The Story of Tracy Beaker Read online

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  DELL YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor's degree from Marymount College and a master's degree in history from St. John's University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  To Bryony, David, Miranda,

  Jason and Ryan

  My name is Tracy Beaker.

  I am 10 years 2 months old.

  My birthday is on May 8. It's not fair, because that dopey Peter Ingham has his birthday then too, so we just got the one cake between us. And we had to hold the knife to cut the cake together. Which meant we only had half a wish each. Wishing is for babies anyway. Wishes don't come true.

  I was born at some hospital somewhere. I looked cute when I was a little baby but I bet I yelled a lot.

  I am inches tall. I don't know. I've tried measuring with a ruler but it keeps wobbling about and I can't reach properly. I don't want to get any of the other children to help me. This is my private book.

  I weigh pounds. I don't know that either. Jenny has a scale in her bathroom but it's in stones. I don't weigh many stones. I'm little and skinny.

  My eyes are black and I can make them go all wicked and witchy. I quite like the idea of being a witch. I'd make up all these incredibly evil spells and wave my wand and ZAP! Louise's golden curls would all fall out and ZAP! Peter Ingham's silly squeaky voice would get sillier and squeakier and he'd grow whiskers and a long tail and ZAP!… there's not room on this bit of the page, but I've still got all sorts of ZAPs inside my head.

  My hair is fair and very long and curly. I am telling fibs. It's dark and difficult and it sticks up in all the wrong places.

  My skin is full of pimples when I eat a lot of sweets.

  Stick a photo of yourself here.

  I'm not really cross-eyed. I was just making a silly face.

  I started this book on I don't know. Who cares what the date is? You always have to put the date at school. I got fed up with this and put 2091 in my Day Book and wrote about all these rockets and spaceships and monsters zooming down from Mars to eat us all up, as if we'd all whizzed one hundred years into the future. Miss Brown got really annoyed.

  Things I like

  My lucky number is 7. So why didn't some fantastic rich family make me their foster child when I was seven, then?

  My favorite color is blood red, so watch out, ha-ha.

  My best friend is Well, I've had lots and lots, but Louise has gone off with Justine and now I haven't got anyone just at the moment.

  I like eating everything. I like birthday cake best. And any other kind of cake. And Smarties and Mars bars and big buckets of popcorn and gummy spiders and Ben & Jerry's and Big Macs with french fries and strawberry milk shakes.

  My favorite name is Camilla. There was a lovely little baby at this other home and that was her name. She was a really sweet kid with fantastic hair that I used to try to get into loads of little braids and it must have hurt her sometimes but she never cried. She really liked me, little Camilla. A family picked her to be their foster child quick as a wink. I begged her foster mom and dad to bring her back to see me but they never did.

  I like drinking strong beer. That's a joke. I have had a sip of light beer once but I didn't like it.

  My favorite game is playing with makeup. Louise and I once borrowed some from Adele, who's got tons. Louise was a bit boring and just tried to make herself look beautiful. I turned myself into an incredible vampire with evil shadowy eyes and blood dribbling down my chin. I really scared the little ones.

  My favorite animal is Well, there's a rabbit called Lettuce at this home but it's a bit limp, like its name. It doesn't sit up and give you a friendly lick like a dog. I think I'd like a Rottweiler—and then all my enemies had better WATCH OUT!

  My favorite TV program is horror movies.

  Best of all I like being with my mom.

  Things I don't like

  the name Justine. Louise. Peter. Oh, there's heaps and heaps of names I can't stand.

  eating stew. Especially when it's got big fatty lumps in it. I used to have this horrid foster mother called Auntie Peggy and she was an awful cook. She used to make this slimy stew that looked like throwup and we were supposed to eat it all up, every single bit. Yuck.

  Most of all I hate Justine. That Monster Gorilla. And not seeing my mom.

  Stick a photo of you and your family here.

  This was when I was a baby. See, I was sweet then. And this is my mom. She's ever so pretty. I wish I looked more like her.

  The people in my own family are My mom. I don't have a dad. I lived with my mom when I was little and we got on great but then she got this Monster Gorilla Boyfriend and I hated him and he hated me back and beat me up and so I had to be taken away to a children's home. No wonder my mom sent him packing.

  My own family lives at I'm not sure exactly where my mom lives now because she has to keep moving around because she gets fed up living in one place for long.

  The phone number is Well, I don't know, do I? Funny, though, I always used to take this toy telephone in the playhouse at school and pretend I was phoning my mom. I used to have these long, long conversations with her. They were just pretend, of course, but I was only about five then and sometimes they got to be quite real.

  Things about my family that I like I like my mom because she's pretty and good fun and she brings me lovely presents.

  There's no point filling this part in. I haven't got a foster family at the moment.

  I've had two. There was Auntie Peggy and Uncle Sid first of all. I didn't like them much and I didn't get on with the other kids so I didn't care when they got rid of me. I was in a children's home for a while and then I had this other couple. Julie and Ted. They were young and friendly and they bought me a bike and I thought it was all going to be great and I went to live with them and I was ever so good and did everything they said and I thought I'd be staying with them until my mom came to get me for good but then …I don't want to write about it. It ended up with me getting thrown out THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I was so mad I smashed up the bike so I don't even have that anymore. And now I'm in a new children's home and they've advertised me in the papers but there weren't many takers and now I think they're getting a bit desperate. I don't care, though. I expect my mom will come soon anyway.

  My school is called It's Kinglea Junior School. I've been to three other schools already. This one's okay, I suppose.

  My teacher is called Ms. Brown. She gets angry if we just call her Miss.

  Subjects I do Story-writing. Arithmetic. Games. Art. All sorts of things. And we do Projects, only I never have the right stuff at the Home so I can't do it properly and get a star.

  I like Story-writing best. I've written so many stories, and I do pictures for them too. I make some of them into books. I made Camilla a special baby book with big printed words and pictures of all the things she liked best, things like TEDDY BEAR and ICE CREAM and YOUR SPECIAL FRIEND TRACY.

  I also like Art. We use poster paint
s. We've got them at the Home too but they get all grungy and messed up and the brushes are useless. They've got good ones at school. On the page before this, there's a painting I did yesterday. If I was a teacher I'd give it a gold star. Two gold stars.

  My class is 3a.

  People in my class I can't list all their names, or I'd be here all night. I don't know some of them yet. There's not much point making friends because I expect to be moving on soon.

  Other teachers Oh, they're all boring. Who wants to write about them?

  I get to school by going in the minibus. That's how all the kids in the Home get to school. I'd sooner go in a proper car or walk it by myself but you're not allowed.

  It takes hours minutes. It varies. Sometimes it takes ages because the little kids can't find their pencil cases and the big ones try to skip school and we just have to hang around waiting.

  Things I don't like about school They all wear gray things—that's the uniform—and I've only got navy things from my last school. The teachers know why and I don't get into trouble but the other kids stare.

  My social worker is called Elaine and sometimes she's an awful pain, ha-ha.

  We talk about all sorts of boring things.

  But I don't like talking about my mom. Not to Elaine. What I think about my mom is private.

  older, I would live in this really great modern house all on my own, and I'd have my own huge bedroom with all my own things, special bunk beds just for me so that I'd always get the top one and a Mickey Mouse alarm clock like Justine's and my own giant set of poster paints and I'd have some felt-tip pens as well and no one would ever get to borrow them and mess them up and I'd have my own television and choose exactly what programs I want, and I'd stay up till past twelve every night and I'd eat at McDonald's every single day and I'd have a

  big fast car so I could whiz off and visit my mom whenever I wanted.

  a policeman, I would arrest the Monster Gorilla and I'd lock him up in prison forever.

  a kitten, I would grow very long claws and sharp teeth and scratch and bite everyone so they'd get really scared of me and do everything I say.

  yelled at, I would yell back.

  invisible, I would spy on people.

  very tall, I would stamp on people with my great big feet.

  very rich, I would buy my own house and then … I've already done that. I'm getting fed up writing all this. What's on the next page?

  Once upon a time there was a little girl called Tracy Beaker. That sounds a bit stupid, like the start of a soppy fairy tale. I can't stand fairy tales. They're all the same. If you're very good and very beautiful with long golden curls, then, after you've swept up a few cinders or had a long nap in a cobwebby palace, this prince comes along and you live happily ever after. Which is fine if you happen to be a goody-goody and look gorgeous. But if you're bad and ugly then you've got no chance whatsoever. You get given a silly name like Rumpelstiltskin and nobody invites you to their party and no one's ever grateful even when you do them a great big favor. So of course you get a bit teed off with this sort of treatment. You stamp your feet in a rage and fall right through the floorboards or you scream yourself into a frenzy and you get locked up in a tower and they throw away the key.

  I've done a bit of stamping and screaming in my time.

  And I've been locked up heaps of times. Once they locked me up all day long. And all night. That was at the first Home, when I wouldn't settle down because I wanted my mom so much. I was just little then but they still locked me up. I'm not fibbing. Although I do have a tendency to tell a few fibs now and again. It's funny, Auntie Peggy used to call it Telling Fairy Tales.

  I'd say something like “Guess what, Auntie Peggy, I just met my mom in the garden and she gave me a ride in her flashy new sports car and we went down to the shopping arcade and she bought me my very own huge bottle of perfume, that posh Poison one, just like the bottle Uncle Sid gave you for your birthday, and I was messing around with it, playing Murderers, and the bottle sort of tipped and it's gone all over me as I expect you've noticed, but it's my perfume, not yours. I don't know what's happened to yours. I think one of the other kids took it.”

  You know the sort of thing. I'd make it totally convincing, but Auntie Peggy wouldn't even really listen. She'd just shake her head at me and get all angry and red and say, “Oh, Tracy, you naughty girl, you're Telling Fairy Tales again.” Then she'd give me a smack.

  Foster mothers aren't supposed to smack you at all. I told Elaine that Auntie Peggy used to smack me and Elaine sighed and said, “Well, sometimes, Tracy, you really do ask for it.” Which is a lie in itself. I have never in my life said, “Auntie Peggy, please will you give me a great big smack?” And her smacks really hurt too, right on the back of your leg where it stings most. I didn't like that Auntie Peggy at all. If I was in a real fairy tale I'd put a curse on her. What about a huge wart right on the end of her nose? Frogs and toads coming wriggling out of her mouth every time she tries to speak? No, I can make up better than that. She can have permanent great big boogers hanging out of her nose that won't go away no matter how many times she blows it, and whenever she tries to speak she'll make this terribly loud Rude Noise. Great! Oh dear. You can't win. Elaine, my stupid old social worker, was sitting beside me when I started writing THE STORY OF TRACY BEAKER and I got the giggles making up my brilliant curses for Auntie Peggy, and Elaine looked surprised and said, “What are you laughing at, Tracy?”

  I said, “Mind your own business,” and she said, “Now, Tracy,” and then she looked at what I'd written, which is a bit rude, seeing as it's supposed to be very private. She sighed when she got to the Auntie Peggy part and said, “Really, Tracy!” and I said, “Yes, really, Elaine.” And she sighed again and her lips moved for a moment or two. That's her taking a deep breath and counting up to ten. Social workers are supposed to do that when a child is being difficult. Elaine ends up doing an awful lot of counting when she's with me.

  When she got to ten she gave me this big false smile. Like this.

  “Now look, Tracy,” said Elaine. “This is your own special book about you, something that you're going to keep forever. You don't want to spoil it by writing all sorts of silly, smart-alecky, rude things in it, do you?”

  I said, “It's my life and it hasn't been very special so far, has it, so why shouldn't I write any old rubbish?”

  Then she sighed again, but sympathetically this time, and she put her arm around me and said, “Hey, I know you've had a hard time, but you're very special. You know that, don't you?”

  I shook my head and tried to wriggle away.

  “Yes, you are, Tracy. Very very special,” Elaine said, hanging on to me.

  “Then if I'm so very very special how come no one wants me?” I said.

  “Oh dear, I know it must have been very disappointing for you when your second placement went wrong, love, but you mustn't let it depress you too much. Sooner or later you'll find the perfect placement.”

  “A fantastic rich family?”

  “Maybe a family. Or maybe a single person, if someone really suitable came along.”

  I gave her this long look. “You're single, Elaine. And I bet you're suitable. So why don't you foster me, eh? Then I could be your foster child.”

  It was her turn to wriggle then.

  “Well, Tracy. You know how it is. I mean, I've got my job. I have to deal with lots of children.”

  “But if you fostered me you could stop bothering with all the others and just look after me. They give you money if you foster. I bet they'd give you lots extra because I'm difficult and I've got behavior problems and all that. How about it, Elaine? It would be fun, honest it would.”

  “I'm sure it would be lots of fun, Tracy, but I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen,” Elaine said.

  She tried to give me a big hug but I pushed her hard.

  “I was only joking,” I said. “Yuck. I couldn't stand the thought of living with you. You're stupid and boring and yo
u're all fat and wobbly. I'd absolutely hate the idea of you being my foster mom.”

  “I can understand why you're angry with me, Tracy,” said Elaine, trying to look cool and calm but sucking in her stomach all the same.

  I told her I wasn't a bit angry, though I shouted as I said it. I told her I didn't care a bit, though I had these silly watery eyes. I didn't cry, though. I don't ever cry. Sometimes people think I do, but it's my hay fever.

  “I expect you're going to think up all sorts of revolting curses for me now,” said Elaine.

  “I'm doing it right this minute,” I told her.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You always say okay,” I told her. “You know: ‘Okay, that's fine with me, if that's what you want I'm not going to make a fuss; okay, Tracy, yes, I know you've got this great big ax in your hand and you're about to chop off my head because you're feeling angry with me, but okay, if that's the way you feel, I'm not going to get worried about it because I'm this supercool social worker.’”

  She burst out laughing then.

  “No one can stay supercool when you're around, Tracy,” she said. “Look, kiddo, you write whatever you want in your life story. It's your own book, after all.”

  So that's that. This is my own book and I can write whatever I want. Only I'm not quite sure what I do want, actually. Maybe Elaine could help after all. She's over on the other side of the living room, helping that dumb Peter with his book. He hasn't got a clue. He's filling it all in so slowly and so seriously, not writing it but printing it with that silly blotchy ballpoint pen of his, trying to do it ever so carefully but failing miserably, and now he's smudged some of it so it looks like a mess anyway.