys. And then we could start chatting to them, all casual, and see if they seem interested … oh, this is so exciting!’

The bell rings and Summer heads off to class, Millie clinging on to her arm. I am torn between hurt for Alfie, hurt that no one would think to send
me
a Christmas love note, and hurt that my best friend is drifting away from me.

These last few weeks, Millie doesn’t want to talk about hopes, dreams or ambitions. She doesn’t want to talk about the chocolate workshop or going to the beach or what it would be like to go back in history and wear a crinoline dress and style your hair in ringlets. She only wants to talk about boys.

Well, that’s fine – I guess. I just never thought she’d ditch me for my twin sister.

We are walking through the woods, dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, the skinny lurcher dog running on ahead over the soft, mossy ground, the blush-pink mallow flowers to either side of us.

It’s hot, even in the soft shade of the woods. Finch holds my hand in his, and even though I cannot hear what he is saying, I can feel the warmth of his skin against mine. He is grinning, talking, brushing the dark waves back from his face, pulling the red neckerchief loose as he pulls me forward through the little twisty trees.

When we reach the stile at the edge of the woods, he jumps over quickly, turning back to help me climb it. He’s in a white shirt and red braces, his waistcoat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, his bare arms tanned as he reaches up to lift me down.

I spin away from him, running down through a meadow starred with wildflowers. I splash through a stream, run on through another field, face turned up to the blue sky, laughing.

We’re at the beach, and he takes my hand again, helping me over the rocks, and we slip and slide across the stones and shells and the gritty sand until we’re at the ocean’s edge, the cold water rushing against our feet.

And then his arms fold round me, holding me close, so close I can hear his heartbeat. When his lips touch mine I don’t know who I am any more, Skye Tanberry or Clara Travers or someone else completely, and I don’t even care. I just care about the taste of salt and happiness, my fingers sliding down his cheek, twining into his hair. The warm sun beats down on us, the icy water laps our feet, and I have never felt so alive, alive, alive.

It is just a dream, of course, but when I wake I can still taste salt. Perhaps it’s just my tears? It’s not real, and I want it to be, so, so much. I turn over and close my eyes, but I cannot get back to the dream, no matter how hard I try.