The Jacqueline Wilson Christmas Cracker Read online

  I knew she was right. I swallowed very very very hard to get rid of the lump in my throat. I blinked very very very hard to get rid of the water in my eyes. I took a deep deep deep breath.

  ‘Bah!’ I said. ‘Humbug!’

  Miss Simpkins gave me a thumbs-up and then beetled off to cue the carol singers. I sat in my chair, hunched up. They started singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. I started singing my own mournful little version:

  ‘Once in poxy London city

  Stood a lowly primary school

  Where this girl waits for her mother

  To come and see her act the fool.

  Carly is that mother wild

  Tracy Beaker is that child.’

  Then the curtains parted with a swish, the lights went on dimly to show my candle-lit counting house, and I sat tensely in my chair, scowling.

  I hated the noise of the chirpy carol singers. All their mums and dads were watching them, oohing and aahing and whispering, ‘Ah, bless.’

  My mum wasn’t there. She couldn’t be bothered to come, even though I’d bought her all those presents. She didn’t care tuppence about me.

  Well, I didn’t care tuppence about her. I didn’t care tuppence about anyone. I stomped to the side of the stage and shook my fist at the carol singers as they all cried, ‘Happy Christmas!’

  ‘Bah!’ I said. ‘Humbug. Be off with you!’

  I felt as if I’d truly turned into Scrooge. My nephew came to wish me Merry Christmas and I sent him off with a flea in his ear. I didn’t want to make merry with him. I bullied my stupid clerk Bob Cratchit, and then had a bite to eat. I ate my chicken drumstick like a finicky old man, and when one of the little kids played being a dog on all fours I snatched the bone away and shook my fist at him. He growled at me and I growled back. I heard the audience laugh. Someone whispered, ‘Isn’t that Tracy Beaker a proper caution!’

  Then I went to bed and Justine Enemy-For-Ever Littlewood clanked on stage as Marley’s Ghost, the coffin bandage round her head, her long chain trailing keys and padlocks and coinboxes.

  Justine’s ridiculous dad started clapping wildly before she’d so much as opened her mouth and Justine Utterly-Unprofessional Littlewood totally forgot she was Marley’s Ghost. She turned and waved excitedly at her father, just like a five-year-old in her first Nativity play.

  I gave a gasp to remind Justine she was there to spook me out and give me a warning. Justine shuffled towards me unwillingly, still peering round at her dad. Her chain tangled around her feet. She wasn’t looking where she was going. Recipe for disaster!

  Justine tripped over her own padlock and went flying, landing flat on her face. She lay there, looking a total idiot. Her face was all screwed up. She was trying not to cry.

  My chest hurt. I knew just how she felt, falling over and making such a fool of herself in front of her dad. I reached out a shaking hand.

  ‘Is it you, Jacob Marley, my old partner? It can’t be you, because you’re as dead as a doornail.’ That was in Miss Simpkins’s script. Now it was time for a spot of improvisation. ‘Yet it must be you, Marley. You were unsteady on your feet in your last few years on earth – and you’re unsteady now in your present spirit situation. Allow me to assist you, old chap.’

  I took hold of Justine and hauled her up. The audience clapped delightedly because I’d saved the situation.

  ‘Pray tell me why you’re fettered,’ I said, following the script again.

  ‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ said Justine, pulling herself together. She sounded pretty miserable, but that was in character.

  Then I was visited by Louise as the Spirit of Christmas Past. She’d put her own make-up on over Cam’s so she looked more like she was going out clubbing than off haunting mean old men, but at least she didn’t fall over.

  We acted out the bit where little boy Scrooge was sent to a horrible boarding school and told he couldn’t ever go home. It was a bit like me being sent off to the Dumping Ground.

  I thought about Mum sending me there and not coming back to fetch me. Not even coming today, when I was starring as Scrooge. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I don’t ever cry. But I wasn’t being Tracy Beaker; I was acting Scrooge, and doing it so well I heard several snuffles in the audience. They were moved to tears too by my brilliant performance!

  I had a chance to blow my nose on my nightshirt hem while everyone danced at the Fezziwigs’ party. Then the curtains closed and the carol singers stood in front and sang ‘Away in a Manger’.

  I sang my own version to myself:

  ‘Away in a schoolhouse

  No mum watched her daughter

  But Little Tracy Beaker

  Acted incredibly – she didn’t falter!’

  Miss Simpkins and a host of little helpers rushed round the stage scattering real holly and ivy and mistletoe and fake painted plaster turkeys, ham, mince pies and clementines.

  Then the curtains opened and I peered out, waving the carol singers away and going ‘Ssh! Ssh!’ to the audience. Fat Freddy waddled on stage in his Father Christmas outfit as the Spirit of Christmas Present and took me to see the Cratchit family.

  Peter was shaking all over, scared out of his wits, but the moment he hopped across the stage using his crutch everyone went ‘Aaah! Doesn’t he look sweet!’ When he said, ‘God bless us every one,’ they all started clapping.

  It looked as if weedy little Peter had stolen the show.

  It was my show. I was Scrooge. I wanted them just to clap me. But Peter was my friend. He’d tried so hard for me. My chest hurt again. He liked me so much. And I liked him. I really did. Maybe I was a little bit glad he was being such a success. When the Spirit of Christmas Present told me Tiny Tim was going to die I cried straight from the heart, ‘No, no! Oh no, kind Spirit! Say he will be spared!’

  Then, as midnight struck, I spotted the two tiny children hiding under the Spirit’s robes, the smallest skinniest kids Miss Simpkins could find, one playing Ignorance and one playing Want.

  The last Spirit came creeping onto the stage, draped in a long black robe, the scary Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. The lights were very low so it looked as if we were wandering through the night together. We went to the Cratchit house, so melancholy without Tiny Tim. Then we went to the graveyard. Miss Simpkins shone a torch on the great cardboard tombstone. I saw my own name written there, Ebenezer Scrooge. I trembled and threw myself down on my knees.

  ‘Oh, Spirit, have mercy!’ I cried. ‘Tell me I can sponge away the writing on this stone. I have learned my lesson. I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.’

  Then the lights went out and I jumped into my own bed quick as a wink and then acted waking up on Christmas Day. The carol singers sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ outside my window. I sprang out of bed, did a little caper in my nightgown, and then went and called out to them.

  ‘I wish you a Merry Christmas too, dear fellows. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I, Ebenezer Scrooge, am going to lead a happy new life.’

  Bells rang out and I danced up and down. Then I put my coat on over my nightshirt and rushed off stage, staggering back with the most comically enormous turkey, almost as big as me.

  I invited everyone to my house for Christmas. The whole cast crammed on stage and we ‘ate’ plastic mince pies and quaffed pretend wine – even Marley’s Ghost and the three Christmas Spirits – and then we all sang ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’. I got Peter to shout out, ‘God bless us every one!’ right at the end.

  Then the clapping started. It went on and on and on. We all stood holding hands and bowing. The four Ghosts got a special bow. Then Peter had to bow all by himself. He was so excited he did a little hoppy dance, waving his crutch, and the audience roared.

  Then it was my turn. I stood in front of all the others. Cam and Jenny and Mike and Elaine stood up and started clapping and clapping. Miss Simpkins at the side of the stage was clapping and clapping. Mrs Darlow at the back of t