Jacqueline Wilson's Happy Holidays Read online

TRACY’S TROPICAL SMOOTHIE!

  You can put any fruit you like into this yummy drink! But for a really tropical taste, try pineapple and mango. Just like before, you’ll need to use a blender.

  INGREDIENTS

  (Makes one big smoothie or two little ones!)

  1/2 a mango, chopped into pieces

  1/4 a pineapple, chopped

  1 banana, chopped

  A squeeze of lime or orange juice

  1 heaped tbs Greek or natural yoghurt

  2 tsp clear honey

  3–4 ice cubes

  DIRECTIONS

  1. This smoothie couldn’t be easier. Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth and creamy!

  2. Pour into a pretty glass and decorate with a slice of kiwi or orange before serving with a straw.

  IT WAS GREAT fun riding along in the Mercedes. Grandad kept calling me Lady Gemma and asking me if I’d like a drink or a sweet or a rug around my knees. We stopped at a motorway café around six o’clock. We both had a huge fry-up of sausages, bacon, baked beans and chips. Grandad let me squirt tomato sauce out of a squeezy bottle all over mine. I wanted to write

  but it took up too much room, so I settled for

  When we got back on the road Grandad tuned into a Golden Oldie radio channel and sang me all these old songs, telling me how he used to jive to them with Grandma. I sang too, but when the radio frequency started to fade I faded too.

  I curled up on the comfy leather seat, head on a cushion, rug wrapped around me, and slept deeply for hours and hours. Then I was vaguely aware Grandad was picking me up, still wrapped up in the rug like a big baby in a shawl. He was carrying me into a dark house and tucking me up in a little camp bed.

  I went straight back to sleep. When I woke up it was a bright sunny morning and I was in a totally strange bedroom, Grandad gently snoring over in the big bed.

  I got up and had a little wander round the room. I peeped out of the curtains, expecting to see mountains and lochs and hairy Highland cattle and men in tartan kilts. It was disappointing to see a perfectly ordinary street of grey houses and a video shop and a newsagent and a Chinese takeaway just like at home. There was a man coming out of the newsagent’s with his paper and a pint of milk but he was wearing trousers, and they weren’t even tartan.

  ‘What are you looking at, sweetheart?’ Grandad mumbled.

  ‘Scotland. But it doesn’t look very foreign,’ I said.

  ‘You wait till I drive you to Alice’s new house. It’s right out in the country.’

  ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Soon. After we’ve had breakfast.’

  It was a satisfyingly Scottish breakfast cooked by Mrs Campbell, the lady who ran the boarding house. We had our breakfast in a special dining room with the other guests. Grandad and I had our own little table for two. I plucked at the checked tablecloth.

  ‘Is this tartan?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, it is indeed, lassie. The Campbell tartan, I expect. They’re a very grand clan – especially the ladyfolk,’ said Grandad, putting on a very bad Scottish accent.

  Mrs Campbell didn’t mind. She giggled at Grandad and gave us extra big helpings of porridge.

  ‘You’re supposed to eat your porridge with salt when you’re in Scotland,’ said Grandad.

  ‘He can have the salt, darling, but you can have brown sugar and cream,’ said Mrs Campbell, giving me a little bowl and jug. ‘But leave room for your smokies.’

  I wasn’t sure what smokies were. They turned out to be lovely cooked fish swimming in butter. Mrs Campbell cut mine off the bone for me. Then she brought us lots of toast with a special pot of Dundee marmalade.

  ‘I like Scotland,’ I said.

  IDEAS FOR A RAINY DAY

  Stuck inside over the holidays?

  Why not . . .

  • Start a diary?

  • Write your own play, cast your family as different parts, and host a performance at home?

  • Paint your toenails in every colour of the rainbow?

  • Bake your favourite cake?

  • Pick your favourite Jacqueline Wilson character and write a brand-new story about him or her?

  • Make a gift to give to your best friend the next time you see her, like a friendship bracelet or loom band?

  • Test your memory skills? Ask one of your parents or a member of your family to place thirty different items on a table – they could be coins, books, toys, items of clothing, pieces of fruit, ornaments, or anything else. Look at the collection of things carefully, and give yourself exactly one minute to try to memorize them all. Then go into another room with a piece of paper and a pencil, and see how many you can write down!

  • Visit Jacqueline’s website and chat to other fans?

  WHERE DO YOU go for your summer holidays? Girls in my class camp in the Lake District or stay on farms in Devon or rent holiday cottages in Cornwall. Some of them go to Spain and come back celebrity brown, with their hair in little beaded braids. Several fly all the way to Florida and boast about braving Space Mountain and have autograph books with Mickey Mouse and Pluto signatures.

  We don’t ever go on summer holidays. We haven’t got any money. There’s just Mum and me and the three little ones. Bliss and Baxter are five and little Pixie is two. Pixie has big blue eyes and golden curls and everyone goes ‘Aaaah!’ when they catch sight of her. Bliss is quite pretty too, though she’s so shy she always hangs her head so you can’t see her face properly. Baxter looks fierce because of his crew cut but he is kind of cute. People always fuss over them because they’re twins. No one ever fusses over me or goes ‘Aaaah!’ I’m ten, and I’m pale and skinny and I’ve got a frowny face because I worry a lot.

  I was getting especially worried about Mum during the summer holidays because she was so fed up. She just lay on our battered sofa watching the television, not bothering to go out, even when it was sunny. Every time the kids yelled she’d wince and say they were doing her head in. I tried to keep them quiet. I read them stories and we all did drawing together with my felt tips. That wasn’t such a good idea, because Baxter drew a frieze of green monster men all round the kitchen wall, and Pixie decided to scribble with Mum’s lipstick instead of a felt pen.

  We played pretending games too. Don’t laugh – I know I’m way too old for that sort of thing, but it was just to keep the kids happy. We played we were going to the seaside. I let the kids strip down to their pants and splash about in the bath for ages. They really liked that, but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea either, because they splashed a bit too much, and the water seeped through the floorboards and dripped through the ceiling of the flat downstairs, and the woman from number six came up and had a shouting match with Mum.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said miserably. ‘We were just pretending we were at the seaside.’

  ‘Oh, never mind, Lily. She’s a right moany old bag, that one. I know you didn’t mean any harm. I wish I could take you all to the seaside. I’m going crazy stuck here day after day. It’s not doing you lot any good either, cooped up in this little flat.’

  We all went out to the launderette together. I helped out doing the washing, Baxter ran around with a plastic basket on his head being a Washing Monster, Bliss looked anxiously at her newly washed teddy spinning round and round in the dryer, and Pixie perched on an old lady’s lap and chatted away to her.

  ‘What a little darling!’ said the old lady, whose name was Joan. ‘But she’s so pale. She needs to get some roses in her cheeks.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Mum. ‘But I can’t afford to take them anywhere.’

  ‘My church is organizing some free day trips to the seaside – one for mums and kiddies, and the other for all us pensioners. The coaches are leaving from the bus station next Saturday. I think the kiddie special goes at eight o’clock, and I’m sure they’ve got a few seats left. Your kids could paddle in the sea, build a few sandcastles, and have fish and chips and ice cream.’

  ‘Oh, wow, Mum!’ I