The Bed and Breakfast Star Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  The Bed and Breakfast Star

  Bed

  Bed and Breakfast

  Tea at McDonald’s

  Sugar Sandwiches for Breakfast

  Sweets for Treats

  Mega-Feast for Lunch

  One Slurpy Square of Yorkie Bar

  Pizza and Porky-Pies

  Television and no Tea

  Kentucky Chicken Takeaways

  We Nearly Have Our Chips!

  My Best and Biggest Ever Breakfast

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  Epub ISBN: 9781407045368

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  For Frances Stokes

  (Froggy to her friends)

  THE BED AND BREAKFAST STAR

  A CORGI YEARLING BOOK : 9780440867609

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  Doubleday edition published 1994

  First Corgi Yearling edition published 1995

  This Corgi Yearling edition published 2006

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1994

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 1994

  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.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  The Random House Group Limited makes every effort to ensure that the papers used in our books are made from trees that have been legally sourced from well-managed and credibly certified forests Our paper procurement policy can be found on www.randomhouseco.uk/paper.htm

  Corgi Yearling Books are published by

  Random House Children’s Books,

  61-63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,

  A Random House Group Company

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire.

  I think Elsa is one of the cheeriest, kindest children I’ve ever invented. She has such a tough time too. Her mum is so tired and depressed she hasn’t got much time for her and her stepdad is a bit of a scary nightmare. Elsa is expected to look after her half-siblings Pippa and Hank and generally make herself useful. It’s very grim losing your house and having to stay in bed and breakfast accommodation but Elsa adapts rapidly and makes the best of the situation.

  Sometimes she’s a little too relentlessly cheery. She wants to be a comedian when she grows up so she tries her hardest to be funny all the time, endlessly cracking jokes. She’s not very good at making up her own jokes just yet so she tells really awful old corny jokes that make you groan.

  I’m not very good at making up jokes either. I knew I’d need lots and lots of silly jokes for Elsa, and wondered what I was going to do. Then one day when I was giving a talk to some children I told them I was writing a new book about a funny girl who kept cracking jokes and asked if anyone knew a really good joke. There was suddenly a forest of waving hands. I got out my notebook and started scribbling down all these suggestions. I couldn’t write all of them down. The funniest were frequently too rude and naughty to be put in a children’s book!

  I used to live in a street where there were several bed and breakfast hotels for homeless families. I could see it was very tough for any adults in that situation, but the children seemed to be able to make the most of it and have fun, just like Elsa. I used to meet up with them in the sweet shop and the video and DVD shop and have a little chat. They’d often make me crack up laughing.

  They were always eating chocolate and crisps and chips, quick easy food. Elsa has a very healthy appetite (though her diet isn’t exactly a healthy one!) It was fun choosing all the food she’d like best. Then at the end, when the whole family is staying in the swish Star hotel I loved deciding what they’d all choose for their very elaborate breakfasts.

  Elsa ends up a real heroine and gets to be on television, interviewed by a lady who cares passionately about children and has a weakness for silly jokes herself. I based her on the well known television personality, Esther Rantzen. I’d never met her when I wrote the book, but now I’m proud to say that I’ve been given a special Childline award and Esther has become a special friend.

  Do you know what everyone calls me now? Bed and Breakfast. That’s what all the kids yell after me in the playground. Even the teachers do it. Well, they don’t say it to my face. But I’ve heard them. ‘Oh yes, that Elsa. She’s one of the bed-and-breakfast children.’ Honestly. It sounds like I’ve got a duvet for a dress, cornflake curls, two fried-egg eyes and a streaky-bacon smile.

  I don’t look a bit like that. Well, I hope I don’t! I’m Elsa.

  Do you like my name? I hope you do like it or Elsa’ll get upset. Do you get the joke? I made it up myself. I’m always cracking jokes. People don’t often laugh though.

  I bet you don’t know anyone else called Elsa. There was just this lion called Elsa, ages ago. There was a book written about her, and they made a film. They sometimes show it on the television so maybe you’ve seen it. My mum called me after Elsa the lion. I was a very tiny baby, smaller than all the others in the hospital, but I was born with lots of hair. Really. Most babies are almost bald but I had this long tufty hair and Mum used to brush it so that it stood out all round my head like a lion’s mane. I didn’t just look like a lion. I sounded like one too. I might have had very tiny little lungs but I had the loudest voice. I bawled day and night and wore all the nurses out, let alone my mum. She says she should have left me yelling in my hospital cot and slipped off out of it without me. She was joking. Mum’s jokes aren’t always funny though – not like mine.

  That was my very first BED.

  It’s not very comfy-looking, is it? No wonder I bawled.

  Here’s my second BED.

  I used to pretend I was a real lion in a cage. I didn’t half roar.

  We’ve still got my old duck cot. We’ve lost lots of our other things but we’ve always carted that around with us. I used to turn it into a play-house

  or a car

  and once it was even my castle.

  But then my sister Pippa was born and I lost a house and a car and a castle and she gained a bed. I gave it a good spring-clean for her and tried to make it as pretty as possible, but I don’t think she really appreciated it.

  Pippa did a lot more sleeping and a lot less yelling than me. She’s not a baby now. She’s nearly five. Half my age. She’s not half my size though. She’s not a little titch like me. She’ll catch me up soon if I don’t watch out.

  I’ve also got a brother, Hank. Hank the Hunk. He had the duck cot too.

  He only fitted