Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One: Girl Time
Chapter Two: Time to Go Home
Chapter Three: Rhyme Time
Chapter Four: Doom and Gloom Time
Chapter Five: Good Times
Chapter Six: Bad Timing
Chapter Seven: Dangerous Times
Chapter Eight: Running Out of Time
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Also by Jacqueline Wilson
Copyright
About the Book
How late can you stay out?
Nine o’clock. That’s when I have to be home. Dad thinks it’s not SAFE any later. But then the most amazing, magical thing happens. Out with my best friends, drop-dead gorgeous Magda and super-cool Nadine, I meet a boy. And it’s ME he’s interested in! ME! Plain, plump Ellie. But will Russell STAY interested in a girl who has to be at home by nine …?
Stay out later than late with Ellie and the girls in the third story in Jacqueline Wilson’s fabulous, best-selling series for teenagers. Now with a new introduction!
FOR TEENAGE READERS
To Meetal Malhi and Harriet, Polina and Rebecca
It’s great when you have a best friend. It can be even better when you have two best friends. Ellie, Magda and Nadine are in Year Nine and they make a fantastic threesome. I invented them in the space of half an hour! I was staying at my daughter, Emma’s flat, and she was patiently teaching me how to use her computer. I am a total technophobe and a very slow learner. I found myself getting very upset and irritable as I struggled with her unfamiliar keyboard, making all sorts of silly mistakes.
I decided to distract myself by making up a new story. I wanted to write about teenagers for a change. I typed Three girls on Emma’s computer. I thought about my first girl. I liked the name Ellie so I typed that too. I decided she would tell the story. I wanted her to be lively and creative and very good at art. I didn’t want her to be a super-girl with a fabulous figure and absolutely everything going for her. I decided she’d be an ordinary comfy girl size – so she’d worry a bit about getting fat. I gave her little round glasses and a lot of wild, curly dark hair. I liked her a lot.
I felt that Ellie might have a weird, cool gothic girl as one of her friends. I found my fingers typing the name Nadine. She’d be into alternative music and wear black all the time and be much more daring than Ellie. She’d also be one of those irritating girls who could stuff Mars bars all day and still stay as thin as a pin.
I wanted my third girl to be a bright, blonde, bubbly girl, full of fun. I called her Magda. I thought she’d be boy-mad, a little bit spoilt, but basically a great friend to Ellie and Nadine.
There! I had my three girls sorted out by the time I’d typed a page. I found I’d mastered the new keyboard – and I was all set to start my story!
There are four stories about Ellie, Magda and Nadine. Girls out Late is the third book in the series. Ellie, Magda and Nadine tell a little white lie to their parents and go off to a concert together – and end up staying out very late indeed …