The Mum-Minder Read online

  I wonder if you used to be looked after by a child-minder while your mum went out to work?

  Or maybe, like Sadie in this book, your mum is a child-minder herself? I think child-minders do a wonderful job, but there's always the big problem. What happens when the child-minder gets ill? W h o gets to look after all the babies?

  I heard a bunch of young mums discussing this one day at a party and decided that this might make a good funny story. I had great fun inventing all the different naughty little children – and I think Nick's baby drawings are superb. I especially like the way he draws babies' hair with those little spiky bits on top (I have a similar hairstyle!).

  I used to have a friend called Dominic who kept begging me to put him into one of my children's books.

  "Go on, Jacky,' he'd say. 'I could be an animal if you like. I could be Dominic the Dragon or Dominic the Dinosaur. Or I could be just a little tiny sweet shy animal – Dominic the Vole?"

  So Sadie's little sister, Sara, loves her picture book Dominic the Vole and poor Sadie has to read it to her over and over again. I think Sadie's mum is very lucky to have such a kind helpful daughter.

  Also available by Jacqueline Wilson Published in Corgi Pups, for beginner readers: T H E DINOSAUR'S PACKED L U N C H

  T H E M O N S T E R STORY-TELLER

  Published in Young Corgi, for newly confident readers: LIZZIE Z I P M O U T H

  SLEEPOVERS

  Available from Doubleday/Corgi Yearling Books: BAD GIRLS

  T H E BED & BREAKFAST STAR

  BEST FRIENDS

  BURIED ALIVE!

  CANDYFLOSS

  T H E CAT M U M M Y

  CLEAN BREAK

  CLIFFHANGER

  T H E DARE GAME

  T H E D I A M O N D GIRLS

  DOUBLE ACT

  DOUBLE ACT (PLAY EDITION)

  GLUBBSLYME

  T H E ILLUSTRATED M U M

  JACKY DAYDREAM

  T H E LOTTIE PROJECT

  M I D N I G H T

  T H E M U M - M I N D E R

  SECRETS

  STARRING TRACY BEAKER

  T H E STORY OF TRACY BEAKER

  T H E SUITCASE KID

  VICKY ANGEL

  T H E WORRY WEBSITE

  Available from Doubleday/Corgi Books, for older readers: DUSTBIN BABY

  GIRLS IN LOVE

  GIRLS U N D E R PRESSURE

  GIRLS O U T LATE

  GIRLS IN TEARS

  KISS

  LOLA ROSE

  LOVE LESSONS

  Join the official Jacqueline Wilson fan club at

  www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk

  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.

  Adobe ISBN: 9781407043494

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  T H E MUM-MINDER

  A CORGI YEARLING BOOK 978 0 440 86825 5

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children's Books A Random House Group Company

  Doubleday edition published 1993

  First Corgi Yearling edition published 1994

  This Corgi Yearling edition published 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1993

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 1993

  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 its books are made from trees that have been legally sourced from well-managed and credibly certified forests.

  Our paper procurement policy can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/paper.htm

  Corgi Yearling 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

  T H E RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

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

  Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

  For the Dimwits who aren't dim at all, but are very witty

  It's half-term. No more stupid, bor-ing, silly old school for a whole week!

  Oh-oh. Maybe that's not tactful seeing as this is a school project.

  We've all got to keep a holiday diary.

  I've got to hand this in next Monday.

  I can't rub it out because it's written with my mum's biro and it would just make great blue smears all over the page. My baby sister Sara chewed my own pen up yesterday. My special red felt-tip pen which also doubles as a lipstick if I'm dressing up. Sara's not 9

  got all her teeth yet but she can't half chew. She looked like Dracula with all this red ink dripping down her chin.

  I felt really cross with her but that's babies for you. I get more than a bit fed up with babies sometimes. I am surrounded by them right this minute. Three-year-old Gemma

  10

  keeps pulling at my arm, wanting me to draw for her. Two-year-old Vincent is drawing himself, making horrible scribbles on the back of a paper bag.

  Baby Clive is having a yell because Mum's put him down for a nap and he doesn't feel like it. And Sara's sitting on my foot, bouncing up and down, wanting a ride.

  They're not all my brothers and sisters. No fear. My sister Sara's quite enough to be going on with.

  No, my mum's a childminder. She doesn't have to mind me. I'm Sadie and I'm nearly nine. I can mind myself, easy-peasy. I can look after Sara too. I sometimes get up in the night and give her a bottle. And I play with her and I take her out for a walk in her pushchair. I do a lot of things for my mum and all. I make her a cup of tea when she's tired and I've got this knack of massaging her feet which she loves.

  T don't know what I'd do without you, Sadie,' she says.

  11

  We don't see much of my dad nowa-days, but it doesn't matter.

  'Us girls will stick together, eh?'

  says Mum, and sometimes I climb up on her lap as well as Sara and we all have a big hug together.

  12

  I quite like my mum being a childminder because she's always there when I get home from school. The only t r o u b l e is in t h e holidays.

  Babies don't have holidays. They don't have half-terms either. Mum gets lumbered with t h e m all t h e time.

  If it was just Mum and me then

  this half-term would be great. We could go down to the shops and look round at all the clothes and the toys and choose what we'd buy if we had all the money in the world. Or we could go to the Leisure Centre and have a swim in the pool. They've got a big wave machine and all my

  friends say it's smashing. Or we could play t h a t I'm a lady too and we could go and have a pot of tea and a Danish pastry each and have a good gossip in a proper restaurant. But you can't go shopping or swimming or e a t i n g w h e n you've got four