‘It makes perfect sense,’ Honey says. ‘And I’m glad about that, because I have something to tell you. It’s a bit major, Ash. You’d better sit down …’
The smile freezes on my face, and anxiety seeps in again.
Expect the unexpected?
We sit side by side on a bench looking out across the river, and Honey starts to talk. She tells me that she missed me like crazy, hated the thought that I would go back home to Sydney to study on the other side of the world. She hated the thought so much that she filled in an application form on my behalf for the London School of Journalism, attaching a folder of email and blog print-outs as evidence of my writing.
‘I know I shouldn’t have,’ she is saying. ‘I know it wasn’t my business, that I should have asked, but it was only an idea to start with … I knew it was too late for this year, but I thought that maybe if they offered you a place for next October you’d at least have a choice between that and Sydney. I just thought –’
Hope and fear pulse through my veins.
‘Did they?’ I interrupt. ‘Did they offer me a place for next year?’
Honey looks up at me, her face stricken in the soft glow of the fairy lights above.
‘No, Ash,’ she says, and my heart plummets.
‘They’re not offering you a place for next year,’ she continues. ‘They’re offering you a place for THIS year. Like … next month. If you want it, that is!’
‘W-what?’ I stammer. ‘How come? Are you sure? I mean … SERIOUSLY?’
‘Seriously. They loved your writing, really loved it. Apparently someone deferred at the last minute, and they’ve given the place to you … along with a scholarship. So yell at me if you like. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but … well, I did!’
Expect the unexpected … something ends and something fresh begins … a new challenge is just round the corner …
‘You did it for me?’ I whisper, pulling her close. ‘I can’t believe that. You’re awesome, Honey Tanberry!’
I am laughing so much that Honey’s anxious face relaxes at last and she joins in, and I pull her to her feet and we run down to the water’s edge. We stand for a moment looking out across the river, and when she turns her head away I notice that Honey’s hair is tied back into a fishtail plait woven with silver stars that glimmer in the moonlight.
Look for the girl with stars in her hair. She can help you to decide your future …
I take Honey’s hand, still laughing, and whirl her round and round on the pavement in time to the echo of what sounds like distant flute music … although I may just be imagining that bit.
8
In the end, my year of travelling comes to a halt a few months early, but not before I got to spend a wonderful, magical weekend in Paris with the girl I love.
We went up the Eiffel Tower, had dinner in a cafe where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway used to drink, saw the Moulin Rouge, went window-shopping along the Champs-Élysées, wandered around the cathedral of Sacré-Cœur and walked beside the river in the moonlight.
We packed a lot in, and it’s just as well because it took me all weekend to actually believe what Honey has told me. I have a place at a prestigious university to study something I know I will love, and none of this will bankrupt my family because I have savings and I have a scholarship, and the minute I find digs in London I will get a part-time job in a cafe. My skills at taming the most unruly coffee machines are second to none, plus I can fix a mean fruit smoothie.
Could it be any better?
OK, London isn’t especially close to Tanglewood, but it’s a whole lot closer than Sydney would have been – I can head down to Tanglewood for holidays and Honey can come up to London for wild weekends and sightseeing and general craziness.
Telling my sister and her family was tough, but Tilani was happy for me. She has been the best sister ever, looking out for me since I was tiny, after our dad walked out, babysitting when Mum was working. Later, when Mum died, Tilani took me in, even though she’d just married Sam. The two of them never once made me feel like I was a problem, a burden … We were family, pure and simple.
‘You’re amazing, Ash, always remember that,’ Tilani said when I called to tell her about the change of plan. ‘The best little brother in the world. I’m going to miss you like mad, but I’m so, so pleased for you … What an amazing opportunity! I know there’s a whole big wide world out there for you … Go and explore it, little brother. Have fun, have adventures … live your life! I’m so proud of you, Ash, d’you know that?’
I guess I know it now.
I grew up thinking I had a broken family, but it turns out that wasn’t true. I have my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew and nieces … plus Honey and all of the lovely Tanberry-Costellos – even the friends I’ve met on my travels, especially Daan and Ernst. Family is more than just blood ties, after all … it’s the people who are there for you, the people who care.
Anyway, my nomad days are over – for a while at least.
I now have a bedsit flat (the size of a large postage stamp) in a student house in Kilburn, a job in a little Italian cafe just round the corner and a bike borrowed from Paddy, who says he never used it anyway, to get around London on. All this in a couple of weeks. My life has turned upside down, but in a good way.
And now I am standing on the steps of the university, the borrowed bike shackled firmly to the railings behind me, clutching a rucksack full of books and a new laptop, about to start my very first day. I’ve been so busy there’s been no time for second thoughts. Every day I’ve felt more thrilled by the idea, excited to be living in London, studying something I know I will love … but I’m not kidding myself it’ll be easy.
I remember watching the French students in the streets around the Sorbonne in Paris; I remember the old fortune teller, with her cheesy lines that all came true. Well, here’s the big challenge that’s just round the corner … It’s a good job I like challenges.
A few students file past me as I stand on the threshold, all of them looking older, cooler, more sure of themselves than I am. Just for a moment I feel out of my depth, scared that there’s been some mistake. I falter, wondering suddenly if I can do this, and then my phone buzzes in my pocket and I take it out and check the message. It’s from Honey.
Hey … thinking of you, Ash. Good luck! xxx
The nerves recede like shadows in the sun, and I grin and walk up the steps and into my new life, my future.
Look out for another special treat from Cathy …
Alice nearly didn’t to go the sleepover. Why would Savvy, queen of the school, invite someone like her?
Now Alice is lying unconcious in a hospital bed.
Lost in a world of dreams and half-formed memories, she is surrounded by voices – the doctor, her worried friends and Luke, whose kisses the night of the fall took her by surprise …
When the accident happened, her world vanished – can Alice ever find her way back from wonderland?
puffin.co.uk
WEB FUN
UNIQUE and exclusive digital content!
Podcasts, photos, Q&A, Day in the Life of, interviews and much more, from Eoin Colfer, Cathy Cassidy, Allan Ahlberg and Meg Rosoff to Lynley Dodd!
WEB NEWS
The Puffin Blog is packed with posts and photos from Puffin HQ and special guest bloggers. You can also sign up to our monthly newsletter Puffin Beak Speak.
WEB CHAT
Discover something new EVERY month – books, competitions and treats galore.
WEBBED FEET
(Puffins have funny little feet and brightly coloured beaks.)
Point your mou
se our way today!
Puffin is over seventy years old. Sounds ancient, doesn’t it? But Puffin has never been so lively. We’re always on the lookout for the next big idea, which is how it began all those years ago.
Penguin Books was a big idea from the mind of a man called Allen Lane, who in 1935 invented the quality paperback and changed the world. And from great Penguins, great Puffins grew, changing the face of children’s books forever.
The first four Puffin Picture Books were hatched in 1940 and the first Puffin story book featured a man with broomstick arms called Worzel Gummidge. In 1967 Kaye Webb, Puffin Editor, started the Puffin Club, promising to ‘make children into readers’. She kept that promise and over 200,000 children became devoted Puffineers through their quarterly instalments of Puffin Post.
Many years from now, we hope you’ll look back and remember Puffin with a smile. No matter what your age or what you’re into, there’s a Puffin for everyone. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure: whether it’s a picture book or a paperback, a sticker book or a hardback, if it’s got that little Puffin on it – it’s bound to be good.
www.puffin.co.uk
PUFFIN BOOKS
UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa
Puffin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
puffinbooks.com
Bittersweet first published by Puffin Books as a World Book Day book 2013
Chocolates and Flowers first published as an electronic edition by Puffin Books 2014
Hopes and Dreams first published as an electronic edition by Puffin Books 2014
Moons and Stars first published as an electronic edition by Puffin Books 2014
Snowflakes and Wishes first published as an electronic edition by Puffin Books 2014
Hearts and Sunsets first published as an electronic edition by Puffin Books 2015
This collection first published in Puffin Books 2015
Text copyright © Cathy Cassidy, 2013, 2014, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Sara Chadwick-Holmes, 2015
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-141-36575-6
Life is Sweet Page 22
