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First published 2025
Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2025 Illustrations copyright © Rachael Dean, 2025
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To
dear Phoebe, with love
I woke up and had such a lovely long stretch I accidentally kicked my dog, Dora, onto the bedroom floor. She lay with her paws in the air, floppy ears inside out. She didn’t look at all pleased.
‘I’m so sorry, Dora,’ I said, leaning out of bed and rescuing her.
Dora tossed her ears straight and looked at me reproachfully. Don’t worry, she’s not a real dog.
She’s a toy spaniel but I pretend she’s real when we’re on our own together. I don’t let any of the girls at school know I still play pretend games, not even my best friend, Emily, in case they laugh at me. I would die if my worst enemy, Chloe, ever found out!
The only person who knows is my sister, Lily. I wondered if she was awake yet. We usually had to get up really early because it takes ages for Mum to get Lily ready to go to her specialist school. But it was the summer holidays now (hurray!), so we could have a little lie-in every day.
I picked Dora up, gave her several apologetic kisses and groomed her with my hairbrush. Then I settled her carefully on my pillow and pattered down to Lily’s bedroom.
She has her own room on the ground floor because she can’t get up the stairs by herself. It’s not because she’s too little; it’s because her legs don’t work properly. Her arms aren’t very strong either, though she’s good at hugging.
I opened her door and peeped at her. She was lying down in bed, of course, but she was smiling at me.
‘Hello, Lily!’ I said.
‘Hello, Daisy!’ she replied. Well, she didn’t say it, because her words don’t come out properly. She signed it, using a special language called Makaton. She waved one hand. That means ‘hello’, obviously. Then she passed her fingers under her nose, pretending to smell a beautiful flower. It’s our nickname for each other, because Lily and Daisy are both flower names. Dad jokes that if Mum had had
a little boy she might have called him Tulip, which always makes us giggle.
I climbed into Lily’s bed and we snuggled up together.
‘I love the holidays, don’t you?’ I said.
Lily clenched her hand and made it nod, meaning ‘yes’. Then she hesitated and started signing again. She pointed to herself. That meant ‘I’. Then she touched her chin to mean ‘miss’. And then she jiggled her hand about as if she was frightened, though her eyes were gleaming. She was signing ‘scary’!
I laughed. ‘Scary’ was her funny nickname for her best friend at her school, Natalie. Natalie certainly looks a bit scary, with her black clothes and her wild black hair and smudgy black liner round her eyes. They aren’t allowed to wear make-up at school but Natalie gets away with murder. She might
look scary, but she’s actually the funniest, kindest friend to Lily.
‘Well, I miss Emily,’ I said. Emily’s my best friend. She actually used to be Chloe’s best friend. Chloe is the worst girl in our class. She’s really mean and bossy and can be horrid to people. She’s especially horrid to me. But it’s OK , because Emily is definitely my best friend for ever now. She was my first friend when I was a new girl at the school and hadn’t any friends. Then Amy, Bella, Chloe and Emily – and me – formed the Alphabet Girls club because of our names and we all had sleepover parties and became bestest friends to each other, although both Emily and I were a bit scared of Chloe as she could be so mean. Then after my sleepover, Chloe broke friends with the four of us! I was SO happy.
Emily’s come to play at my house lots and I’ve
been to tea with her, but now she’s away having a caravan holiday by the seaside. Natalie has had Lily and me over to her house too. She’s got the weirdest bedroom ever, with black walls and black velvet curtains, and silver fairy lights. She plays incredibly loud music in her room and bashes on her very own set of drums. Her mum often bellows at her to turn the noise down, but she never gets really cross.
Natalie has two big brothers who lope about the house and just grunt at their parents, but they like chatting to Natalie. They tease her a lot and call her Little Miss Pretty, which makes her furious. She calls them very rude names back. Natalie is ace at Makaton but she can speak too, though her words come out quite slowly. She can walk by herself, but is especially speedy when she uses her walker with wheels.
They’re on holiday at her grandma’s house in Scotland. We can’t go and stay with our grandma and grandad because there wouldn’t be room for Mum and Dad and Lily and me in their spare bedroom, and they don’t have a shower and Lily is too big now to haul in and out a bath. We have day trips to their house. It’s not really much fun because Granny gets a bit crotchety and tells me off a lot for being cheeky or silly. She tells Mum and Dad off too! She’s good with Lily, I suppose, but she doesn’t treat her like a proper girl. She acts like she’s a baby and calls her ‘poor lamb’. Grandad is OK though, and always bakes us a cake for tea. His speciality is Black Forest gateau, which is ultra-delicious, but if I have two big slices I feel sick on the van ride home.
But we love going to Granny and Grandad’s
house if Uncle Gary is there too. He’s our absolute favourite relative, the best fun in the whole world. He always makes us laugh. He can even stop Granny moaning and make her giggle. But Uncle Gary isn’t around this summer. He usually works in a nightclub in town, but now he has a special six-week holiday job at the seaside, doing his own special show. We are so proud of him.
Lily and I are desperate to see his stage act but it’s too long a car journey for a day trip, and we don’t really go to the seaside anyway. Think about the special things you like to do on the beach. Maybe you like to build sandcastles? I once made an enormous castle for my old Sylvanian families. I made a window with a big ledge for each of them to stand on, and I made one of the little girl rabbits climb right up to the top. I even dug a moat all the
way round so they could take their clothes off and have swimming races.
My arms got very tired of digging, although Dad helped a lot. It was one of the best afternoons ever, but I felt a bit mean all the time I was enjoying myself because Lily was stuck up on the esplanade, only able to watch. We couldn’t get her wheelchair down the steps onto the beach and it’s impossible to get a wheelchair over the sand anyway. Mum sat with Lily and let her have two huge ice creams with chocolate flakes, but it was still sad for her.
Dad tried lifting Lily down onto the sand but she can’t sit up properly without her wheelchair and it’s not fun lying flat on your back peering up at the sky, hoping that the seagulls flying overhead aren’t going to poop on you.
We took Lily’s shoes and socks off for her and I
tried running backwards and forwards to the sea getting buckets of water so I could splash them over her feet. She squealed quite a lot. It obviously wasn’t the same as going in paddling.
Dad wondered about carrying Lily right into the sea, but Mum wouldn’t let him. Lily loves swimming at her specialist school, but the water stays still there. The sea has waves that smack you in the face if you don’t look out.
‘I’ll watch out for her,’ said Dad.
‘And how are we going to get her warm again afterwards?’ Mum hissed, not wanting Lily to hear. ‘Daisy can run around and play football and turn cartwheels.’
Lily can’t do any of those things. I don’t know whether she heard or not, but she slumped down in her wheelchair and looked miserable. It’s awful when she’s sad. She’s usually a happy, smiley person. Sometimes she gets angry and yells, but that’s not too bad, unless she’s shouting at me. But when her face crumples it makes my tummy clench and I feel sad too.
We don’t go to the seaside now. We’ve tried country holidays, but it’s even sadder for Lily if we can’t push her through a muddy forest or up to the top of hills. Some big country houses and parks have
special easy trails for wheels. They’re fine for babies in buggies and old people in wheelchairs, but they’re not much fun for girls like Lily.
We’ve had town holidays too, but it’s often difficult getting Lily in and out of shops and museums and castles, and there’s sometimes trouble in the smaller cafes getting through to the toilet in her wheelchair.
So we don’t go away on holiday now. We have our summer holidays at home instead. It’s almost as much fun. It just gets a bit samey. I can’t help wondering what it would be like if there was some miraculous cure for Lily and she could walk and talk and do all the ordinary things I mostly take for granted. I know this can’t happen because Lily hasn’t got an illness. She was simply born the way she is.
She’s my sister and I love her to bits, and I’d never ever wish she hadn’t been born, but sometimes I can’t stop myself wondering what it would be like if it was just Mum and Dad and me and we could go anywhere we fancied on holiday. We could go on a safari trip to Africa and see lions and elephants. We could go to Australia and see koalas and kangaroos. We could go to America and see wild bears climbing redwood trees. We could swim with dolphins and go whale-watching and chat to Mickey Mouse.
Chloe at school says she’s done all these things. She says this holiday they’re staying in a fairy- tale castle and she’s going to have her own four- poster bed and she’s going to swim in her own infinity pool and take her own alpaca for a walk around the gardens. I’m pretty certain she’s making it up, but Emily says she really has gone
on all the other holidays she boasts about. She’s seen the photos.
Anyway, it’s silly feeling jealous because even if Lily didn’t need her wheelchair any more we could never ever afford those sorts of holidays.
‘We’ll have a great time being on holiday at home, won’t we, Lily?’ I said.
Lily made her hand nod ‘yes’. Then I nodded mine. Then we bumped fists. Then I tickled Lily under her arm and she squealed. She managed to grasp one of my plaits and gave it a quick yank. I yelled. Lily yelled louder.
‘Girl, girls, are you fighting? ’ said Mum, bursting into the room in her pyjamas. Her hair was sticking up all over the place
and she looked so funny we couldn’t help giggling.
‘Stop laughing at me, you monkeys!’ said Mum, and she flung herself on the bed too and joined in.
That’s the best thing about summer holidays.
Mum’s always in a rush on school days and can be a bit snappy at times, but she works from home in the school holidays and doesn’t have to charge off to get to work by nine o’clock. She can relax a bit and have fun with us.
Lily and I can’t WAIT to find out what fun things Mum has planned for this summer!
After we’d finished romping we got washed and dressed – Mum organizes Lily in her own little bathroom. I was ready first and made breakfast for us. We have juice in the mornings. Lily and I like mango-and-apple – she has hers in a special beaker with a lid so it doesn’t spill if her arm suddenly shakes. I have mine in a china mug with little dogs running right round it. I’d absolutely love a dog of
our own but Mum says she couldn’t cope with a dog as well as us.
Mum has pomegranate juice in a special glass with a twirly pattern. Lily and I think it tastes a bit weird but when Natalie came to stay she thought it was fantastic – but I think it’s because it’s dark red and she likes pretending she’s a vampire. She can pull a wonderful vampire face that always makes Lily laugh.
Then we have muesli from a packet, with extra nuts and raisins, and a chopped-up piece of fruit, either an apple or a banana. I’m always careful doing the chopping. I’m very careful boiling the kettle for Mum’s pot of tea. If it’s a school day that’s all we’ve got time for, but now it’s the holidays we have toast too. I like slotting it into the toaster and then racing to get the table laid before it pops up again.
We have different spreads on our toast. Mum likes marmalade. I like honey. Lily likes Marmite. Yuck!
Even the smell of it makes me screw up my face. My sister can be very weird sometimes.
We all like to wear different clothes in the holidays. Mum always wears a pretty shirt because she often has to make Zoom calls for her job, but she normally wears her old denim shorts and flipflops too, because they’re comfy and don’t show on the screen. I also wear shorts and flip-flops, with T-shirts on the top. (I have five: one with a giraffe, one with a monkey, one with a rabbit, one with a kitten, and one with two dogs nose to nose, kissing.
That’s my favourite.)
Lily wears T-shirts and trackie bottoms and trainers to school, but in the holidays she likes to wear loose trousers or long girly dresses, even though
the skirts can get trapped in her wheels. Uncle Gary said she looked like a princess on her throne and gave her a gold crown from a toyshop and made her up with blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick. Lily doesn’t wear the crown out because she thinks it would look embarrassing, but she tries hard to put her make-up on herself. I’ve offered to do it for her because her hand wobbles, but she makes it plain she thinks I’m rubbish at it. Which I am, actually.
So we ate breakfast in our favourite outfits, and then Mum started checking her emails and Lily and I went into the garden. We have specially wide French windows so it’s easy to push Lily outside onto the patio.
Scruff was next door in his garden and he called to us delightedly. Well, he barked. He’s Mr NormanNext-Door’s dog and I think he’s wonderful. I’m not
quite sure what sort of breed he is, but he’s definitely a mixture. He’s not one of the posh cross-breeds, like a cockapoo or a labradoodle. He’s some sort of smallish terrier, and maybe a bit of lurcher, and goodness knows what else. He hasn’t really got a special colour either – he’s mostly grey, with a bit of brown and black. He’s got lovely big brown eyes, and the waggiest tail ever, so it doesn’t really matter if his fur needs a good brush and his paws are usually muddy.
Mr Norman is old, much older than my grandad, and Mrs Norman sadly died long ago. He’s a bit scruffy himself, and he always wears the same old jumper even in the summer, and he is supposed to walk with a stick nowadays. He wobbles sometimes but he won’t use his special walking aid because he says he hates contraptions. He’s a bit silly, because
Natalie whizzes about with her walking aid (she’s customized it, painting it black with silver skull stickers).
It’s hard for Mr Norman to take Scruff for a proper walk. I’ve begged and begged to take Scruff for a walk myself, but he won’t hear of it.
‘I’ll do it myself, thank you very much,’ he says, as if I’m insulting him.
He’s the same if Mum offers him a share of our shepherd’s pie or invites him for a Sunday roast.
‘I can cater very adequately for myself,’ he says, though the only signs of meals we see in his recycling bin are small-size tins of tomato soup and baked beans.
Mr Norman is small-size himself, and as I get taller he gets smaller still. Dad once joked to Mum that Mr Norman would soon get mistaken for one
of his own garden gnomes. Mum said that was very rude and disrespectful – but she had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing.
Mum tries to be so kind to Mr Norman but he’s the one who’s often very rude and disrespectful to her. And to Lily.
‘You don’t need to stick your nose into my affairs,’ he once said when we met him out in the street. ‘You’ve got enough on your hands looking after that poor helpless big baby.’ He shook his head at Lily.
We were all three shocked.
‘Please don’t ever use that language, especially not in front of my daughter,’ Mum said firmly.
‘My sister is not a big baby!’ I said.
And Lily stuck her little finger in the air and waggled it, which is a very expressive Makaton way of saying ‘naughty’!
We didn’t speak to Mr Norman for a little while after that, but then we heard him sneezing and wheezing when he let Scruff out into the garden, and he failed to take him for a proper walk for several days.
‘He’s got this horrible cold that’s going around,’ Mum said, sighing. ‘And he’s clearly got no one to look after him.’
So she got him cold pills and cough sweets and a big box of tissues from the chemist, then bought a bag of lemons and a little pot of honey and several cartons of chicken soup, put them in a carrier bag and took them round to him. She wore a mask because she always worries terribly that Lily might catch a bad cold.
Mr Norman didn’t come to his door for a very long time, and when he did he nearly closed it
right in Mum’s face because he didn’t recognize her. He thought she was a masked robber come to steal his life savings! Then when Mum explained and tried to give him his carrier of goodies he wouldn’t take them, growling that he wasn’t a charity case, but then he had such a coughing fit he nearly fell over.
‘For goodness’ sake, take them, you obstinate old man – I’m simply being neighbourly,’ Mum said, and left them on his doorstep. They’d disappeared the next time we looked – and about a week later a card was poked through our letter box.
It was actually an old crumpled birthday card with a picture of a bunch of flowers. The Happy Birthday lettering had been crossed out on the front, and inside there was a little pencilled message in wavery handwriting. Thank you for the food and pharmacy
items. You didn’t need to go to the trouble, but it was kind of you. N. Norman.
‘He’s not exactly effusive with his thanks, but you’ve clearly won the old boy over,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe he’s called Norman Norman?’
‘I think he’s called Nasty Norman,’ I said, and Lily laughed.
‘Now stop that. He’s not really nasty; he’s just old and sad and very proud,’ said Mum. ‘It was very nice of him to say thank you too.’
Lily and I decided we still didn’t like him – but I loved Scruff. Lily wasn’t so sure. She’s fine with little fluffy dogs that sit on her lap demurely, but she’s a bit scared of great big dogs that bound up to her. They sometimes bark at her because they’re not sure about her wheelchair, and although none have ever tried to bite her, I don’t blame her for being
nervous about them. Scruff isn’t a big dog – he comes up to about my knees – but he’s big enough to scare her!
I think Lily was very glad Scruff was the other side of the garden fence. Mind you, he did his best to leap up over it, jumping up and down as if he had his own little trampoline in Mr Norman’s garden. I tried leaping up too, so that Scruff and I could see each other for a split second, and then when I got out of breath I went to the broken slat in the fence and knelt down and peered through it. Scruff stopped jumping, followed me on the other side and stuck his face through the little gap.
‘Oh, Lily, Scruff ’s licking me!’ I said, thrilled. I turned my head to look at her. She pulled a face, wrinkling her nose, making it clear she’d hate to be licked by anyone, especially a grubby dog like
Scruff. I felt in my shorts pocket where I’d stowed a crust of toast. I felt Scruff would much prefer a crust of Lily’s savoury Marmite toast but when I posted my own crust through the slat in the fence he seized it eagerly and chewed with great enthusiasm.
‘Doesn’t mean old Mr Norman feed you, Scruff ?’ I whispered.
Scruff barked, sounding sorry for himself.
‘You wait here. I’ll see if I can find you something else,’ I said.
Lily pointed at me, and then moved both her hands in front of her, signing ‘Trouble!’ I took no notice and ran indoors. Mum was at her desk in the living room, so I had the kitchen to myself. I wondered what I could give Scruff for a special treat. Lily and I had chocolates, but I knew you must never ever give a dog chocolate because it
makes them ill. They liked meat. I went to the fridge. Aha! We had some cold chicken left over from the Sunday roast. I wondered about tearing off a whole leg, but I also knew it could be dangerous to give chicken bones to dogs because they might splinter.
I’d become a world expert on dogs because I so wanted one, though it looked like I might have to wait till I was grown up. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a husband or my own children but I was absolutely determined to have a dog, lots of dogs, an entire pack of dogs from a great gentle Rottweiler to a tiny chihuahua.
I tore some of the best white bits from the breast of chicken, shoved them in my pocket in case Mum came in to see what I was up to, and then rushed out through the French windows again. Scruff was still
waiting patiently by the fence. He barked with joy when I crouched down and fed him the first morsel of chicken.
Lily gasped and tapped her fingers on the palm of her other hand, meaning ‘Mum’, and then waggled both hands, her fingers like claws, meaning ‘angry’.
‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘This poor dog is starving!’
Scruff gave a little woof of agreement and gobbled down another chunk.
‘You’d like to come and live with me rather than mean old Mr Norman, wouldn’t you?’ I crooned.
‘What do you think you’re doing, missy!’ a voice called down from the sky.
Oh my goodness, it was mean old Mr Norman himself, hanging out of his bedroom window and looking totally furious.
I wanted to charge back into the house and hide but I managed to stand my ground.
‘I’m simply giving Scruff a bite to eat because he seems so hungry, Mr Norman,’ I said as politely as I could.
‘How dare you! You’re not allowed to feed my dog! You haven’t given him sweeties, have you?’ he bellowed at me.
‘Of course not!’ I called back indignantly. ‘I’m giving him cooked free-range chicken without any bones!’
‘You’re giving him what ?’
Oh dear, Mum had heard me shouting and was now rushing into the garden looking equally furious. Lily didn’t need to sign anything. The look on her face clearly said I told you so.
I was in serious trouble!
‘That chicken was going to be our supper! How dare you feed it to that dirty, smelly dog!’ Mum shouted.
‘How dare you call him dirty!’ Mr Norman bellowed.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Norman, I didn’t realize you were at your window – but you must admit he is a little grubby,’ said Mum. ‘And pungent.’
‘He’s no such thing. He’s clean as a whistle. And that kiddie has no right to feed my dog! It’s not allowed! You could be poisoning him for all I know!’ Mr Norman shouted back.
‘She’s fed him the best part of our supper tonight, so I’d hardly call that poisoning him,’ said Mum. ‘But I quite agree, my daughter has no right to feed him. It’s simply that she loves all dogs – especially your Scruff.’
‘Well, he’s mine, so tell her to keep away from him!’ said Mr Norman. He disappeared from his window and after several minutes (he’s very slow at walking) he reappeared downstairs at his back door.
‘Here, boy! Come indoors! Scruff ! Scruff !’ he commanded.
Scruff gave me a last apologetic woof and trotted meekly indoors.
I had to trot indoors too and have a right tellingoff from Mum. She even threatened to poke the pound coins out of my china piggy bank to pay for replacement chicken breasts – but I knew she wasn’t serious.
‘Promise me you won’t go near that wretched dog again,’ Mum said.
I sighed heavily at the injustice. I couldn’t help it that Scruff liked me and tried his best to jump over the fence to be with me. Mum eventually had to stop nagging because she had to log in for a Zoom call, so I went back to the garden and Lily. She had her earbuds in and was listening to a book Natalie had lent her. Natalie loves very scary dark fantasy tales, so I expect it was a frightening story, because when I crept up on Lily and tickled her neck she screamed.
She did a lot of little finger waving at me, signing ‘naughty’, but we were only play fighting, and she seemed glad Mum had stopped being cross. I settled down with my book too, a fantastic adventure story about strange creatures and a girl who could fly. I wished I could fly too. It would be fantastic to be able to fly to Wales to see Emily on holiday in her caravan. Maybe she could also fly and we’d whizz up to the top of those Welsh mountains in a matter of minutes and have a ride on the wild Welsh ponies . . .
‘Do you wish you could fly, Lily?’ I asked, without really thinking.
She peered at me, blinking, not sure she’d heard me properly. Then she held her hand sideways and brought it forward, signing ‘wish’, and then made her first two fingers walk through the air.