‘He lives in London, so he’ll have to stay,’ Honey declares. ‘Besides, we are just getting to know him. He can’t vanish again.’
‘I am here, you know,’ I cut in. ‘You can’t talk about me as if I’m not.’
‘I’m sorry! I’m just so, so excited!’ she exclaims, jumping down on to the floor beside me to drag me into another dramatic hug.
‘Put him down!’ the littlest sister yelps. ‘Honestly, Honey, you’ll scare him to death!’
I wrestle myself free, exasperated, and Honey winks at me and rests her head on my shoulder. My eldest half-sister is impossibly full-on and probably insane; the twins are unexpectedly fierce; the littlest one seems friendly enough, but it does seem a little bit odd to be wearing a panda hat indoors in August. I think Paddy and Charlotte might be OK, though, and the dark-haired stepsister seems fine.
‘I’ve texted Shay and told him not to come over,’ she says now. ‘He and Alfie were going to be in the filming, but all that will have to wait until tomorrow now. I figured we need a quiet evening in to talk and stuff.’
‘That’s exactly what we need,’ Charlotte agrees.
‘So you’ll stay?’ Paddy asks me, smiling. ‘We can get the gypsy caravan made up for you.’
I have no idea at all what he is talking about, but I nod my head.
‘Your mum’s not expecting you back?’ Charlotte presses.
I swallow, hard.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not really; she knew I was coming and she’s totally fine with it …’
The lie burns my tongue. A terrible compulsion to blurt out the truth boils up inside me, but I know it’s a bad, bad idea. This family have never seen me before. They are nothing to do with me, really; we are connected by blood, by an accident of birth, but that doesn’t make us family, no matter what Honey may think.
They do not need to hear my life story. They do not need to know my troubles – not yet anyhow. I am going to have to tread carefully to get this right.
‘Great,’ Paddy is saying. ‘I might just give your mum a call, all the same. So she knows you arrived safely and everything. OK?’
‘Sure,’ I say, trying not to panic. ‘Oh, she won’t be in till later,’ I lie. ‘She’s working a late shift at The Paper Dragon. She’s a waitress, you see. Could you call tomorrow?’
‘Tonight would be better,’ Paddy says. ‘What time does she finish?’
‘Er, eleven?’ I bluff. ‘It really is quite late to be calling, so if you’d rather not …’
He shrugs. ‘Not a problem. I’ll call at eleven.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘Brilliant.’
Honey fixes me with a searching gaze. Can she tell I’m lying? I think she can, but when she speaks she surprises me with a neat change of subject.
‘So, Jake,’ she says. ‘Forget all that, just now. We want to know everything about you!’
I grin, saved for now at least, and rake a hand through my hair.
‘For starters,’ I say, ‘You’d better call me Cookie …’
8
My little sisters are noisy enough, but the Tanberry-Costello lot? I have never met a family who talk so much. Every sister has an opinion, and every sister has about a million questions. They expect me to answer them all.
I tell them about Mum, Maisie and Isla, about the Paper Dragon restaurant, the train ticket and the fortune cookie that made me walk out of my life and come to Somerset. ‘I was curious,’ I explain. ‘I wanted to meet you, see how I fitted in. It’s like a whole load of jigsaw puzzle pieces were missing and I’ve found them – and now I can see the whole picture.’
As I say it, I realize this is true; I’ve been itching to meet my sisters since the second or third letter. I just didn’t think I’d have the courage to do it; perhaps I never would have come, if it hadn’t been for the Great Bathtub Disaster.
And Tanglewood, well, it feels like a haven – a safe place to stay for a day or so, anyway. As long as Paddy doesn’t ring Mum and mess the whole thing up, that is.
My life story does not include any mention of Sheddie with his dreadlocks, his t’ai chi and his moth-eaten yurt. It doesn’t include my homeand restaurant-wrecking talents, or that my family will be evicted in a week’s time. I don’t mention that nobody knows where I am; or that I am, technically, a runaway. Why complicate matters?
The sisters show me photographs of my errant dad, and at last I get to see the man whose footsteps I am following in, the ultimate mess-up master. He is fair-haired and good-looking, tall and smiley and smartly dressed. There’s a picture of his wedding to Charlotte, the two of them looking stupidly young and hopeful, and a series of pictures taken at a picnic where he sits on the grass with toddler-sized versions of the sisters draping themselves round him. The girls look scarily like me as a kid, just with longer hair. It’s spooky.
I squint hard at the images of my dad; am I like him personality-wise, as well as in looks? Does he think about his life and wonder how it got to be so messed up? He doesn’t look like trouble, but I know he is, of course. In the picnic photos he seems distant, distracted, as if his mind is elsewhere – as if he’s already moving away from that perfect little family, moving on. I wonder how he’ll react when I get in touch. Will he be glad to hear from me? Well, maybe, until he susses I’m after his cash.
We eat the macaroni cheese and salad from plates on our laps, and after a while the sisters talk endlessly about every single subject under the sun while plying me with home-made fruit smoothies and Paddy’s amazing truffles, which are apparently famous. They are almost as good as a Snickers bar, possibly better.
By the time the clock is edging round towards eleven, I start getting jumpy again; if Paddy insists on ringing Mum my adventure could be over before it has properly started. My head is a muddle of half-baked plans and ideas. Could I text Harry or Mitch, ask if their mums would pretend to be mine? My mates would be onside, but I don’t think their mums would. I could give a fake phone number but Paddy wouldn’t be fooled by that for long. Whichever way I look at it, I’m in trouble.
‘Hey,’ Honey says, getting to her feet. ‘Let me show you the gypsy caravan, Cookie, so you know where you’ll be sleeping!’
I follow her out through the kitchen, leaving the others engrossed in old photographs and memories. We slip out of the back door and down across the grass, Fred the dog at our heels, to where a brightly painted, bow-topped gypsy caravan is parked beneath trees draped with fairy lights. The light is fading fast and the air is cooler now; it is a million miles away from Chinatown and London.
‘Cool,’ I say. ‘Weird, but cool.’
‘Yeah, it’s great,’ Honey says flatly. ‘But, look, something’s going on, right? You were acting weird, sort of edgy, awkward, especially when Paddy was asking about your mum. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think she knows you’re here at all.’
I sigh. ‘She doesn’t,’ I admit. ‘It’s a long story.’
Honey rolls her eyes in the twilight.
‘So let’s get this straight. You’ve run away?’ she asks.
‘Not exactly –’
‘Have you or haven’t you?’ my half-sister demands.
‘I suppose I have, kind of,’ I say. ‘I’m in trouble; well, we’re all in trouble, and it’s my fault. I need to fix it, and to do that I need Dad’s help.’
Honey laughs. ‘Good luck with that,’ she says. ‘He’s not exactly a fix-it kind of man, but hey. You can try. What are you going to do about Paddy? He’s determined to speak to your mum.’
‘He can’t,’ I tell her. ‘That would ruin everything.’
‘Won’t she be worried?’
‘Not really,’ I explain. ‘My little sister is covering for me. Mum thinks I’m staying with a friend.’
Honey nods, thoughtful. ‘Clever,’ she says. ‘But not clever enough; you need to get Paddy off your trail.’
‘How?’ I ask. ‘I can stall him for a while, but he doesn’t look the kind of guy who’ll give up. I’
m stuffed, basically.’
Honey grins. ‘Nah,’ she says. ‘I’ll help you; it’s simple, little brother. Have you got a mobile?’
I hand over my phone.
Honey sits down on the steps of the gypsy caravan.
‘OK; so give Paddy this number,’ she says, flicking open the mobile. ‘I’ll take the call. I’m doing drama at sixth-form college. I can do a mean cockney accent. Trust me!’
I don’t trust Honey, not one bit, but I don’t seem to have much choice.
I go back into the house. Paddy is in the kitchen making tea, and he looks up as I enter, smiling. ‘Caravan OK for you?’ he asks.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘It’s amazing. Thanks!’
‘Where’s Honey?’
I think on my feet. ‘She said she was taking Fred for a walk,’ I say. ‘I think she was texting someone. I didn’t want to get in the way.’
Paddy nods. ‘Her boyfriend is travelling in Europe,’ he explains. ‘They’re communicating mostly by text. Not ideal, but he’ll probably pitch up at Tanglewood before too long anyway. Speaking of communicating, Cookie, how about I call your mum now?’
I bite my lip. ‘Yeah, yeah, no worries. Her name’s Alison Cooke.’
I tell him my mobile number and keep my fingers crossed that Honey is telling the truth about her acting skill. I watch Paddy punch out the numbers, hear the call connect and listen to him telling the person on the other end that I’ve arrived safely and am welcome to stay for as long as I want to. There’s a pause while he listens to the response, and my heart thumps. I must be crazy to imagine he’d be fooled by his own stepdaughter putting on a London accent, but to my amazement the conversation seems to run smoothly.
Moments later, Paddy holds the phone out to me.
‘She wants a word,’ he says.
I take the phone and watch as Paddy picks up two mugs of tea and heads back to the living room.
‘So,’ the cockney voice on the other end of the line says into my ear. ‘That worked OK. I must be a better actress than I think.’
‘My mum doesn’t talk like that,’ I say.
‘She does now,’ Honey says, dropping the accent abruptly. ‘C’mon, Cookie, don’t quibble.’
‘I’m not,’ I laugh. ‘I’m amazed. Thank you, seriously. Just one question: why are you helping me?’
She laughs again. ‘Because you’re so like me,’ she says. ‘You’re trouble, Cookie, pure and simple.’
9
I wake up stupidly early, in a bunk in the funny little wooden caravan in the garden. I am cocooned in a patchwork quilt, my face pressed into a soft pillow that smells of fresh laundry. I stretch and yawn, and for a moment I panic because I can’t move my legs, but this turns out to be because Fred the dog is lying on them. He is spreadeagled across the bunk like an extra blanket, an especially furry one.
‘Hey, hey, bad dog!’ I say, not really meaning it. ‘Get down!’
Fred eyes me placidly and then rolls over again. I swear I can hear him snoring.
The caravan is tiny, but it’s awesome. It has a little woodburning stove, two windows with curtains, a brightly painted table and chair and a shelf with books. The roof curves up above my head and now that it’s daylight I can see that every bit of wood is painted in rich, glossy shades of red, green and blue with patterns of swirling leaves and hearts and swooping birds worked in as decoration.
It’s amazing. I could live somewhere like this, really I could.
I haven’t had a room to myself since Manchester, and I am glad of a bit of space, a bit of quiet. It’s cool. I think if you are going to discover a tenuous link to a mad family of half-sisters, they may as well live in an awesome house with a gypsy caravan and have a chocolate-making stepdad. Why not?
I push the curtain aside and peer out of the window; around the caravan sunlight filters through the trees and I catch a tantalizing glimpse of deep turquoise glinting in the distance.
That wedge of blue, can it be what I think it is?
I tumble out of bed, drag on the soy-sauce jeans and push open the caravan door. I stand on the caravan steps, taking in a few breaths of clean, cool air, and then I’m off across the dew damp grass, Fred the dog running ahead as I race towards the end of the garden.
And then I stop short, gazing out across the hedge.
An endless curve of turquoise lies before me, glittering in the watery morning sun, edged by a perfect crescent of golden sand.
Tanglewood House is right by the sea. How could I not have known? How could I not have guessed?
I unhook the rickety gate and run down the uneven cliff steps to the beach, my feet sinking into soft, cool sand, flinching as I dodge over sharp pebbles and shells. I am yelling by the time I reach the water’s edge and run into the ice-cold turquoise waves, drenched to the skin and laughing. Fred the dog capers around beside me, barking.
I throw my head back to look at the perfect blue sky, the rising sun, and I only waste a tiny, tiny moment thinking of Maisie and Isla and how they would love this too.
None of us has ever been to the sea. Never, ever – not unless you count a day trip to Southend when I was a baby, and I have no memory of that at all, so I don’t. I didn’t know the sea would feel so big, so infinite. I didn’t know the water would be so cold, so shocking. I didn’t expect the taste of salt on my lips, the rush of blood through my body, the pounding of my heart, the laughter.
For the first time in forever, I am fizzing with the joy of being alive.
‘Hey! Cookie!’
I turn round and there is Honey, sitting on a rock at the foot of the cliff path, hand raised in greeting. Swallowing my pride at the thought of her watching me jumping waves and splashing about like a seal, I wade ashore and walk back over the sand with as much dignity as I can muster. Fred follows at my heels.
‘Like it then?’ Honey asks. ‘It’s cool having the sea on your doorstep. Stick around a bit; we’ll throw a beach party in your honour, introduce you to everyone!’
‘Well, I’m not planning on leaving just yet,’ I say.
‘Good. Because we have so much to catch up on; a whole lifetime of stuff! And that stupid film crew are pitching up at ten o’clock, and then I’ll have to share you, and I don’t want to, just yet. Not with a whole bunch of TV people anyhow.’
‘What is it with that?’ I ask. ‘How come you’re going to be on TV? Are you famous or something?’
Honey laughs. ‘No, of course not; it’s just one of those reality shows, a human interest sort of thing. We know the producer, Nikki, because she stayed at our house the summer before last – she was involved with a TV movie they were making in the village. I suppose they thought we’d be a good subject because we’re a blended family, and that’s very modern – and the whole chocolate thing gives it a bit of an edge.
‘They’ve already shot most of the episodes, but they are always looking for drama and conflict and trouble, and I’m usually the main attraction there. I think they got more than they bargained for yesterday when you turned up!’
I blink. ‘They won’t use that clip, will they?’ I panic. ‘My mum would go nuts.’
Honey shrugs. ‘Do you care? I mean, you ran away, right?’
‘Not because I don’t love my family,’ I argue. ‘I do. I told you, I’m in trouble and I need to put things right. I’m doing it for my mum, really.’
Honey raises an eyebrow. ‘Interesting,’ she comments. ‘A hellraiser with a heart. Well, maybe your mum could come down to Tanglewood too, bring your little sisters? We could be one big, happy, deeply dysfunctional family.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I mutter.
‘No?’ Honey huffs. ‘I think it’d be brilliant. And the TV people could tell the whole story. Heart-warming, gripping stuff. Siblings reunited after a lifetime apart; two families brought together by their dislike of Greg Tanberry.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not interested. And I don’t think Charlotte would be too keen on the idea either …’
/> ‘Oh, Mum would come round,’ Honey says airily. ‘It would be so cool. But you’re the boss; no worries. You’re actually wanting to contact Dad, right?’
‘I have my reasons,’ I tell her. ‘Trust me.’
‘Never trust a fourteen-year-old boy who’s just been jumping around in the sea fully dressed, that’s my motto,’ she quips. ‘At the risk of sounding all big-sisterish and boring, I think you should probably go get changed. Otherwise the film crew really will be on your case, and I am the cool, eccentric one in this family, just so’s you know!’
I look down at my dripping T-shirt and jeans, but before I can say anything Fred the dog gives himself a huge head-to-tail shake that splatters Honey with salt water. She squeals and swears and dodges out of the way, starting up the cliff steps again.
‘He’s as bad as you,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘Wretched thing. I can see this whole half-brother malarkey will take some getting used to – you’d think you’d never seen the sea before!’
‘I haven’t,’ I reply, following. ‘At least, not since I was six months old, and I can’t remember much about that, funnily enough.’
Honey pushes through the gate and into the garden, her eyes wide.
‘You’ve never seen the sea? Seriously?’ She looks sad for a moment, as if trying to imagine my life and how different it has been from her own. Well, she can imagine all she likes, but she’ll never come close to knowing. Sharing a tiny bedroom in a damp, scruffy flat with two little sisters while your mum kips on a sofa bed in the living room? Cooking up a culinary masterpiece with food-bank spam and a dented can of baked beans? These are challenges the Tanberry-Costello clan have never had to negotiate.
‘Different strokes for different folks,’ I say brightly, shutting the gate behind me. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, OK? I bet you’ve never seen the sun set over the rooftops in Chinatown, or taken your sisters fishing by the Manchester Ship Canal. We didn’t catch any fish, but we hooked a handbag, complete with purse and credit cards. We took it to the police station and got a £10 reward, but Maisie let slip to Rick and he was furious. Reckoned he could have used the cards to order a few thousand quids’ worth of loot.’
Fortune Cookie Page 5
