Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel (12 page)

Distant shouts ring through the woods, and
the sound of breaking twigs jolts us to our feet. ‘Running club,’ Jayde
says, picking up her abandoned paperback. ‘They practise on Monday lunchtimes.
We’d better go.’

As we crunch back towards the school playing
fields,
we pass a couple of kids in running kit, red-faced and
sweating, staggering in the opposite direction. ‘Cross-country running ought to
carry a government health warning,’ Sarah muses. ‘Look how red-faced and
sweaty they get. And all that jiggling about can’t be good for your
insides!’

A lone figure crashes through the
undergrowth and lopes towards us, long limbs pounding the muddy path. Lawrie Marshall
doesn’t look red-faced or sweaty, just predictably grim, dark wavy hair flopping
across his face, blue eyes guarded. He spots me and shoots me a disgusted look, the kind
that could shrivel an oak tree, which I think is a bit harsh after our adventures this
weekend. He could at least be polite – I tilt my chin and refuse to be frozen out.

‘Hello, Lawrie,’ I say.

‘All right,’ he mutters, and
thunders past, splattering me with mud from a nearby puddle. Typical.

‘He spoke to you!’ Amy whispers
the minute Lawrie has gone. ‘And you spoke to him. What’s going on? I
thought you couldn’t stand him!’

‘I can’t,’ I say.
‘He drives me nuts. But I have decided
not to let him get to me.
If he scowls at me, I will smile. If he sneers, I will say hello. Why should I let him
wind me up?’

‘Right,’ Jayde says. ‘A
new tactic – save the world with smiles. I like it!’

‘Not sure it will work with loner-boy,
though,’ Sarah muses. ‘Although he is quite good-looking, in a smouldering
kind of way. Dark and brooding. Sort of wild!’

‘What?’ I frown. ‘Lawrie
Marshall? Are you mad?’

‘The hero in this book is exactly the
same,’ Sarah tells me, waving her paperback in front of my nose. ‘Moody and
mysterious, but with hidden depths. Maybe Lawrie will ask you out. If he does, would you
say yes?’

I will be spending most afternoons for the
foreseeable future trudging across the moors with him, but Sarah doesn’t need to
know that.

‘Of course not!’ I scoff.
‘Really, he’s not interested – and nor am I. No way. I promise you, if
Lawrie Marshall has hidden depths they are so well hidden that a whole team of
archaeologists couldn’t unearth them. Or whatever. Although personally, I am not
sure he has any hidden depths at all …’

I trail off into silence, aware that Sarah,
Amy and Jayde are watching me keenly.

‘You like him,’ Amy says
teasingly. ‘I can tell!’

Instantly, the pony rescue is old news,
replaced by a frenzied fascination for whether I am crushing on Lawrie Marshall. Why is
everyone obsessed with boys all of a sudden? It’s like the minute we all turned
twelve, that’s all anyone can think of. I am not totally immune to boys – I am
only human, after all – but I am not about to let hormones rule my life. I have too many
things to do to let boys get in the way. I have to save the whale and the tiger and the
giant panda, then qualify as a vet, become a famous violinist and maybe start up my own
sanctuary for ill-treated ponies as well. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for
romance.

Which is just as well, if Lawrie Marshall is
the best candidate my friends can come up with.

‘He’s a mystery boy,’
Sarah says thoughtfully, as we trudge back up to school across the playing fields.
‘I mean, what do we actually know about him? Not much. He came here a year
ago … didn’t somebody say he was from the Lake District?’

‘He used to look kind of
scruffy,’ Jayde adds. ‘But these
days he wears quite nice
stuff. I think he’s probably quite well off.’

‘Don’t know about that,’ I
say. ‘He told me he’s working at the stables because he needs the
money.’

Amy grins. ‘So you do talk to him! I
knew it! And you have loads in common, like your shared love of horses …’

‘We don’t talk,’ I correct
her. ‘He just snaps at me from time to time. That’s not a
conversation!’

But yesterday evening we managed at least
two minutes of chat without descending back into sniping. Does that count?

‘I see him getting out of a very posh
four-wheel drive some mornings,’ Sarah comments. ‘So he can’t exactly
be poor.’

Lawrie Marshall is a mystery boy all right.
Is he angry at the world or just trying to be invisible? Is he rich or poor, cruel or
kind, secretive or just plain rude? He doesn’t make it easy for anyone to get to
know him and he’s definitely not the friendliest boy I’ve ever met, but does
that make him a bad person?

I cannot work it out.

‘He fancies you, definitely,’
Amy smirks. ‘I can tell!’

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only sane one
on this whole planet, I swear.

Lawrie Marshall is waiting in the copse of
hazel trees beneath the moor at half four, doing some maths homework. When he sees me he
closes his exercise book and stuffs it into a rucksack, watching while I hide my bike in
a clump of bushes. He falls into step beside me, following the stream across the
moor.

‘So,’ he says, as if the whole
day at school hasn’t even happened, ‘I hear Seddon’s been to the
police. They’re making enquiries, planning a search.’

‘They mustn’t find them,’
I protest. ‘They just mustn’t, Lawrie!’

He shrugs. ‘They probably won’t
– I think they’re safe enough, for now. But we can’t keep them hidden
forever, can we?’

‘Not forever,’ I agree.
‘But I am working on a plan, don’t worry. A way to get them out of
there.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘But
I’m worried about the dapple-grey mare. She’s been neglected and she’s
quite run-down. She could be closer to foaling than we think.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I
say briskly. ‘I’m going to be a vet, remember? Delivering a foal would be no
problem at all.’

I promise myself I’ll find out on the
Internet how to help a pony foal. I have watched a sheep give birth, on the farm next
door to Tanglewood, but I’m not sure that makes me an expert in animal
midwifery.

‘Let’s just hope she
doesn’t foal too soon,’ Lawrie grumbles. ‘She’s not really
strong enough yet and if we need veterinary help this whole kidnap thing could backfire
on us, big style.’

‘It won’t,’ I say.
‘Don’t be so defeatist!’

Lawrie laughs, but there is no warmth, no
humour in the sound of it.

‘When are you going to learn,
Coco?’ he says with a sigh. ‘Wake up, will you, and open your eyes. Not
everything in life has a happy ending. Not everything that’s broken can be fixed.
What if we’ve made everything worse for Caramel and the mare? If they’re
found now they either go back to Seddon, or … they have no future at
all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Think about it,’ he says.
‘What happens to ponies that can’t be ridden, ponies that nobody wants?
C’mon. You know all the answers, don’t you?’

I shake my head, a feeling of dread inside
me.

‘They go to the knacker,’
Lawries says flatly. ‘They’re put to sleep. Some of them even end up as
dog food
, OK? Or cheap burgers. Is that what you want for your precious
Caramel?’

‘No!’ I whisper. ‘No, of
course not!’

I bite my lip until I can taste
blood.

We stay up at Jasmine Cottage until past
seven. We prop open the creaky back door of the cottage, allowing the ponies access to
what was once a stone-floored kitchen. A couple of candle lanterns hang from the
ceiling, giving out a thin, yellow light; an armchair with the springs and stuffing
hanging out of it sits forlornly beside a rusted iron fireplace. If this place was
Lawrie’s summer hideout, he hasn’t done much to make the place
comfortable.

The two of us bicker endlessly over
everything from names for the mare to how to provide the ponies with food. Lawrie wants
to ‘borrow’ grain from the riding school, but that feels dishonest to me and
neither of us has spare cash to pay. Both ponies have bridles and leading reins and
Caramel has a saddle, but that’s all we
have – no grooming kit,
no blankets to keep them warm and dry once the weather turns really cold.

My head is already working on ways to raise
cash to cover the costs. It’s time somebody took charge and got organized around
here. I take out a notepad and begin making a list.

But Lawrie is right – if the mare foals
early, we are in trouble. Big trouble … 

By Tuesday night, the list has filled most
of the notebook. I have packed a big travel bag with bright cushions, blankets and a few
strings of solar-powered fairy lights – Mum and Paddy bought loads of them for the
wedding party in June, and a whole bundle got boxed up and put away in the shed. I chuck
in last year’s fluffy boots, a pair of leggings and an old fisherman’s
sweater of Dad’s I’ve had hidden at the back of my wardrobe ever since he
left us.

It still smells of him, a little bit, and in
a good way. There was a time when I used to snuggle up with it whenever I was sad
because it made me think of Dad and fooled me into feeling he was still around, for a
moment
at least. These days I am much less easily fooled – it’s
just a ratty old jumper he used to wear when he worked in the garden, and it will keep
me warm up at the derelict cottage.

I have packed a rucksack with biscuits and
chocolate and apples, and after school tomorrow I will make a flask of hot chocolate to
bring.

It looks a little like I am leaving home,
but Mum and Paddy are too busy in the workshop to notice. Tanglewood is buzzing.
Paddy’s stable-block chocolate factory is working flat out, the B&B’s
breakfast room transformed into a packing room. At four o’clock the afternoon
shift leaves and the evening shift arrives, and in the middle of it all Mum is making
phone calls and signing for deliveries and making a tray of tea and biscuits for the
workers. Paddy hasn’t taken a break since breakfast time, but he can’t stop
grinning and his eyes shine like some modern-day Willie Wonka. This is his dream, his
big chance to let The Chocolate Box grow into a well-known brand.

I am very happy for Mum and Paddy, but
let’s face it, Honey, Skye, Summer, Cherry and I could probably paint ourselves
blue, dress in grass skirts and party until dawn
with assorted wild
boy-band lads right now, and they wouldn’t even notice. Not that we’d want
to, obviously. Or I wouldn’t, anyhow. I am just glad that in all the madness
nobody asks awkward questions about why I am taking bags of blankets and cushions out of
the house.

I hide my supplies in the gypsy caravan,
then head back to the kitchen and whisk up a double batch of cupcakes. I fill four trays
and slide them into the oven, then rinse the mixing bowl and start work on a big carrot
cake. If the ponies need cash for food, I will get it for them, and experience has
taught me that cakes are the surest way to do it. Sarah, Amy and Jayde have promised to
make traybakes and rocky road and scones for tomorrow too.

When the cupcakes are cool, I slice off the
tops, scoop a little sponge out and spoon in thick, sweet caramel to create a cupcake
version of Paddy’s Coco Caramel truffles. I am pretty sure my secret ingredient
will have the kids at school lining up for more, and surely it will bring luck to the
real-life Caramel?

‘What are the cakes for?’ Skye
queries, padding through to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. ‘Giant panda?
Siberian tiger? Blue whale?’

‘Local pony sanctuary,’ I lie, as
confidently as I can. ‘You probably won’t have heard of it. But if you want
to lend a hand …’

‘Sure,’ Skye shrugs.
‘I’ll rope in Summer and Cherry too!’

Skye and Cherry help me to ice the cupcakes
with buttercream and piped horseshoe motifs. Summer whips up cream-cheese frosting for
the carrot cake, not taking even the tiniest taste for herself. She loves to bake and
cook, especially lately – she just doesn’t eat any of what she makes, and she
thinks we don’t notice.