The Jacqueline Wilson Christmas Cracker Read online

  ‘No, no, I’ve got to get my mum another present. I need a jewellery shop now.’

  ‘But you’ve already got your mum the lipstick and the hand lotion.’ Cam sneeked a peek in my purse. ‘Don’t forget you’ve got to buy Christmas presents for everyone.’

  I wasn’t interested in buying presents for everyone. I didn’t want to buy a present for anyone but my mum.

  I dragged Cam into a lovely sparkly jewellery shop, but when I saw the prices of even the weeniest rings I had to back away, sighing.

  ‘That’s real jewellery, Tracy. A little bit ostentatious, all that gold and diamonds. I think costume jewellery is much more tasteful,’ Cam said quickly.

  ‘OK. Where do you buy this costume jewellery then?’

  She took me to the ground floor of this big department store and I walked round and round great glass cabinets of jewellery. I saw a pink heart on a crimson ribbon. It was utterly beautiful. I could just imagine it round my mum’s neck. It was very expensive, even for costume jewellery, but I counted out every last penny in my purse and found I could just about manage it, keeping a fiver back for my last-of-all purchase.

  ‘Are you sure, Tracy? I think maybe your mum would be happy with just the lipstick. Or the hand lotion.’

  ‘My mum likes lots of presents,’ I said. ‘I know what I’m doing, Cam.’

  I didn’t really know what I was going to do about everyone else’s presents. Still, I wasn’t speaking to Louise any more on account of the fact she’d ganged up with Justine Ugly-Unscrupulous-Friend-Snatcher Littlewood so I didn’t have to buy her anything.

  There was Jenny and Mike, but they quite liked all that pathetic home-made calendar and dried-pasta-picture rubbish. Maybe Miss Simpkins at school would go for that sort of stuff too. Ditto Cam. She believed that it was the thought that counted, didn’t she? She’d as good as indicated that I wasn’t getting anything to speak of from her. It would only embarrass her if I gave her too lavish a gift.

  That just left Weedy Peter. I was sure I could fob him off with something of mine I didn’t want any more, like my leather wallet with the broken clasp or my leaky snowglobe or my wrinkly copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that got a little damp when I was reading it in the bath.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. Christmas-present problem sorted. Now there was just one present left.

  ‘Come on, Cam, I’ve got to go to a bookshop,’ I said, tugging her.

  She was peering at some very boring pearls in the jewellery cabinet.

  ‘Bookshop! Now we’re talking. But hang on. Look, what do you think of that little pearl necklace there – the one with the diamanté clasp? All the sparkly stuff’s half price, special offer.’

  ‘Cam, you are so not a pearl necklace person.’

  ‘They’re not for me, silly.’

  I blinked at her. ‘Look, Cam, it’s very kind of you, but actually I’m not a pearl necklace person either.’

  Cam snorted. ‘You can say that again, Tracy. No no no, I’m thinking about my mum.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. She’s quite posh, isn’t she, your mum?’

  ‘Insufferably so. Very very much a pearl sort of person. But real pearls. These are fake so I expect she’d turn her nose up at them.’

  ‘Well, get her real ones then.’

  ‘Don’t be a banana, Tracy. I couldn’t possibly afford them. I can’t actually afford the fake ones, even half price. You know, I’m like a fake daughter to my mum. She’s so disappointed that I’m not all smart and glossy with a posh partner and a brilliant career.’

  ‘Well, you could still try to get them,’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t want to. I want to be me. It’s so hard not to get wound up by my mum. I’m absolutely dreading going home for Christmas.’

  ‘You’re dreading going home for Christmas?’ I said slowly.

  Cam stopped gazing at the fake pearls and looked at me.

  ‘Oh Tracy, I’m sorry. That was such a stupid tactless thing to say to you. I know just how much you want to see your mum this Christmas.’

  ‘And I’m going to,’ I said, very firmly and fiercely.

  ‘Well, that would be truly great, but remember, your mum might just be busy or tied up or . . . or . . . abroad,’ Cam said.

  ‘No, she’s going to be here. She’s going to come and see me in my starring role in A Christmas Carol. And then she’ll stay over. I dare say she’ll take us to this top hotel and we’ll have Christmas there. Yeah, it will be so great. We’ll sleep in this big big queen-size bed and then we’ll splash in our power shower and then we’ll have the most immense breakfast. I’ll be allowed to eat whatever I want. I can put six spoonfuls of sugar on my cereal and eat twenty sausages in one go and I’ll have those puffy things with maple syrup—’

  ‘Waffles?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll scoffle a waffle,’ I said as we walked out of the department store towards the bookshop. ‘I’ll scoffle six waffles and I’ll have hot chocolate with whipped cream, and then I’ll open my presents and my mum will give me heaps and heaps and heaps of stuff – a whole wardrobe of designer clothes, enough new shoes and trainers and boots to shod a giant centipede—’

  ‘And a motorized go-cart? Sorry, a whole fleet of them.’

  ‘Yep, and bikes and scooters and my own trampoline, and I’ll be able to bounce soooo high I’ll swoop straight up to the sky and everyone will look up at me and go, Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Is it Santa? Noooo, it’s the Truly Tremendous Tracy Beaker!’

  I bounced up and down to demonstrate. I accidentally landed on Cam’s foot and she gave a little scream, but she was very nice about it.

  We carried on playing the Christmas game until we got to the bookshop. Well, it wasn’t exactly a game. I knew it was all going to come true, though perhaps I was embellishing things a little. I am occasionally prone to exaggeration. That means I can get carried away and tell socking great lies. They start to seem so real that I believe them too.

  Cam was very happy to be in the bookshop. She ran her finger lovingly along the long lines of paperbacks.

  ‘I’ll have a little browse,’ she said. ‘The children’s section is over in that corner, Tracy.’

  ‘I don’t want the children’s books. I want the classics section,’ I said loftily.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Cam. ‘You fancy a quick flick through War and Peace?’

  ‘That’s quite a good title. If I write my true life story about my Dumping Ground experiences I’ll call my book War and More War and Yet More War. No, I’m going to peruse the collected works of Mr Charles Dickens.’

  That showed her. I wasn’t kidding either. I wanted to find a copy of A Christmas Carol. I found a very nice paperback for £4.99. I had just one penny left. I didn’t put it back in my purse. I decided to throw it in the dinky wishing well by the shopping centre Christmas tree. I could do with a good wishing session.

  Cam was still browsing in the fiction, her nose in a book, her whole expression one of yearning.

  I knew she couldn’t afford all the books she wanted. She said she often spent ten or twenty minutes in the shop reading a book before putting it back reluctantly. Once she’d even marked her place with a bus ticket so she could sidle back the next day – and the next and the next and the next – until she’d finished the whole story.

  I suddenly wished I’d saved just a little bit of my Christmas money to buy Cam a paperback. I fidgeted uncomfortably with my wishing penny. I threw it up and caught it again and again, practising my wishing. Then I dropped it and it rolled off, right round the shelves. I ran after it and practically bumped my nose on the MIND BODY SPIRIT sign.

  I picked up my penny, my eyes glazing over at all these dippy books about star signs and spiritual auras – and then I saw a title in sparkly silver lettering: Make Your Wishes Come True.

  I reached for the book, my hand shaking. It was a slim little book, written by someone called Grizelda Moonbeam, White Witch. I considered calling myself Tracy