Free Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson Page B

sweetiepops, you can run riot in your dungies. It doesn’t matter a bit if you get them dirty,’ said Big Mo.
    But I didn’t want to get them dirty. I sat cross-legged in a corner, head bent, chatting to the teddy bear. I pretended he was a real bear cub called Cuddly, and Bluebell, Daffodil, Violet and Rose took turns looking after him, feeding him honey and brushing his fur and taking him for walks on a silver chain lead.
    â€˜That little kid April is a right nutter! Always talking to herself. Whisper, whisper, whisper. What a little weirdo!’ said the boys. Sometimes they barged into me on purpose when they were playing football. Once they tipped me upside down and my flower girls got scattered and Daffodil got trodden on, mud all over her yellow dress, and Rose lost a leg and had to make do with a crayoned pink prosthesis for the rest of her days.
    I got teased when I tried to talk to the boys. I didn’t understand about accents. I just knew I talked differently from the others. I suppose I talked like Mummy. I hadn’t realized it before but this niminy-piminy way of talking seriously annoyed everyone. Even the word ‘Mummy’, which I called Big Mo once by mistake, sent everyone into hoots of laughter. I was mocked for days. The boys called me Posh-Nob and Swanky-Pants.
    There was only one other girl at first and she sometimes copied the boys but she didn’t mean to be nasty. Esme cheerfully copied everyone. She was much older than me, nearly grown-up, but she had Down’s syndrome so she stayed like a little girl in lots of ways. I could already read but Esme couldn’t get the hang of it, so I sometimes read her stories. Sometimes I made up my own stories for her, telling her my flower girls’ current adventures. Esme was enchanted. She kept asking me where I got my stories
from
, not understanding they came out of my own head.
    â€˜The stories are in here,’ I said.
    â€˜Show me!’ said Esme, hooking my hair behind my ear and peering hard as if she could see right inside.
    She liked my long hair, running her podgy fingers through it like a clumsy comb. Esme’s own hair was cut short. It hung limp and brown either side of her flat face. I wondered if she knew she wasn’t pretty. Out of earshot of Big Mo some of the boys called her nasty names but she didn’t seem to take it to heart.
    We played together a lot. I sometimes stopped talking in my own voice and copied Esme, using her easy short sentences. I spoke like this at my new school too and my teacher had a word with Big Mo.
    I don’t know whether it was because they were worried about me and my development but in a matter of weeks Big Mo and Little Pete started fostering another girl.
    â€˜She’s called Pearl. She’s a couple of years older than you, April, and seems a little sweetheart in spite of everything. She’s had a very bad time too, poor little pet. I think she’ll be a good friend for you,’ said Big Mo.
    â€˜I’ve got a friend,’ I mumbled, but they didn’t seem to count Esme, and they didn’t know about Bluebell, Violet, Daffodil and limping Rose.
    Pearl was supposed to be my friend now. She had black hair, big blue eyes and pearly teeth to match her name, the biggest whitest teeth I’d ever seen – all the better to bite me. She did too – but when Big Mo spotted the ring of purple toothmarks on my arm I said I’d bitten myself. I knew if I told on Pearl she’d inflict far more damage when we were alone together.
    My heart still thuds when I think about her. Pearl was far, far more scary than any drunk in the cemetery.
    Big Mo took Pearl and Esme and me out on Saturdays. We went to a film once,
Beauty and the Beast
. Esme loved the talking teapot and screamed with laughter every time it was on the screen . I didn’t laugh. I didn’t cry either – though Pearl wrenched my fingers backward in the dark and spat