Screams, Dreams, and Coconut Cream!

By Coley Bates

Coco Tinsley is the heiress of the Coco-Crème Soda empire. But she has spent the majority of her life at a boarding school in Switzerland with almost no involvement with her parents or the family business.

 

Her life was all about skiing, speaking French, and circus training.

 

When she is suddenly called home by her parents, it throws her orderly little life into chaos. She must leave behind her friends, who are really her family, for a new life with parents she doesn't really know. She will be expected to act like a normal teenager and attend school with other teens who are nothing like her.

 

Will Coco thrive or will she run away with the circus as she's always dreamed of doing?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Perfectly Poisoned Press
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201914684

Book preview

Coley Bates

Screams, Dreams, and Coconut Cream!

A Soda Shop Novella

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Coley Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Coley Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Coley Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

First edition

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

About the Author

Also by Coley Bates

Chapter 1

Everything happened in a whirlwind. A blur she couldn’t see through. A situation so traumatic, she could feel nothing but numbness as her world was yanked out from beneath Coco Tinsley’s orderly little life.

Seventeen years, seven months, Miss Avalon, the headmistress of the American Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland told her as she rushed through signing some paperwork without even looking at Coco. Until you are eighteen years old, your parents have say in everything you do, and that includes calling you back home.

But I don’t want to go home! Coco protested, her fear mounting with each passing second. The academy was her home and had been her home since she was ten years old and her mother dumped her on the front steps with a forced kiss goodbye on Coco’s cheek, and the obligatory, Now be a good girl, Coco, and listen to everything your instructors tell you. You’re a very lucky girl. She remembered her mother walking away and leaving her behind while she sobbed and begged her mother to return. Her mother never turned back.

Her mother, much in the same way Miss Avalon was acting now, couldn’t…or wouldn’t look her in the eye.

But the difference was, Miss Avalon genuinely did care about Coco, just as she cared about all the students in her care.

Finally, after a few more agonizing minutes of silence, Miss Avalon looked up. I’m sorry, Coco, I truly am. You are one of my favorite students, a joy to have watched grow from a child to a young woman. Look at this situation as the beginning of a new chapter in your life.

She handed Coco her passport, and a folder sealed in an envelope. Give the folder to your headmistress or principal at your new school. It will help them place you in the correct classes. I think they will be very impressed with you, Coco. Miss Avalon tried for a smile of reassurance.

Do you know the reason my parents want me home? she asked.

Miss Avalon shook her head slowly. No, they just insisted that you return as soon as possible. She paused, and then added, I do hope it’s nothing serious, like an illness, Miss Avalon sighed.

Coco believed her. Miss Avalon wouldn’t lie to her. As she walked back to her dorm room to pack, she stood in stunned silence in the doorway of her room. In just a short time, maybe a half-hour, her room had already been boxed up. The boxes were taped and neatly stacked. Upon closer examination, each box was labeled with her name, address in the States, and the contents. Her desk, where she did her homework, emailed her friends and browsed the internet for hours at a time keeping up with fashion, and the latest antics of Hollywood celebrities and musicians she admired, was now bare except for the desk lamp. It looked so alone and forlorn, exactly how she felt at that moment.

On the chair was her travel bag. She was shocked to find that it had been packed with an extra outfit, a pair of shoes, a bag of cosmetics, a hairbrush, and a few odds and ends to see her through the long journey home.

Home.

That was a dirty word. She had no such thing as a home. The closest she had to a home was the American Academy or the homes of one of her friends or teachers who dragged her with them for holidays so she would not be alone. Friends, who like herself, were exiled away from their family, but unlike Coco, they were furloughed during the Christmas holidays to return home to celebrate.

As she panic dialed Luc, Miss Glover, the assistant to Miss Avalon appeared in her doorway.

The car is here to take you to the airport, Coco. There isn’t much time before your flight.

But…but I haven’t had a chance to phone my friends, my…

Miss Glover took the phone from Coco’s hand and disconnected the call she’d been trying to make. She then lifted the travel bag and handed it to Coco along with the phone. There’s no time for phone calls. You’ll have plenty of time for phone calls on your way to the airport. Her voice was kind, but her