My Sister Jodie
Authors: Jacqueline Wilson
Contents
Pearl and Jodie are sisters. Pearl is younger, small and shy and anxious. Jodie is nearly three years older, bold and brash and bad and Pearl adores her.
When their parents get new jobs at the posh Melchester College, the girls are suddenly thrust into a new life. In their new home things feel different. Jodie has always been the leader but now it's Pearl who's making new friends. Jodie doesn't fit in with the snooty teenagers in her class and just seems to be getting into more and more trouble . . .
Maybe Pearl doesn't need Jodie as much as she used to. But Jodie needs her. And when the school Fireworks night comes around and a tragic event occurs, Pearl realizes quite how much she does need her big sister . . .
A moving and powerful story fron the best-selling, award-winning Jacqueline Wilson.
FOR OLDER READERS
For Trish
With special thanks to Natasha West
and Annelies Hofland
1
JODIE. IT WAS
the first word I ever said. Most babies lisp
Mumma
or
Dadda
or
Drinkie
or
Teddy
. Maybe everyone names the thing they love best. I said
Jodie
, my sister. OK, I said
Dodie
because I couldn't say my Js properly, but I knew what I meant.
I said her name first every morning.
âJodie? Jodie! Wake up.
Please
wake up!'
She was hopeless in the mornings. I always woke up early â six o'clock, sometimes even earlier. When I was little, I'd delve around my bed to find my three night-time teddies, and then take them for a dawn trek up and down my duvet. I put my knees up and they'd clamber up the mountain and then slide down. Then they'd burrow back to base camp and tuck into their pretend porridge for breakfast.
I
wasn't allowed to eat anything so early. I wasn't even allowed to get up. I was fine once I could read. Sometimes I got through a whole book before the alarm went off. Then I'd lie staring at the ceiling,
making up my own stories. I'd wait as long as I could, and then I'd climb into Jodie's bed and whisper her name, give her a little shake and start telling her the new story. They were always about two sisters. They went through an old wardrobe into a magic land, or they went to stage school and became famous actresses, or they went to a ball in beautiful long dresses and danced in glass slippers.
It was always hard to get Jodie to wake up properly. It was as if she'd fallen down a long dark tunnel in the night. It took her ages to crawl back to the surface. But eventually she'd open one eye and her arm went round me automatically. I'd cuddle up and carry on telling her the story. I had to keep nudging her and saying, âYou
are
still awake, aren't you, Jodie?'
âI'm wide awake,' she mumbled, but I had to give her little prods to make sure.
When she
was
awake, she'd sometimes take over the story. She'd tell me how the two sisters ruled over the magic land as twin queens, and they acted in their own daily television soap, and they danced with each other all evening at the ball until way past midnight.
Jodie's stories were always much better than mine. I begged her to write them down but she couldn't be bothered.
â
You
write them down for me,' she said. âYou're the one that wants to be the writer.'
I wanted to write my own stories and illustrate them too.
âI can help you with the ideas,' said Jodie. âYou can do all the drawings and I'll do the colouring in.'
âSo long as you do it carefully in the right
colours,' I said, because Jodie nearly always went over the lines, and sometimes she coloured faces green and hair blue just for the fun of it.
âOK, Miss Picky,' said Jodie. âI'll help you out but that won't be my
real
job. I'm going to be an actress. That's what I really want to do. Imagine, standing there, all lit up, with everyone listening, hanging on your every word!'
âMaybe one of my stories could be turned into a play and then you could have the star part.'
âYeah, I'll be an overnight success and be offered mega millions to make movies and we'll live together in a huge great mansion,' said Jodie.
âWhat does a mansion look like?' I said. âCan it have towers? Can our room be right at the top of a tower?'
â
All
the rooms are our rooms, but we'll share a very special room right at the top of a tower, only I'm not going to let you grow your hair any longer.' She pulled one of my plaits. âI don't want you tossing it out of the window and letting any wicked old witches climb up it.' Jodie nudged me. She had started to have a lot of arguments with our mother. She often called her a witch â or worse â but only under her breath.
âDon't worry, I'll keep my plaits safely tied up. No access for wicked witches,' I said, giggling, though I felt a bit mean to Mum.
âWhat about handsome princes?'
â
Definitely
not,' I said. âIt'll be just you and me in Mansion Towers, living happily ever after.'
It was just our silly early-morning game, though I took it more seriously than Jodie. I drew our imaginary mansion, often slicing it open like a
doll's house so I could illustrate every room. I gave us a huge black velvet sofa with two big black toy pumas lolling at either end. We had two real black cats for luck lapping from little bowls in the kitchen, two poodles curled up together in their dog basket, while twin black ponies grazed in a paddock beside our rose garden. I coloured each rose carefully and separately, deep red, salmon, peach, very pale pink, apricot and yellow. I even tried to do every blade of grass individually but had to see sense after dabbing delicately for half an hour, my hand aching.
I gave us a four-poster bed with red velvet curtains and a ruby chandelier, and one wall was a vast television screen. We had a turquoise swimming pool in the basement (with our twin pet dolphins) and a roof garden between the towers where skylarks and bluebirds skimmed the blossom trees.
I printed the title of each of our books in the library in weeny writing and drew every item of food on our kitchen shelves. I gave us a playroom with a trampoline and a trapeze and a jukebox, and one of those machines you get at the seaside where you have to manoeuvre a crane to pick up little furry teddies. I drew tiny teddies every colour of the rainbow, and I had a shelf of big teddies in our bedroom, and a shelf of old-fashioned dolls with real hair and glass eyes, and a splendid rocking horse big enough for both of us to ride on.
I talked about it to Jodie as if we'd really live there one day. Sometimes I imagined it so vividly it seemed like a real place. I just had to work out which road to take out of town and then I'd round a
corner and spot the towers. I'd run fast, through the elaborate wrought-iron gates, up to the front door with the big lion's-head knocker. I'd know how to press the lion's snout with my finger and the door would spring open and I'd step inside and Jodie would be there waiting for me.
I wasn't stupid, I knew it wasn't really real, but it felt as if it might be all the same.
Then one morning at breakfast everything changed. I was sitting at the kitchen table nibbling at a honey sandwich. I liked opening the sandwich up and licking the honey, letting it ooze over my tongue, but I did it quickly and furtively when Mum wasn't looking. She was very strict about table manners. She was forever nagging Jodie about sitting up straight and spooning her cornflakes up quietly without clanking the spoon against the bowl. Jodie slumped further into an S shape and clanked until she nearly cracked the china. Mum took hold of her by the shoulders and gave her a good shaking.
âStop winding me up, you contrary little whatsit,' she said, going
shake shake shake
.
Jodie's head rocked backwards and forwards on her stiff shoulders.
âYou're hurting her!' said Dad, putting down his
Daily Express
and looking anxious.
âShe's not hurting me,' Jodie gasped, waggling her head herself, and then she started da-da-da-ing part of that weird old âBohemian Rhapsody' song when everyone bangs their heads to the music.
âStop that silly row! I suppose you think you're funny,' said Mum.
But Dad was laughing and shaking his own
head. âYou're a right head-case, our Jodie,' he said.
âTrust you to encourage her, Joe,' said Mum. âWhy do you always have to take Jodie's side?'
âBecause I'm my daddy's girl,' said Jodie, batting her eyelashes at Dad.
She was too. She was always in trouble now, bunking off school and staying out late. Mum could shake her head until it snapped right off her shoulders but she couldn't control her. But Dad could still sometimes make her hang her head and cry because she'd worried them so.
He'd never say a bad word against Jodie.
âIt's not her fault. OK, she's always been a bit headstrong, but she's basically been a good little kid. She's just got in with the wrong crowd now, that's all. She's no worse than any of her mates at school,' he said.