Starring Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

  tell you about Cam in a

  minute.) I'm sure it's practi-

  cally good enough to get

  published. I typed it out on

  Cam's computer so it looked ever so neat and the spellcheck took care of all the spellings so I was all prepared for Mrs V.B. to bust a gut

  and write: ' Very very very good indeed, Tracy.

  10 out of 10 and Triple Gold Star and I'll buy you a tube of Smarties at playtime.'

  Do you know what she really wrote? ' You've tried hard, Tracy, but this is a very rambling story. You also have a very warped imagination!'

  I looked up 'warp' in the dictionary she's always recommending and it means 'to twist out of shape'. That's spot on. I'd like to warp Mrs Vomit Bagley, twisting and

  twisting, until her eyes pop and her arms and legs are wrapped

  right round her great big bum.

  That's another thing. Whenever I

  write the weeniest babiest little

  rude word Mrs V.B. goes

  bananas. I don't know what she'd

  do if I used really bad words like

  **** and **** and ****** (censored!!).

  I looked up 'ramble' too. I liked what it said:

  'To stroll about freely, as for relaxation, with no particular direction'. So that's exactly what I did today, instead of staying at boring old school. I bunked off and strolled round the town freely, as relaxed as anything. I had a little potter in Paperchase and bought this big fat purple notebook with my pocket money.

  I'm going to write all my mega-manic ultra-scary stories in it, as warped and as rambly as I can make them. And I'll write my story too.

  I've written all about myself before in The Story of Tracy Beaker. So this can be The Story of Tracy Beaker Two or Find Out What Happens Next to the Brave and Brilliant Tracy Beaker or Further Fabulous Adventures of the Tremendous Terrific Tracy Beaker or Read More About the Truly Terrible Tracy Beaker, Even More Wicked Than the Wicked Witch of the West.

  Yes. I was telling you about The Wizard of Oz. There's only one bit that I truly dread. I can't actually watch it. The first time I saw it I very nearly cried. (I don't cry, though. I'm tough. As old boots. New boots. The biggest fiercest reinforced Doc Martens . . .) It's the bit right at the end where Dorothy is getting fed up with being in Oz. Which is mad, if you ask me. Who'd want to go back to that boring black and white Kansas and be an ordinary kid where they take your dog away when you could dance round Oz in your ruby slippers?

  But Dorothy acts in an extremely dumb manner all the way through the film. You'd

  think she'd have sussed out for herself that all she had to do was click those ruby slippers and she'd get back home. That's it. That's the bit. Where she says, There's no place like home.'

  It gets to me.

  Because there's no

  place like home for

  me. No place at all.

  I haven't got a

  home.

  Well. I didn't have

  up until recently.

  Unless you count the Home. If a home has a capital letter at the front you can be pretty sure it isn't like a real home. It's just a dumping ground for kids with problems. The ugly kids, the bad kids, the daft kids. The ones no-one wants to foster. The kids way past their sell-by date so they're all chucked on the rubbish heap. There were certainly some ultra-rubbishy kids at that

  Home. Especially a certain Justine Littlewood...

  We were Deadly Enemies once, but

  then we made up. I even gave Justine my special Mickey Mouse pen. I rather regretted

  this actually and asked for it back the next day, pretending it had just been a loan, but Justine wasn't having any. There are no flies on Justine. No wasps, bees or any kind of bug.

  It's weird, but I kind of miss Justine now. It was even fun when we were Deadly Enemies and we played the Dare Game. I've always been great at thinking up the silliest daftest rudest dares. I always dared everything and won until Justine came to the Children's Home. Then I still won. Most of the time. I did. But Justine could certainly invent some seriously wicked dares herself.

  I miss her. I miss Louise

  too. And I especially miss

  Peter. This is even weirder.

  I couldn't stand weedy old

  Peter when he first came to the

  Home. But now it feels like he was my best ever friend. I wish I could see him. I especially wish I could see him right now. Because I'm all on my own and although it's great to be bunking off school and I've found the most brilliant hiding place in the whole world it is a little bit lonely.

  I could do with a mate. When you're in care you need to make all the friends you can get

  because you don't have much family.

  Well. I've got family.

  I've got the loveliest prettiest

  best-ever mum in the whole

  world. She's this dead famous

  Hollywood movie star and

  she's in film after film, in so

  much demand that there isn't

  a minute of the day when she

  can see me so that's why I'm

  i n c a r e . . .

  Who am I kidding??? Not

  you. Not even me. I Used to

  carry on like that when I was little, and some kids took it all in and even acted like they were impressed. But now when I come out with all that movie guff they start to get this little curl of the lip and then the minute my back's turned I hear a splutter of laughter.

  And that's the kinder kids. The rest tell me straight to my face that I'm a nutter. They don't even believe my mum's an actress. I know for a fact she's been in some films. She sent me this big glossy photo of her in this negligee – but now kids nudge and giggle and say, 'What kind of film was your mum in, Tracy Beaker?'

  So I duff them up. Sometimes literally. I'm very handy with my fists. Sometimes I just pretend it in my head. I should have pretended inside my head with Mrs Vomit Bagley. It isn't wise to tell teachers exactly what you think of them. She gave us this new piece of writing work this morning. About 'My Family'. It was supposed to be an exercise in autobiography. It's really a way for the teachers to be dead nosy and find out all sorts of secrets about the kids. Anyway, after she's told us all to start writing this

  'My Family' stuff she squeezes

  her great hips in and out

  the desks till she gets to

  me. She leans over until

  her face is hovering

  a few inches from mine. I thought for one seriously scary second she was going to kiss me!

  'Of course, you write about your foster mother, Tracy,' she whispers, her Tic-Tac minty breath tickling my ear.

  She thought she was whispering discreetly, but every single kid in the room looked up and stared. So I stared straight back and edged as far away from Mrs V.B. as I could and said firmly, 'I'm going to write about my real mother, Mrs Bagley.'

  So I did. Page after page. My writing got a bit sprawly and I gave up on spelling and stopped bothering about full stops and capital letters because they're such a waste of time, but I wrote this amazing account of me and my mum. Only I never finished it. Because Mrs V.B. does another Grand Tour of the class, bending over and reading your work over your shoulder in the most off-putting way possible, and she gets to me and leans over, and then she sniffs inwards and sighs. I thought she was just going to have the usual old nag about Neatness and Spelling and Punctuation – but this time she was miffed about the content, not the presentation.

  'You and your extraordinary imagination, Tracy,' she said, in this falsely sweet patron-izing tone. She even went 'Tut tut', shaking her head, still with this silly smirk on her face.

  'What do you mean?' I said, sharpish.

  'Tracy! Don't take that rude tone with me, dear.' There was an edge to her voice and all.

  'I did my best to explain about Autobiography.

  It means you tell a true story about yourself and your own life.'

&
nbsp; 'It is true. All of it,' I said indignantly.

  'Really, Tracy!' she said, and she started reading bits out, not trying to keep her voice down now, revving up for public proclama-tion.

  ' "My mum is starring in a Hollywood movie with George Clooney and Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and they all think she's wonderful and want to be her boyfriend. Her new movie is going to star Leonardo DiCaprio as her younger brother and she's got really matey with Leonardo at rehearsals and he's seen the photo of me she carries around in her wallet and he says I look real cute and wants to write to me,"' Mrs V.B. read out in this poisonous high-pitched imitation of my voice.

  The entire class collapsed. Some of the kids practically wet themselves laughing. Mrs V.B.

  had this smirk puckering her lips. 'Do you really believe this, Tracy?' she asked.

  So I said, 'I really believe that you're a stupid hideous old bag who could only get a part in a movie about bloodsucking vampire bats.'

  I thought for a moment she was going to prove her bat-star qualities by flying at my neck and biting me with her fangs. She certainly wanted to. But she just marched me out of the room instead and told me to stand outside the door because she was sick of my insolence.

  I said she made me sick and it was a happy chance that her name was Mrs V. Bagley. The other kids might wonder whether the V. stood for Vera or Violet or Vanessa, but I was certain her first name was Vomit, and dead appropriate too, given her last name, because she looked like the contents of a used vomit bag.

  She went back into the classroom when I was only halfway through so I said it to myself, slumping against the wall and staring at my shoes. I said I was Thrilled to Bits to miss out on her lesson because she was boring boring boring and couldn't teach for toffee. She couldn't teach for fudge, nougat, licorice or Turkish delight. I declared I was utterly Ecstatic to be Outside.

  Then Mr Hatherway walked past

  with a little squirt from Year Three with a nosebleed. 'Talking to

  yourself, kiddo?' he said.

  'No, I'm talking to my

  shoes,' I said crossly.

  I expected him to have a go

  at me too but he just nodded

  and mopped the little spurting

  scarlet fountain. 'I have a quiet

  chat to my shoes when things are getting me down,' he said. 'Very understanding friends, shoes. I find my old Hush Puppies especially comforting.'

  The little squirt gave a whimper and Mr Hatherway gave him another mop. 'Come on, pal, we'd better get you some first aid.'

  He gave me a little nod and they walked on.

  Up until that moment I was convinced that this new school was 100% horrible. Now it was maybe 1% OK, because I quite liked Mr Hatherway. Not that I had any chance of having him as my teacher, not unless I was shoved out of Year Six right to the bottom of the Juniors. And the school was still 99% the pits, so I decided to clear off out of it.

  It was easy-peasy. I waited till playtime

  when Mrs V.B. waved me away, her nostrils pinched like I smelled bad. So I returned the compliment and held my own nose but she pretended not to notice. It was music in the hall with Miss Smith after playtime so I was someone else's responsibility then. Only I wasn't going to stick around for music because Miss Smith keeps picking on me too, just because of that one time

  I experimented with alter-

  native uses of a drumstick.

  So I moseyed down the

  corridor like I was going to

  the toilets only I went right on

  walking, round the corner, extra sharpish past Reception (though Mrs Ludovic was busy mopping the little kid with the nosebleed. It looked like World War Three in her office) and then quick out the door and off across the yard. The main gate was locked but that presented no problem at all for SuperTracy. I was up that wall and over in a flash. I did fall over the other side and both my knees got a bit chewed up but that didn't bother me.

  They hurt quite a lot now, even though they've stopped bleeding. They both look pretty dirty. I've probably introduced all sorts

  of dangerous germs into my bloodstream and any minute now I'll develop a high fever and start frothing at the mouth. I don't feel very well actually. And I'm starving. I wish I hadn't spent all my money on this notebook. I especially wish I hadn't picked one the exact purple of a giant bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate. I shall start slavering all over it soon.

  I'd really like to call it a day and push off back to Cam's but the clock's just struck and it's only one o'clock. Lunchtime. Only I haven't any lunch. I can't go back till teatime or Cam will get suspicious. I could show her my savaged knees and say I had a Dire Accident and got sent home, but Cam would think I'd been fighting again. I got in enough trouble the last time. It wasn't fair. I didn't start the fight.

  It was all that Roxanne Green's

  fault. She made this sneery

  remark to her friends about my T-

  shirt. She was showing off in her

  new DKNY T-shirt, zigzagging her

  shoulders this way and that, so I

  started imitating her and everyone laughed. So she goes, 'What label is your T-shirt, Tracy?'

  Before I could make anything up she says, ' I know. It's Oxfam!'

  Everyone laughed again but this time it was awful so I got mad and called Roxanne various names and then she called me names and most of it was baby stuff but then she said the B word

  – and added that it was true in my case because I really didn't have a dad.

  So I had to smack her one then, didn't I? It was only fair. Only Roxanne and all her little girly hangers-on didn't think it was fair and they told Mrs Vomit Bagley and she certainly didn't think it was fair and she told Mr Donne the headteacher and, guess what, he didn't think it was fair either. He rang Cam and asked her to come to the school for a Quiet Word. I was yanked along to the study too and I said lots of words not at all quietly, but Cam put her arm round me and hissed in my ear, 'Cool it, Trace.'

  I tried. I thought c-o-o-l and imagined a beautiful blue lake of water and

  me swimming slowly along – but

  I was so sizzling mad the water

  started to bubble all around me

  and I ended up boiling over and

  telling the head what I thought

  of him and his poxy teachers and

  putrid pupils. (Get my vocabulary, Mrs V.B.!)

  I very nearly ended up being excluded. Which is mad. I should have been even cheekier because I don't want to go to this terrible old school.

  So I've excluded myself.

  I'm here.

  In my own secret place. Dead

  exclusive. My very own house.

  Home!

  Well, it's not exactly homely

  at the moment. It needs a good

  going over with a vacuum or

  two. Or three or four or five. And even though it's kind of empty it needs a spot of tidying.

  There are empty beer cans and McDonald's cartons chucked all over the place, and all kinds of freebie papers and advertising bumpf litter the hall so you're wading ankle-deep when you come in the front door. Only I didn't, seeing as it's locked and bolted and boarded over. I came in the back, through the broken window, ever so carefully.

  I went in the back garden because I was mooching round and round the streets, dying for a wee. I came across this obviously empty house down at the end of a little cul-de-sac with big brambles all over the place giving lots of

  cover so I thought I'd nip over the wall quick and relieve myself. Which I did, though a black cat suddenly streaked past, which made me jump and lose concentration so I very nearly weed all over my trainers.

  When I was relieved and decent I tried to catch the cat, pretending this was a jungle and the cat was a tiger and I was all set to train it but the cat went

  'Purr-lease!' and stalked off with its tail in the air.

  I explored the jungle by myself and spotted the broken window and decided
to give the house a recce too.

  It's a great house. It hasn't quite got all mod cons any more. The water's been turned off and the lights won't switch on and the radiators are cold. But there's still a sofa in the living room, quite a swish one, red velvet. Some plonker's put his muddy boots all over it, but I've been scratching at it with my fingernails and I think it'll clean up a treat.

  I could bring a cushion. And a blanket. And some food. Yeah.

  Next time.

  But now it's time for me to go . . . back to Cam.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JACQUELINE WILSON is one of Britain's most outstanding writers for young readers. She is the most borrowed author from British libraries and has sold over 20 million books in this country.

  As a child, she always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first 'novel' when she was nine, filling countless exercise books as she grew up.

  She started work at a publishing company and then went on to work as a journalist on Jackie magazine (which was named after her) before turning to writing fiction full-time.

  Jacqueline has been honoured with many of the UK's top awards for children's books, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize and the Children's Book of the Year. She was awarded an OBE in 2002 and is the Children's Laureate for 2005-2007.

  'A brilliant writer of wit and subtlety whose stories are never patronising and are often complex and many-layered' The Times

  'It's the combination of accessible stories and humorous but penetrating treatment of big emotional themes that makes this writer so good' Financial Times

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  NICK SHAERAT

  knew from an early age that

  he wanted to use his artistic skills in his career.

  He went to Manchester Polytechnic to do an Art Foundation course, followed by a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design at St Martin's School of Art in London. Since graduating in 1984, Nick has been working full-time as an illustrator, with his work hugely in demand for children's books.