Chocolate Box Girls: Bittersweet

by Cathy Cassidy

  When I hear those words I don’t care any more about the ruined record deal or wasted trip to London or the fact that Dad will probably ground me for the rest of my life when I finally go back home. I don’t even care that I’ve just had the worst few days of my whole entire life because I know that everything is going to be OK again. Better than OK.

  Cherry leans up and kisses me, and I want the kiss to go on forever, warm lips, the taste of mint toothpaste, happiness. We pull apart and sit for a long time on the caravan steps beneath the cherry trees, arms wrapped round each other.

  ‘We’ll be OK, won’t we?’ I ask at last.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Cherry says. ‘Promise. But … will you play that song again? “Bittersweet”? Please?’

  So I do.

  I get home at daybreak, and Dad yells and roars and tells me I am grounded until Christmas, except for school and my job at the sailing centre. I shrug. Nothing he says or does can touch me now.

  When I don’t react, he takes away my mobile phone and bans me from the internet, even says he’ll put my blue guitar on the bonfire.

  ‘No,’ Mum argues. ‘Enough! I won’t stand for it, Jim. That’s plain cruel. You’ve pushed one son away – don’t do the same to Shay!’

  I don’t remember Mum ever standing up to Dad before, certainly not to defend me. Dad looks just as shocked.

  ‘I just want what’s best for him!’ he protests. ‘He’ll thank me, one day!’

  ‘Like Ben is thanking you?’ Mum asks. ‘You have two wonderful, talented sons – but you can’t see that because all their lives you’ve been trying to bully and control them, push square pegs into round holes. You’ve spent years trying to turn Ben into a carbon copy of you, but you’ll never do it – he’s different, can’t you see that?

  ‘You’ve ignored Shay because you don’t understand him, which is just as bad. Perhaps he is too young for the music business right now, but you can’t crush his dreams just because they’re different from yours. He’s going to shine, with or without your help!’

  Dad’s face struggles between anger and irritation, finally settling on disgust.

  ‘I didn’t mean it, about the guitar,’ he grates out. ‘I’m not a tyrant, you know. I just want what’s best for them!’

  ‘Then let them make mistakes, and learn from them,’ Mum says. ‘The way we did. You have to stop this, Jim. Let them have the freedom to be whoever they want to be, and be proud of them for that.’

  Dad rolls his eyes and stomps away. In the end, he leaves me with my guitar but sticks with the mobile/internet ban. Mum stops talking to him, except in front of the sailing-centre clients. She stops bringing him cups of tea, gives up ironing his shirts, abandons the morning fry-ups.

  It goes on for a week.

  In fifteen years, I have never known Mum to protest at all, but now she is making her feelings clear, and Dad is not impressed. You could cut the atmosphere at home with a knife.

  It’s actually a relief to be at school. I hang out in the music room at lunchtimes with Cherry, but the other kids are talking to me again – all is forgiven. They ask if I’ve signed the contract with Wrecked Rekords yet; when I tell them there is no record contract, they look disbelieving, like I am trying to hide my imminent fame and fortune from them. It’s like they are expecting me to pop up on X Factor any day now.

  ‘Love the new song,’ one kid says. I can’t help noticing he’s wearing a beanie hat just like mine.

  ‘Brilliant stuff,’ a girl chips in.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I frown. ‘How… ?’

  ‘ “Bittersweet”,’ the beanie-hat kid says. ‘Awesome.’

  ‘Have you been telling people about the song?’ I ask my mate Chris at lunchtime. ‘Kids keep asking me about it. I mean, how do they even know?’

  ‘Hard to miss, these days,’ he says, grinning. ‘You have a lot of support, Shay.’

  ‘Everyone knows who you are now,’ Luke cuts in. ‘You’ve gone way up in the popularity stakes, I kid you not. All the Year Ten girls are crushing on you, and I counted seven kids wearing beanie hats in the canteen yesterday lunchtime. Jammy swine – how did you manage to get so lucky?’

  ‘All hope of a recording contract shot down in flames,’ I remind him. ‘Grounded till Christmas? Mobile confiscated? Banned from the internet? How is that lucky, exactly?’

  ‘You’re obviously getting round the internet ban somehow, though,’ Chris says. ‘Your music page on SpiderWeb is updated every day …’

  I frown. ‘Hang on … I don’t have a page on SpiderWeb!’

  ‘You definitely do,’ Luke insists. ‘That song you wrote for Cherry is on there. “Bittersweet”. Nice one!’

  ‘The page has loads of “likes”,’ Luke tells me. ‘People commenting and stuff. It’s good!’

  ‘But … I don’t get it! I haven’t made a music page!’ I argue.

  Luke takes out his iPhone and searches the net, and sure enough up comes a page called ‘Shay Fletcher Music’. There’s a photo of me, a moody black-and-white snapshot of me playing guitar by a beach bonfire. I’ve never seen the picture before, but I know it’s from the summer, from one of the beach parties we had. Who took it?

  Just as Chris and Luke said, a video of ‘Bittersweet’ is on there; the shadowy, grainy film Honey took of me down by the shore. Someone has ramped up the contrast and chopped the editing around a bit, and the whole thing looks pretty awesome for something recorded so quickly. There’s a sort of home-made cool to it, and the sound is actually pretty good.

  The video has hundreds of comments, and the page itself has almost 1,200 ‘likes’.

  ‘Who put all this together?’ I puzzle. ‘And how has it got all these followers so quickly? I don’t get it! I only wrote the song last week!’

  We scroll through the comments, all good; some of the names I recognize – Cherry, Skye, Summer, Alfie, Finch … plus lots of kids from school and even our maths teacher, Mr Farrell. Others are names I don’t know at all.

  ‘That’s how the internet works,’ Chris shrugs. ‘Things snowball. Some musicians don’t actually need a record deal to make the big time these days, you must know that!’

  My head spins with questions … Honey took the video of me singing ‘Bittersweet’, but would she go to all the trouble of making a page to promote it? I’m not convinced. Cherry, maybe? Honey must have given her the video.

  ‘I love that fanpage on SpiderWeb,’ I tell her on the school bus home. ‘I can’t believe you’d do that for me!’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She smiles mysteriously, sliding the little cherry pendant I bought her up and down on its silver chain. ‘Someone’s on your side, though. Someone who knows a lot about you. It’s so cool … and you’re getting loads of “likes”! Everyone I know is sharing the link!’

  ‘OK … that’s great! But … it’s definitely not you?’ I check.

  ‘Not me. I thought it was Ben, maybe?’

  ‘I don’t think so … not really his style.’

  Cherry shrugs. ‘I don’t suppose it matters who it is … It’s taking off, and that’s what counts! You never know just who might hear that song … if you know what I mean!’

  ‘Um … I don’t, actually,’ I say.

  ‘Never mind,’ she says cryptically. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, if things work out the way we think …’

  ‘Huh? Cherry, you can’t just say stuff like that and leave me hanging!’

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ Skye says, leaning across the aisle. ‘She’s talking rubbish. Just trying to confuse you. It might all come to nothing …’

  ‘What might?’ I growl. ‘You’re not making any sense!’

  ‘Be patient!’ Summer chimes in. ‘If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t … well, no harm done. Don’t worry, Shay!’

  The three of them giggle and whisper and nudge each other, refusing to say anything more.

  The next day, my brother Ben moves out. He packs his little car up with a suit
case and a couple of boxes, scrawls his address on a scrap of paper and hands me fifty quid.

  ‘If you can’t stick it, jump on a train to Sheffield and come find me,’ he says. ‘I mean it, mate. I’m there for you, whenever, whatever.’

  ‘Thanks, Ben.’

  ‘If Dad’s still being an idiot, or school sucks, or even if you just fancy another road trip …’

  I laugh. ‘I know. I’ll miss you,’ I grin, and my big brother hauls me in for a big bear hug. I wonder why it has taken me fifteen years to see just how amazing he really is?

  ‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘Don’t let the old man push you around the way he did with me. You always were better at standing up to him than I was. Be strong. Be your own person.’

  ‘I will, promise.’

  Mum hugs Ben next, wiping away tears. ‘He’s a silly, stubborn man,’ she tells Ben. ‘But he loves you very much. He’ll come round.’

  ‘I know,’ Ben says. He gets into the car and starts the engine, idling a little as he looks up beyond us to the cottage. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling – a jumble of emotions, good and bad, for the man who tried to live his own dreams through him.

  At the very last minute Dad comes down the path, his face like stone. Ben winds down the car window. ‘I hope you don’t live to regret this, son,’ he mutters. ‘I think you’re making a big mistake.’

  Ben just smiles. ‘It’ll all work out. I wish it could be different, Dad, but … no regrets.’

  As the car pulls away, Dad shades his eyes with one hand, watching until the battered VW vanishes over the hill.

  ‘Still proud of you, Ben,’ he says gruffly. ‘Always.’

  He slings an arm round my shoulders. ‘Come on, son. We’ve got classes to take at the sailing centre, trippers to take out. Let’s get going.’

  We work hard, and as the day wears on I notice a thaw between Mum and Dad. Cups of tea appear between classes, smiles are exchanged, words spoken. It’s like the coming of the spring after an arctic winter, slow but sure.

  We’re just clearing up after the last of the punters has gone when two cars pull into the car park in a squeal of gravel. One of them is Paddy’s little red minivan, the other a sleek, silver Citroën like the one Finch’s mum drives. Paddy, Charlotte, Cherry, Skye, Summer and Coco pile out of the red van, and Finch and his mum Nikki spring out of the Citroën.

  I stop dead just outside the shower block, mop and bucket in hand.

  ‘What … is something up? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Cherry tells me. ‘Just the opposite. We have good news!’

  ‘We’ve been talking to your parents,’ Nikki explains. ‘Over the last few days. And we think we have come to an agreement, but of course you’d have to be up for it too …’

  ‘Up for what?’ I ask.

  Mum and Dad appear in the reception doorway.

  ‘We got the final go-ahead,’ Nikki tells them. ‘I thought we should come and tell you in person. Tell Shay.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I saw your new song on the internet,’ Finch takes up the story. ‘ “Bittersweet”. It’s amazing … totally the best thing you’ve done. Just full of feeling. And the more I played it the more I realized it would be absolutely perfect …’

  ‘Perfect for what?’ I frown.

  ‘The film,’ Nikki says. ‘We’ve finished shooting now, so it’s just a matter of editing and putting it all together. We had a few pieces of music in mind for the title sequence, but nothing as powerful as your piece, Shay. We’d like to use it – the message echoes the storyline in our film perfectly, and we’d pay you, of course!’

  I blink, waiting for the news to sink in, start making sense. It doesn’t.

  I look at Cherry, Skye, Summer; they knew, of course. I remember the whispered hints, the giggles, the smiles. But Mum and Dad? Could they have known too? I notice the glint of pride in Dad’s eye, the relief in Mum’s smile. This is something they’ve been arguing about, perhaps for days. Somehow, miraculously, they’ve come to an agreement.

  ‘I can see it could be a good opportunity, son,’ Dad says. ‘We’ll put the money away for you, for when you’re old enough to use it for something sensible.’

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘You’re OK with it? Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Mum grins. ‘If it’s what you want, Shay?’

  ‘It’s what I want,’ I blurt. ‘Definitely, totally. I mean … whoa!’

  ‘This won’t be the same as signing to a big record label,’ Nikki points out. ‘It’s a much gentler way to make your mark. You’ll get a lot of exposure, but it’ll be all about the music itself … not about turning you into some kind of teen pop idol. Your parents are much more comfortable with that idea.’

  Dad raises an eyebrow, as if he’s not too sure at all, but is doing his best to live with it. ‘Might all come to nothing,’ he says gruffly. ‘But if you end up being famous, remember your old dad, won’t you?’

  He smiles cautiously, and fifteen years of misunderstandings begin to fall away. It doesn’t matter, not now. With families, it is never too late to start over.

  Much later, I am walking over to the storeroom den at sunset, the blue guitar slung over one shoulder, when I see a lone figure down on the shore. Honey is looking out at the horizon, her blonde choppy bob ruffling in the breeze, arms wrapped around herself in the chill evening.

  ‘Hey,’ I call, and Honey turns, snapping out of her dream. ‘I just wanted to thank you.’

  ‘Thank me? For what?’

  ‘Well … I think you made that music page on SpiderWeb,’ I say quietly. ‘And the page went a bit crazy …’

  ‘Viral,’ Honey supplies. ‘Not me, though. I don’t have time for good deeds, or the internet – I spend all my spare time studying these days.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’ I grin. ‘Anyway, lots of people saw it, including Finch and his mum … they got the TV people to listen, and now it turns out that “Bittersweet” is going to be the opening soundtrack on that movie they were making. It fits in with the theme, apparently. You probably know all this … half your family came over to the sailing centre earlier, with Finch and Nikki, to tell me the news. The best bit is, Dad finally stopped being pig-headed and he’s going to let me do it …’

  ‘I knew something was going on,’ Honey says. ‘Your luck turned then?’

  ‘I guess. And I have you to thank because you took the video, and I’m pretty sure you posted it online. Everyone’s been talking about it but nobody seems to know who’s behind it … Cherry and the others thought it was Ben, but he’d have said. Besides, he doesn’t even have SpiderWeb.’

  ‘What does it matter who made the page?’ she shrugs. ‘Just leave it. One of life’s great mysteries.’

  ‘I’ve solved it,’ I smile. ‘I loved what you did with the video – very arty.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Best if they think Ben made it, though. We don’t want you getting into trouble again, do we?’

  ‘That won’t happen. Cherry and me, we’re fine now – unbreakable.’

  ‘Right,’ Honey says. ‘Well. That’s … good.’

  I catch the bright glint of tears in her eyes and look away, embarrassed. When I glance up again there’s no trace of sadness, just perfectly painted eyeliner, a glossy smile, the cool, hard look I know so well.

  ‘Run along, Shay,’ she tells me. ‘You know what happens when you’re seen hanging out with me. I’m bad news. Trouble. Selfish to the bone.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘I know you don’t,’ Honey says, and the ghost of a smile flickers across her face. ‘You never did, and I sometimes think you were the only one. But trust me, Shay … some things are better left unsaid.’

  She turns and walks away along the sand, back towards Tanglewood, and she doesn’t look back.

  I set up a table in the foyer of Exmoor Park Middle School, cover it with a red-and-white checked cloth and drape my hand-painted banner, SAVE THE
GIANT PANDA, across the front of it. Then I set out the plates and arrange my home-baked cupcakes, which I have iced with little black-and-white panda faces. Who could resist?

  ‘They look better than the whale ones you made last time,’ my friend Sarah comments. ‘These ones are actually quite cute. What are we charging? Ten pence? Twenty pence?’

  ‘Thirty pence, or two for fifty pence,’ I decide. ‘It’s for charity, isn’t it?’

  It is the first day back after the October holiday and Sarah and I have been allowed out of history ten minutes early to set up our stall, so that we can make the most of the break-time rush once the bell goes.

  Sarah unpacks a Tupperware box of chocolate fridge cake and I set out a slightly dented Victoria sponge, a tin of chocolate crispy cakes and a tub of rock buns that are a little too rock-like for comfort. My friends always rally round at times like this and manage to contribute something. I arrange my handmade leaflets, explaining why the giant panda is endangered and needs our help. I have learnt the hard way that my fellow pupils are rarely impressed by my efforts to raise funds with sponsored walks or silences. They are much more likely to part with their cash if cake is involved.

  ‘OK,’ Sarah says. ‘Thirty seconds and counting. Watch out for those Year Six boys – I’m sure they nicked my flapjacks last time!’

  ‘Nobody will dare swipe so much as a crumb while I’m watching,’ I promise. I pull on my fake fur panda hat with the sticky-up ears and square my shoulders, ready to do battle.

  ‘Here we go,’ I say to Sarah. ‘For the pandas!’

  The bell goes and the foyer floods with kids. They can scent cake, and they swarm around the stall, grabbing panda cupcakes and wedges of Victoria sponge, shoving warm, sticky coins into the collection tin.

  One cute little Year Five girl buys up the whole tin of chocolate crispy cakes for £5, because it’s her mum’s birthday. Then I spot a weaselly Year Six boy trying to pocket a couple of chunks of chocolate fridge cake and grab his wrist firmly. ‘Fifty pence, please,’ I say sweetly. ‘All proceeds go to help the giant panda!’