Free How to Survive Summer Camp by Jacqueline Wilson Page A

‘It’ll look so daft.’
    ‘No it won’t. It’s for my mum. She likes that sort of thing,’ said Marzipan, looking hurt.
    ‘Would you like to try to make one too, Stella?’ asked Jilly.
    ‘No thank you.’
    ‘Well, do you want to make a necklace like the others?’
    ‘Not really.’
    Jilly folded her arms. ‘You’ve got to make something,Stella. How about a string purse? It could be a present for your mother.’
    I didn’t feel like making a present for Mum. It was all her fault I was stuck at this horrible summer camp. She’d said I’d enjoy it but I’d decided to hate every minute of it. Some of the others were feeling pretty fed up too. Evergreen wasn’t a patch on most summer camps. It was supposed to offer horse riding, but there was just one Shetland pony. There was only one computer too, and it was the cheapest sort so you could only play the most basic games. The swimmers were allowed to canoe in the stream, but it wasn’t really deep enough—and the swimming pool wasn’t much more than a pond. But it still seemed like Loch Ness to me. I had a swimming session every single day! It was so unfair. I had more swimming sessions than anyone else in the whole camp. Miss Hamer-Cotton said it would help me learn to swim quickly and stop me being frightened of the water. I was sure she was just being horrible and punishing me. So I tried to get my own back by messing about at the pool and not doing what Uncle Ron said. He tried to be all matey at first but eventually he got so cross he made me lose a team point. And then another. Louise and Karen were livid.
    I didn’t even behave properly in Art. I wasn’t just being deliberately naughty. Art at Evergreen was deadly. There wasn’t a proper Art room so we were invited to sit in Miss Hamer-Cotton’s private sitting room, as if it was some sort of treat. It was a squash on her slippery sofa and our drawingboards kept nudging together. Tinkypoo prowled the carpet, cross because he couldn’t curl up on the cushions as usual.
    Miss Hamer-Cotton set up a still life on her glass table and said we could sketch it. I didn’t want to draw a boring old vase of flowers and an apple and a seashell. None of us did. We started whispering and doing little scribbles and playing noughts and crosses and Miss Hamer-Cotton got cross and said it was a waste of paper.
    The next Art session she said we weren’t old enough to do a proper still life and she handed round sheets of paper stencilled with drawings from a colouring book. She had wax crayons for the little ones and tiny packs of felt tips for us. There weren’t any paints at all. I suppose she didn’t want us making a mess on her carpet.
    I stared at the felt tips she’d given me. Red, yellow, blue, green, brown, and black. That was all. I thought of my lovely new set of felt tips, all colours of the rainbow.
    ‘Where are you going, Stella?’ said Miss Hamer-Cotton.
    ‘I’m just nipping upstairs to my dormi. I want to get my own felt tips,’ I said.
    ‘Oh yes, can I get mine too?’ asked Louise.
    ‘Can I borrow yours, Louise?’ said Karen.
    ‘It’s not fair, I didn’t bring mine with me,’ Janie moaned.
    ‘I’m not allowed to share mine, they’re Swiss and very expensive and you have to be careful of the tips,’ said Louise.
    ‘That’s not fair then, all their pictures will be better than mine,’ said Karen. ‘It’s not fair, is it, Miss Hamer-Cotton?’
    ‘You’re right, it’s not fair,’ said Miss Hamer-Cotton firmly. ‘Sit down, Stella. You’ll use the felt tip pens I’ve provided. You’ll all use them.’
    ‘But there aren’t enough colours,’ I moaned.
    ‘You’ll just have to be a bit imaginative,’ said Miss Hamer-Cotton.
    I decided to take her at her word. I’d been given a drawing of a Red Indian, a country landscape, and a comical pig. I coloured the Red Indian in red, giving him scarlet skin, scarlet hair, even scarlet teeth. He was the Reddest Indian ever. I