I knew she was right. I swallowed very very very hard to get rid of the lump in my throat. I blinked very very very hard to get rid of the water in my eyes. I took a deep deep deep breath.
‘Bah!’ I said. ‘Humbug!’
Miss Simpkins gave me a thumbs-up and then beetled off to cue the carol singers. I sat in my chair, hunched up. They started singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. I started singing my own mournful little version:
‘Once in poxy London city
Stood a lowly primary school
Where this girl waits for her mother
To come and see her act the fool.
Carly is that mother wild
Tracy Beaker is that child.’
Then the curtains parted with a swish, the lights went on dimly to show my candle-lit counting house, and I sat tensely in my chair, scowling.
I hated the noise of the chirpy carol singers. All their mums and dads were watching them, oohing and aahing and whispering, ‘Ah, bless.’
My mum wasn’t there. She couldn’t be bothered to come, even though I’d bought her all those presents. She didn’t care tuppence about me.
Well, I didn’t care tuppence about her. I didn’t care tuppence about anyone. I stomped to the side of the stage and shook my fist at the carol singers as they all cried, ‘Happy Christmas!’
‘Bah!’ I said. ‘Humbug. Be off with you!’
I felt as if I’d truly turned into Scrooge. My nephew came to wish me Merry Christmas and I sent him off with a flea in his ear. I didn’t want to make merry with him. I bullied my stupid clerk Bob Cratchit, and then had a bite to eat. I ate my chicken drumstick like a finicky old man, and when one of the little kids played being a dog on all fours I snatched the bone away and shook my fist at him. He growled at me and I growled back. I heard the audience laugh. Someone whispered, ‘Isn’t that Tracy Beaker a proper caution!’
Then I went to bed and Justine Enemy-For-Ever Littlewood clanked on stage as Marley’s Ghost, the coffin bandage round her head, her long chain trailing keys and padlocks and coinboxes.
Justine’s ridiculous dad started clapping wildly before she’d so much as opened her mouth and Justine Utterly-Unprofessional Littlewood totally forgot she was Marley’s Ghost. She turned and waved excitedly at her father, just like a five-year-old in her first Nativity play.
I gave a gasp to remind Justine she was there to spook me out and give me a warning. Justine shuffled towards me unwillingly, still peering round at her dad. Her chain tangled around her feet. She wasn’t looking where she was going. Recipe for disaster!
Justine tripped over her own padlock and went flying, landing flat on her face. She lay there, looking a total idiot. Her face was all screwed up. She was trying not to cry.
My chest hurt. I knew just how she felt, falling over and making such a fool of herself in front of her dad. I reached out a shaking hand.
‘Is it you, Jacob Marley, my old partner? It can’t be you, because you’re as dead as a doornail.’ That was in Miss Simpkins’s script. Now it was time for a spot of improvisation. ‘Yet it must be you, Marley. You were unsteady on your feet in your last few years on earth – and you’re unsteady now in your present spirit situation. Allow me to assist you, old chap.’
I took hold of Justine and hauled her up. The audience clapped delightedly because I’d saved the situation.
‘Pray tell me why you’re fettered,’ I said, following the script again.
‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ said Justine, pulling herself together. She sounded pretty miserable, but that was in character.
Then I was visited by Louise as the Spirit of Christmas Past. She’d put her own make-up on over Cam’s so she looked more like she was going out clubbing than off haunting mean old men, but at least she didn’t fall over.
We acted out the bit where little boy Scrooge was sent to a horrible boarding school and told he couldn’t ever go home. It was a bit like me being sent off to the Dumping Ground.
I thought about Mum sending me there and not coming back to fetch me. Not even coming today, when I was starring as Scrooge. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I don’t ever cry. But I wasn’t being Tracy Beaker; I was acting Scrooge, and doing it so well I heard several snuffles in the audience. They were moved to tears too by my brilliant performance!
I had a chance to blow my nose on my nightshirt hem while everyone danced at the Fezziwigs’ party. Then the curtains closed and the carol singers stood in front and sang ‘Away in a Manger’.
I sang my own version to myself:
‘Away in a schoolhouse
No mum watched her daughter
But Little Tracy Beaker
Acted incredibly – she didn’t falter!’
Miss Simpkins and a host of little helpers rushed round the stage scattering real holly and ivy and mistletoe and fake painted plaster turkeys, ham, mince pies and clementines.
Then the curtains opened and I peered out, waving the carol singers away and going ‘Ssh! Ssh!’ to the audience. Fat Freddy waddled on stage in his Father Christmas outfit as the Spirit of Christmas Present and took me to see the Cratchit family.
Peter was shaking all over, scared out of his wits, but the moment he hopped across the stage using his crutch everyone went ‘Aaah! Doesn’t he look sweet!’ When he said, ‘God bless us every one,’ they all started clapping.
It looked as if weedy little Peter had stolen the show.
It was my show. I was Scrooge. I wanted them just to clap me. But Peter was my friend. He’d tried so hard for me. My chest hurt again. He liked me so much. And I liked him. I really did. Maybe I was a little bit glad he was being such a success. When the Spirit of Christmas Present told me Tiny Tim was going to die I cried straight from the heart, ‘No, no! Oh no, kind Spirit! Say he will be spared!’
Then, as midnight struck, I spotted the two tiny children hiding under the Spirit’s robes, the smallest skinniest kids Miss Simpkins could find, one playing Ignorance and one playing Want.
The last Spirit came creeping onto the stage, draped in a long black robe, the scary Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. The lights were very low so it looked as if we were wandering through the night together. We went to the Cratchit house, so melancholy without Tiny Tim. Then we went to the graveyard. Miss Simpkins shone a torch on the great cardboard tombstone. I saw my own name written there, Ebenezer Scrooge. I trembled and threw myself down on my knees.
‘Oh, Spirit, have mercy!’ I cried. ‘Tell me I can sponge away the writing on this stone. I have learned my lesson. I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.’
Then the lights went out and I jumped into my own bed quick as a wink and then acted waking up on Christmas Day. The carol singers sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ outside my window. I sprang out of bed, did a little caper in my nightgown, and then went and called out to them.
‘I wish you a Merry Christmas too, dear fellows. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I, Ebenezer Scrooge, am going to lead a happy new life.’
Bells rang out and I danced up and down. Then I put my coat on over my nightshirt and rushed off stage, staggering back with the most comically enormous turkey, almost as big as me.
I invited everyone to my house for Christmas. The whole cast crammed on stage and we ‘ate’ plastic mince pies and quaffed pretend wine – even Marley’s Ghost and the three Christmas Spirits – and then we all sang ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’. I got Peter to shout out, ‘God bless us every one!’ right at the end.
Then the clapping started. It went on and on and on. We all stood holding hands and bowing. The four Ghosts got a special bow. Then Peter had to bow all by himself. He was so excited he did a little hoppy dance, waving his crutch, and the audience roared.
Then it was my turn. I stood in front of all the others. Cam and Jenny and Mike and Elaine stood up and started clapping and clapping. Miss Simpkins at the side of the stage was clapping and clapping. Mrs Darlow at the back of t
he hall was clapping and clapping. All the mums and dads were clapping and clapping.
But my mum wasn’t clapping. She wasn’t there. It was the proudest moment of my life. I’d acted Scrooge and I’d been good at it. Glorious. Magnificent. The audience shouted ‘Bravo!’ And ‘Good for Tracy!’ And ‘What a little star!’
Mum didn’t know. Mum didn’t care.
I had a smile all over my face and yet my eyes were going blink blink blink. I was in serious danger of having an attack of hay fever in front of everyone.
Miss Simpkins came out onto the stage holding an enormous bunch of red roses and white lilies done up with a huge red satin ribbon.
‘They’ve just arrived, Tracy. They’re for you,’ she said, handing them over.
There was a card inside.
‘It’s from my mum!’ I said – but the note proved fatal for my hay fever. Still, everyone knows flowers trigger hay-fever attacks. I wasn’t crying. I don’t ever cry.
Then we had a proper party in the hall with real mince pies for everyone. Cam came and hugged me hard and said she was so very proud of me.
‘You were totally brilliant, Tracy,’ she said. ‘And there’s you saying you couldn’t remember a word!’
‘Well, it didn’t feel as if I was remembering it. It wasn’t like acting. It was as if I was really living it,’ I said.
‘Aha! That shows you’re a real actor,’ said Cam.
‘Like Mum,’ I said.
‘Just like your mum.’ Cam smiled at me. ‘Aren’t they gorgeous flowers? Wasn’t it lovely of her to send them? Imagine, getting your own huge bouquet of flowers.’
‘Yeah. With a lovely note. Did you see what my mum wrote?’
‘Yes, Tracy.’
‘The only thing is . . .’ I swallowed. ‘It’s not my mum’s handwriting.’
I looked hard at Cam. She didn’t look away. She stared straight into my eyes.
‘Of course it’s not your mum’s actual writing, Tracy. You order the flowers on the phone and say what you want on the card and then the local florist writes it down.’
‘Oh!’ I said. I swallowed again. The mince pie seemed made of very lumpy pastry. ‘You wouldn’t kid me, would you, Cam?’
‘No one could ever kid you, Tracy Beaker,’ said Cam.
‘Well, I think it was lovely of my mum. But it would have been a lot lovelier if she’d actually come to see me,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she would have done if she possibly could,’ said Cam.
‘Do you think she’s still coming to see me on Christmas Day?’ I said.
‘Well . . . maybe she is,’ said Cam.
‘And maybe she’s not,’ I said. ‘So what am I going to do on Christmas Day, eh? I hate Christmas in the Dumping Ground. Jenny and Mike try hard but they’ve always got the little kids clinging to them and everyone tears open their presents too quickly and then fusses because they think the others have got better things, and there’s never enough new batteries and often the stuff doesn’t work anyway. We watch television but all the programmes are about families and we are all so not a family. We have turkey and Christmas pudding for dinner because Jenny wants it to be traditional so we don’t miss out, but I don’t really like turkey or Christmas pudding – though I eat too much anyway – and then we’re supposed to play these crazy games but the little kids are too dim to play and the big kids just want to slope off to their rooms and someone always throws a tantrum because they’re so fed up and lonely and left out. That someone is quite often me, as a matter of fact.’
‘Hmm,’ said Cam. ‘It sounds as if we both have crap Christmases. Tell you what, Tracy. Let’s join up together. You come to me for Christmas. What do you think?’
‘I think that sounds a brilliant idea,’ I said.
So that’s exactly what I did. I woke up very early on Christmas morning and opened all my presents peacefully, all by myself.
Jenny gave me cool new jeans and a CD and Mike gave me new trainers and amazing black nail varnish. Elaine gave me a little fluffy blue teddy bear – yuck yuck yuck! Peter gave me a silver yo-yo. It was very sweet of him. I decided to give him the blue teddy.
My mum didn’t give me anything.
I expect the roses and lilies cost a lot of money. Acting is a chancy profession. Maybe Mum was a bit strapped for cash at the moment.
Of course, Grizelda Moonbeam might work her magic and Mum might appear in person, weighed down with presents. But somehow it wasn’t starting to seem very likely. It didn’t look as if I was going to be spending this festive occasion with my Loved One. Unless . . . maybe Cam counted as a Loved One? Was I her Loved One?? Had the charm actually worked a double whammy???
I knew Cam was certainly short of money so I wasn’t too hopeful about her present to me. She arrived astonishingly early. She was wearing a woolly hat and scarf and mittens, with a big woolly jumper over her jeans and woolly socks.
‘Happy Christmas, Cam! Have you got woolly knickers on? Why are you all bundled up? And you’re so early. We haven’t even had breakfast yet. Do you want some?’
‘Happy Christmas, Tracy. You need to pile on lots of woolly jumpers too. We’re going for a walk. And we’re having breakfast out, OK?’
She drove us for miles to this big park. It wasn’t snowing but it was still early enough for there to be a frost so we could kid ourselves it was a real white Christmas.
‘Come on!’ said Cam, parking the car. She opened the door. It certainly felt frosty. I hadn’t got quite enough woollies.
‘It’s freezing, Cam! Can’t we stay in the car?’
‘We’re going for a walk, Tracy, to work up an appetite for our breakfast.’
‘You go for a walk. I’ll stay in the car and watch you,’ I said.
She dragged me out, rammed her own woolly hat over my head, wound her scarf round and round and round me as if she was wrapping a mummy, and then took me by the hand.
‘There! Cosy now? Off we go!’
‘I’m not really into long country walks, Cam. I’m not built for it. Look at my spindly legs.’ I made my knees knock together and walked with a Tiny Tim limp.
‘Just come down this path with me,’ said Cam, tugging me. ‘Through the trees. You’ll like what you see when you get to the end.’
I knew what I’d see. Scenery. A lot more trees and a hill or two. I didn’t see the point. Still, it was Christmas after all. I didn’t want to be too difficult. I sighed and staggered after Cam. I didn’t get why she wanted to stay out in the cold, especially before breakfast.
‘I don’t want to moan, but my tummy’s rumbling rather a lot. It’s saying, Tracy, Tracy, what’s happened to my cornflakes?’
‘You’ll have breakfast very soon, I promise,’ said Cam, laughing.
‘Are we having a picnic then?’ I asked.
It seemed a mad time of year to have a picnic and I didn’t see any signs of a hamper. Cam wasn’t carrying so much as a lunch box. Perhaps she had a sandwich or two crammed in her pockets? It looked like it was going to be a very little picnic, yet I was totally starving.
Cam and I weren’t the only ones embarking on this mad early-morning Starve-In. There were lots of other cars in the car park and little bunches of bobble-hatted muffled weirdos trudged along too, all heading in the same direction. It was like we were all in Doctor Who and some alien force was messing with our heads, controlling our minds.
Then we rounded a bend. I saw a big pond in the distance. A lot of people were in the pond. No, no, they were on it, gliding across.
‘They’re skating!’ I said.
‘Yep.’
‘Can we skate?’
‘We’ll have a go.’
‘But we haven’t got any skates.’
‘You can hire them, Tracy, I checked. And they’re serving a special Christmas breakfast.’
‘Oh, wow! So you planned it all? Oh, Cam, you have some seriously cool ideas.’
I gave her a quick hug and then started running helter-skelter to the
ice. There was a big van serving golden croissants and hot chocolate with whipped cream. We had breakfast first, just to fortify ourselves, and then we hired our skates, held hands and hobbled onto the ice.
I thought I’d glide off like a swan, swoop-swoop, swirl-swirl, the epitome of athletic grace. Ha! I staggered like a drunk, clonk-clunk, whizz, whoops, bonk on my bum. Cam pulled me up, trying not to laugh.
‘Look, Tracy, point your boots out and do it like this,’ she said, demonstrating.
Some kid hurtled past her, making her jump. She wavered, wobbled – and then went bonk on her bum.
I did laugh and Cam laughed too.
‘I don’t know about woolly knickers. I think we both need padded knickers,’ she said as I pulled her up.
We held onto each other and tried again. This time we staggered all the way round the pond. I started to get more daring. I tried a little swoop. It worked! I tried another – left, right, truly gliding – only I couldn’t seem to stop. I went charging straight into a little cluster of kids in a line and mowed them all down.
‘We’re going to have to rename you Tracy Bulldozer,’ said Cam, hauling us all up.
We skated for over an hour, losing count of the number of times we both fell over, but we could also both glide properly for a few seconds at a time, so considered ourselves champion skaters.
‘I think we deserve another breakfast after all that effort,’ said Cam, and we polished off another croissant and mug of hot chocolate.
Then Cam drove us back to her house. She had a little Christmas tree in her living room.
‘I usually don’t bother, but they were selling them half price in the market yesterday so I decided to go mad.’
‘It looks a bit naked if you don’t mind me saying so. Aren’t you meant to have little glass balls and tinsel and fairy lights?’ I said.