The Illustrated Mum Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by Jacqueline Wilson

  Dedication

  The Illustrated Mum

  1 Cross

  2 Marigold

  3 Dolphin

  4 Daisy Chain

  5 Micky Heart

  6 Star

  7 Sorceress

  8 Eye

  9 Serpent

  10 Bats

  11 Frog

  12 Scream

  13 Diamonds

  14 The Full Picture

  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.

  Epub ISBN: 9781407045177

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  THE ILLUSTRATED MUM

  A CORGI YEARLING BOOK 978 0 440 86781 4

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  Doubleday edition

  Published 1999

  First Corgi Yearling edition published 2000

  This Corgi Yearling edition published 2007

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1999

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 1999

  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.

  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

  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, the Red House Book Award and the Children’s Book of the Year. She was awarded an OBE in 2002 and is the Children’s Laureate for 2005–2007.

  WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN CHILDREN’S FICTION

  AWARD AND THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR

  Children often ask me if I base the characters in my books on real people. I always say truthfully that I make all my people up. They’re like my imaginary friends. I just have to start thinking about them and they’re there in my head, talking to me! However, just occasionally I see someone who interests me and inspires a whole book. This happened with The Illustrated Mum.

  I was having a very happy holiday in New York with my daughter Emma. We’d had a wonderful day looking round the shops and going round the Metropolitan museum, and ended up sitting eating ice creams in Central Park. It’s a fantastic huge park right in the middle of Manhattan, and it’s a great place for people-watching. Kids roller-blade up and down the paths, old men play chess together at tables, old ladies knit sitting on benches, couples kiss under the trees, joggers power past in their grey sweatsuits, and toddlers stagger along sucking their thumbs, their mommies taking them to the children’s zoo.

  We watched one particularly striking mother with her two small girls. She was tall and slender with long wild hair, wearing a lacy vest and shorts. Her pale skin was covered with extraordinary intricate tattoos. Her little girls hung on her hands, wearing colourful dressing-up clothes, long net skirts, paste tiaras in their tangled hair, skinny ankles wobbling in big silver high-heeled sandals.

  When they’d gone past, Emma whispered to me, ‘Don’t they look like the sort of family you write about in your books!’

  I reached for my diary and scribbled a sentence about them as a little reminder. I was busy writing another novel at the time – but that mother and her two daughters stayed in my head, waiting until I was ready to write their story. I was interested in the reason why this mother had quite so many tattoos. I thought hard – and made up Marigold. I made her daughters grow a little and gave them unusual names, Star and Dolphin. I tried to think how they’d feel with such an unusual mother. Star is irritated and embarrassed by Marigold, but Dolphin adores her strange unpredictable mother.

  Dolphin tells their story and it’s sometimes frightening and worrying, but I did try to give all three of them a happy ending.

  For Gina and Murray

  and

  Caroline and Georgina

  Marigold started going weird again on her birthday. Star remembered that birthdays were often bad times so we’d tried really hard. Star made her a beautiful big card cut into the shape of a marigold. She used up all the ink in the orange felt-tip colouring it in. Then she did two sparkly silver threes with her special glitter pen and added ‘Happy Birthday’ in her best italic writing. They do Calligraphy in Year Eight and she’s very good at it.

  I’m still in the Juniors and I’m useless at any kind of writing so I just drew on my card. As it was Marigold’s thirty-third birthday I decided I’d draw her thirty-three most favourite things. I drew Micky (I’d never seen him but Marigold had described him enough times) and Star and me. Then I drew the Rainbow Tattoo Studio and the Victoria Arms and the Nightbirds club. I did them in the middle all clumped together and then round the edges I drew London and the seaside and the stars at night. My piece of paper was getting seriously crowded by this time but I managed to cram in a CD player with lots of Emerald City CDs and some high heels and a bikini and jeans and different coloured tight tops and lots of rings and bangles and earrings.

  I was getting a bit stuck for ideas by this time and I’d rubbed out so often that the page was getting furry so I gave up and coloured it in. I wanted to do a pattern of marigolds as a border but Star had used up the orange already, so I turned the marigolds into roses and coloured them crimson. Red roses signify love. Marigold was very into symbols so I hoped she’d understand. Then on the back I did a great garland of red roses to signify a whole bunch of love and signed my name.

  We gave her presents too. Star found a remixed version of Emerald City’s greatest hits for only £2 at the Saturday morning market. I bought her a sparkly hair clasp, green to match her eyes. We even bought a special sheet of green tissue paper and a green satin ribbon to wrap up the presents.

  ‘Do you think she’ll like them?’ I asked Star.

  ‘You bet,’ said Star. She took the hair clasp and opened it up so its plastic claws looked like teeth. ‘I am a great present,’ she made it say, and then it bit the tip of my nose.

  Marigold gave us both big hugs and said we were darlings but her great green eyes filled with tears.