Life is Sweet

by Cathy Cassidy

  1

  We are an hour’s drive from Tanglewood when the sky darkens to the colour of an especially nasty bruise, all blotchy purple with mustard yellow patches showing through. It feels as though the clouds are lowering, hanging just inches above us, like a curtain about to come down on a long and very boring play. We’ve been driving for four hours already; Mum, my little sister Jasmine and me.

  ‘It’s gone all dark,’ Jas says from the back seat, leaning forward to offer me a chocolate coin left over from her Christmas stocking. ‘What time is it, Lawrie? Will we be late for the party?’

  ‘It’s only just gone two in the afternoon,’ I say, peeling the gold foil away from the chocolate coin. ‘Relax; we’ve got bags of time, but I think some kind of a storm is brewing.’

  ‘The weather forecast said heavy snowfalls in the west,’ Mum says, frowning as she drives. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon …’

  ‘Snowfalls!’ Jasmine breathes. ‘Oh, I hope it’s proper snow, the kind you can sledge on and make snowballs with. Maybe we’ll get stranded and have to stay at Tanglewood forever.’

  I laugh. My little sister is so transparent; she hasn’t really settled back into her old school in Kendal. Some of the kids tease her a bit and although she is tougher than she looks I don’t want my little sister to have to handle that kind of stuff. She’s seen enough bullying to last her a lifetime.

  Jasmine loved a lot of things about living in Somerset, but she’d lost a bit of confidence too, living with a psycho like James Seddon … I suppose we all did. He was Mum’s boyfriend, and although he seemed fine to start with, it turned out he had a vicious streak. He was cruel to his animals, cold with his friends and a total bully with us. We were supposed to be his family, but he never stopped telling us that we were dirt, rubbish, scum.

  He made me feel so angry, so helpless, so bad. He made all of us feel that way.

  Seddon doesn’t live in Somerset any more; Coco messaged me a while back to say he’d sold up and gone to live with his brother in Canada, and although I’d rather he was in prison (which is what he deserves for the way he treated us, not to mention the animals) I am also a little bit glad. I am glad because now there’s an ocean between us and because I can breathe a little more easily now that I’m not breathing the same air as him. My mind drifts, and suddenly I am back there …

  I’m on my knees in the mud, fumbling with the rope round Sheba’s neck, tugging at the knot while the skinny, scrawny dog whimpers and yelps.

  ‘Hurry, Lawrie!’ Coco whispers. ‘Quick!’

  And then a flashlight flares and a shot rings out. Coco steps back into the shadows, leading the rescued ponies with her, and I see Seddon, shotgun in hand, striding towards me through the darkness.

  ‘Lawrie?’ he yells. ‘Is that you, you useless boy? I’ve told you before to leave that dog alone – she’s not a pet, she’s a guard dog!’

  I manage to get Sheba’s collar off and the two of us duck away from Seddon … but not quickly enough. He grabs my arm and throws me to the ground. I can hear Mum and Jas up by the house, calling me, but when I scramble up Seddon comes for me again, shoving me back against the outbuilding. Pain sears through my arm like fire. I don’t actually see Seddon hit my mum; I just hear the harsh slap of his palm against her cheek in the darkness …

  I shudder, remembering the last time I saw James Seddon; good riddance to bad rubbish. He was a bully and conman extraordinaire. He’d come into our lives with smiles and promises and to start with we’d thought he was great … By the time we’d found out what he was really like, it was too late.

  Sheba is cuddled up in a blanket on the back seat with Jasmine, trying to snuffle her way into the net of foil-wrapped chocolate coins. She’s our dog now; Mum, Jas and I took her north to Kendal when we went back to live with Gran, and now she’s well fed, with a sleek, shiny coat and the waggiest tail in the northern hemisphere. Seeing her now, you’d never believe she’d been so ill-treated. She should be in a travel crate or have some kind of dog seatbelt, but she’s scared of crates and kennels and hates any kind of harness, and we haven’t the heart to force her.

  ‘Mum?’ Jas pipes up. ‘Are we nearly there? I want to see Caramel before it gets dark!’

  ‘Not too far now, I promise …’ Mum says. ‘We’ll be there about four, just in time for tea. And yes, of course you’ll see Caramel!’

  Caramel was Jasmine’s pony – a birthday present from Seddon – but really the pony had just been an excuse for him to bully and control both Jasmine and Caramel. He’d been on a power trip; he’d wanted to break Caramel’s spirit and had tried to do the same to us. I’d tried to look out for the ponies, but it had been Coco who’d taken matters into her own hands and rescued them, hiding them away from Seddon. That was how I’d got to know Coco really, because before that I’d always thought she was kind of bossy and annoying … when actually she’d turned out to be pretty amazing.

  She’s my best friend; or at least she was before we moved back to Kendal last year. I have missed Coco. I ended up with a bit of a crush on her in the end, after that whole pony rescue thing; and now more than a year has gone by and I can’t help wondering if I will still feel that way when I see her again.

  And if I do, what then? I am not exactly known for my wit, charm or smooth chat-up lines. Coco will probably swat me away like some annoying insect and go on being awesome in her own sweet way.

  Anyway, there’d been no way we could’ve turned up at Gran’s house with an Exmoor pony and a half-starved dog; seriously … Gran doesn’t even have a front garden. She’d let us keep Sheba, but Caramel had to be left behind. I love my gran, but I can’t help thinking she’d be just a tiny bit relieved if Mum found a job that allowed her to move out and rent a little flat for us all. She’d never say that though, and it’s not possible anyway because we are barely scraping by as it is on the wages Mum earns at the cafe.

  So Coco has been looking after Caramel and sending Jas occasional picture updates, but my little sister is desperate to see her pony again. Right now, she looks like she’ll explode with excitement any minute.

  ‘I can see the sea!’ she yells suddenly, and everyone sits up as the rugged Somerset coast appears to the right of us. The sea is dark grey and brooding under a gloomy sky. Minutes later we turn into a narrow, twisty lane that climbs uphill and at last we come to the rickety gate that marks the driveway to Tanglewood. It’s a rambling, slightly shambolic Victorian house, complete with turret and leaded glass windows, now lit up with fairy lights and stick-on paper snowflakes. This place was our home too, for a little while the autumn before last, after we’d got away from Seddon.

  The car slows, crunching along the drive, and as Mum parks beside the house the kitchen door bursts open, spilling a mad gaggle of sisters who rush across the gravel to greet us. We get out of the car, creaky from sitting still for so long, stretching, laughing. Jasmine is shy suddenly, hiding behind me, but the sisters – Cherry, Skye, Summer, Honey and Coco – wrap her in hugs and take her hands and pull her forward, and her face lights up in a way I haven’t seen for a very long time.

  I shoot a shy glance at Coco; she’ll be thirteen now, like me, and even in her usual uniform of baggy sweater and skinny jeans she looks older, cooler, more aloof.

  ‘Sandy, Lawrie, Jasmine … you made it!’

  Charlotte, Coco’s mum, hugs Mum, welcoming us all. ‘How was the drive? It’s such a long way, but we’re thrilled you’re here! We’ve got some soup on the Aga if you’re hungry …’

  Coco’s stepdad Paddy appears in the doorway of the chocolate workshop, grinning, and we start moving towards the hous
e because it’s way too cold to be standing around outside on 31 December.

  ‘Hey,’ Coco says, falling into step beside me. ‘Great to see you, Lawrie! It’s been ages!’

  ‘Too right,’ I say gruffly. ‘Thought you might have forgotten what I look like …’

  ‘As if,’ Coco laughs. ‘Looks like those two remember each other too.’

  Sheba is bouncing about on the driveway, skidding from person to person until she finds Fred, and then the two dogs go into a mad frenzy of tail-wagging delight.

  I can feel a weight lifting from my shoulders, a weight I hadn’t even realized was there. It’s good to be back in Somerset; good to be with Coco. We went through a lot together, but so much has happened since. I wasn’t sure how it would be when I saw her again. It might have been awkward or embarrassing, but I don’t think it’s going to be either of those things. It’s going to be cool.

  And then the first flakes of snow begin to fall out of the darkening clouds, and I catch Coco’s eye and the two of us laugh out loud, turning our faces up to the sky.

  2

  We sit round the scrubbed pine table at Tanglewood, eating hot soup and crusty bread fresh from the Aga.

  It feels like time is peeling away, like the last year never happened and we’re still living here, a part of the kind, crazy chaos that is Coco’s family. We’d only stayed at Tanglewood for two weeks, but it had been the happiest time we’d had in Somerset. Mum had just left Seddon in the aftermath of the pony kidnap drama and we’d been technically homeless. Coco and her family had made us welcome, treated us as family.

  Mum had worked for a while in Charlotte and Paddy’s chocolate business, helping them with a big order, and Jas and I had just let ourselves relax. Fun, mayhem, hard work, evenings draped across the blue velvet sofas watching DVDs … those are the things I remember about our time living at Tanglewood. That and Coco sitting in the branches of the old oak tree practising her violin, in her duffel coat and fingerless gloves. She never seemed to get any better, but I never tired of listening. By then, I thought everything Coco did was cool.

  ‘If everyone’s finished their soup I’ll make hot chocolate,’ Coco’s eldest sister Honey says. ‘With squirty cream and marshmallows – that’s the way you like it, Jasmine, right?’

  Jasmine’s face lights up. ‘Oh yes! With extra chocolate sprinkles on top?’

  ‘Obviously,’ Honey promises. She pours milk into a saucepan and stirs in grated chocolate from the chocolate workshop’s reject batches.

  ‘We should patent Honey’s hot chocolate recipe,’ Charlotte comments. ‘It’s amazing. And once we’re all warmed up, we have a party to organize …’

  ‘Mum’s invited half the village, as usual!’ Coco says with a grin. ‘But you’re the guests of honour – I can’t believe you’re really here!’

  ‘Nor me!’ I say, grinning. ‘Feels kinda weird!’

  ‘But good weird,’ Jasmine says, her face shining. ‘Can I see Caramel now? D’you think she’ll remember me?’

  ‘I know she will,’ Coco says. ‘I remind her all the time … We’ll go the minute we’ve finished the hot chocolate.’

  ‘And tomorrow you can go for a ride, perhaps,’ Charlotte says. ‘Caramel is much calmer than she used to be. We’ll see what the weather is like …’

  We all look towards the window, where the snow is swirling.

  ‘It’s settling,’ I comment. ‘I hope it doesn’t spoil the party …’

  ‘It’d take more than a bit of snow to stop people coming to one of our New Year parties,’ Skye declares. ‘They’re legendary. And we live in the country, remember? A bit of snow is nothing!’

  ‘We’re walking distance from the village,’ Paddy reminds me. ‘People will come, snow or no snow! Even if they don’t, you guys are here, and that’s a party in itself … We’re all so glad you could make it. We’ve missed you, you know!’

  ‘We’ve missed you too,’ Mum says. ‘We often think of you and wonder how you’re all getting on. They stock the Chocolate Box truffles in one of the fancy delis in town now. Things seem to be going well for you!’

  Paddy nods. ‘Very well,’ he agrees. ‘One of the big department stores is stocking them in all their branches, and lots of delis and luxury food shops are taking them too. We’re actually in profit now, which is quite something.’

  ‘Wow,’ Mum says. ‘That’s terrific!’

  Coco hands round the steaming hot chocolate, and there is silence for a few moments while we spoon up the melting marshmallows and sip the rich, creamy chocolate.

  ‘And we’re going to be on TV!’ Coco blurts. ‘Aren’t we? A whole reality TV series about us!’

  ‘Finch’s mum set it up for us,’ Skye chips in. ‘It sounds pretty cool …’

  ‘A TV show, huh?’ I tease. ‘You’re famous now!’

  ‘Not famous, exactly,’ Coco says. ‘Well, not yet!’

  ‘Will Caramel be in the programme?’ Jasmine wants to know. ‘She might be famous too!’

  ‘She’ll be the star of the show,’ Coco says. ‘C’mon, let’s go see her – you too, Lawrie. She’ll remember you; you helped me save her, after all!’

  We grab our coats and slip outside, the three of us crunching across the drive through a thin covering of freshly fallen snow.

  ‘It’s going to be chaos now in the house … getting everything ready for the party,’ Coco says, pushing open the stable door. ‘We won’t be missing much, trust me!’

  As my eyes adjust to the darkness I see Caramel watching us from the far corner; small, solid, steady. The stable smells of fresh hay and warm pony with a faint scent of saddle oil. There’s a sudden bleating noise, and a small, insistent shove against my legs.

  ‘Humbug!’ I say, laughing out loud. ‘I forgot about you!’

  The light flicks on and I see Humbug, Coco’s pet sheep, pushing her head against my hand to be stroked, and Caramel the Exmoor pony, stocky and rough-coated; the pony that brought Coco and me together, the pony that started everything. She gazes at us from soft brown eyes, ambling forward to nudge at Jasmine and me with her mealy-pale nose, soft as velvet.

  ‘She remembers!’ Jasmine cries, flinging her arms round Caramel’s neck.

  I look at Coco and grin, and I remember too.

  3

  Jasmine is in heaven. Coco shows her how to brush Caramel and groom her mane. My little sister shows no signs of getting bored with the task, moving on to plait Caramel’s mane with painstaking care.

  ‘I haven’t been all that good at keeping in touch,’ Coco says. ‘I meant to – it’s just that there never seems to be time …’

  I laugh. ‘You’ve got the world to save, right?’ I quip.

  Coco sent a letter just after we moved and she posts and messages now and then on SpiderWeb, but neither of us is good at that kind of stuff. When I think of Coco I always imagine her riding Caramel across the moors or holding a placard about saving the whales … She is not really a letter-writing kind of girl.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I shrug. ‘I’ve been a bit rubbish too. Still, we’re here now, I guess …’

  Coco flops down on to a hay bale, leaving Jas to fuss over Caramel. An awkward silence descends and I run lines in my head, wondering how to break it. I can’t say that Coco looks older, prettier; it just sounds too cheesy, too stupid, even though it’s true. And now, in the half-light, my confidence has ebbed away and I can’t find anything to say at all. I sink down a few hay bales along, pink-cheeked.

  Coco catches my eye, and I hope the dim lighting doesn’t show my discomfort. ‘You’ve got taller,’ she says, as direct as ever. ‘And you got your h
air cut! I think I liked it better before …’

  ‘The head at our school is super-strict,’ I reply. ‘I’m going to grow it again …’

  ‘Have you settled in OK back in Kendal? No thoughts of … well, coming back to Somerset, maybe?’

  ‘I think we’d all love that,’ I admit. ‘Now that Seddon’s gone. We do miss Somerset, Jas especially – but Kendal is OK. Or it would be, if Mum could get a better job and we had a place of our own instead of squashing in with Gran and Granddad. School’s OK, though. I’ve got friends …’

  ‘Anyone … special?’ Coco blurts out. ‘Like … maybe … a girl or something?’

  I am momentarily speechless. I once told Coco that I liked her a lot, back when we were staying at Tanglewood; she told me she wasn’t ready for a boyfriend. Now she seems very curious about my love life … or, to be more precise, the lack of one.

  ‘No girls,’ I say, as carelessly as I can manage. ‘No time for all that …’

  ‘Same here,’ Coco agrees. ‘You know me, I am going to dedicate my life to saving the giant panda and the Siberian white tiger. No room for romance.’

  Silence descends again, empty and awkward. Was Coco trying to tell me, in a roundabout way, that her views on romance have changed? If so, I have put my foot in it big style. How on earth do people ever manage to tell each other they’re smitten? It’s a nightmare, like picking your way through a minefield blindfolded.

  ‘So you’ll probably just stay in Kendal, then?’ Coco asks.

  ‘Probably,’ I say. ‘There are more jobs for Mum there, even if a lot of them are seasonal and poorly paid. I mean … I do miss Somerset. I even miss you, actually; there’s nobody in Kendal who teases me or winds me up like you used to …’