3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream (10 page)

‘Ah … OK.’

Finch finally drags his eyes away from my twin sister, grins sheepishly and lopes off to find Nikki, and Skye snaps out of her trance and looks down at the ruined petticoat, frowning slightly as if she can’t quite work out what just happened. I am not sure I know either, even with my trusty twin-telepathy on full alert, but I know that it is major, a life-changing event, a catastrophe even, like an earthquake or a tidal wave.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. My twin sister is nuts about Jamie Finch, and he seems to feel the same way
about her. I’m pleased for her, truly I am, but I cannot shake the feeling that life as we know it will never be the same again.

I bite my lip so hard I taste blood.

13

Tia and Millie burst into our kitchen on Monday morning brandishing a flyer that invites interested locals to earn £50 by appearing as extras in a couple of crowd scenes in the film.

‘We could be famous!’ Millie declares, eyes wide. ‘We could shoot to stardom and end up winning Oscars and strutting down the red carpet with Robert Pattinson!’

‘Get a grip,’ I say. ‘Robert Pattinson isn’t even in this film!’

‘No, but that bloke from
Hollyoaks
is,’ Tia points out. ‘And he’s quite hot, in a non-sparkly kind of way. Millie’s right, we have to do it. They’re not auditioning or anything. We just turn up on Saturday for costume fittings. Awesome!’

‘Awesome indeed,’ Skye says. ‘I’ll be helping with the
costumes, so I can make sure you get a cool hat or a parasol. Finch says it should be a lot of fun.’

‘Oh, well, if Finch says so,’ I tease, but it comes out a little snippier than I mean it to. I don’t think Skye notices, though. Nothing seems to burst her bubble these last few days.

I have to admit that being an extra might be cool. It’s not every summer a movie gets shot right in your backyard, but right now, I don’t have time to think about teen-boy actors or dressing up for some retro-themed movie. I am focused on pliés and jetés, and today I have promised myself a whole day in the studio to work on my expressive dance for the audition. I sling my ballet bag over my shoulder and stand up.

‘Where are you going?’ Skye asks. ‘You don’t have ballet lessons today!’

‘No, but I want to use the studio to practise,’ I say. ‘I have to go through possible music clips, come up with something for my expressive dance. Something good.’

‘But … we’re going to the beach!’ Tia argues. ‘It’s the first Monday of the holidays … we were going to celebrate, hang out and swim and sunbathe! I told Aaron,
and everything! He’s got a footy match, but he said he’d definitely come down afterwards. You have to stay, Summer! Relax a little!’

I bite back my annoyance. This is the FUN Tia asked me to schedule in this holiday, but I don’t have time for it. My priorities for the next few weeks are all about dance; chilling out in the sun and dressing up in straw hats to help fill out the crowd scenes in a film just do not figure. And what’s with inviting Aaron? Seriously, that’s all I need.

‘Summer?’ Millie says, cajoling. ‘C’mon. You know you want to.’

‘I’m busy,’ I snap. ‘Too busy for swimming and sunbathing. Sorry.’ I swing out of the kitchen, letting the door slam shut behind me.

It’s only once I’m at the dance school that the churny feeling in my stomach begins to subside. It’s stress, I tell myself. Stress about the audition, stress about my expressive dance, stress about Mum and Paddy being on the other side of the planet.

And hunger maybe because today I am running on Coke Zero and indignation. Food, like fun, has been sidelined.

I can’t expect Tia and Millie to understand, of course,
and I can see that Skye has other things on her mind right now. I’ll apologize to them, tell them I’m under a lot of pressure, maybe go along with them on Saturday to the film thing.

Fun … I guess I can try to make room for it on my rota.

Just not today.

Miss Elise is surprised to see me, but when I explain that I want to work on my expressive dance, she hands me a box of ballet and classical CDs to look through.

‘You should find something there,’ she tells me. ‘If you choose the right piece of music, the rest should fall into place. This is the one piece I can’t really help you with, but it’s probably the most important part of your audition because it will tell Sylvie something about you. Good luck, Summer!’

I go upstairs to change, then pull on a loose T-shirt and pad through to the studio. I run through my barre exercises and my pointe work, then sit down beside the little CD player, flicking through Miss Elise’s CDs in search of inspiration. It doesn’t come. After a while, the music begins to blend into one, endlessly light and bright and airy. I bite my lip. I need something different – something dramatic, powerful, strong.

I remember the poster on my bedroom wall, of Sylvie Rochelle as the Firebird, and scan through the CDs until I find Stravinsky’s soundtrack to the ballet. This is better – vivid, energetic, exciting. I skip through the CD until I come to a section that makes my heart beat faster … a crazy, chaotic crescendo of sound. I do not like chaos usually, but this music fills me up like oxygen. It feels right.

Checking the cover notes, I see that I’ve chosen something called the ‘Infernal Dance’ – a frenzied dance which the Firebird curses the evil wizard’s creatures to perform. I listen to it again, smiling. The expressive dance segment of my audition should be my strong point. I love putting sequences together, interpreting music, and now that I have found the right piece of music perhaps I can do that. It’s a challenging piece, but Sylvie Rochelle will like that, I know.

All afternoon I try out steps and turns, but nothing seems quite right. I keep trying all the same. I dance until my muscles ache, until my stomach growls with hunger and my toes feel bruised and blistered.

I dance to the point of pain and beyond, as if punishing myself will make everything fall into place.

14

I check my mobile on the late bus home, and find four missed calls and eleven unread messages. One message is from Mum, who reports that she and Paddy are now in Lima, the Peruvian capital. The others are from Skye, Millie, Tia and Aaron, informing me that their lazy day at the beach has snowballed into a full-on bonfire party, and to get myself down there pronto.

I groan. By the time I get down to the beach the sun is starting to dip down in the sky and the party is in full swing.

‘Finally!’ Aaron yells as I approach. ‘I thought you’d never get here!’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I lost track of time, you know how it is …’

His arm snakes round my waist as I survey the party. Shay Fletcher is playing guitar, Cherry at his side; Coco is
toasting marshmallows and Honey is holding court to JJ, Chris and Marty. Tia, Millie, Sid, Carl and Alfie wave and shout hellos at me, but I’m looking for my twin, and I can’t see her anywhere.

‘Where’s Skye?’

‘Over there with that Finch kid,’ Aaron says. ‘Slush central … boy, do those two have it bad.’

Skye and Finch are sitting on a driftwood log behind the bonfire, so close they are almost touching. They must be exchanging life stories or something because they are talking non-stop. I don’t think they’d notice or care if the rest of us just tiptoed away and left them to it. I try not to feel hurt that after all her frantic texts, my twin hasn’t even noticed that I’m here.

Aaron is in the middle of an endless account of some five-a-side footy match he played earlier. My mouth has frozen into a rictus smile, and my ears are starting to feel numb around the edges. Without warning, he leans in to nuzzle my neck, his breath hot and sticky, like Fred when he is snuffling around for a treat. I wish he actually was Fred because then I might not feel quite so alarmed. ‘Don’t, Aaron,’ I hiss. ‘People are looking!’

‘So?’ he shrugs. ‘You’re my girlfriend. It’s allowed.’

I pull away, embarrassed, and Aaron scowls. ‘You’re no fun, Summer,’ he huffs. ‘You’re so … uptight lately. All you think about is ballet and that stupid audition!’

‘That’s not true!’ I argue, but Aaron has a point. When we first started going out, I was flattered to have such a cute boyfriend. I loved the silk flower he left in my locker, ‘from a secret admirer’. I thought that dating Aaron would be full of things like that, sweet, romantic things, but he never even mentions the flower. I think it was just a tactic, a means to an end.

I fell in love with a boy who left secret presents in my locker and ended up with a boy who talks about football and Xbox games. I wanted romance and I got wet kisses and hands that try to stray to places I don’t want them to.

Across the flames of the bonfire, Alfie is watching me, his face thoughtful. There is just no escape from that boy.

‘Hey, Aaron!’ he yells. ‘I hear you were a legend today, in the footy match. Three goals!’

It’s an unlikely rescue, but Aaron abandons me to talk football with Alfie, Sid and Carl, and relief floods through me. I sit down on the cliff steps, hugging my knees, trying not to
care that I have a boyfriend whose touch makes me shudder. It’s not Aaron’s fault. He hasn’t changed … he is exactly the same as always. Confident, good-looking, crazy about football in the same way I am mad about ballet. People say we’re a good match, but there is no spark, no energy between us.

I am not sure now if there ever was.

Alfie appears beside me, having abandoned Aaron to Carl and Sid. ‘You OK?’ he asks, sitting down beside me on the steps. ‘You look fed up.’

‘Thanks,’ I say crossly. ‘I’m just … tired. I’ve been practising a lot lately. It’s hard work.’

‘Ah,’ Alfie says. ‘The audition. Third Saturday in August, right?’

I blink. ‘How do you even know that?’

Alfie looks guilty. ‘Um … Skye might have mentioned it. Or maybe your mum told my mum, I can’t remember. We’re all rooting for you, y’know, the whole village. You’re going to ace it!’

‘It’s not that easy,’ I sigh.

‘I know,’ Alfie says. ‘Nothing worth having ever is. But you have a talent, Summer, and you’re determined … you’ll do it. Everyone thinks so. Well, almost everyone …’

I frown. ‘So … who thinks I won’t?’

Alfie backtracks. ‘Nobody,’ he says shiftily. ‘I mean, we all think you can do it, but I think he just doesn’t want to lose you, and that’s why he bet you wouldn’t get in. I said you would, and we put a tenner on it. My money’s safe, I reckon.’