Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘How did you find me?’ I ask as we trudge across the dunes. ‘How did you know where I’d be?’

  ‘You left a trail,’ Ash says, holding up a bulging, dripping, sand-encrusted rucksack. ‘Sandals, socks, books, neckerchief. It was like a treasure hunt, only without the nice surprise at the end. And I could only find one shoe …’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I hated them anyway.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘No!’ I say, outraged again. ‘Of course I’m not! I only had one can.’

  ‘You sound drunk,’ he huffs. ‘And you smell like an ashtray.’

  I sit down on a rock, gloomy.

  ‘What about the kids?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t you babysitting today?’

  ‘Supposed to be,’ Ash says. ‘I rang my sister, told her something came up. She said she’d get a neighbour to sit with them.’

  I wasn’t sure that anything could make me feel worse, but that does.

  ‘See?’ I say in a small voice. ‘I’m trouble. I have seriously messed up. Someone posted a page from my online diary on to my SpiderWeb wall, and now Tara and Bennie aren’t talking to me. Actually, nobody is talking to me. Nobody wants me – I’m useless, worthless, a walking disaster area. I told you before, everything I touch turns to dust.’

  ‘You’re touching me,’ he points out, pressing his palm against mine. ‘I’m still here, aren’t I? You’ve yelled at me, sworn at me, pushed me away, but I’m still here.’

  ‘I know,’ I admit. ‘That’s the bit I can’t work out.’

  ‘Thing is, I can see you,’ he says. ‘I can see past the goody-two-shoes act, past the tough-girl act, the self-destruct act, the drama-queen act. You’ve got about a million masks, Honey Tanberry, but none of them work on me. I can see you. And I think you’re brave and strong and lovely.’

  A salty tear slides down my cheek and Ash wipes it away gently, leaning his forehead against mine. He is so close I can feel the warmth of his breath, the flutter of his lashes. My eyes close and I think the world might slide away as his lips touch mine, softly, slowly, carefully. My fingers trail against his skin, tracing his cheekbones, the faint sandpaper stubble of his chin. I want to hold on and never let go, but as unexpectedly as it began, the kiss is over.

  You might think that only bad things, sad things, can hurt you, but you’d be wrong. Lovely things can hurt you more because they thaw out the bits of your heart that you thought would be frozen forever. I can’t help wondering if it might not be safer to stay frozen.

  The trouble is, I think it’s too late.

  Honey

 

  to: benniej@oznet.com

  cc tarastar@messagebox.co.au

  I guess you’re still angry with me and I deserve it, I know. I’m sorry. I miss you both so much. Please, can we at least talk?

  xxx

  22

  A kiss can’t fix my messed-up life, sadly.

  The next morning I wake as usual at 4 a.m., drifting out of a dream about Ash. Reality seeps in, and I remember yesterday in all its gory detail. I open up my laptop. There are four new private messages on SpiderWeb, and my heart lurches; they’re not from Tara or Bennie, but the girls at school. I force myself to read:

  What is WRONG with you, Honey? Stay away from Tara and Bennie. With friends like you, who needs enemies?

  If you think Willowbank is such a dump, why don’t you go back to England? We don’t want you here.

  Classy. I don’t know how you behave back in Britain but here in Aus we don’t stab our friends in the back. You have a lot to learn.

  You really are a bitch, aren’t you?

  That last one makes me flinch. Is this what they’re thinking behind the silence, the glares? I am used to being dramatic, rebellious, notorious even, but I am not used to being hated. Back home I had a bad reputation, sure, but I never knowingly hurt anyone. When the other kids looked at me there was admiration, awe even, in their eyes. It’s only since I started to clean up my act that things have gone so badly downhill. Kind of ironic.

  I cannot face school today; I don’t think I can face it ever again. When I hear Dad and Emma get up I wander out into the kitchen, the sheet wrapped round me.

  ‘I’m not well,’ I whisper. ‘My head’s sore, I feel sick and I’ve hardly slept …’

  Well, it’s the truth.

  ‘Two days back at school and you’re taking a sickie already?’ Dad begins, but Emma hushes him, putting her hand against my forehead.

  ‘No temperature,’ she says. ‘But one day off won’t hurt, Greg. Stay in bed, Honey, snuggle up … you’ll feel much better tomorrow.’

  I seriously doubt it, but Emma promises to call the school and I am off the hook, for today at least. I go back to bed and pull the sheet over my head. One thought keeps running through my mind – how could a page from my private journal end up posted on my SpiderWeb wall? I check my page again and something new has appeared, a picture of an old suitcase covered in labels from around the world, apparently posted by me. The caption reads: Australia sucks … won’t miss it one bit.

  Underneath, the comments have already started.

  Good riddance.

  Yeah, we’ll miss you too. Don’t come back.

  I click Delete, but the post reappears a minute later, right before my eyes, and that’s seriously scary. Am I going crazy? Who would do something like this? Not Ash … I’ve seen for myself the ancient computer in the corner of his living room. Not Tara or Bennie … they’ve been around my laptop a couple of times, but they wouldn’t have faked the shock and hurt of seeing that diary page. I can think of someone who might have, though – Surfie16.

  He is not the person he says he is, and he seems to be enjoying my torment. I click through to his home page, but it gives nothing away. There is the familiar profile picture, a close-up of bare feet and the tip of a surfboard. There is the cover image, a cool Aussie beach. He has only six friends listed, and each has a generic profile picture: a can of beer, a map of Australia, a surfboard, a rock band CD cover. Some of them I recognize as people who’ve posted nasty comments on my page, and now I begin to wonder if they too are as fake as Surfie16.

  It’s as if this profile is just a way to access my SpiderWeb page and get at me. I go to my friends’ list and delete him all over again, adding a ‘block from page’ sanction to make sure he can’t do any more damage.

  I pass the day making a frantic series of self-portraits. The girl in the pictures looks exhausted, as if she might unravel at any moment; it’s exactly how I’m feeling.

  Emma comes back from work and offers me paracetamol, iced water, buttered toast and kindness, but none of those things can fix the mess I’m in. ‘Greg’s working late again,’ she tells me. ‘I have my Pilates class – he was going to pick me up from there, but I’m happy to cancel and stay home with you if you’d rather.’

  I open my mouth to tell Emma what’s going on in my life, but the words won’t come. ‘No, no, just go,’ I say. ‘No worries.’

  I want her to turn round at the last minute and ask me what’s wrong, to look at me and see that the problem is not a twenty-four-hour bug but something much more serious. She doesn’t, of course.

  Once I’m alone again, I check my SpiderWeb page; another picture has appeared, an old one where I’m sticking my tongue out at the camera. It was a joke, something Coco took on my phone one day last year, but out of context it just looks crazy, confrontational. As for the status I’m supposed to have written, it’s vile.

  Unbelievably, Surfie16 has made the first comment.

  Nice. Showing your true colours, Honey.

  My hands shake as I hit Delete. How can this be happening?

  Somewhere in the distance, the doorbell rings; I panic a little; the shrill ringing sound seems scary, threatening. When it rings a third time, I swear under my breath. ‘OK, OK!’ I yell. ‘Wait a minute!’

  Raking a hand through my tangled hair, I open the door a crack and there on
the doorstep is Ash, with two small princesses and a dragon in tow.

  The most amazing thing about small children is that they don’t notice that you’re wearing crumpled sleep shorts and a vest top with toast crumbs on the hem, or that your hair hasn’t been combed, that your eyes are pink from crying and shadowed with lack of sleep. They just barge right in and hug you round the waist and jump up and down on your bed as if it’s a trampoline.

  Being caught looking like death by the boy who kissed you just yesterday afternoon is not so great. I pull on a kimono wrap and some sunshades to hide behind.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ash says, not looking sorry at all. ‘The only way I could get out was to bring the whole tribe. Coming out to play?’

  ‘Can’t,’ I whisper. ‘Not feeling so good, as you can see.’

  ‘You look pretty awesome to me,’ he says.

  I smile. I look like death and I feel almost as bad, but Ash isn’t judging me. He takes my hand and we sit side by side on the window sill as the kids explore the en-suite bathroom, switch the fairy lights on and off, hang bracelets from the dressing table over their ears.

  ‘So,’ Ash says quietly. ‘You skipped school today.’

  ‘Been ill,’ I say with a shrug. ‘As you can see. Some weird Aussie bug. Maybe I’m just allergic to the land of sunshine and opportunity? Besides, I only have one sandal.’

  ‘You can’t blame me for that,’ he says. ‘I did my best. It’s probably floating along the coast of Papua New Guinea by now.’

  I shrug. ‘Can’t say I miss it.’

  The kids drift over to join us. ‘Is your house a palace?’ Sachi asks, eyes wide. ‘How many mattresses have you got? Because a real princess needs ten or twenty, and even then she might not sleep at night if someone’s put a pea underneath the bottom one. That’s how you can tell if someone’s really a princess.’

  Ash laughs. ‘You’ve been reading her too many fairy tales.’

  ‘I don’t sleep at night, now that you mention it,’ I tell Sachi. ‘I am nocturnal. Like an owl or a fox or … well, whatever you have over here. Only instead of flying around or rummaging through your dustbins, I paint pictures until the sun comes up.’

  ‘You might need another mattress then,’ Sachi says. ‘Can we play dressing-up?’

  After some frenzied ransacking of drawers and wardrobe, the girls gallop around in wedge sandals and bright skirts and scarves while Ravi performs a hip-swinging dance with a pair of my best polka-dot knickers on his head. It is the best distraction ever from being stalked by a mad Internet troll, trust me.

  ‘Your friends came into the beach cafe asking after you,’ Ash comments. ‘Said you hadn’t answered their texts or SpiderWeb messages.’

  ‘Tara and Bennie? But … they haven’t texted or messaged me!’ I look at my iPhone for the hundredth time today; there are no messages at all.

  ‘They have,’ Ash says with a frown. ‘They said you’re not answering, that you think somebody’s messing with your SpiderWeb page.’

  ‘Seriously? They believe me?’ A flicker of hope stirs inside me.

  ‘They’re worried,’ Ash says. ‘I am too. If there’s some Internet bullying thing going on, tell someone about it!’

  ‘Who?’ I fling back at him. ‘Dad’s never here, and Emma just brushes stuff under the carpet, pretends life is great. Well, it isn’t. Look at me … I’m a wreck. Things keep popping up on SpiderWeb, stupid photos with nasty taglines that look like I’ve posted them when I really haven’t. And there are all these hateful comments from kids at school, and some from strangers.’

  Ash is on his feet, opening up my laptop, clicking on to the web browser.

  ‘You leave yourself logged in all the time?’ he asks as my SpiderWeb opens. ‘That’s crazy. Anybody could have got hold of this. If they can access your page, they can change the settings, post things in your name. Tara and Bennie said they definitely messaged you on here as well, so what if whoever is doing this is deleting stuff too?’

  I bite my lip, leaning over his shoulder.

  ‘Actually … I haven’t had a message from home for days,’ I say. ‘Nothing from my mum or my sisters. That’s a bit weird – if they’d seen the things on my home page they’d have been in touch, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘This is serious, Honey,’ Ash says. ‘I think you’ve been properly hacked. Someone’s blocking your real friends and family as well as posting all this … this rubbish.’ He scrolls down the page, disbelieving, and my cheeks flood with shame as he sees the pictures. How can anyone look at those images and not think badly of me?

  I watch as he deletes the posts again and adjusts the privacy settings to maximum, but there’s a feeling of dread inside me. Each time I delete something, the image comes back.

  ‘Remember I told you that Riley added me on SpiderWeb?’ I ask. ‘I used to chat to him online lots before Christmas, but it turns out it was never Riley at all – his username is Surfie16 and I think he might be the hacker. I keep deleting him, but he just comes back. Oh, Ash … I’ve been so stupid!’

  He frowns. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘if some creep has control of your computer you need proper backup – tell your dad, OK? Promise?’

  He shuts the laptop lid firmly. All three kids have stopped cavorting now and are staring at us, wide-eyed. ‘Has somebody been mean to you, Honey?’ Ravi asks. ‘Shall I bring my sword next time?’

  I dredge up a smile. ‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘Just silly people playing a silly practical joke. I’m fine, really.’

  I break out a picnic supper of TimTams and orange juice and we sit out beside the honeysuckle arch as the light fades. The kids nag me for a story, and because there are no picture books at Dad’s house I invent one, all about a princess who lives in a turret room. Her prince runs off with a wicked witch disguised as the princess’s sister, so she chops off her beautiful hair and flies away to a land where everything is upside down and nobody is quite what they seem.

  ‘It’s not a very happy story,’ Dineshi points out. ‘How does it end?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet,’ I admit.

  ‘Do you need a prince to rescue you?’ Ravi asks. ‘I could do it, when I’m not actually being a dragon. Or Ash could, maybe.’

  I smile, and tell Ravi that princesses these days like to rescue themselves, but that it can take time to figure out who are the goodies and who are the baddies.

  ‘We’re the goodies,’ Sachi says firmly, threading honeysuckle blossom into my hair like a crown. ‘OK?’

  It takes a while to wipe chocolate from mouths and remove random skirts and shawls and jewellery from the kids, but in the end my visitors are ready to head off. I try not to feel abandoned.

  Ash leans over and kisses my cheek when the kids aren’t looking, and I resist the temptation to grab on to him and never let go.

  ‘Don’t let this idiot hacker win,’ he says. ‘Tell your dad. Get some help. Then delete the whole account. That should do it.’

  I’m glad I’m wearing sunshades. I wouldn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes.

  Summer Tanberry

 

  to me

  Honey, I think there might be something wrong with your SpiderWeb? I had a picture of the gypsy cara-van with snow on it to post on your wall, but whenever I try to post a warning comes up saying I’ve been blocked. I know you wouldn’t do that, but Coco and Skye say it’s happened to them too, so … I thought I’d let you know. Plus, you’re not answering my texts. I expect that means you’re too busy having a wild time to talk to your little sisters, but hey.

  Summer oxox

  23

  Asking for help has never been my strong point, but I know that if all of this was happening back home, I’d have told Mum by now. Mum’s not here, but Dad and Emma are the next best thing. I pull the kimono wrap around me and slip into the living room just as they arrive home. It’s not the best timing in the world, but I can’t keep pretending that everything’s OK – this Spide
rWeb hate campaign is driving me crazy.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Dad asks as Emma pours him a glass of wine. ‘It isn’t good to give in to these things, Honey. This is an important year for you at school.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I’m actually settling in at Willowbank. It’s all gone a little bit wrong.’

  Dad frowns. ‘Wrong?’ he echoes. ‘What do you mean? Of course it hasn’t!’

  Emma pats my shoulder. ‘You’re doing fine!’ she tells me. ‘Lots of studying, lovely friends … Tara and Bennie are great!’

  ‘About that,’ I sigh. ‘We’ve kind of fallen out.’

  ‘I was always falling out with friends at school,’ Emma says. ‘It’ll blow over!’

  I bite my lip. Emma hasn’t got a clue – this isn’t a row about a borrowed eyeshadow or a copied homework; it’s way more complicated than that.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ I say. ‘I’m in real trouble. Everything’s gone wrong! Someone is posting really horrible stuff on my SpiderWeb page and half the school are chipping in with comments –’

  Dad slams his glass down, spilling red wine on to the pale oak table.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Honey!’ he snaps. ‘You’re fifteen, not five! If you don’t like the things people post online, stay off the Internet. As for school, no, it’s not easy – get used to it! Sometimes in life you have to do things you’re not keen on. Work hard, pass your exams, don’t let a silly schoolgirl tiff derail you!’

  Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them back, defiant.

  ‘Dad,’ I whisper, ‘you said that if Willowbank didn’t work out I could try the other school. I just think –’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Dad growls. ‘Can’t you see, Honey, there’s a pattern in all of this? You’re addicted to trouble. You like the fuss, you like the drama. Your mother’s let you get away with murder. Well, not any more! You’ve been given a chance to start over – don’t throw it all away!’