Girls in Tears Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One Girls cry when they're happy

  Chapter Two Girls cry when their friends say mean things

  Chapter Three Girls cry when their pets die

  Chapter Four Girls cry when they hate the way they look

  Chapter Five Girls cry when people copy their ideas

  Chapter Six Girls cry when things go wrong at home

  Chapter Seven Girls cry when their friends have secrets

  Chapter Eight Girls cry when their friends say they're fat

  Chapter Nine Girls cry when they quarrel with their friends

  Chapter Ten Girls cry when their boyfriends don't understand

  Chapter Eleven Girls cry when their dreams come true!

  Chapter Twelve Girls cry when their boyfriends betray them

  Chapter Thirteen Girls cry when their hearts are breaking, breaking, breaking

  Chapter Fourteen Girls cry when they're lonely

  Chapter Fifteen Girls cry when they wake up and remember

  Chapter Sixteen Girls cry when they're sorry

  Chapter Seventeen Girls cry when everything ends happily ever after

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  GIRLS

  IN

  TEARS

  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 in Tears is the fourth book in the series. Ellie and Magda and Nadine all end up in floods of tears. They even break friends – will they ever make up again?

  GIRLS

  IN

  TEARS

  Jacqueline Wilson

  Illustrated by Nick Sharratt

  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 unauthorised 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.

  ISBN 9781407043043

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  GIRLS IN TEARS

  A CORGI BOOK

  ISBN: 9781407043043

  Version 1.0

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  Doubleday edition published 2002

  First Corgi edition published 2003

  This Corgi edition published 2007

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2002

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2002

  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 electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Set in Bembo

  Corgi Books are published by Random House Children's Books,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  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

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

  For Rosemary, Vicky, Stacey, Kayleigh, Lizzie,

  Lauren, Mhairi, Rupal, Sarah Jane,

  Billy, Farah and all my friends on Ward 27

  And this is also in memory of two very special girls,

  Robina and Jo

  Chapter One

  Girls cry when

  they're happy

  One

  Girls cry when

  they're happy

  You'll never ever guess what! I'm so happy happy happy. I want to laugh, sing, shout, even have a little cry. I can't wait to tell Magda and Nadine.

  I go down to breakfast and sip coffee and nibble dry toast, my hand carefully displayed beside my plate.

  I wait for someone to notice. I smile blithely at my dad and my stepmum Anna over breakfast. I even smile at my little brother Eggs, though he has a cold and deeply unattractive green slime dribbling out of his nostrils.

  'Why are you grinning at me like that, Ellie?' Eggs asks me thickly, chomping very strawberry-jammy toast. We've run out of butter, so Anna's let him have double jam instead. 'Stop looking at me.'

  'I don't want to look at you, little Runny Nose. You are not a pretty sight.'

  'I don't want to be pretty,' says Eggs, sniffing so snortily that we all protest.

  'For goodness' sake, son, you're putting me right off my breakfast,' Dad says, swatting at Eggs with his Guardian.

  'Get a tissue, Eggs,' says Anna, sketching maniacally on a pad.

  OK, maybe it's too much to expect Dad and Eggs to notice but I was sure Anna would spot it straight away.

  'There aren't any tissues,' Eggs says triumphantly, breathing in and out to make his nose bubble.

  'Oh God, no, that's right. I didn't get to Waitrose yesterday,' says Anna. 'OK, Eggs, use loo-roll instead.'

  'I haven't got any,' says Eggs, looking round as if he expects Andrex puppies to trot right into our kitchen trailing toilet paper like the adverts. 'What's that you're drawing, Mum? Is it a rabbit? Let's look.'

  He pulls at Anna's paper. Anna hangs on. The paper tears in two.

  'Oh, for God's sake, Eggs, I've been working on that wretched bunnies-in-bed design since six this morning!' Anna shouts. 'Now go to the loo and get some paper and blow your nose this instant. I am sick of you, do you hear me?'