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  ‘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!’

  ‘Get out of it, I’m the greatest,’ Football said. He tried to tackle me. His great boot kicked me instead of the ball.

  ‘Ooowww! My ankle! You’re the greatest biggest booted bully!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Football peered at my leg. ‘Red,’ he said, sounding puzzled.

  ‘It’s blood!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Football mumbled.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, busy dabbing and mopping. ‘Like you had no control whatsoever over your foot, it just developed this wicked will of its own and gouged a huge lump out of my flesh. It hurts!’

  ‘I’m really really sorry, Tracy.’ Football looked like he was nearly in tears. ‘I’d never try to hurt you. You mean a lot to me, kid. Tracy?’ He tried to put his arm round me.

  I dodged underneath. ‘Get off me!’

  ‘Go on, you know you like me too.’

  ‘Not when you’re all damp and smelly. Yuck, you don’t half need a bath, Football.’

  ‘Don’t nag at me. You sound like my mum. You’re all the same. Nag moan whine whinge. Think I really care about you? You’re mad. I don’t want you one little bit. No-one wants you, Tracy Beaker.’

  ‘My mum wants me!’ I yelled.

  I roared it so loudly the birds flew into the air in terror and people stopped dead in their tracks all over town and cars ran into each other and aeroplanes stalled in the sky.

  ‘MY MUM WANTS ME!’

  Mum’s Home (Again)

  MUM’S HOME WAS a little bit different this time. Mum was a little bit different too. She was very pale underneath her make-up and she wore dark glasses and when we had our big hug hello she smelt stale underneath her lovely powdery scent. Her home smelt too, of cigarettes and a lot of booze. The curtains were still drawn.

  I went to open them but Mum stopped me. ‘Not too much daylight, sweetie,’ she said, holding her forehead.

  ‘Have you got a hangover, Mum?’

  ‘What? No, of course not. Don’t be silly, darling. No, I have this nasty migraine. I get them a lot. I’m bothered with my nerves.’ She lit a cigarette and drew on it desperately.

  ‘I don’t make you nervous, do I, Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, sweetie,’ said Mum. ‘Now, see what your mum’s got for you.’

  ‘Another present!’

  I hoped it wasn’t chocolates again because I was feeling a bit sick. I was bothered with my nerves too. I take after my mum.

  The present was a big parcel, but soft and floppy. Not chocolates.

  ‘Is it a rag doll or a teddy?’ I asked cautiously, feeling for heads or paws under the wrapping