Answers:
birthday cake; hay fever; Camilla; Ingham; her Mickey Mouse clock; her mum; Goblinda the Goblin; the Mickey Mouse pen
‘I’m Tracy Beaker. This is a book all about me. I’d read it if I were you. It’s the most incredible, dynamic, heart-rending story. Honest.’
Tracy Beaker is ten and lives in the Dumping Ground, a children’s home, with weedy Peter and stupid Justine.
She’d love a real home one day, with a real family.
Includes a fabulous extra story, TRACY BEAKER’S THUMPING HEART.
For games, competitions and more, explore www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk
Jacqueline Wilson is one of Britain’s bestselling authors, with more than 38 million books sold in the UK alone. She has been honoured with many prizes for her work, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Children’s Book of the Year. Jacqueline is a former Children’s Laureate, a professor of children’s literature, and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame for services to children’s literacy.
Visit Jacqueline’s fantastic website at www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk
To Bryony, David, Miranda,
Jason and Ryan
My name is Tracy Beaker
I am 10 years 2 months old.
My birthday is on 8 May. It’s not fair, because that dopey Peter Ingham has his birthday then too, so we just got the one cake between us. And we had to hold the knife to cut the cake together. Which meant we only had half a wish each. Wishing is for babies anyway. They don’t come true.
I was born at some hospital somewhere. I looked cute when I was a little baby but I bet I yelled a lot.
I am cms tall. I don’t know. I’ve tried measuring with a ruler but it keeps wobbling about and I can’t reach properly. I don’t want to get any of the other children to help me. This is my private book.
I weigh kgs. I don’t know that either. Jenny has got scales in her bathroom but they’re stones and pounds. I don’t weigh many of them. I’m a little titch.
My eyes are black and I can make them go all wicked and witchy. I quite fancy being a witch. I’d make up all these incredibly evil spells and wave my wand and ZAP Louise’s golden curls would all fall out and ZAP Peter Ingham’s silly squeaky voice would get sillier and squeakier and he’d grow whiskers and a long tail and ZAP . . . there’s not room on this bit of the page, but I’ve still got all sorts of ZAPs inside my head.
My hair is fair and very long and curly. I am telling fibs. It’s dark and difficult and it sticks up in all the wrong places.
My skin is spotty when I eat a lot of sweets.
Stick a photo of yourself here
I’m not really cross-eyed. I was just pulling a silly face.
I started this book on I don’t know. Who cares what the date is? You always have to put the date at school. I got fed up with this and put 2091 in my Day Book and wrote about all these rockets and space ships and monsters legging it down from Mars to eat us all up, as if we’d all whizzed one hundred years into the future. Miss Brown didn’t half get narked.
Things I like
My lucky number is 7. So why didn’t I get fostered by some fantastic rich family when I was seven then?
My favourite colour is blood red, so watch out, ha-ha.
My best friend is Well, I’ve had heaps and heaps, but Louise has gone off with Justine and now I haven’t got anyone just at the moment.
I like eating everything. I like birthday cake best. And any other kind of cake. And Smarties and Mars Bars and big buckets of popcorn and jelly spiders and Cornettos and Big Macs with French fries and strawberry milk shakes.
My favourite name is Camilla. There was a lovely little baby at this other home and that was her name. She was a really sweet kid with fantastic hair that I used to try to get into loads of little plaits and it must have hurt her sometimes but she never cried. She really liked me, little Camilla. She got fostered quick as a wink. I begged her foster mum and dad to bring her back to see me but they never did.
I like drinking pints of bitter. That’s a joke. I have had a sip of lager once but I didn’t like it.
My favourite game is playing with make-up. Louise and I once borrowed some from Adele who’s got heaps. Louise was a bit boring and just tried to make herself look beautiful. I turned myself into an incredible vampire with evil shadowy eyes and blood dribbling down my chin. I didn’t half scare the little ones.
My favourite animals is Well, there’s a rabbit called Lettuce at this home but it’s a bit limp, like its name. It doesn’t sit up and give you a friendly lick like a dog. I think I’d like a Rottweiler – and then all my enemies had better WATCH OUT.
My favourite TV programme is horror films.
Best of all I like being with my mum.
Things I don’t like
the name Justine. Louise. Peter. Oh there’s heaps and heaps of names I can’t stand.
eating stew. Especially when it’s got great fatty lumps in it. I used to have this horrid foster mother called Aunty Peggy and she was an awful cook. She used to make this slimy stew like molten sick and we were supposed to eat it all up, every single bit. Yuck.
Most of all I hate Justine. That Monster Gorilla. And not seeing my mum.
Stick a photo of you and your family here
This was when I was a baby. See, I was sweet then. And this is my mum. She’s ever so pretty. I wish I looked more like her.
The people in my own family are My mum. I don’t have a dad. I lived with my mum when I was little and we got on great but then she got this Monster Gorilla Boyfriend and I hated him and he hated me back and beat me up and so I had to be taken into care. No wonder my mum sent him packing.
My own family live at I’m not sure exactly where my mum lives now because she has to keep moving about because she gets fed up living in one place for long.
The phone number is Well, I don’t know, do I? Funny though, I always used to bag this toy telephone in the playhouse at school and pretend I was phoning my mum. I used to have these long long conversations with her. They were just pretend of course, but I was only about five then and sometimes it got to be quite real.
Things about my family that I like I like my mum because she’s pretty and good fun and she brings me lovely presents.
There’s no point filling this bit in. I haven’t got a foster family at the moment.
I’ve had two. There was Aunty Peggy and Uncle Sid first of all. I didn’t like them much and I didn’t get on with the other kids so I didn’t care when they got rid of me. I was in a children’s home for a while and then I had this other couple. Julie and Ted. They were young and friendly and they bought me a bike and I thought it was all going to be great and I went to live with them and I was ever so good and did everything they said and I thought I’d be staying with them until my mum came to get me for good but then . . . I don’t want to write about it. It ended up with me getting turfed out THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I was so mad I smashed up the bike so I don’t even have that any more. And now I’m in a new children’s home and they’ve advertised me in the papers but there weren’t many takers and now I think they’re getting a bit desperate. I don’t care though. I expect my mum will come soon anyway.
My school is called It’s Kinglea Junior School. I’ve been to three other schools already. This one’s OK I suppose.
My teacher is called Miss Brown. She gets cross if we just call her Miss.
Subjects I do Story-writing. Arithmetic. Games. Art. All sorts of things. And we do Projects only I never have the right stuff at the Home so I can’t do it properly and get a star.
I like Story-writing best. I’ve written heaps of stories, and I do pictures for them too. I make some of them into books. I made Camilla a special baby book with big printed words and pictures of all the things she liked best, things like TEDDY and ICE CREAM and YOUR SPECIAL FRIEND TRACY.
I also like Art. We use poster paints. We’ve got them at the Home too but they get all gungy and mucked up and the brushes are useless. They’ve got good ones at school. This is a painting I did yesterday. If I was a teacher I’d give it a gold star. Two gold stars.
My class is 3a.
People in my class I can’t list all their names, I’d be here all night. I don’t know some of them yet. There’s not much point making friends because I expect I’ll be moving on soon.
Other teachers Oh, they’re all boring. Who wants to write about them?
I get to school by going in the Minibus. That’s how all the kids in the home get to school. I’d sooner go in a proper car or walk it by myself but you’re not allowed.
It takes hours mins It varies. Sometimes it takes ages because the little kids can’t find their pencil cases and the big ones try to bunk off and we just have to hang about waiting.
Things I don’t like about school They all wear grey things, that’s the uniform, and I’ve only got navy things from my last school. The teachers know why and I don’t get into trouble but the other kids stare.
My social worker is called Elaine and sometimes she’s a right pain, ha-ha.
We talk about all sorts of boring things.
But I don’t like talking about my mum. Not to Elaine. What I think about my mum is private.
older, I would live in this really great modern house all on my own, and I’d have my own huge bedroom with all my own things, special bunk beds just for me so that I’d always get the top one and a Mickey Mouse alarm clock like Justine’s and my own giant set of poster paints and I’d have some felt tips as well and no-one would ever get to borrow them and mess them up and I’d have my own television and choose exactly what programmes I want, and I’d stay up till gone twelve every night and I’d eat at McDonald’s every single day and I’d have a big fast car so I could whizz off and visit my mum whenever I wanted.
a policeman, I would arrest the Monster Gorilla and I’d lock him up in prison for ever.
a kitten, I would grow very long claws and sharp teeth and scratch and bite everyone so they’d get really scared of me and do everything I say.
yelled at, I would yell back.
invisible, I would spy on people.
very tall, I would stamp on people with my great big feet.
Very rich, I would buy my own house and then . . . I’ve done all that bit. I’m getting fed up writing all this. What’s on the next page?
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Tracy Beaker. That sounds a bit stupid, like the start of a soppy fairy story. I can’t stand fairy stories. They’re all the same. If you’re very good and very beautiful with long golden curls then, after sweeping up a few cinders or having a long kip in a cobwebby palace, this prince comes along and you live happily ever after. Which is fine if you happen to be a goodie-goodie and look gorgeous. But if you’re bad and ugly then you’ve got no chance whatsoever. You get given a silly name like Rumpelstiltskin and nobody invites you to their party and no-one’s ever grateful even when you do them a whopping great favour. So of course you get a bit cheesed off with this sort of treatment. You stamp your feet in a rage and fall right through the floorboards or you scream yourself into a frenzy and you get locked up in a tower and they throw away the key.
I’ve done a bit of stamping and screaming in my time.
And I’ve been locked up heaps of times. Once they locked me up all day long. And all night. That was at the first Home, when I wouldn’t settle because I wanted my mum so much. I was just little then but they still locked me up. I’m not fibbing. Although I do have a tendency to tell a few fibs now and again. It’s funny, Aunty Peggy used to call it Telling Fairy Stories.
I’d say something like – ‘Guess what, Aunty Peggy, I just met my mum in the back garden and she gave me a ride in her flash new sports car and we went down the shopping arcade and she bought me my very own huge bottle of scent, that posh Poison one, just like the bottle Uncle Sid gave you for your birthday, and I was messing about with it, playing Murderers, and the bottle sort of tipped and it’s gone all over me as I expect you’ve noticed, but it’s my scent not yours. I don’t know what’s happened to yours. I think one of the other kids took it.’
You know the sort of thing. I’d make it dead convincing but Aunty Peggy wouldn’t even listen properly. She’d just shake her head at me and get all cross and red and say, ‘Oh Tracy, you naughty girl, you’re Telling Fairy Stories again.’ Then she’d give me a smack.
Foster mothers aren’t supposed to smack you at all. I told Elaine that Aunty Peggy used to smack me and Elaine sighed and said, ‘Well sometimes, Tracy, you really do ask for it.’ Which is a lie in itself. I have never in my life said ‘Aunty Peggy, please will you give me a great big smack.’ And her smacks really hurt too, right on the back of your leg where it stings most. I didn’t like that Aunty Peggy at all. If I was in a real fairy story I’d put a curse on her. A huge wart right on the end of her nose? Frogs and toads coming wriggling out of her mouth every time she tries to speak? No, I can make up better than that. She can have permanent huge great bogeys hanging out of her nose that won’t go away no matter how many times she blows it, and whenever she tries to speak she’ll make this terribly loud Rude Noise. Great!
Oh dear. You can’t win. Elaine, my stupid old social worker, was sitting beside me when I started writing THE STORY OF TRACY BEAKER and I got the giggles making up my brilliant curses for Aunty Peggy and Elaine looked surprised and said, ‘What are you laughing at, Tracy?’
I said, ‘Mind your own business’ and she said, ‘Now Tracy’ and then she looked at what I’d written which is a bit of a cheek seeing as it’s supposed to be very private. She sighed when she got to the Aunty Peggy part and said, ‘Really Tracy!’ and I said, ‘Yes, really, Elaine.’ And she sighed again and her lips moved for a moment or two. That’s her taking a deep breath and counting up to ten. Social workers are supposed to do that when a child is being difficult. Elaine ends up doing an awful lot of counting when she’s with me.
When she got to ten she gave me this big false smile. Like this.
‘Now look, Tracy,’ said Elaine. ‘This is your own special book about you, something that you’re going to keep for ever. You don’t want to spoil it by writing all sorts of silly cheeky rude things in it, do you?’
I said, ‘It’s my life and it hasn’t been very special so far, has it, so why shouldn’t I write any old rubbish?’
Then she sighed again, but sympathetically this time, and she put her arm round me and said, ‘Hey, I know you’ve had a hard time, but you’re very special. You know that, don’t you?’
I shook my head and tried to wriggle away.
‘Yes, you are, Tracy. Very very special,’ Elaine said, hanging on to me.
‘Then if I’m so very very special how come no-one wants me?’ I said.
‘Oh dear, I know it must have been very disappointing for you when your second placement went wrong, love, but you mustn’t let it depress you too much. Sooner or later you’ll find the perfect placement.’
‘A fantastic rich family?’
‘Maybe a family. Or maybe a single person, if someone really suitable came along.’
I gave her this long look. ‘You’re single, Elaine. And I bet you’re suitable. So why don’t you foster me, eh?’
It was her turn to wriggle then.
‘Well, Tracy. You know how it is. I mean, I’ve got my job. I have to deal with lots of children.’
‘But if you fostered me you could stop bothering with all the others and just look after me. They give you money if you foster. I bet they’d give you lots extra because I’m difficult, and I’ve got behaviour problems and all that. How about it, Elaine? It would be fun, honest it would.’
‘I’m sure it would be lots of fun, Tracy, but I’m sorry, it’s just not on,’ Elaine said.
She tried to give me a big hug but I pushed her hard.
‘I was only joking,’ I said. ‘Yuck. I couldn’t stand the thought of living with you. You’re stupid and boring and you’re all fat and wobbly, I’d absolutely hate the idea of you being my foster mum.’
‘I can understand why you’re angry with me, Tracy,’ said Elaine, trying to look cool and calm, but sucking in her stomach all the same.
I told her I wasn’t a bit angry, though I shouted as I said it. I told her I didn’t care a bit, though I had these silly watery eyes. I didn’t cry though. I don’t ever cry. Sometimes people think I do, but it’s my hay fever.
‘I expect you’re going to think up all sorts of revolting curses for me now,’ said Elaine.
‘I’m doing it right this minute,’ I told her.
‘OK,’ she said.
‘You always say OK,’ I told her. ‘You know: OK, that’s fine with me, if that’s what you want I’m not going to make a fuss; OK Tracy, yes I know you’ve got this socking great axe in your hand and you’re about to chop off my head because you’re feeling angry with me, but OK, if that’s the way you feel, I’m not going to get worried about it because I’m this super-cool social worker.’
She burst out laughing then.
‘No-one can stay super-cool when you’re around, Tracy,’ she said. ‘Look kiddo, you write whatever you want in your life story. It’s your own book, after all.’
So that’s that. This is my own book and I can write whatever I want. Only I’m not quite sure what I do want, actually. Maybe Elaine could help after all. She’s over the other side of the sitting-room, helping that wet Peter with his book. He hasn’t got a clue. He’s filling it all in so slowly and so seriously, not writing it but printing it with that silly blotchy biro of his, trying to do it ever so carefully but failing miserably, and now he’s smudged some of it so it looks a mess anyway.
I’ve just called Elaine but she says she’s got to help Peter for a bit. The poor little petal is getting all worried in case he puts the wrong answers, as if it’s some dopey intelligence test. I’ve done heaps of them, intelligence tests. They’re all ever so easy-peasy. I can do them quick as a wink. They always expect kids in care to be as thick as bricks, but I get a hundred out of a hundred nearly every time. Well, they don’t tell you the answers, but I bet I do.