Jacqueline Wilson's Happy Holidays

by Jacqueline Wilson

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
said. ‘Please say yes. I’d love to paddle in the sea.’

  ‘Fish and chips,’ said Baxter, rubbing his tummy.

  ‘Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!’ said Pixie.

  ‘But we don’t go to your church, Joan,’ said Mum.

  ‘Never mind. I’m on the committee, so I get to say who goes. And I say you lot go, OK?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Mum.

  But it wasn’t brilliant at all on Saturday morning. We’re not very good at getting up early, especially in the school holidays. Mum set her alarm for seven, but then she slept right through it. I woke up at half past and shot out of bed.

  ‘Oh no, we’ve slept in. We’ll miss the eight o’clock coach!’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Lily, shut it. We’ll get there in time, you’ll see,’ said Mum, staggering out of bed.

  She got herself and Pixie dressed, while I chivvied Baxter and Bliss into T-shirts and shorts and got dressed myself. There wasn’t time for breakfast. Mum gave us a piece of bread and jam to eat on the way, and Pixie sucked at her bottle in the buggy. We ran nearly all the way to the bus station – but it was nearly ten past eight now. We saw the coach disappearing in the distance without us!

  ‘Just my rotten luck!’ said Mum, and she looked like she was going to burst into tears.

  ‘Where were you lot then?’ said Joan, coming up to us. She was wearing a pink sunhat and a pink flowery dress to match. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, don’t look so downhearted.’

  ‘But we’ve missed our chance of a free day at the seaside,’ I wailed.

  ‘No you haven’t, dearie!’ said Joan. ‘You lot will simply have to tag along with us old dears instead. Our coach leaves at half past eight. I’m sure there’ll be room for you. I can always have little Pixie on my lap.’

  So we had our free day out after all! Everybody else on the coach was over seventy. There was one little old man who was ninety-two and in a wheelchair, but Mum and the coach driver, Darren, helped haul him up into the coach. Darren wasn’t over seventy – he was about Mum’s age, very smiley and jokey, and he got all the old folks singing songs on the journey.

  There were plenty of spare seats but Pixie sat on Joan’s lap anyway, though she started fidgeting ominously when we were halfway there.

  ‘I think Pixie needs to do a wee!’ I said to Mum. ‘Can you ask Darren to stop the coach?’

  It was absolutely fine, because half the pensioners needed a bathroom break too, so we stopped at this roadside café. Then we were off again, and it wasn’t long before we had our first glimpse of the sea. I’d seen it before, of course, but Baxter and Bliss were really thrilled, and Pixie kept yelling, ‘Big bath! Big big big bath!’ which made everyone laugh.

  Darren parked the coach on the promenade and helped everyone down onto the sands. He took off his shirt because it was really warm and sunny. All the old ladies gave him funny wolf-whistles. Darren went as pink as Joan’s hat and Mum giggled at him.

  I helped Bliss make a great big sandcastle. We decorated it with seaweed and pebbles, and one of the old ladies gave us coloured toffee papers to make stained-glass windows. Baxter kept threatening to jump on it so I made him a separate big castle to demolish. Then he chummed up with an old man and they played football on the beach together. Pixie ran around all the old ladies wearing Joan’s sunhat, and they all chuckled and called her a proper caution.

  We all went into the sea together for a paddle. Even Darren rolled up his jeans and joined in. The dear old ninety-two-year-old couldn’t go in the sea, so Baxter filled two buckets with seawater and he splashed his feet in them instead.

  We had fish and chips for lunch, with ice cream for pudding. Pixie’s cone fell in the sand, but nearly all the old ladies offered her theirs instead, so she ended up with an enormous amount of ice cream for one very small girl. I was in charge of Pixie while Mum went for a stroll on the pier with Darren. I kept a careful eye on her in case she was sick, but she didn’t disgrace us.

  Joan took lots of photos of us on our free day out and she sent us some copies as a souvenir. There’s one of Mum, arm in arm with Darren, both of them laughing their heads off. There are heaps of photos of Pixie looking adorable in the pink hat with ice cream all round her face. Baxter and Bliss look great too, playing with their sandcastles. I usually hate having my photo taken, but there’s one of me grinning right into the camera, my hair blowing back, my forehead not the slightest bit frowny because I’m having such a great time.

  We never bumped into the other coach of mums and kids, but it didn’t matter a bit. We had a much better time with Joan’s friends. I’d still like to have camped in the Lake District or stayed on a farm in Devon or rented a holiday cottage in Cornwall. I’d have absolutely loved to have gone to Spain or Florida. But never mind – I bet I’ve had the best free day out ever!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jacqueline Wilson is one of Britain’s bestselling authors, with more than 35 million books sold in the UK alone. She has been honoured with many prizes for her work, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Children’s Book of the Year. Jacqueline is a former Children’s Laureate, a professor of children’s literature, and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame for services to children’s literacy.

  Visit Jacqueline’s fantastic website at www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk

  JACQUELINE WILSON’S HAPPY HOLIDAYS

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 19641 8

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This ebook edition published 2015

  HOLIDAYS

  By Jacqueline Wilson

  Extract from THE JACQUELINE WILSON

  SUMMER HOLIDAY JOURNAL

  First published by Doubleday, 2013

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2013

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2013

  HOLIDAYS

  By Nick Sharratt

  Extract from THE JACQUELINE WILSON

  SUMMER HOLIDAY JOURNAL

  First published by Doubleday, 2013

  Text copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2013

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2013

  TRACY BEAKER’S BIG DAY OUT

  First published in Girl Talk Magazine, 1999

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1999

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2015

  MY SUMMER HOLIDAY

  First published by Corgi, 2015

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2015

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2015

  BURIED ALIVE!

  First published by Doubleday, 1998

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1998

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt and Sue Heap, 1998

  HETTY FEATHER’S HOLIDAY

  Extract from SAPPHIRE BATTERSEA

  First published by Doubleday, 2011

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2011

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2011

  WHAT’S THE COUNTRY?

  First published in MORE MUCK AND MAGIC (Egmont)

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2001

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2012

  BEAUTY’S HOLIDAY

  Extract from COOKIE

  First published by Doubleday, 2008

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2008

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2008

  GEMMA’S HOLIDAY

  Extract from BEST FRIENDS

  First published by Doubleday, 2008

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2008

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2008

  OUR FREE DAY OUT

  First published in THE JACQUELINE

  WILSON SUMMER ANNUAL

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2011

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2011

  F
irst Published in Great Britain as JACQUELINE WILSON’S HAPPY HOLIDAYS by Corgi, 2015

  Text in this edition copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2015

  Illustrations in this edition copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2015

  Yearling 9780440870982 2015

  The right of Jacqueline Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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