Cliffhanger (8 page)

‘No,
you
shut up, Giles,' I yelled. ‘Pick your end of the drainpipe up and stick it in the baby tiger's mouth.'

Giles stared at me, going, ‘You what?'

But Jake jumped up and down and gave me the thumbs-up sign. I'd cracked it!

‘Kelly and Biscuits, you hold the drainpipe this end,' I said, telling them what to do. ‘Laura and Lesley, pass me the buckets. Look!'

It was so
simple
. We didn't have to walk across the stream on the drainpipes. They were hollow inside, like giant straws. We could empty the
water
down the drainpipe right into the Baby Tiger bin.

And that's exactly what we did.

‘Well done, Tim!' Jake shouted.

‘Oh, Tim! Brilliant!' said Kelly, giving me a hug. ‘You're so clever.'

‘Super-Tim,' said Biscuits.

‘Why didn't we think of it,' said Laura.

‘Look, everyone's copying us now!' said Lesley.

‘But
we've
won!' said Giles, capering about. ‘We're first to fill the bin – and we've got it nearly full to the top too. We've
won
! Hurray for Tim!'

All the Tigers jumped up and down and cheered. Cheering me. And I jumped up and down and cheered me too!

Chapter Six

TIME IS A
funny thing. If you listen to a clock it goes tick tick tick. It doesn't go tick-tick-tick-tick-tick sometimes and t-i-c-k t-i-c-k t-i-c-k other times. And yet the first two days of my adventure holiday went so s-l-o-w-l-y that years and years seemed to go by. But the
last
two days went whizz-whizz-whizz.

You'll never guess which team ended up the over-all winners! We did. The Tigers. Kelly and Giles and Laura and Lesley and Biscuits and me.

We got clapped and cheered by everyone and then Sally and Jake gave us all a prize. We had to put our hands in this big box. I felt something furry. We all did. We scrabbled around until we'd all got a handful and then we pulled them out the box. Six toy tigers, baby ones, with big eyes and smiley mouths and soft paddy-paws.

We all laughed and mucked about, making them roar. My tiger is a bit fatter than the others. He seems stuffed to bursting. I've called him Biscuits.

The
real
Biscuits should rename himself Sausages. He ate fourteen and a half sausages at the Camp Cook-Out. (The half was mine. I dropped it in the grass and it got a bit muddy but Biscuits couldn't bear to waste it.) He also ate two burgers and five chicken wings, washed down with three cans of cola. My friend Biscuits has a Mega-Superior Stomach.

He's got a good loud voice too. We all had a Giant Roar competition
between
the Lions, the Tigers, the Panthers and the Cheetahs.

‘Right, us Tigers, let's hear you. ROAR!' Giles yelled, conducting us.

He roared until he was red in the face, but he'd been shouting so much bossing us about that he didn't have much voice left. Laura and Lesley had high voices that weren't loud enough. I wasn't much use either. I tried and tried, but my roars came out small and squeaky. Kelly did much better. She was squashed up beside me and when she opened her mouth and let rip I had to put my hands over my ears. But Biscuits did better. He threw back his head and
bellowed
from the pit of his magnificent stomach.

We won the Giant Roar competition too. I'm
SO
glad I'm a Tiger and not a Lion or a Panther or a Cheetah.

Giles and Biscuits and I stayed awake ever so late, swopping jokes and acting daft. Jake had to come and tell us off three times. But he didn't
get
really cross. I do like Jake. I do like Biscuits.

I even
almost
liked Giles that last night. And when we were quiet at last and snuggled up to go to sleep it didn't matter that I didn't have Walter Bear. I had little Biscuits Tiger to cuddle instead.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR

Jacqueline Wilson is an extremely well-known and hugely popular author who served as Children's Laureate from 2005-7. She has been awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the British Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award (for
The Illustrated Mum
), the Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award (for
Double Act
, for which she was also highly commended for the Carnegie Medal). In 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame. She has sold over thirty-five million books and was the author most borrowed from British libraries in the last decade.

Also by Jacqueline Wilson

There are oodles of incredible Jacqueline Wilson books to enjoy!

The Dinosaur's Packed Lunch

The Monster Story-Teller

The Cat Mummy

Lizzie Zipmouth

Sleepovers

Bad Girls

The Bed and Breakfast Star

Best Friends

Big Day Out

Buried Alive!

Candyfloss

Clean Break

Cliffhanger

Cookie

The Dare Game

The Diamond Girls

Double Act

Emerald Star

Glubbslyme

Hetty Feather

The Illustrated Mum

Jacky Daydream

Lily Alone

Little Darlings

Lola Rose

The Longest Whale Song

The Lottie Project

Midnight

The Mum-Minder

Sapphire Battersea

Secrets

Starring Tracy Beaker

The Story of Tracy Beaker

The Suitcase Kid

Vicky Angel

The Worry Website

The Worst Thing About My Sister

FOR OLDER READERS:

Dustbin Baby

Girls In Love

Girls In Tears

Girls Out Late

Girls Under Pressure

Kiss

Love Lessons

My Secret Diary

My Sister Jodie

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

THE TIMES

‘Jacqueline Wilson has a rare gift for writing lightly and amusingly about emotional issues'

BOOKSELLER

‘Wilson writes like a child, and children instantly recognize them-selves in her characters. The tone of voice is faultless, her stories are about the problems many children face, and her plots work with classic simplicity . . . a subtle art is concealed by artlessness and some might call that genius'

DAILY TELEGRAPH

CLIFFHANGER

AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 407 04594 8

Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital, an imprint of Random House Children's Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company

This ebook edition published 2012

Text Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson 1995

Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt 1995

First Published in Great Britain

Yearling 9780440868552 2009

The right of Jacqueline Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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