Free Drama Queen by Susannah McFarlane

It was late Saturday afternoon. Emma threw her gym bag in the cupboard and raced to her room. She had performed her best beam routine ever and she wanted to write about it in her diary before she forgot how she felt. She went straight to the secret spot under her beanbag and reached underneath. There was nothing there. Emma scrunched her nose and frowned as she picked the beanbag right up off the floor and shook it hard. The diary had to be there; she’d put it back carefully that morning, she was sure of it. But it wasn’t.
    Perhaps she’d forgotten to put it back in itsusual place? Emma looked on her desk and under her bed. But there was still no diary. What had happened to it or, she suddenly thought, what had someone done to it? Had someone found it and taken it? Emma’s mind raced. Who has taken my diary? This needed investigating, now. She stomped out of her room.
    â€˜Someone has taken my diary,’ she yelled to no one in particular, now convinced that this was what had happened to her diary. No one answered.
    She continued stomping down the hallway and stopped outside her brother Bob’s bedroom. Emma looked in through the open door and there, in the middle of the floor, on a pile of disgustingly dirty clothes, was her diary. Open.
    â€˜No!’ cried Emma, horrified, but, as she went to pick up the diary, she saw it was even worse. There were muddy, smudgy marks all over the page and one of the corners was torn. ‘It’s ruined!’ Emma gasped. ‘Did Bob do this?’
    Emma, her face nearly scarlet with anger, raced into the kitchen where Bob, still in his dirty soccergear, was drinking a glass of milk. Dad was stirring the pasta and Mum was reading the newspaper. Emma looked from Bob in his muddy soccer kit to the dirty pages of her diary, found in his room. She was right; it was Bob who’d taken it.
    Emma exploded. ‘Look at this!’ she shouted. Mum, Dad and Bob spun around, looking slightly alarmed. ‘It’s ruined, completely ruined. I won’t be able to use it ever again! And,’ she added, yelling and looking straight at Bob, ‘it’s all your fault!’
    â€˜What?’ said Bob, his mouth hanging open. ‘What is?’
    â€˜Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!’ cried Emma.
    â€˜I don’t need to pretend, I don’t have any idea what you are talking about,’ replied Bob. ‘Mum, Dad, I promise I don’t.’
    â€˜You, you, you— brother!’ Emma spluttered in fury. ‘You’ve ruined my diary!’
    â€˜I didn’t even know you had a diary,’ said Bob.
    â€˜You did so! And you found my secret hiding spot and now you’ve ruined it with your dirty footy boots or your dirty hands or your, your dirty something. It’s not fair, why do you have to be so mean?’ Emma’s eyes were watering and she was angry, so angry that she didn’t notice that Bob was looking blankly at her, completely confused. She kept going. ‘And you read it and you put your stupid muddy football mud all over it! And then you...’
    â€˜I did not,’ said Bob flatly. ‘And, anyway, when would I have done it? I’ve been at soccer all afternoon.’
    Emma ignored him and turned to her parents. ‘Mum! Dad! Say something!’
    â€˜I was hoping you might calm down a bit first,’ said Dad.
    â€˜How can I be calm? My stupid brother has ruined my diary!’
    â€˜Are you sure Bob took it?’ he said, peering over at the diary. Continuing in an irritatingly calm voice, he added, ‘Are you sure it is ruined? It looks like onlya few little spots and I reckon we could—’
    Emma broke in, not giving him a chance to finish.
    â€˜They’re not little spots, they’re huge dirty spots and they are right across the page, probably the most important page in the whole book!’ cried Emma. ‘It is ruined,