My Mum Tracy Beaker Read online

  ‘Mum! I heard you!’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a real row – we were just getting things straight. I’m not standing for any nonsense. Sean might have played around a bit in the past, but now he’s ready to settle down with you and me.’

  ‘And Alfie,’ I said. ‘He’ll never have to go back to Battersea, will he? Promise, Mum.’

  ‘I promise. He’s ours now, no matter what,’ she said.

  ‘Even if he’s sick in your new car and spoils the upholstery?’

  ‘Even if – though you’ll be the one mopping it up.’

  ‘Even if he accidentally swallows your diamond or ruby or sapphire or emerald engagement ring?’

  ‘Even if – though you’ll have to check when it comes out his other end and pick it out of his poo.’

  ‘I’ll make very sure he doesn’t swallow it then,’ I said. We were nearly at Ava and Alice’s house. ‘Mum, can Alice come to tea on Saturday?’

  ‘Soon. But not this Saturday,’ she said.

  ‘Then can Tyrone come instead?’

  ‘He can come too, but not this Saturday either. Someone else is coming. The most important person of all. Cam,’ said Mum.

  ‘Cam would like Alice. She might even like Tyrone,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I know. But I want this first visit to be special, just for Cam. One, because she’s my mum and I love her. And two, if she hadn’t fostered me, I’d never have met Sean all those years ago when we were kids.’

  I understood. ‘And three, if Cam hadn’t taken me to Battersea I wouldn’t have Alfie,’ I said.

  ‘Mm,’ said Mum.

  So we phoned Cam and invited her, and she asked her friends Jane and Liz to keep an eye on the girls on Saturday. Sean Godfrey seemed happy about Cam’s special visit. Since the Sandy Forthright row he’d seemed very eager to please Mum.

  He bought her a car too. You’ll never, ever guess the car Mum picked! She could have chosen any make at all. Sean Godfrey wanted her to have another red Porsche to be the twin of his, but she’d have had to wait several months for all the special fittings – and Mum’s never been any good at waiting for anything.

  ‘You know what I’d really like instead?’ she said. ‘I know it sounds a bit mad – but I’d like a pink Cadillac convertible.’

  ‘What?’ said Sean Godfrey.

  ‘When I was a little kid it was my dream car. I pretended my mum was a Hollywood actress, and that one day she’d come and fetch me in her pink Cadillac,’ said Mum. ‘Oh, imagine if I had my very own pink Cadillac now! Oh, Sean, please could I have one?’

  ‘But that’s crazy, babe. Why would you want some ancient vintage car that’ll probably be forever conking out when you could have something new and powerful and stylish?’ he said, baffled.

  ‘Oh, Sean, please please please! It was my childhood dream!’ Mum begged.

  ‘I just don’t get you, Trace. You’d think you would want to forget about your crazy childhood,’ he said – but he took her to a vintage-car dealer, and when Mum came to collect me from school she was driving a shiny bright pink open-top Cadillac, just like the ones in old American movies!

  ‘Hop in, babycakes!’ she said in a dreadful American accent, grinning all over her face. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘It’s very pink,’ I said.

  ‘Yep,’ said Mum happily. ‘It’s just the way I imagined.’

  Maybe it made her start imagining too much. She got in touch with Granny Carly.

  On Saturday morning Mum took us all by surprise. Sean Godfrey was showing off, doing press-ups on the kitchen floor, and Rosalie was making me another pancake, and Mum was having a second cup of coffee and checking her phone when she suddenly said, ‘Looks like we’re having two visitors for tea today?’

  I stared at her. ‘But it’s a special day for Cam. You said.’

  ‘I know. But the other day I phoned Granny Carly, just to tell her our new address, and she could hardly believe it. She’d seen all my posts on Instagram, but she didn’t realize they were pics of my house. We had a long chat, and she said she’d love to come to tea one Saturday. I thought she meant any old Saturday, so I said yes. But she’s just emailed again to say she’ll be here at three o’clock,’ Mum said sheepishly.

  ‘Can’t you say no?’ I asked.

  ‘Sixty-eight … Don’t you like your granny, Jess?’ Sean asked, mid-press.

  ‘Not much,’ I said truthfully. ‘And you don’t like her either, Mum – you know you don’t.’

  ‘Yes, but … she is my mum.’

  ‘You’ve said a million times that Cam has always been more of a mum to you than Granny Carly. And you can’t put Cam off now, not when she’s made arrangements. That would be so mean!’

  ‘Seventy-two … Why on earth can’t both these mums come?’ said Sean Godfrey, starting to pant a little.

  ‘Because they don’t really get on,’ said Mum. ‘Sean, would you stop bobbing up and down like that, it’s getting on my nerves.’

  ‘Seventy-four … Just let me get to a hundred,’ he said.

  ‘Granny Carly probably won’t turn up anyway,’ I said. ‘She hardly ever came when she was supposed to visit you at the Dumping Ground.’

  Mum had told me this again and again, but now she looked stricken. ‘Of course she’ll turn up,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘Seventy-nine … Tell you what, I’ll ask my mum round to tea as well. Then they can all have a go at each other,’ said Sean Godfrey. He started laughing at the idea, and collapsed on the floor. ‘Now look what you girls have made me do!’

  ‘Out the way, Mr Sean,’ said Rosalie, stepping over him to serve me my second pancake.

  ‘Have you got a mum, Rosalie?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course I have, back in the Philippines. I have many dear relatives. It’s why I work so hard for this big fierce man – they all need a share of my wages,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, you love me really, Rosalie,’ said Sean Godfrey, sitting up. ‘Are you going to make your special chocolate cake for Tracy’s mum?’

  ‘I’ll make the cake,’ said Mum. ‘And OK, we’ll have both of them together, Cam and Carly, even though they’ve got nothing in common. Apart from me.’

  ‘But Rosalie’s famous for her chocolate cake,’ said Sean Godfrey.

  Big mistake. Mum was more determined than ever to make one herself. Mum’s good at making cakes.

  She’s always made me very special birthday cakes. Last year’s one was like our living room – all red, with a purple marzipan sofa and red marzipan cushions. She fashioned two little marzipan people with amazing hair made out of liquorice laces. She makes birthday cakes for herself too – really elaborate ones with lots of layers and buttercream and icing, and all kinds of decorations on top, and Happy Birthday Tracy Beaker piped in big red letters. It might seem a bit weird – it’s mostly only Mum and me and Cam eating it, and it goes stale long before we get to the end – but Mum has this thing about birthday cakes because she had to share hers with Weedy Peter. She always wished for her mum to come and see her – and now her mum was coming, and I wished she wasn’t.

  Mum took over the kitchen, and wouldn’t even let me help her bake, though usually I share the stirring, and she always lets me scrape round the bowl with a spoon. I could see it was annoying for Rosalie, being exiled from her own kitchen, but she just shrugged and went to polish the parquet floors. She let me wrap dusters round my feet so that I could put an extra shine on them while I skated backwards and forwards. Alfie tried to copy me, and Rosalie and I ended up shrieking with laughter.

  Mum came to see what was going on. I thought she’d be thrilled to see the floors looking so splendid for our visitors, but instead she got cross.

  ‘You’ve turned the whole house into a death trap! My mum wears really high heels – she’ll skid and break her neck!’ she said, huffing and puffing.

  Alfie got a bit frightened and did a little wee. He couldn’t help himself, but that made Mum even crosser.

  ‘F