Free Glubbslyme by Jacqueline Wilson

the old shabby Barbie sulked in a corner. Sarah wanted to dress up the new Barbie and let her take part in a fashion parade. She lent the old Barbie to Rebecca and said she could join in the fashion parade too. Rebecca got bored with the fashion parade (Sarah bagged all the best clothes for the New Barbie) so she stripped Old Barbie naked and made her prance around being a nudist. Then she dressed her up in one of Sarah’s fur gloves and said she was a Cave Woman. She gave her a pencil spear and made her have a very exciting fight with a ferocious mammoth (a blue plush elephant) and a sabre-toothed tiger (a toy dog with two toothpicks stuck into his fur).
    Sarah decided that New Barbie might like to be a Cave Woman too and dressed her up in the other fur glove. They were trekking through the deep snows of the Ice Age (Rebecca had nipped down to the kitchen and found a bag of flour. She had tipped it out on a newspaper so as not to make a mess of the carpet, but it had spread rather a lot, and Sarah was looking a bit worried) when the doorbell rang.
    ‘Oh help, I hope that’s not my Mum,’ said Sarah.
    But it wasn’t Sarah’s Mum, it was Mandy.
    ‘Hi!’
    ‘I thought you said you were going into town to get some new shoes,’ said Sarah.
    ‘Well, I did. And now I’m back. So we can play after all,’ said Mandy.
    Rebecca didn’t say anything. She clenched her floury fists. So Sarah had only invited her round because Mandy couldn’t come.
    ‘What’s she doing here?’ said Mandy.
    ‘She’s come to play,’ said Sarah.
    ‘I’ve got to go now,’ said Rebecca.
    ‘Good,’ said Mandy. ‘What’s that white stuff you’ve got all over you?’
    ‘We were just messing around,’ said Sarah quickly. ‘Are those your new shoes?’
    ‘Yes, do you like them? Look, they’ve got real heels, see?’
    ‘Oh you lucky thing. I wanted ones like that but Mum wouldn’t let me. Look, Becky, aren’t they lovely?’
    Rebecca shrugged. They were wonderful grown-up shoes with pointy toes and elegant heels. They were the sort of shoes she longed to wear, but Dad always made her have clumpy old things for school and baby sandals for play. He said that fashionable shoes with real heels were very bad for growing feet.
    ‘My Dad says—’ she began, and then wanted to bite her tongue out.
    ‘My Dad says!’ Mandy shrieked, and even Sarah burst out laughing.
    ‘What does your Dad say, Parrot Face?’ sneered Mandy.
    ‘Never you mind,’ Rebecca mumbled. ‘I’m going now, Sarah. Bye.’
    ‘Don’t go, Becky,’ said Sarah. ‘We can all three play together.’
    ‘I don’t want to,’ said Rebecca.
    ‘I don’t want to play with Parrot-Face,’ said Mandy. ‘Here Sarah, try on my shoes?’
    Rebecca watched as Sarah undid her old trainers and stepped into the shiny black shoes. They looked a bit odd with her stripy socks but Sarah squealed in delight.
    ‘Aren’t they fantastic! Hey, look, I can walk in them – watch me.’ She wiggled backwards and forwards, her ankles wobbling.
    ‘Let’s have a go,’ said Rebecca.
    ‘Okay,’ said Sarah, taking off one of the shoes.
    But Mandy snatched it away.
    ‘ You’re not trying them on, Parrot Face. I don’t want them stretched right out of shape.’
    ‘See if I care,’ said Rebecca, although it was obvious to everyone that she did. ‘I’m going home.’
    ‘You keep saying that, but you don’t go,’ said Mandy, her hand on one hip.
    So Rebecca really had to go. She stamped home in her sandals and went straight up to her room and lay on her bed. She lay for about five minutes but it began to be boring and she was starting to feel hungry, so she decided to go down and make some lunch. She cheered herself up concocting a new kind of savoury Jumbo sandwich (with layers of peanut butter, cheese, and cold baked beans) and then she made a sweet Jumbo sandwich (with layers of demerara sugar, honey, and syrup) and went in search of Glubbslyme.
    She spotted him sunbathing in