Christmas at Lilac Cottage: (#1 White Cliff Bay) (11 page)

This was at least enough to stop the fight as Fabio wailed in horror.

The police finally made a move, obviously finding the whole spectacle far too entertaining to actually want to stop it. As Fabio launched himself at Geoffrey again, they pulled the two of them apart and dragged them both out the building.

‘Get off me!’ Fabio yelled in a perfect Essex accent as he struggled for his freedom.

The door closed behind them and the room fell into silence. Suddenly people started clapping and cheering, obviously thinking it was all part of the competition. Either that or it was the most excitement the people of White Cliff Bay had seen in a long time.

Penny turned round to make sure Daisy was OK but she was laughing and clapping too.

Penny approached and Josh lessened his protective stance in front of Daisy slightly.

‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you, I never expected it to be like this.’

Daisy wiped away tears of laughter. ‘Best thing I’ve seen for a long time. You have to bring me to all competitions from now on, even if I’m not competing.’

With the drama over, people went back to perusing the remaining sculptures. There were only four others now apart from Penny’s and Daisy’s.

‘Gives us more of a chance now they are out of the competition,’ Daisy said. ‘Though that Hogwarts Castle over there is getting a lot of interest.’

Penny peered through the crowds at the castle with each tiny brick carved into the sides, the pointy turrets and even a dragon resting on the roof. It was stunning. ‘That has to be Octavia’s, she is ridiculously talented. She’s bound to win.’

Suddenly there was a flurry of excitement as the judges arrived. Pippa, the Mayor of White Cliff Bay, came in first, her huge pregnant belly parting the crowds, overshadowing the gold chain of office that hung round her neck. Pippa waved at Penny as she walked in and a feeling of unease settled in Penny’s stomach, remembering how grateful Pippa had been towards Penny that morning over her saving Sam. Surely she wouldn’t be so grateful as to award her first place over the magnificent Hogwarts Castle? Thankfully there was one other judge with her, Mr Cartwright, her art teacher from school. He would make the right decision.

Daisy made a squeak next to her. ‘That’s Jackson Cartwright. He’s going to be my art teacher at White Cliff Bay Secondary School.’

‘He was my art teacher when I was there.’

‘How cool is that. He must have been very young when he was teaching you.’

‘He was, all the girls fancied him. He rode a motorbike and wore a leather jacket and he smoked so obviously that made him a hundred times cooler than all the other stuffy teachers.’

‘He has all these cool sculptures in galleries in London, I’m such a fan of his work.’

‘Would you like me to introduce you?’

Daisy nodded. ‘No.’

Penny laughed at the mixed signals. ‘Well, maybe I can chat to him and you can be standing next to me.’

‘Yes, that sounds good.’

‘Competitors, please take your places by your sculptures to meet the judges,’ a loud voice boomed across the hall.

Penny noted the young red-head standing next to Melody’s mermaid sculpture and gave her a friendly smile. She saw Octavia by the Hogwarts Castle as she suspected and Ignatius, a man with a long flowing white beard and long hair to match, standing by a splendid-looking lighthouse. On the other side of him was Frank, dressed in a dusty pink trouser suit and standing next to an intricately carved vase of flowers.

The Hogwarts Castle was obviously going to win, but Penny couldn’t call second and third place at all. Even Daisy’s snowflake, though simple in its design, showed a real talent.

The judges moved around the room, admiring the sculptures and chatting to the competitors.

Finally they came to Daisy. Penny watched them as they studied her piece and noticed how Daisy was standing almost in shock at being so close to her idol. She willed Jackson to say something nice about it; if he did that would make Daisy’s entire night, even if she didn’t make the top three.

‘This is an incredible piece,’ Jackson said. ‘These branches are so thin and perfectly round. I’m very impressed with the detail that you’ve put into this.’

Penny’s heart soared with happiness for Daisy. She could see she was already beaming from ear to ear.

He looked at the card with her name and then looked back at Daisy. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You’re the new girl. You’re going to be in my form after Christmas and I’ll be teaching you for art too.’

‘You’re my form teacher?’

Jackson nodded. Now he’d made her entire year.

‘I’m so impressed that you have this skill at such a young age, have you had much training?’

‘I did a wood carving course in the summer and Penny has been showing me lots of things.’

Jackson turned his eyes on Penny and smiled. ‘Tuppence Meadows, how lovely to see you here, and inspiring a younger generation I see. You’ll be putting me out of a job.’

‘Your job is quite safe,’ Penny said. ‘Working with Daisy has been a delight but I don’t think I’d want to work with thirty teenagers.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, they can be a handful at times.’ He turned back to Daisy. ‘Will you be popping in this week before the school closes for Christmas? It’d be nice for you to meet the rest of your form at least.’

‘Yes, I think I’m coming in Thursday or Friday this week.’

‘Well, I look forward to seeing you then.’

He moved on to Penny while Pippa chatted to Daisy.

‘This angel is stunning, Tuppence.’

‘Penny.’

Jackson smiled. ‘Penny, my apologies. The detail of the hair is quite beautiful. I’m very impressed, but I had no doubt that you would go on to do fantastic things with your art. I’ve seen a lot of your sculptures around town over the years, makes me very proud. If you ever did want to come to school and do an ice carving workshop with the kids, it would be very inspiring and I’d be there the whole time so they wouldn’t give you any grief.’

Penny smiled at the idea. She had thought about teaching some kind of carving course at the local college; she loved being able to pass on her skills and inspire other people to carve too. She had done hen and stag ice carving parties before and a few corporate team building days, which were always a lot of fun, and she had loved working with Daisy over the last few days. Maybe working at the school for a few days would be an excellent way to dip her toe into that side of things.

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ Penny said and Jackson smiled.

Pippa joined them.

‘I love your angel, Penny, I think it’s magnificent.’

‘Thank you.’

Pippa and Jackson wandered off to the middle of the room to discuss the results. There was lots of gesturing around the room, especially towards Octavia’s castle. The organiser of the event joined them and he nodded as they told him the result. Jackson didn’t look too happy though.

‘We have our winners here,’ the organiser boomed in his deep voice. ‘And I must say the level of quality we have seen has even got our judges arguing over the winner, but our lovely Mayor does have the final say. So, in third place, the judges have chosen…’ He paused dramatically. ‘Daisy Travis with her snowflake.’

There was a big round of applause from the crowd and Penny cheered the loudest. As she moved to hug her she realised Daisy was shaking.

‘Well done, I’m so pleased for you, you totally deserve it,’ Penny said.

‘In second place is… Octavia Greene.’

There was a huge collective gasp from the crowd that Octavia hadn’t come first. Every single person in this room knew that Octavia’s sculpture should have won, including, it seemed, Octavia. Her mouth dropped open, not from pleasant surprise but in pure outrage. Penny winced, knowing where this was going next. For Octavia to be awarded second place that meant that Penny had been awarded first as Pippa’s attempt to say thank you for saving her son’s life the day before.

‘And first place goes to…’

Penny prayed that Frank’s flowers or Ignatius’s lighthouse had caught the judges’ eye.

‘Penny Meadows.’

There was a polite round of applause and lots of murmuring and shaking heads as people obviously disagreed with the final verdict.

Penny wanted the ground to swallow her up. She didn’t want to win like this. She was proud of her angel – it was good – but Octavia’s castle was incredible.

Daisy threw herself at Penny, squealing loudly, clearly not having any idea why Penny had won.

The judges came over to shake Penny’s hand and award her a rosette. She could barely muster a smile of thanks. A few other people came to shake her hand and pat her on the back and then the competition was over and people started to leave.

Octavia stomped over to her and Penny knew it wasn’t to congratulate her. ‘You and I both know why you won tonight and it has nothing to do with your ice sculpture.’

She stormed out and Daisy looked at Penny in confusion. ‘Talk about losing graciously.’

‘Come on, let’s go home,’ Penny said, feeling thoroughly deflated despite the ribbon that was shimmering on her chest.

Josh and Daisy followed her out.

Daisy chatted to Josh all the way back to his house but Penny was annoyed. The whole evening had been a farce. She wanted to inspire Daisy to continue with her carving, show her that with hard work and commitment she could create beautiful sculptures that people would admire. Instead she had exposed her to the crazy world of fierce competition and showed her that, no matter how hard you worked, it came down to who you knew and whose back you had scratched. Was there any point entering the big competition at the ball in a week’s time if the winning vote had already been cast?

Penny dropped Josh off and she smiled when she saw him give Daisy a quick peck on the cheek to say congratulations. Daisy sat in silence with a huge smile on her face the rest of the way home.

They pulled up outside their house and Daisy practically bounced to the door, overflowing with excitement. Penny let them in through her front door and after Daisy had greeted Bernard with enough affection to last him a lifetime, she burst through the connecting door into her lounge.

‘I have had the best night ever,’ Daisy announced to her dad and Penny moved to the doorway to watch her. Henry was sitting on the sofa, reading a book, which he immediately put down to give his undivided attention to Daisy. He was wearing glasses and his feet were bare and there was something that made her stomach leap with affection for him at these small little attributes.

‘Dad, I came third. Admittedly it was only out of eight people, well six, but still I came third and Jackson Cartwright was a judge and he said he was so impressed by my sculpture and…’

‘Wait, you entered into the competition? I didn’t know you had been creating your own sculpture, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come.’

‘I didn’t think it was any good, it was my first attempt and… I don’t know, I didn’t want you to see me fail.’

‘I’ve told you before, you can only fail if you don’t have a go. I’m so proud of you for entering. I wish you would have told me.’

‘Sometimes you get a bit funny about my art.’

Henry looked shocked. ‘I’ve always supported your art. I’ve paid for courses, I’ve taken you to exhibitions, I’ve bought you art gear…’

‘But whenever I tell you I want to be an artist when I’m older, you always tell me not to neglect my other subjects.’

‘That has nothing to do with me not supporting your art and everything to do with you being a lazy sod when it comes to your homework.’ He put on a high-pitched girly voice. ‘Dad, I don’t need to do my maths homework because I’m going to be an artist when I’m older. Dad, I don’t need to do this history essay because I’m going to be an artist.’

Daisy giggled at the terrible impression.

‘You’re a clever girl, Daisy. You could be anything you want to be when you’re older, a doctor, scientist, astronaut. If you want to be an artist then I’ll be behind you one hundred percent, but that does not mean you get to take it easy in all your other subjects. In a few years’ time you might decide that you don’t want to be an artist any more, you might want to be a vet or a translator or prime minister. You can’t do those things without your GCSEs. You have six months until you finish school and you can study whatever course you want at college but you’re damned well going to work your arse off between now and then.’

Daisy smiled. ‘OK.’

‘And next time, tell me when you enter a competition and then I can cheer the loudest when you win, or boo really loudly at the winner if you lose.’

‘Penny won,’ Daisy said and Henry looked over at her.

‘You did, that’s fab. I wouldn’t have booed at you if I’d been there,’ Henry said and then to Daisy he whispered, loudly, ‘Well, maybe I’d boo quietly.’ Daisy and Penny laughed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s photos of these wonderful sculptures.’

‘I have photos on my phone,’ Daisy said, grabbing her phone and, pressing a few buttons, she passed it to Henry. ‘That’s mine.’

‘Wow, this is really great, and you did all this on your own?’

‘Penny did the chainsaw bit, she wouldn’t let me use that.’

‘Good job too, some of those tools look lethal.’ He flashed Penny a look of concern.

‘She’s very sensible when she uses the tools, and I’ve showed her the correct way to use them,’ Penny said.

Henry still didn’t look happy about this but he clearly decided to let it go. ‘It’s very good, you really do have a skill for this.’

‘This is Penny’s.’

Henry gave a low whistle. ‘That’s seriously good. Wait, what’s this?’

Daisy leaned over to look and laughed. ‘That’s Fabio’s sculpture before it got broken.’

Penny flushed as Henry stared at it. ‘This Fabio seems to be very familiar with his subject.’

‘Hardly, he missed out all my wobbly bits.’

Henry’s eyes cast over her. ‘He seems to have done a good enough job. So you and he…?’

‘No, definitely not, not ever,’ Penny said.

‘Not from lack of trying though,’ Daisy giggled as she pressed a button on her phone and played the video of Fabio’s bizarre proposal.