Dare Game (22 page)

It will, it will. She just doesn’t want it to.

‘It
will
end happily ever after, you wait and see,’ I said, pulling my T-shirt away from her and stuffing it in my suitcase with all the others.

‘Tracy, I know—’

‘You don’t know anything!’ I interrupted. ‘You don’t know my mum. You don’t even know
me
properly. It’s not like we’ve been together ages and ages. I don’t see why you have to be
so
 . . . so . . . so shaking your head and giving me all these little warnings about it not working out. You obviously think I’m so horrible and bad and difficult that my mum will get sick of me in two seconds.’

‘I don’t think that at
all
. And you’re
not
horrible and bad and difficult. Well, you
are
– but you can be great too. It’s just that even if you’re the greatest kid in the whole world and behave beautifully with your mum it
still
might not work out. Your mum isn’t used to kids.’

‘Neither were you, but you took me on.’ Ah! I had a sudden idea. ‘You can take some other kid now.’

‘I don’t want some other kid,’ said Cam. She put her arm round me. ‘I want you.’

I could hardly breathe. I wanted to cuddle close and hang onto her and tell her . . . tell her all sorts of stupid things. But I
also
wanted to shove her hard and shout at her for spoiling my big chance to get back to my mum.

I wriggled away from her and went on packing my suitcase. ‘If you
really
wanted me you’d have made far more fuss in the first place,’ I said, tucking my scrubby old trainers
under
my gungy chainstore denims. ‘You’d have bought me decent clothes. And proper presents.’

‘Oh Tracy, don’t start,’ said Cam, suddenly cross. She got up and started marching round my bat cave in an agitated fashion like she was a dog with fleas.

‘You’ve hardly given me anything,’ I said, cross too. ‘I’ve never known anyone so stingy. And yet look at all the stuff my mum’s given me.’

‘A doll,’ said Cam, picking it up. She held it at arm’s length.

‘Yes, but it’s not like it’s any old doll. It cost a fortune. It’s not a little kid’s doll, it’s a collector’s item. She gave it me like an ornament. Lots of grown-up ladies have doll collections. You wouldn’t understand.’ I sneered at Cam in her worn old plaid shirt and baggy jeans. ‘You’re not that sort of lady.’

‘Thank God,’ said Cam.

‘I don’t fit in here, Cam. Not with you. Or Jane and Liz and all your other stupid friends. I fit with my mum. Her and me. We’re relatives. You’re just my foster mum. You just get paid to look after me, that’s all. I bet that’s why you’re making all the fuss, because you’ll miss the cash when I’m gone.’

‘Think that if you want, Tracy,’ said Cam in this irritating martyr voice.

‘It’s true!’

‘OK, OK,’ said Cam, folding her arms.

‘It
isn’t
OK!’ I said, stamping my foot. ‘I don’t know what you do with the money. It isn’t like you spend it on me.’

‘That’s right,’ said Cam, in this maddening there-there-I’ll-agree-with-whatever-you-say-you-stupid-fool voice.

‘It’s
wrong
– and I’m sick of it,’ I shouted. ‘Do you know something? Even if it doesn’t work out with my mum I still don’t want to come back here. I’m sick of this boring old dump. I’m sick of you.’

‘Well clear off then, you ungrateful little beast. I’m sick of you too!’ Cam yelled, and she banged out of the bat cave in tears.

There. That’s what she thinks of me. Well, see if I care.
UNGRATEFUL
. Why do I always have to be
grateful
to people?

Kids are always expected to be grateful grateful grateful. It’s hateful being grateful. It’s not fair. I’m supposed to be grateful to Cam for looking after me but I’m not allowed to look after myself. Though I could, easy-peasy. I’m supposed to be grateful for my yucky veggie
meals
(she hardly
ever
takes me to McDonald’s) and my unstylish chainstore clothes (no wonder they pick on me at school) and my boring old books (honestly, have you
tried
reading
Little Women
? – who cares if Jo was Cam’s all-time favourite book character?) and trips to museums (OK, I liked seeing the mummies and the little hunched-up dead man but all those pictures and pots were the
pits
).

If I could only earn my own money I could buy all the stuff I really need. It’s not fair that kids aren’t allowed to work. I’d be great flogging stuff down the market or selling ice creams or working in a nursery. If I could only get a job I could eat Big Macs and french fries every day and wear designer from top to toe, yeah, especially my footware, and buy all the videos and computer games I want and take a trip to Disneyland.

Yeah! I bet my mum will take me to Disneyland if I ask her.

It
is
going to end up like a fairy story. I’m going to live happily ever after.

I am.

Even if Football doesn’t think so. I hate him.

No I don’t. I quite like him in a weird sort of way. I’m worried about him.
He’s
not going to live happily ever after.

I went to our house to say goodbye to Football and Alexander, seeing as I’m going to my mum’s.

Alexander wasn’t there. I didn’t think Football was either. I went into the house and there was no sign of anyone – and no provisions in the cardboard fridge either. I checked upstairs and looked out of the window at the tree. My knickers were still up there. The tree seemed a long way from the window. We were all crazy. I looked down, my heart thudding when I thought of Alexander. And then I screamed.

Someone was lying spread-eagled on the mattress. Someone bigger than Alexander. Someone wearing last year’s football strip.

‘Football!’ I yelled, and hurtled back inside the house and out the back window and down the overgrown garden to the mattress. ‘Football, Football, Football!’ I cried, standing
over
his still sprawled body.

He opened his eyes and peered at me. ‘Tracy?’

‘Oh, Football, you’re alive!’ I cried, going down on my knees beside him.

‘Ooh Tracy, I didn’t know you cared,’ he said, giggling.

I gave him a quick flick round the face. ‘Quit that, idiot! Did you fall?’

‘I’m just having a little lie down.’

I touched his arm. He was icy cold and his shirt was damp. ‘Have you been here all
night
? You’re crazy.’

‘Yeah. That’s me. Mad. Nuts. Totally out of it.’

‘You are,’ I said. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’

‘So what?’

‘You won’t be able to play football.’

‘Sure I will.’ He reached for his football at the edge of the mattress and threw it in the air. He tried to catch it but it bounced off his fingertips into the undergrowth.

Football swore, but didn’t bother to get up. He lay where he was, flicking his dad’s lighter on and off, on and off above his head. His coordination was lousy.

‘You’ll drop it and set yourself alight, you nutter. Stop it!’

‘I’m warming myself up.’

‘
I’ll
warm you up.’ I rubbed his icy arms and blue fingers. He held onto my hands, pulling me down beside him.

‘What are you playing at?’

‘Keep me company, eh, Tracy?’

‘Can’t we go in the warm?’

‘I like it cold. Kind of numb.’

‘Yeah – you’re a numskull,’ I said, but I lay down properly on the smelly old mattress.

It was so damp it seemed to be seeping right through my back. ‘I feel as if I’m being pulled down down down into the earth,’ I said, wriggling.

‘Yeah, let’s stay down here together, eh? You and me in our own little world.’

I wondered about staying in this garden home for ever. Football and I would lie on our backs on the mattress like marble statues on a tomb and ivy would grow over us and squirrels would scamper past and birds nest in our
hair
and we wouldn’t move a muscle, totally out of it.

But I want to be
in
it. I’ve got to the fairytale ending of my story. I’m all set to live happily ever after.

‘Come on! Getting-up time! Let’s play football.’ I found the ball and bounced it at Football’s head to bring him to his senses.

Football scrambled to his feet, swearing. He tried to grab the ball but I was too quick for him.

‘I’m Tracy Beaker the Great and I’m running like the wind, and wow, look,
I’ve
got the ball!’