The Dare Game

by Jacqueline Wilson

  I haven't written much about Cam recently.

  There have been lots and lots of Cam bits. I just haven't felt like writing them. I mean, writers can't put everything down. If you started writing everything exactly as it happened you'd end up with page after page 169

  about opening your eyes and snuggling down in bed for another five minutes and then getting up and going to the loo and brushing your teeth and playing games squeezing your name out in paste and seeing what you'd look like with a toothbrush moustache . . . well, you'd need a whole new chapter before you'd even got started on breakfast.

  Writers have to be selective. That's what Mrs Vomit Bagley says. Did I put that she's got wondrously unfortunate teeth? She spits a little bit whenever she says an 's' word. If she's standing too near you then you're not wondrously fortunate because you get a little spray of V.B. saliva all over your face. Not that this has happened to me

  recently as I've hardly been to school, I've just been bunking off to go to the house.

  They'll be getting in touch with Cam any minute. Maybe it's just as well I'm going off to my mum's. No, it's weller than well. I can't wait. I wish it wasn't being done in all these daft stages. Elaine says I can go for a week. I can't see why I can't go for ever right away.

  All this packing and unpacking is starting to get on my nerves.

  170

  Cam said she'd help me pack, but then she kept saying I didn't need this and I didn't need that – and I said it would be sensible to take nearly all my stuff seeing as I'd be staying there permanently soon.

  Permanently was a very dramatic sort of word. It was like it bounced backwards and forwards between us long after I'd said it. As if it was knocking us both on the head.

  Then Cam blinked hard and said, 'Right, yes, of course, OK,' in a quick gabble, shoving all my stuff in a suitcase, while I said, 'Perhaps it's a bit daft, and anyway, my mum will probably buy me all sorts of new stuff. Designer. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger—'

  'NYDK, yes, yes, you keep

  saying.'

  'DKNY! Honestly, you

  don't know anything, Cam,' I

  said, exasperated.

  'I know one thing,' said

  Cam quietly. 'I'm going to

  miss you, kid.'

  I swallowed hard. 'Well, I'll

  miss you too. I expect.' I hated the way she was looking at me. It wasn't fair. 'Fostering 171

  isn't, like, permanent,' I said. 'They told you that right at the beginning, didn't they?'

  They told me,' said Cam. She picked up one of my old T-shirts and hung onto it like it was a cuddle blanket. 'But I didn't get what it would feel like.'

  'I'm sorry, Cam,' I said. 'I am. Really. But I've got to be with my mum.'

  'I know,' said Cam. She hesitated. She looked down at the T-shirt as if I was inside it. 'But Tracy . . . don't get too upset if it doesn't quite work out the way you want.'

  'It is working out!'

  'I know, I know. And it's great that you're being reunited with your mum, but maybe you'll find it won't end up like a fairy story, happy ever after, for ever and ever.'

  It will, it will. She just doesn't want it to.

  'It will end happily ever after, you wait and see,' I said, pulling my T-shirt away from her and stuffing it in my suitcase with all the others.

  'Tracy, I know—'

  'You don't know anything!' I interrupted.

  'You don't know my mum. You don't even know me properly. It's not like we've been together ages and ages. I don't see why you have to be 172

  so . . . so . . . so shaking your head and giving me all these little warnings about it not working out. You obviously think I'm so horrible and bad and difficult that my mum will get sick of me in two seconds.'

  'I don't think that at all. And you're not horrible and bad and difficult. Well, you are –

  but you can be great too. It's just that even if you're the greatest kid in the whole world and behave beautifully with your mum it still might not work out. Your mum isn't used to kids.'

  'Neither were you, but you took me on.' Ah!

  I had a sudden idea. 'You can take some other kid now.'

  'I don't want some other kid,' said Cam. She put her arm round me. 'I want you.'

  I could hardly breathe. I wanted to cuddle close and hang onto her and tell h e r . . . tell her all sorts of stupid things. But I also wanted to shove her hard and shout at her for

  spoiling my big chance to get back to my mum.

  I wriggled away from her and went on packing my suitcase. 'If you really wanted me you'd have made far more fuss in the first place,' I said, tucking my scrubby old trainers 173

  under my gungy chainstore denims. 'You'd have bought me decent clothes. And proper presents.'

  'Oh Tracy, don't start,' said Cam, suddenly cross. She got up and started marching round my bat cave in an agitated fashion like she was a dog with fleas.

  'You've hardly given me anything,' I said, cross too. 'I've never known anyone so stingy.

  And yet look at all the stuff my mum's given me.'

  'A doll,' said Cam, picking it up. She held it at arm's length.

  'Yes, but it's not like it's any old doll. It cost a fortune. It's not a little kid's doll, it's a collector's item. She gave it me like an ornament. Lots of grown-up ladies have doll collections. You wouldn't understand.' I sneered at Cam in her worn old plaid shirt and baggy jeans. 'You're not that sort of lady.'

  'Thank God,' said Cam.

  'I don't fit in here, Cam. Not with you. Or Jane and Liz and all your other stupid friends.

  I fit with my mum. Her and me. We're relatives.

  You're just my foster mum. You just get paid to look after me, that's all. I bet that's why you're making all the fuss, because you'll miss the cash when I'm gone.'

  174

  Think that if you want, Tracy,' said Cam in this irritating martyr voice.

  'It's true!'

  'OK, OK,' said Cam, folding her arms.

  'It isn't OK!' I said, stamping my foot. 'I don't know what you do with the money. It isn't like you spend it on me.'

  'That's right,' said Cam, in this maddening there-there-I'll-agree-with-whatever-you-say-you-stupid-fool voice.

  'It's wrong- and I'm sick of it,' I shouted. 'Do you know something? Even if it doesn't work out with my mum I still don't want to come back here. I'm sick of this boring old dump. I'm sick of you.'

  'Well clear off then, you ungrateful little beast. I'm sick of you too!' Cam yelled, and she banged out of the bat cave in tears.

  There. That's what she thinks of me. Well, see if I care. UNGRATEFUL. Why do I always have to be grateful to people?

  Kids are always expected to be grateful grateful grateful. It's hateful being grateful. It's not fair. I'm supposed to be grateful to Cam for looking after me but I'm not allowed to look after myself. Though I could, easy-peasy.

  I'm supposed to be grateful for my yucky veggie 175

  meals (she hardly ever takes me to McDonald's) and my unstylish chainstore clothes (no wonder they pick on me at school) and my boring old books (honestly, have you tried reading Little Women? – who cares if Jo was Cam's all-time favourite book character?) and trips to museums (OK, I liked seeing the mummies and the little hunched-up dead man but all those pictures and pots were the pits).

  If I could only earn my own money I could buy all the stuff I really need. It's not fair that kids aren't allowed to work. I'd be great flogging stuff down the market or selling ice creams or working in a nursery. If I could only get a job I could eat Big Macs and french fries every day and wear designer from top to toe, yeah, especially my footware, and buy all the videos and computer games I want and take a trip to Disneyland.

  Yeah! I bet my mum will take me to Disneyland if I ask her.

  176

  It is going to end up like a fairy story. I'm going to live happily ever after.

  I am.

  Even if Football doesn't think so. I hate him.

>   No I don't. I quite like him in a weird sort of way. I'm worried about him. He's not going to live happily ever after.

  I went to our house to say goodbye to Football and Alexander, seeing as I'm going to my mum's.

  Alexander wasn't there. I didn't think Football was either. I went into the house and there was no sign of anyone – and no provisions in the cardboard fridge either. I checked upstairs and looked out of the window at the tree. My knickers were still up there. The tree seemed a long way from the window. We were all crazy. I looked down, my heart thudding when I thought of Alexander. And then I screamed.

  Someone was lying spread-eagled on the mattress. Someone bigger than Alexander.

  Someone wearing last year's football strip.

  'Football!' I yelled, and hurtled back inside the house and out the back window and down the overgrown garden to the mattress.

  'Football, Football, Football!' I cried, standing 177

  over his still sprawled body.

  He opened his eyes and

  peered at me. 'Tracy?'

  'Oh, Football, you're alive!' I

  cried, going down on my

  knees beside him.

  'Ooh Tracy, I didn't know

  you cared,' he said, giggling.

  I gave him a quick flick

  round the face. 'Quit that, idiot! Did you fall?'

  'I'm just having a little lie down.'

  I touched his arm. He was icy cold and his shirt was damp. 'Have you been here all night?

  You're crazy.'

  'Yeah. That's me. Mad. Nuts. Totally out of it.'

  'You are,' I said. 'You'll make yourself ill.'

  'So what?'

  'You won't be able to play football.'

  'Sure I will.' He reached for his football at the edge of the mattress and threw it in the air.

  He tried to catch it but it bounced off his finger-tips into the undergrowth.

  Football swore, but didn't bother to get up.

  He lay where he was, flicking his dad's lighter on and off, on and off above his head. His co-ordination was lousy.

  178

  'You'll drop it and set yourself alight, you nutter. Stop it!'

  'I'm warming myself up.'

  'I'll warm you up.' I rubbed his icy arms and blue fingers. He held onto my hands, pulling me down beside him.

  'What are you playing at?'

  'Keep me company, eh, Tracy?'

  'Can't we go in the warm?'

  'I like it cold. Kind of numb.'

  'Yeah – you're a numskull,' I said, but I lay down properly on the smelly old mattress.

  It was so damp it seemed to be seeping right through my

  back. 'I feel as if

  I'm being pulled

  down down down

  into the earth,' I

  said, wriggling.

  'Yeah, let's

  stay down here together, eh? You and me in our own little world.'

  I wondered about staying in this garden home for ever. Football and I would lie on our backs on the mattress like marble statues on a tomb and ivy would grow over us and squirrels would scamper past and birds nest in our 179

  hair and we wouldn't move a muscle, totally out of it.

  But I want to be in it. I've got to the fairytale ending of my story. I'm all set to live happily ever after.

  'Come on! Getting-up time! Let's play football.' I found the ball and bounced it at Football's head to bring him to his senses.

  Football scrambled to his feet, swearing. He tried to grab the ball but I was too quick for him.

  'I'm Tracy Beaker

  the Great and I'm

  running like the

  wind, and wow,

  look, I've got the ball!'

  'Get out of it, I'm the greatest,' Football said. He tried to tackle me.

  His great boot kicked me instead of the ball.

  'Ooowww! My ankle! You're the greatest biggest booted bully!'

  'I'm sorry.' Football peered at my leg. 'Red,' he said, sounding puzzled.

  'It's blood!'

  'I didn't mean to,' Football mumbled.

  'Oh yes,' I said, busy dabbing and mopping.

  'Like you had no control whatsoever over your 180

  foot, it just developed this wicked will of its own and gouged a huge lump out of my flesh.

  I t hurts!'

  'I'm really really sorry, Tracy.' Football looked like he was nearly in tears. 'I'd never try to hurt you. You mean a lot to me, kid. Tracy?'

  He tried to put his arm round me.

  I dodged underneath. 'Get off me!'

  'Go on, you know you like me too.'

  'Not when you're all damp and smelly. Yuck, you don't half need a bath, Football.'

  'Don't nag at me. You sound like my mum.

  You're all the same. Nag moan whine whinge.

  Think I really care about you? You're mad. I don't want you one little bit. No-one wants you, Tracy Beaker.'

  'My mum wants me!' I yelled.

  I roared it so loudly the birds flew into the air in terror and people stopped dead in their tracks all over town and cars ran into each other and aeroplanes stalled in the sky.

  'MY MUM WANTS ME!'

  Mum's home was a little bit different this time. Mum was a little bit different too. She was very pale underneath her make-up and she wore dark glasses and when we had our big hug hello she smelt stale underneath her lovely powdery scent. Her home smelt too, of cigarettes and a lot of booze. The curtains were still drawn.

  I went to open them but Mum

  stopped me. 'Not too much daylight, sweetie,' she said, holding her forehead.

  'Have you got a hangover, Mum?'

  'What? No, of course not. Don't be silly, darling. No, I have this nasty migraine.

  I get them a lot. I'm bothered with my nerves.'

  She lit a cigarette and drew on it desperately.

  'I don't make you nervous, do I, Mum?' I asked.

  183

  'Don't be so silly, sweetie,' said Mum. 'Now, see what your mum's got for you.'

  'Another present!'

  I hoped it wasn't chocolates again because I was feeling a bit sick. I was bothered with my nerves too. I take after my mum.

  The present was a big parcel, but soft and floppy. Not chocolates.

  'Is it a rag doll or a teddy?' I asked cautiously, feeling for heads or paws under the wrapping paper.

  'Have a look.'

  So I carefully undid the wrapping paper, Ultra-neatly this time, and discovered an amazing pair of combat trousers – with a label to die for!

  'Oh wow! Great!' I said, whirling around, clutching the trousers,

  making each leg dance up and

  down.

  'You like them?' said Mum.

  'I love them. They're seriously cool. Shame I haven't got a really great jacket to go with them.'

  'You're not hinting, by any chance?' said Mum, smiling.

  I decided to hint for all I was worth. 'Of 184

  course, my old trainers are going to spoil the whole sharp look,' I said. 'I need a pair of Nikes to kind of complete the outfit.'

  'I'm not made of money,' said Mum. 'I think it's a bit rich – ha, a bit poor – that Cam gets paid a fortune to look after you, while I won't get a penny.'

  'Still, I'm worth it, aren't I, Mum?' I said, whirling closer.

  'Of course you are, sweetheart,' she said.

  'Do give over thumping about though, you're doing my head in.'

  I made her a strong black coffee and she sat on her sofa and sipped. Then she lay back on the cushion and stayed very still, not answering when I spoke to her. It looked like she'd fallen asleep, though I couldn't see her eyes for the dark

  glasses.

  I circled the sofa

  slowly, looking at

  her, still not quite

  able to believe she

  was really my mum

  and we were with each other and we were going to be together for ever and ev
er. I'd made it up so many times that it was hard to 185

  believe it was real now. I kept staring and staring until my eyes went blurry but Mum didn't vanish: she stretched out in her sparkly sweater and leopardskin pants, so splendid, so special, so sweet to me. So sleepy too.

  She wouldn't wake up. I loved to look at her but it started to get just a weeny bit boring. I went for a wander round the room, emptying the ashtrays into the wastebin and taking the glass and empty bottle out into the kitchen like a real Mummy's Little Helper. I had a peer in all her kitchen cupboards and the fridge but there weren't many snacks to nibble on, just frozen packets and diet stuff and booze.

  I played hopscotch across the kitchen tiles for a bit and then I took off my trainers and played ice skating and then I shuffled back to the living room hopefully because I heard Mum sigh, but she'd just turned over and was still playing Sleeping Beauty. One of her black suede high heels had fallen off. I tried it on, and then carefully eased the other one off her foot too. I had my very own pair of high heels. I clonked about the living room for a bit to get my balance and then staggered off to her bedroom to admire myself in her wardrobe mirror.

  I had a little peep in her wardrobe – and 186

  before I could stop myself I was dressing up in her mohair sweater and her leather skirt. I looked almost like my mum! I pretended to be her. I promised my little Tracy I would always love her and be with her for ever no matter what.

  Then my mum came into the bedroom, rubbing her eyes and lighting her fag. 'So that's where you've got to. Did I doze off for five minutes? Hey, you cheeky baggage, you're all togged up in my clothes! Take them off! And watch that skirt, it cost a fortune.'

  'Oh Mum, please, let me keep them on, just for a second. I look so beautiful. Just like you,'

  I begged. I rootled through her wardrobe. 'Oh wow! I love your red dress. Can I try that on too? And the purply thing? And what's this black dress? Oh, it's dead sexy.'

  'Tracy!' said Mum, giggling. 'OK

  then. Come here, we'll play dressing up.

  It was MAGIC. Mum got me all

  beautifully dressed up – though we both fell about laughing when I tried the black dress on because it came right down to my belly button and I wasn't just topless, I was very nearly bottomless too.