Jacqueline Wilson's Happy Holidays Read online

  Kelly and I didn’t do much better.

  My heart sank as she tied our legs together with her mum’s scarf. She did it so tightly she cut off all the blood supply to my foot. She looked very determined. Kelly liked to win.

  I would have liked to win too. But I knew we didn’t have a chance.

  I tried hard to get ready, get steady and go.

  ‘Run!’ Kelly commanded.

  I ran. She ran. But not together.

  We tripped over. It hurt rather a lot. I wondered if I ought to stay lying there on the grass.

  ‘Get up!’ Kelly squealed.

  I decided to get up. I was barely on my feet before Kelly tore off again. I staggered along beside her for three or four paces, and then tripped again.

  ‘Oh Tim, you’re so useless!’ Kelly yelled.

  I agreed with her meekly.

  ‘Look, shut up and get up,’ Kelly said sharply.

  I tried to do as I was told. It didn’t work.

  We were last in the three-legged race. We didn’t actually finish. Kelly tore the scarf off our legs and stormed off. I was left to limp the rest of the way to the finishing post by myself with everyone laughing at me. I saw Kelly’s mum and Kelly’s mum’s boyfriend Dave pretending not to have noticed. I saw Mum’s face. I saw Dad. I felt so awful. Then I heard another loud braying laugh and a cry of, ‘Mummy’s boy!’

  Prickle-Head.

  I felt even worse.

  But Dad looked up. He’d heard the laugh too. Prickle-Head didn’t have his dad with him this time, only Pinch-Face. Pinch-Face saw my dad looking suddenly fierce. He said something to Prickle-Head. They both scooted off sharpish.

  I felt a fraction better. But only a fraction.

  ‘Cheer up, Tim,’ Biscuits said. ‘Dean and me were hopeless too. They laughed at us and all.’

  But Biscuits had learned the knack of making people laugh with him. They laughed at me.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry, Kelly,’ I said humbly.

  Kelly raised her eyebrows and sighed.

  ‘So I should think!’

  ‘You be quiet, our Kelly. Tim did his best,’ said Kelly’s mum. ‘You were the mean one, rushing off like that and leaving him on his own. Anyway, it’s only a bit of fun, kids.’

  ‘That’s right,’ my mum said gratefully.

  Dad didn’t say anything.

  I knew he thought I was useless too.

  I tried hard not to mind too much as the races went on and on. Nobody made me go in for anything else. But it didn’t matter. I cheered Kelly and Dean in all their running races. They won. I cheered Biscuits in his sack race. He didn’t win but he bounced along grinning all over his face so that everyone clapped nevertheless. I was pleased for him. But I still minded and minded about me inside.

  Then the dads had a race. My dad ran like crazy and went purple in the face. Kelly’s mum’s boyfriend Dave ran like he was hardly bothering. And won.

  My dad congratulated him but I could see he minded a lot.

  Then it was the mums’ race.

  ‘I’m not going in for it,’ said my mum.

  ‘Go on, it’ll be a laugh,’ said Kelly’s mum. There was nothing going to stop her going in for it, even though she didn’t have the right sort of shoes to run in, just backless sandals with heels. She gave them to Kelly to hold and went to the starting post, practically dragging my mum with her.

  I saw my mum’s face.

  I realized she hated sports just the way I did. She especially hated the idea of running in front of everyone and looking stupid. I felt a horrid new squeezing in my tummy. My mum was plumper than the other mums. And I’d seen her running for a bus. Her legs kicked out at the sides and her bottom waggled. I didn’t want to see everyone laughing at Mum.

  ‘This is going to be a laugh,’ said Biscuits.

  Then he saw my face.

  ‘Hey, your dad gave you some pocket money, didn’t he? Let’s go and get an ice-cream from the van over there,’ Biscuits suggested.

  ‘OK.’ I looked over at Kelly who was prancing around in her mum’s high heels.

  ‘Not her,’ Biscuits said quickly. ‘Just you and me.’

  So we sloped off together while everyone else was waiting for the start of the mums’ race. We bought an ice-cream each and stood licking them at the edge of the cliff.

  We heard great shrieks and roars and laughing behind us.

  I winced.

  ‘Hey, let’s have our own private Super-Tim and Biscuits-Boy race,’ said Biscuits, swallowing the rest of his ice-cream whole. ‘We’ll have a roly-poly-down-the-sand-to-the-beach race, right?’

  ‘Right!’ I said, and then I stepped over the edge and started rolling right away.

  ‘Hey! Cheat! I didn’t say go!’ said Biscuits behind me, as he hurled himself over the edge of the beach too.

  I went roly-poly roly-poly roly-poly over and over and over, my eyes squeezed shut to stop any more sand getting in them. I bumped a few bits and went very wobbly but it was still fun, if scary. And I landed on the beach first.

  ‘I won!’ I said as I landed bump on my bottom on the beach.

  ‘Look who it isn’t! Old Mummy’s boy!’ came a dreadfully familiar voice.

  But it sounded odd. Hollow. Sort of echoey and far away.

  I blinked. I couldn’t see Prickle-Head anywhere. Then I realized. He was in one of the sandy caves, burrowing away. I saw his great big boots and Pinch-Face’s trainers sticking out.

  I decided it would be wise to hasten back up the cliff sharpish.

  ‘I’m second!’ Biscuits shouted above me, hurtling down in a great flurry of sand.

  He was sliding down with great thumps and bumps. And suddenly the sand all around him started shaking.

  I stared. And then I shouted, ‘Get out of the cave quick! The cliff is giving way! The sand’s all sliding!’

  Pinch-Face backed out so quickly that Biscuits couldn’t steer past him and landed bang on top of him. They sprawled in a heap, Pinch-Face groaning, Biscuits giggling.

  ‘Where’s Prickle-Head?’ I said. ‘Did he get out too?’

  ‘Must have done,’ said Pinch-Face, picking himself up.

  There was a huge mound of new sand down on the beach.

  ‘Wow! I caused a landslide,’ said Biscuits, looking at the sifted sand. ‘No, a sandslide!’

  I stared. Something glittered in the sand. A stud. Several studs. Prickle-Head’s boots! He was buried in the sand!

  ‘Quick!’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get him out. Dig, you two. Come on. He’s buried alive under all that sand. He’ll die if we don’t dig him free.’

  I hated Prickle-Head but I didn’t want him to die. We scraped and scrabbled at the sand covering him.

  ‘Do his head end so he can breathe,’ I said, but when we tugged his top half free his head lolled. His eyes were shut. I bent my own head nearer. He wasn’t breathing.

  ‘He’s dead!’ said Pinch-Face.

  ‘I’ve murdered him with my landslide!’ said Biscuits. ‘Oh help, oh help, oh help, oh help.’

  ‘Run and get help, what’syourname, Rick, quick!’ I yelled. ‘Biscuits, stop it! Keep getting the sand off him. Maybe that’s stopping his breathing. It’s crushing his chest.’

  ‘He’s dead already, I just know he is!’ Biscuits gasped, clasping Prickle-Head’s horribly lolling head.

  It suddenly reminded me of floppy old Dog Hog and the game we’d played in the car together on the way to Llanpistyll.

  ‘Artificial respiration!’ I said. ‘Quick, Biscuits, do it!’

  ‘I don’t know how!’

  ‘You did it with Dog Hog and Walter Bear.’

  ‘I was just messing about. Oh Tim. He is dead.’

  ‘Then I’ll have a go at this kiss of life thing,’ I said, as Biscuits scraped more sand off Prickle-Head.

  I tilted his head back further so I could get at his mouth properly.

  ‘Breathe into it then!’ said Biscuits.

  ‘No, wait,’ I sa