The Jacqueline Wilson Christmas Cracker Read online

  It was dear Janet who solved our problem. ‘You must come to our house for Christmas Day,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Jem and Father could give Peg a chairlift to our house. We have a big oven, and you know how much my mother loves cooking. Please say you’ll come, Jem and Hetty.’

  I think we were both torn. I wanted to have a wonderful Christmas in our house, and that was what Jem seemed to want too. If only our walls could expand so I could invite the Maples and many other guests besides. Perhaps not my foster sisters. I’d seen a little too much of them at the funeral.

  I’d have liked to invite my father for Christmas. Katherine and Mina and Ezra could have smokies and baked cod and fishy pudding back where they belonged. I’d have liked my dear friend Freda the Female Giant to come too, though we might have to raise the ceiling specially. I’d have liked to see my pal Bertie the butcher’s boy too, and he would surely bring us a fine turkey or a side of beef, but I wasn’t so sure Jem would enjoy his company. And oh, most of all I’d have liked to send an invitation up to Heaven and have Mama pop down for the day. I’d make her a feast even better than manna, whatever that was. I just knew it was the only food they seemed to eat in Heaven. I paused, trying to decide what Mama would most like to eat during her visit.

  ‘Hetty?’ said Jem. He gave me a little nudge.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Janet. ‘She’s got that look in her eye. I think she’s picturing again.’

  ‘Don’t tease me, you two,’ I said, coming back to my senses. ‘It’s so kind of you and your family to invite us for Christmas, Janet. We’d love to come, wouldn’t we, Jem?’

  So that’s what we did. It was all very jolly and we ate like kings. Mother particularly enjoyed herself. Mrs Maple was so kind to her. She’d made up a special chair like a throne, with extra cushions and blankets and shawls, and gave her a special Christmas meal tactfully cut into tiny pieces.

  Mother was learning how to feed herself again now, though her hands were very shaky and she sometimes lost concentration halfway to her mouth. She couldn’t help making a mess on the tablecloth and looked upset, but Mrs Maple patted her shoulder and said calmly, ‘Don’t fret, Peg dear, you’re doing splendidly.’

  We ate turkey, the very first time I’d tasted it. I didn’t care for the live birds at all, with their weird worm-pink heads and fat feathery bodies and yellow claws. I always skirted round the turkey shed, keeping my distance. I’d had no idea that such a grotesque creature could taste so sweet and succulent. We had roast potatoes too, crisp and golden, and parsnips and carrots and small green sprouts like baby cabbages.

  We ate until we were nearly bursting, but when we were offered a second serving we said yes please and Mother nodded enthusiastically. There were puddings too – a rich figgy pudding with a custard, a pink blancmange like a fairy castle, and a treacle tart with whipped cream. I could not choose which pudding I wanted because they all looked so wonderful, so I had a portion of each. This was a serious mistake, as I was wearing my first proper grown-up corset for the occasion. I’d bought it in the hope that squeezing my stomach in with its strong whalebone might help a little bust to pop out at the top, but I remained disappointingly flat-chested – and unable to breathe properly into the bargain.

  I was glad I hadn’t tried to encase Mother in her own corsets. She spread comfortably underneath her loose gown. She usually fell fast asleep after a big meal, but she stayed wide awake for the present giving. The Maples gave her a specially wrapped little package. I helped her unwrap it. Mr Maple had carved her special cutlery, cleverly designed to help her manage more efficiently. The spoon had a deep bowl to prevent spillage, the fork had clever prongs for easy spearing, and the knife had a curved handle so that Mother could grip it.

  She seized hold of her spoon and fork, wanting to try them out immediately, so Mrs Maple gave her another bowl of figgy pudding, even though she was already full to the brim.

  Of course, Mother had no presents to give the Maples in return, but Jem and I had done our best.

  Jem gave me several shillings from his farm wages and I bought them an ornament at the market – a little china model of a house, not unlike their own, with a little lumpy extra bacon room beside the chimney. There was a message written carefully across the plinth: Bless This House.

  I’d wanted to find something special for Janet too, because she had been such a dear friend, so I bought her a special pen. It was a fine one, with a green mottled casing, and I rather wanted it for myself, but I decided to be generous.

  The Maples were very satisfyingly pleased with their presents. Janet hugged me hard and said she would use her beautiful pen every day and think of me.

  ‘Then at least your journal will have variety,’ I said. ‘You can write Today I got up – and I love my friend Hetty!’

  Jem and Mother and I had kept our presents to give to each other at the Maples’. I didn’t want to fob Mother off with yet another nightgown. I bought her a new china washing jug and bowl, white with pink babies playing all around the inside. There was also a matching chamber pot, though it seemed a shame to piddle on the little children. I kept the pot at home because it might have been embarrassing unwrapping it in company.

  I couldn’t wait for Jem to open his present from me. Market Jim had let me have an end roll of scarlet worsted because it had a flaw running through the weave. I cut it out carefully on the slant and avoided the flaw altogether. I’d made it into a waistcoat with pockets and brass buttons.

  ‘Oh, I say!’ said Jem, going as red as the cloth when he unwrapped the waistcoat. ‘I shall look a right robin redbreast! Oh, Hetty, it’s the finest waistcoat I’ve ever seen. I shall wear it every Sunday.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s too bright?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Not at all – the brighter the better,’ said Jem, though I’m not entirely sure he was being truthful.

  ‘Try your waistcoat on, Jem!’ said Janet.

  ‘Yes, do – I need to see if it fits properly,’ I said.

  ‘I probably won’t be able to get the buttons done up because I’ve had so much Christmas dinner,’ said Jem – but they slid easily into place. Although it sounds dreadfully like boasting, his waistcoat looked magnificent. Even taciturn Mr Maple murmured that it was a tremendous fit.

  ‘But I wish I knew what the time was,’ I said excitedly.

  They all stared at me. The Maples’ brass clock was ticking steadily on the mantelpiece.

  ‘I’d like to check the time,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t anyone else have a timepiece, Jem? Don’t gentlemen keep a pocket watch about their person?’

  ‘You know very well I don’t have a pocket watch, Hetty,’ said Jem.

  ‘Not even in your fine new waistcoat?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you check the pockets?’

  Jem stared at me, and then slid his fingers into the slim pocket at the front. His hand felt something. His mouth fell open as he drew out a gold fob watch. It wasn’t real gold, it was pinchbeck, and it wasn’t brand new. I’d seen it on a curiosity stall in the market and I’d bargained hard for it. It was truly a pretty ordinary watch and it didn’t even have a chain, but Jem cradled it in his hand as if it were part of the crown jewels.

  ‘Oh, Hetty,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Hetty!’

  ‘Do you like it? I thought it was time you had a watch. Now you haven’t any excuse to be late home and keep supper waiting,’ I joked.

  ‘I’ve never had such a splendid present,’ said Jem. ‘Thank you so much. Thank you so very, very much. Oh dear, I wish I’d got you something as special.’ He handed me a tiny parcel apologetically.

  I felt it carefully. ‘Is it . . . jewellery?’ I asked, my heart beating fast.

  Janet gave a little gasp. ‘Oh, Hetty, open it!’

  I picked the paper open and saw a little necklace. It was a silver sixpence with a hole bored into it so that it could hang on a dainty silver chain. ‘Oh, Jem, it’s lovely!’ I whispered, putting it round my neck and fumbling with the clasp.
r />   ‘Here, let me,’ he said. ‘It’s an odd plain thing, I know – but you lost your last sixpence, the one I gave you as a token when you had to go off to the hospital. I thought you could keep this one hanging safe around your neck.’ He fastened it in place for me. ‘Perhaps it’s just a silly whim. It’s not very fancy like a real necklace,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘It’s perfectly lovely, Jem. I shall treasure it for ever,’ I said.

  A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS

  Lots of the Christmas traditions we have today come from the Victorian era, when Hetty Feather would have celebrated Christmas. Some of these traditions can be traced right back to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, who had grown up in Germany. Some people think the huge success of a famous Victorian novel – A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens – meant that lots of the traditions mentioned in that story became very popular, and would be celebrated years and years on!

  Before Queen Victoria, most people didn’t have a Christmas tree in the UK. When she married Prince Albert, a newspaper published a drawing of the royal family celebrating around a decorated tree – a tradition that Prince Albert knew from his childhood in Germany. More and more families decided to copy the idea for themselves, and soon every home had its own tree covered in fruit and sweets, gifts and candles.

  Up to then, presents had traditionally been given at New Year, but this changed as Christmas became more important to the Victorians – and as presents became bigger! To begin with, people gave small gifts like sweets, nuts and handmade toys and trinkets, and these were hung on the tree itself. As presents became bigger, people started to wrap them and place them underneath the tree instead.

  The first Christmas cards were invented by a Victorian named Henry Cole in 1843. He asked his friend John Horsley, an artist, to draw the picture for the front of the card: a family enjoying Christmas dinner together, and people helping the poor. Henry and John then sold the cards for a few pence each, and within a few years, the tradition of sending a card to family and friends at Christmas had taken off.

  The famous Christmas cracker is a Victorian invention, too! Tom Smith, a sweetmaker, noticed packages of sugared almonds wrapped in twists of paper when he visited Paris in 1848. They gave him the idea of the cracker: small packages full of sweets that would burst apart when pulled! Later, the sweets were replaced with paper hats, jokes and small gifts.

  I’M TRACY BEAKER. Mark the name. I’ll be famous one day.

  I live in a children’s home. We all call it the Dumping Ground. We’re dumped here because no one wants us.

  No, that’s total rubbish. My mum wants me. It’s just she’s this famous film star and she’s way too busy making movies in Hollywood to look after me. But my mum’s coming to see me at Christmas. She is. I just know she is.

  ‘Your mum’s not coming to see you in a month of Sundays,’ said Justine Littlewood. ‘Your mum’s never ever coming back because she doesn’t want anything to do with an ugly manky bad-mouthed stupid show-off who wets the bed every ni—’

  She never managed to finish her sentence because I leaped across the room, seized hold of her hair and yanked hard, as if I was gardening and her hair was a particularly annoying weed.

  I ended up in the Quiet Room. I didn’t care. It gave me time to contemplate. That’s a posh word for think. I have an extensive vocabulary. I am definitely destined to be a writer. A successful glossy rich and famous writer, not a struggling scruffy hack like Cam.

  I mused (another posh word for think!) over the idea of a month of Sundays.

  It would be seriously cool to have a lie-in every single day and watch telly all morning and have a special roast dinner and never have to go to school. But then I pondered (posh alternative number three) on the really bad thing about Sundays. Lots of the kids in the Dumping Ground get taken out by their mums or dads.

  I don’t. Well, I see Cam now, that’s all. Cam’s maybe going to be my foster mum. She’s going to classes to see if she’s suitable. It’s mad. I don’t trust my stupid social worker, Elaine the Pain.

  I don’t want Cam to get cold feet. Though she keeps her toes cosy in her knitted stripy socks. She’s not what you’d call a natty dresser. She’s OK. But a foster mum isn’t like a real mum. Especially not a famous glamorous movie star mum like mine. It isn’t her fault she hasn’t shown up recently. She’s got such a punishing film schedule that, try as she might, she simply can’t manage to jump on a plane and fly over here.

  But she is going to come for Christmas, so there, Justine Now-Almost-Bald-And-It-Serves-You-Right Littlewood. My mum promised. She really really did.

  She was going to see me in the summer. We were going to have this incredible holiday together on a tropical island, lying on golden sands in our bikinis, swimming with dolphins in an azure sea, sipping cocktails in our ten-star hotel . . .

  Well, she was going to take me out for the day. It was all arranged. Elaine the Pain set it all up – but my poor mum couldn’t make it. Right at the last minute she was needed for some live television interview – I’m sure that was it. Or maybe Hello! or OK! magazine wanted an exclusive photo shoot. Whatever.

  So she never showed up, and instead of being understanding I heard Elaine ranting on to Jenny at the Dumping Ground, telling her all sorts of stupid stuff, like I was crying my eyes out. That was a downright lie. I would never cry. I sometimes get a little attack of hay fever, but I never cry.

  I felt mortified. I wanted to cement Elaine’s mouth shut. We had words. Quite a few of mine were bad words. I told Elaine that she had no business talking about one of her clients – i.e. me – and I had a good mind to report her. It was outrageous of her slandering my mum. She was a famous Hollywood movie actress, didn’t she understand? Elaine should be more deferential, seeing as she’s just a poxy social worker.

  Elaine said a bad word then. She said she understood why I was so angry. It was easier for me to take my anger out on her when I was really angry at my mum for letting me down yet again. WHAT??? I wasn’t the slightest bit angry with my mum. It wasn’t her fault she’s so popular and famous and in demand.

  ‘Yeah, so why haven’t we ever seen her in a single film or telly show, and why are there never any photos of her in any of the magazines?’ said Justine Why-Won’t-She-Mind-Her-Own-Business Littlewood.

  ‘Wash your ears out, Justine Littlewood. My mum’s a famous Hollywood actress. Like, Hollywood in America. She isn’t in films and mags over here, but in America she’s incredibly well known. She can’t set foot outside the door without the photographers snapping away and all her fans begging for autographs.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, she signs all these autographs, yet when does she ever bother to write to you?’ said Justine Won’t-Ever-Quit Littlewood.

  But ha ha, sucks to you, J.L., because my mum did write, didn’t she? She sent me a postcard. She really did.

  I keep it pinned on my wall, beside the photo of Mum and me when I was a baby and still looked sweet. The postcard had a picture of this cutesie-pie teddy with two teardrops falling out of his glass eyes and wetting his fur and the word Sorry! in sparkly lettering.

  On the back my mum wrote:

  I know it off by heart. I’ve made up a little tune and I sing it to myself every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to bed. I sing it softly in school. I sing it when I’m watching television. I sing it in the bath. I sing it on the toilet. I sing the punctuation and stuff too, like: ‘Christ-mas, question mark. Lots of love, comma, Mum, kiss kiss kiss.’ It’s a very catchy tune. I might well be a song writer when I grow up as well as a famous novelist.

  Of course I’m also going to be an actress just like my mum. I am soon going to be acclaimed as a brilliant child star. I have the STAR part in a major production this Christmas. Truly.

  I am in our school’s play of A Christmas Carol.

  I haven’t done too well in casting sessions in the past. At my other schools I never seemed to get picked for any really juicy roles. I was
a donkey when we did a Nativity play. I was a little miffed that I wasn’t Mary or the Angel Gabriel at the very least, but like a true little trooper I decided to make the most of my part.

  I worked hard on developing authentic eeyore donkey noises. I eeyored like an entire herd of donkeys during the performance. OK, I maybe drowned out Mary’s speech, and the Angel Gabriel’s too (to say nothing of Joseph, the Innkeeper, the Three Wise Men and Assorted Shepherds), but real donkeys don’t wait politely till people have finished talking, they eeyore whenever they feel like it. I felt like eeyoring constantly, so I did.

  I didn’t get picked to be in any more plays at that stupid old school. But this school’s not too bad. We have a special art and drama teacher, Miss Simpkins. She understands that if we do art we need to be dead artistic and if we do drama then we should aim at being dead dramatic. She admired my arty paintings of Justine Littlewood being devoured by lions and tigers and bears.

  ‘You’re a very imaginative and lively girl, Tracy,’ said Miss Simpkins.

  I wasn’t totally bowled over by this. That’s the way social workers talk when they’re trying to boost your confidence or sell you to prospective foster carers. ‘Imaginative and lively’ means you get up to all sorts of irritating and annoying tricks. Me? Well, maybe.

  My famous imagination ran away with me when we were auditioning for A Christmas Carol. I didn’t really know the story that well. It’s ever so l-o-n-g and I’m a very busy person, with no time to read dull old books. Miss Simpkins gave us a quick précis version and I had a little fidget and yawn because it seemed so old fashioned and boring, but my ears pricked up – right out of my curls – when she said there were ghosts.