Dare Game (5 page)

Cam acted like I was
joking
. When she realized I wasn’t joining in the general laughter she said, ‘Come
on
, Trace, how could all that stuff ever fit in the box room?’

Yeah, quite. Why should I be stuck in the box room? Am I a box? Why can’t I have Cam’s room? I mean, she’s got hardly any stuff, just a lot of books and a little bed. She could easily fit in the box room.

I did my best to persuade her. I wheedled and whined for all I was worth – but she didn’t budge. So I ended up in this little rubbish room and I’m supposed to think it a huge big deal because I was allowed to choose the colour paint and pick a new duvet cover and curtains. I chose black to match my mood.

I didn’t think Cam would take me seriously but she gave in on that one. Black walls. Black ceiling. She suggested luminous silver stars which are kind of a good idea. I’m not too keen on the dark. I’m not
scared
. I’m not scared of anything. But I like to look up from
my
bed and see those stars glowing up above.

Cam hunted around and found some black sheets with silver stars and made curtains to match. She’s pretty useless at sewing and the hems go up and down a bit but I suppose she was trying her best. She calls my black room the ‘bat cave’. She’s bought me several little black velvet toy bats to hang from the ceiling. They’re quite cute really. And my python lies on the floor by the door and acts like a draught excluder and attacks anyone who dares try to barge in on us.

Like Jane and Liz. I can’t stand Jane and Liz. They are Cam’s friends. They keep coming over and sticking their noses in. I thought they were
OK
at first. Jane is big (you should see the size of her bum!) and Liz is little and bouncy. Jane took me swimming once (she’s not a pretty sight in her swimming costume) and it was quite good fun actually. There was a chute into the water and a wave machine and Jane let me ride on her shoulders and didn’t get huffy when I pretended she was a whale. She even spouted water for me. But then she came over one day when Cam and I were having this little dispute – well, kind of mega-argument when I was letting rip yelling all sorts of stuff – and later when I was sulking in my bat cave I heard Jane telling Cam that she was daft to put up with all my nonsense and she knew I had had a hard time but that didn’t give me licence to be such a Royal Pain in the Bottom. (A pain wouldn’t have a chance attacking
her
bottom.)

I still thought Liz was OK. I was worried at first because she’s a teacher but she’s not a
bit
like Mrs V.B. She knows all these really rude jokes and she can be a great laugh. She’s got her own rollerblades and she let me borrow them which was great.
I
was great too. I simply whizzed around and didn’t fall over once and looked seriously cool – but then
when
I started getting on to Cam that it was time she bought me my
own
rollerblades seeing I was so super-skilled Liz got a bit edgy and told me that Cam wasn’t made of money.

I wish!

Then Liz started off this boring old lecture about Caring not being the same as Spending Money and it was almost as if she’d morphed into Mrs Vomit Bagley before my very eyes!

I still thought Liz was kind of cool though but then one evening she came round late when I was in bed in the Bat Cave and I think maybe Cam was crying in the living room because we’d had some boring old set-to about something . . . I forget what. Well, I
don’t
forget, I happened to have borrowed a tenner out of her purse – I didn’t
steal
it – and anyway if she’s my foster mum now she
should
fork out for me, and she’s so mean she doesn’t give me enough pocket money, and it was only a measly ten-pound note – I could have nicked a twenty – and why did she leave her purse lying around if she gets so fussed about cash going missing? – she’s not part of the real
world
, old Cam, she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the Children’s Home.

Anyway
, Liz came round and I slithered round my door like my python so I could hear what they were saying. I figured it would be about me. And it was.

Liz kept asking Cam what this latest crisis was all about and Cam kept quiet for a bit but then out it all came: naughty little Tracy is a thief. Cam started on about some other stuff too. OK, I borrowed one of her pens – well, several – and some silly old locket that her mum had given her. I didn’t mean to buckle it. I was only trying to prise it open to see what she had inside.

I felt Cam was being a mean old tell-tale – and Liz was encouraging her for all she was worth, saying it was good for her to let it all out and have a moan and howl. Liz came out with all this s-t-u-p-i-d stuff that I was just nicking for affection and attention. All these teachers and social workers have got their heads full of this rubbish. I nicked the stuff because I was short of cash and needed a pen and . . . well, I just wanted the locket. I
thought
I could maybe put a picture of my mum in it. My real mum. I’ve got a photo, and she’s looking dead glamorous, a true movie star, smiling and smiling. Guess what she’s smiling at! This little baby in her arms tugging at her gorgeous long blonde hair. It’s me!

I wish Cam had long hair. I wish she looked glamorous. I wish she was something special like a film star. I wish she smiled more. She just slumps round all draggy and depressed. Over me.

She had a good cry to Liz and said she was useless and that it wasn’t working out the way she’d hoped.

I
knew
it. I
knew
she wouldn’t want me. Well. See if I care.

Liz said that this was just a stage, and that I was acting out and testing my limits.

‘She’s testing
my
limits, I tell you,’ said Cam.

‘You mustn’t let her get to you so,’ said Liz. ‘Lighten up a bit, Cam. Don’t let your life revolve around Tracy all the time. You don’t
ever
go out any more. You’ve even given up your classes.’

‘Yes, well, I can’t leave Tracy in the evening. I did bring up the idea of a babysitter but she was insulted.’

‘What about your morning swimming then? You were getting really fit. Why don’t you take Tracy too, before school? Jane says she loved it at the baths.’

‘There just isn’t time. We have enough hassle getting her ready for school at nine. And, oh God, that’s another thing. She isn’t settling and the head keeps ringing me up and I don’t know what to do about it.’

‘How about telling Tracy how you feel?’

‘Tracy’s not bothered about the way
I
feel. It’s the way
she
feels that matters. And she’s not feeling too great either at the moment. So she takes it out on me.’

‘Try standing up to her for once. Put her in her place,’ says horrible old Liz.

‘That’s just it. That’s why she’s so difficult. She doesn’t know her place because she hasn’t ever had one. A place of her own,’ says Cam.

It made me feel good that she could suss that out and bad because I don’t want her to pity me. I don’t want her to foster me because she feels
sorry
for me. I want her to foster me because she’s dead lonely and it gives her life a purpose and she’s crazy about me. She says she cares about me but she doesn’t love me like a real mum. She doesn’t want to buy me treats every single day and give me loads of money and keep me home from school because it’s so horrible.

I’m not
ever
going back. I can bunk off every day, easy-peasy. I timed it to perfection, arriving back at Cam’s dead on time. She was sitting on her squashy old sofa writing her sad old story in her notebook. I made her jump when I came barging in but she smiled. I suddenly felt weird, like I’d been missing her or something, so I ran over to her and bounced down beside her.

‘Hey, Trace, watch the sofa!’ she said, struggling back into the upright position. ‘You’ll break it. You’ll break me!’

‘Half the springs are broken already.’

‘Look, I never pretended this was House Beautiful.’

‘Hovel Hideous, more like,’ I said, getting up and roaming round the shabby furniture, giving it a kick.