Free 3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream by Cathy Cassidy Page B

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 tocare 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.’
    ‘You had a bet about whether I’d get into ballet school?’ I ask, horrified.
    ‘It was just a joke, seriously,’ Alfie hedges. ‘I was saying you’d pass with flying colours, and he was just arguing for the sake of it. It was nothing personal, Summer. He just doesn’t want to accept that you’re going away …’
    I swallow. ‘Let me get this straight,’ I say. ‘You had a bet that I’d get into ballet school, and someone else bet I wouldn’t …’
    ‘That’s about it, yes,’ Alfie gulps.
    ‘Let me guess … that someone was … Aaron?’
    Alfie pulls a pained face. ‘It’s not that he doesn’t think you can do it,’ he says. ‘He just says stuff, to be funny. Different. You know what he’s like …’
    I look towards the firelight, where Aaron is telling Carl and Sid about his third goal of the day and how the teamwould have been stuffed without him. I can’t see a good-looking, popular boy who likes to be funny, just a boy who is self-centred and full of himself, with a mean streak mixed in for good measure. I see somebody I don’t like at all.
    ‘Unreal,’ I say.
    ‘Me and my big mouth,’ Alfie groans. ‘I’ve put my foot in it massively … boy, I bet you hate me now.’
    ‘No more than usual,’ I sigh, and Alfie puts his head in his hands. ‘Look, Alfie, it’s not your fault my boyfriend’s a creep.’
    ‘He’ll kill me,’ Alfie whimpers. ‘I am dead meat.’
    ‘I won’t tell him,’ I say. ‘Forget it. I guess you didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. It was never going to last.’
    Alfie’s head springs up again, his eyes wide. ‘You’re dumping him?’ he asks.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I guess … we haven’t been getting on for a while. No spark.’
    ‘Really?’ he asks, his mouth twitching into a smile. ‘No spark? It’s not all my fault then? Cool. If you ever need to talk … about sparks … or anything … any time … I’m here for you, I promise. I mean it, Summer.’
    ‘No thanks,’ I say.
    ‘OK. That’s cool too,’ he shrugs. ‘Whatever you like.’
    ‘I’d like you to leave me alone now,’ I tell him, and I watch his face fall as he moves off towards the others.
    Later, when the sky has darkened to indigo velvet scattered with stars and the bonfire has burnt down to a