Dare Game Read online

  ‘Tracy’s not bothered about the way I feel. It’s the way she feels that matters. And she’s not feeling too great either at the moment. So she takes it out on me.’

  ‘Try standing up to her for once. Put her in her place,’ says horrible old Liz.

  ‘That’s just it. That’s why she’s so difficult. She doesn’t know her place because she hasn’t ever had one. A place of her own,’ says Cam.

  It made me feel good that she could suss that out and bad because I don’t want her to pity me. I don’t want her to foster me because she feels sorry for me. I want her to foster me because she’s dead lonely and it gives her life a purpose and she’s crazy about me. She says she cares about me but she doesn’t love me like a real mum. She doesn’t want to buy me treats every single day and give me loads of money and keep me home from school because it’s so horrible.

  I’m not ever going back. I can bunk off every day, easy-peasy. I timed it to perfection, arriving back at Cam’s dead on time. She was sitting on her squashy old sofa writing her sad old story in her notebook. I made her jump when I came barging in but she smiled. I suddenly felt weird, like I’d been missing her or something, so I ran over to her and bounced down beside her.

  ‘Hey, Trace, watch the sofa!’ she said, struggling back into the upright position. ‘You’ll break it. You’ll break me!’

  ‘Half the springs are broken already.’

  ‘Look, I never pretended this was House Beautiful.’

  ‘Hovel Hideous, more like,’ I said, getting up and roaming round the shabby furniture, giving it a kick.

  ‘Don’t do that, Tracy,’ Cam said sharply.

  Aha! It was standing-up-to-Tracy time! Well, I can stand up to her. And walk all over her too.

  Cam saw me squaring up and wilted. ‘Don’t start, Tracy. I’ve had a hard day. You know that article I wrote?’

  ‘Rejected?’

  ‘So I’m dejected. And I’m stuck halfway through Chapter Four of my novel and—’

  ‘And you want to write something that will sell. Something action-packed!’ I pretended to karate chop her. I didn’t touch her but I made her blink. ‘Lively!’ I jumped up and down in front of her. ‘And sexy!’ I waggled my hips and batted my eyelashes.

  ‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ said Cam.

  ‘I’m going to make my fortune as a writer, you wait and see,’ I said. I looked at the little bits Cam had scribbled in her notebook. ‘I can write heaps more than that. I wrote pages and pages and pages today, practically a whole book.’

  ‘Was that for English?’

  ‘No, it was . . .’ Oh-oh. Caution required. ‘It was just something private I’m writing. At playtime and in the lunch hour.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’

  ‘No!’ I don’t want her to see this purple notebook. I keep it hidden in my school bag. Otherwise she might wonder when I bought it. And where I got the cash. She might start going through her purse again and we don’t want another one of those rows.

  ‘OK, OK, it’s private, right. But couldn’t I have one little peep?’

  ‘You’re getting as bad as old Vomit Bagley. She made us do this Exercise in Autobiography, the nosy old bag, all this stuff about “My Family”.’

  Cam stiffened and forgot about my private writing – as I intended!

  ‘She says to me that I should write about my foster mum—’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No, I wrote about my mum. And how she’s an actress in Hollywood and so busy she can’t come and see me. You know.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘Only old Vomit Bag didn’t believe me. She made fun of me.’

  ‘That’s horrible!’

  ‘You believe me, don’t you, Cam? About my mum?’ I watched her very carefully.

  ‘Well . . . I know just how much your mum means to you, Tracy.’

  ‘Ha! You think it’s all rubbish, don’t you? A story I made up.’

  ‘No! Not if . . . if you think it’s true.’

  ‘Well, it’s not true.’ I suddenly shouted it. ‘None of it’s true. I made it all up. It’s dead babyish and pathetic. She’s not an actress at all. She just can’t be bothered to get in touch.’

  ‘You don’t know that, Tracy.’ Cam tried to put her arm round me but I jerked free.

  ‘I do know. I haven’t seen her for years. I used to wait and wait and wait for her in the Children’s Home. I must have been mad. She isn’t ever going to come and get me. If someone said, “Do you remember anyone called Tracy Beaker?” she’d probably look vague and go, “Hang on – Tracy? Sounds familiar. Who is she, exactly?” Fat lot she cares. Well, I don’t care either. I don’t want her for my mum.’

  I didn’t know I was going to say all that. Cam was staring at me. I stared back at her. My throat felt dry and my eyes prickled. I very nearly started crying, only of course I don’t ever cry.

  Cam was looking at me. My eyes blurred so that she went all fuzzy. I took a step forward, holding out my hands like I was feeling my way through fog.

  Then the phone rang. We both jumped. I blinked. Cam said to leave it. But I can’t stand leaving a phone ringing, so I answered it.

  It was Elaine the Pain. She didn’t want to talk to me. She wanted to speak to Cam. Typical. She’s my social worker. And it was about me. But she had to tell Cam first. And then she told me.

  You’ll never ever ever guess.

  It’s my mum.

  She’s been in touch.

  She wants to see me!

  Elaine’s Home

  I HAVEN’T BEEN to Elaine’s home home. Just her office. She’s done her best to turn it into a home. She’s got all these photos of kids on the wall. I’m there somewhere. She’s used the photo where I’m crossing my eyes and sticking out my tongue. She’s got a similarly cross-eyed giant bear prowling the top of her filing cabinet, terrorizing a little droopy-eared mauve rabbit. There’s an old Valentine propped on her desk which says inside (I had a quick nose), ‘To my Little Bunny from Big Bear’. Y-U-C-K! She has a framed photo of this ultra-weedy guy with thick glasses who must be Big Bear. There are several framed mottoes too, like: ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps’ and a poem about an old woman wearing purple and some long drivelly meditation about Listening to Your Inner Child.

  Never mind Elaine’s Inner Child. I am her Outer Child and it’s mega-difficult to make contact with her, even when I bawl my head off.

  ‘Now calm down, Tracy,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t want to calm down!’ I yelled. ‘I want to see my mum. I’ve waited long enough. Like, years! So I want to see my mum NOW!’

  ‘You don’t get anywhere by yelling, Tracy,’ said Elaine. ‘You should know how things work by now.’

  ‘I know how they don’t work! Why can’t I see my mum right this minute?’

  ‘Because we need to prepare for this meeting.’

  ‘Prepare! I’ve been waiting half my life! I couldn’t get more prepared if I tried.’

  ‘That’s just it, Tracy. We don’t want you to get too worked up about things.’

  ‘So you think telling me my mum wants to see me and then telling me I can’t see her is going to calm me down????’

  ‘I didn’t say you can’t see her. Of course you can see her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When we can all arrange an appropriate date.’

  ‘Who’s this “we”?’

  ‘Well. I shall need to be there. And Cam.’

  ‘Why? Why can’t it just be my mum and me?’

  It was just my mum and me once. I can remember it. I can. We had a great time, my mum and me. She’s incredibly beautiful, my mum. Lovely long curly fair hair all round her shoulders, dead smart, with high heels. She looks amazing. Well, she did. Last time I saw her. Quite a while ago.

  A long long time ago.

  I do remember that last time. I was in the Home then but Mum visited me at first – she even gave me this doll, and she took me to McDonald’s. It