The Diamond Girls - Softcover

Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath, Somerset, in 1945, but spent most of her childhood in Kingston-on-Thames. She always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first “novel” when she was nine, filling countless Woolworths’ composition books as she grew up. She started work at a publisher and then went on to work as a journalist for D.C. Thomson in Scotland after she had an article published in Jackie magazine. Since having her daughter, Emma, she has been writing full time.

Jacqueline’s biggest passion and/or worst vice is buying books. She has over 15,000 books crammed into every corner of her small house — and they’ve started to creep across the carpets. Her favorite holiday place is Hay-On-Wye, which has about twenty secondhand bookshops.

Jacqueline has written numerous books for young people including: Bad Girls, Double Act, The Lottie Project, The Suitcase Kid, The Story of Tracy Beaker, The Bed and Breakfast Star, Cliffhanger, The Illustrated Mum and a quartet for slightly older readers, which includes Girls in Love (an ALA Quick Pick), Girls Under Pressure, Girls Out Late, and Girls in Tears. She has also written a series of crime novels and several plays, which have been broadcast on the radio.

Jacqueline has received countless honors and has won several awards in England, including The Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award for The Bed and Breakfast Star, the Smarties Prize, the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and the Children’s Book Award for Double Act. The Illustrated Mum was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Awardand has won the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award. Girls in Tears received the W.H. Smith Children’s Book of the Year Award.
From the Hardcover edition.

1

‘I’ve got a surprise for you girls,’ said Mum. ‘We’re moving.’

We all stared at her. She was flopping back in her chair, slippered feet propped right up on the kitchen table amongst the cornflake bowls, tummy jutting over her skirt like a giant balloon. She didn’t look capable of moving herself as far as the front door. Her scuffed fluffy mules could barely support her weight. Maybe she needed hot air underneath her and then she’d rise gently upwards and float out of the open window.

‘Quit staring at my stomach, Dixie,’ Mum snapped.

‘How can she help staring?’ said Jude. ‘It’s so gross.’

‘Oh yuck, it’s moving!’ Rochelle squealed.

Mum cradled her tummy, patting the little bulgy bit wiggling about beneath her navel. I hoped it wouldn’t wiggle too much. Mum’s navel looked ready to pop out like a cork.

I used to think that’s how babies were born. That was weird enough. The real explanation seems worse. I’m sure I don’t want any babies myself, ever.

‘He’s giving me a real old kicking today,’ Mum said proudly. ‘Going to be a right little footballer. Aren’t you, baby David Beckham?’

She hung her head over her swollen tummy as if she was waiting for an answer. ‘Yes, Mummy!’ she said, in a tiny baby voice.

‘You’re nuts, Mum,’ said Jude. ‘You’ve been a bit bonkers ever since you knew the baby was a boy. What’s so special about boys?’ Jude threw her arms out wildly, as if she’d like to whack every boy about the head just for being male.

‘Watch it,’ said Martine, snatching her cup of tea out of Jude’s way. ‘What are you on about anyway, Mum? We don’t want to move again. We’ve played musical chairs all round the blooming Bletchworth Estate.’

We started off in South Block. We moved there when a three-bedroom flat became vacant, but then Mum had a row with the people on our landing. We swapped to the ground floor of North Block, but it was so damp we had rotten colds and coughs all winter, so then we moved up to the top floor. It wasn’t a good idea to be right under the roof. Whenever it rained Jude and I had to squeeze into Mum’s room because we had too many leaks coming through our ceiling. The council never came to get it fixed no matter how many times we phoned.

We liked living there even so.

Martine liked living on the top floor because her boyfriend Tony lived right next door in number 113. Martine’s the oldest of us Diamond girls. She’s just sixteen. She says that makes her an adult and she can do whatever she likes. She looks exactly like Mum but she tries very hard not to. She’s got Mum’s lovely thick black hair but Martine dyes hers blonde. Mum likes to wear short skirts so Martine wears jeans, low slung so you can see the top of her thong when she bends forwards.

Jude liked living on the top floor because she knew how to get through a secret trapdoor onto the roof. She claimed it as her own private territory. Lots of the boys in our block wanted to climb up there too but Jude wouldn’t let them. She can get the better of all the boys, even though she’s smallish and only fourteen. She might be small but she’s squat and very very tough. Jude looks out for me and squashes people flat if they start teasing me. We’re not supposed to have favourites in our family but if I did have a favourite sister then it’s definitely Jude.

Rochelle liked living on the top floor because Martine was round at Tony’s so often she generally had the bedroom to herself. She could prance around pretending to be a pop singer, hairbrush for a mike, watching her-self in the wardrobe mirror. She’s always watching herself. I suppose I’d want to watch myself if I looked like Rochelle. She’s only twelve but she tries to look much older. She’s very pretty with long curly blonde hair and a heart-shaped face and pink pouty lips like one of those loveheart sweets. There is absolutely nothing else sweet about her. A lot of the time I simply can’t stick my sister Rochelle.

I liked living on the top floor because I could stare out the window and pretend Bluebell and I were flying over the rooftops, high above the tower blocks, over the ocean, all the way across the world to Bluebell’s birthplace in Australia. I knew that was where real budgerigars came from. When I made Bluebell talk she always started off saying, ‘G’day, Dixie.’ However, if you were rude enough to look up Bluebell’s bottom she had this little white label saying ‘made in china’. She didn’t talk Chinese but I sometimes fished out left-over cartons of chow mein and chop suey from the dustbins and Bluebell dug her beak in very happily.

I felt for Bluebell up my cardie sleeve. I didn’t often walk round with her perched on my finger now, even at home, because everyone acted as if I was a total nutcase. I stuffed her up my sleeve instead like a little paper hankie. I gave her feathers a secret stroke every now and then. I needed to stroke her now because Martine and Jude and Rochelle were all shouting and I knew it bothered her.

‘We want to stay here, Mum, OK?’ said Jude, sticking out her chin. ‘North Block’s much the best. South Block sucks. And Middle Block. North Block’s my territory.’

‘I’ve got my bedroom just the way I like it,’ said Rochelle. ‘It’s not fair, Mum – you never think about us.’

‘We can’t leave this flat, not now Tony helped do it up so swish,’ said Martine. He just helped her paint her and Rochelle’s bedroom but she acted like he did a complete Changing Rooms. ‘We’ll never get as good a flat, not on this estate.’

‘You’re right,’ said Mum. She eased her legs down onto the floor, rubbing at her big blue veins. Then she sat up as straight as she could and folded her arms across her big bosom. She gave us such a look that we all shut up, even Jude.

‘We’re not getting a better flat on this estate, OK? We’re moving, like I said. It’s all planned, in all my star charts. Every time I read the tarot cards the wheel of fortune comes up, symbolizing a new beginning. We have to act on it. It’s like our destiny.’

‘You and your stupid fortune-telling, Mum. You’re like a blooming gypsy. My fortune’s right here,’ said Martine.

‘There are too many bad vibes here,’ said Mum, shifting on her chair and patting her tummy protectively.

‘Yeah, and whose fault is that?’ said Jude. ‘Why did you ever have to get pregnant again?’

‘I can’t help fate, darling. It’s all in the stars.’ Mum looked up, as if the Milky Way was shining across our kitchen ceiling.

‘We did a project on the stars at school. And the planets and all their little moons. We had to draw them but my compass didn’t work so mine went all wobbly,’ I said.

‘I did that project when I was back in primary school. I got an A,’ said Rochelle.

‘Why do you always have to show off, Rochelle?’ I said. ‘Who cares about your stupid A grades?’

I cared. It was horribly unfair that Rochelle got to be very pretty and very clever. Jude wasn’t pretty but she was very clever, even though she didn’t try much at school. Martine was pretty but she wasn’t any good at lessons and couldn’t wait to leave.

I was plain and most people thought I was stupid.

‘Pipe down, girls. Now listen. We’re going to have a fresh start. We’re leaving this old dump altogether.’

‘No we’re not,’ said Jude, folding her arms too. ‘You can’t make us.’

‘Oh yes, we are moving,’ said Mum, and she nodded at the letter in front of her.

We’d all thought it was just another bill or some silly letter from the social. We hadn’t taken any notice when Mum was reading it, though I had wondered why she hadn’t scrumpled it up and thrown it in the rubbish bin.

Martine snatched the letter. ‘The Planet Estate?’ she read.

‘Isn’t it just perfect?’ said Mum. ‘See, Jude, it’s fate.’

‘Oh my God, it’s not even in London! We can’t go there. How can I see Tony?’

‘I think you’ve been seeing way too much of that Tony, if you must know,’ said Mum. ‘You’re too young to get serious.’

‘Oh, that’s great, coming from you! You had me when you were – what, sixteen?’

‘That’s my point, I know what I’m talking about.’

‘You’re moving us all to some weird estate in the middle of nowhere just to split Tony and me up?’ Martine wailed, starting to cry.

‘Oh for God’s sake, stop being such a drama queen! The whole world doesn’t revolve around you and your boyfriend. I’m doing this for all of us. We need a bigger place, now you’re all having a little brother.’ Mum patted her stomach.

She said it as if we’d all begged for a brother. We’d all been appalled and embarrassed when she told us she was going to have another baby.

‘You can’t get bigger than three-bedroom flats, not council,’ said Jude.

‘I’ve got my whole bedroom wall like this big pop collage. It’ll ruin it if I have to tear it all down,’ said Rochelle.

‘You can make another one. You’ll hav...