Free Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson

stop screaming and Dad said, “Let ME hold him,” and he patted Eggs on the back and Eggs was amazingly, copiously sick all down Dad’s posh suit.
    7. WETTEST PARTY: the picnic party in Wales when it drizzled most of the time, and then positively tipped down in stair rods. Dopey Dan looks even less fetching with his anorak hood up!
    8. NEXT-TO-WORST PARTY: my birthday party just after Dad and Anna got together and I kept arguing about the games and hated the birthday cake even though Anna had made it in a special blue elephant shape and I started flicking bits of it about and got told off and I complained and then I cried in front of everyone.
    9. WORST PARTY: Adam’s party!

six letters
    Dear Dan,
    I went to a great party on Saturday night. A real rave-up.
    I danced.
    I drank.
    I socialized.
    I didn’t get home till dawn.
    Dear Dan,
    I am a liar. You should see my tongue. We always used to say when we were little that you got black spots on your tongue if you told a lie. Mine is black as coal all over. It was a truly terrible party if you really want to know. So mind-bogglingly awful that I phoned my dad to come and get me early.
    I felt so STUPID. There are all these long fussing articles in the papers about the teenagers of today and how they’re all into drink and drugs and snogging everything in sight. Well, I am leading the most dull dreary demure life imaginable. And it’s dead boring.
    I feel sort of OUT of things. Like I don’t belong anywhere. Do you ever get that feeling? Of course you don’t. You’re a boy, you obviously don’t know what it’s like. You don’t ever have to worry about how you look and what you wear and whether you’re popular.
    I don’t know why I’m writing all this rubbish. It’s just it’s late at night and I can’t sleep and I’m feeling so fed up and there’s no one I can really talk to, so hard luck, Dan, I’m rabbiting on to you. I’ve always had my two best friends, Magda and Nadine, to talk to—but it’s sort of different now. I’m still friends with Magda but she’s such a jokey lively fun sort of girl she doesn’t always understand if I’m feeling depressed. And she’s got this boyfriend Greg who she’s seeing quite a lot of. She’s not THAT keen on him—but he’s OK. They were at this awful party but it was all right for them because they could just sit in a corner by themselves and snog. Magda initiated the embrace. She just pounced and Greg was powerless. But he didn’t seem to mind. Well, he wouldn’t. Magda is a pretty stunning girl.
    Usually if I’m feeling low I confide in my other friend Nadine, who is a naturally gloomy sort of girl. Nadine and I have been best friends ever since we were tiny tots. We even used to dress alike and pretend we were twins (which was a little dopey as I’ve always been small and round with frizzy hair and Nadine is tall and thin with dead-straight hair, but we never let that deter us.) But now . . . she’s got this boyfriend Liam and he’s much older and Nadine thinks he’s so cool and yet I think he’s a creep because of the way he treats her, expecting her to do all sorts of stuff—well, YOU know—and Nadine told me all this and I told Magda and Magda told Nadine she was an idiot and Nadine stopped talking to us and she still won’t make it up and I’m dead worried about her. And I’m worried about my dad and my stepmother because right this minute they’re having an argument in their bedroom. I can hear them even though they’re whispering. I don’t know why they’re having all these rows. They used to get on so well together. In fact when Anna first came to live with us I used to hope they WOULD fight, I used to do my best to wind Anna up and kept telling tales on her to Dad. Not because I absolutely hated her. In fact, she’s OK, really. Well, most of the time. But she’s my stepmother and I never wanted any kind of substitute mum, because mine was the best in the world.
    I’m not going to