Amazon.co.uk Review
India lives in the lap of luxury on a posh housing estate. Her mum is a famous children's clothes designer and her dad is top man at a top company. But India is far from happy with her life. Her uptight anorexic mother does little to hide her disappointment in her chubby offspring, and her dad is decidedly distracted these days, so India follows in the footsteps of her heroine Anne Frank and reveals all in her secret diary.
Treasure lives in a council flat with her glamorous, line-dancing Nan but is scared she may one day have to go back to live with her mum. She, too, keeps a diary but hers is called the Terrible Terry Torture Manual and is filled with all the things she would like to do to get her own back on her bullying stepfather.
Treasure, the floppy-haired stringbean, and India, the rotund red-head, meet by chance and against the odds forge a friendship that is tested to the limit when Treasure runs away to avoid having to go and live with her mum and Terry again. The frightened little girl takes refuge in her new best friend's attic, while India relishes the chance to take care of a real Anne Frank...
Told via alternating entries from the two very different diaries, Secrets brimms with the stuff of pre-teen childhood (best friends, secrets, diaries and the allure of other people's families) while cleverly combining the swift realism of class barriers, broken homes and society's deep rooted suspicions.
Wilson does it again in a book that will undoubtedly win her new fans, but will also be warmly welcomed by anyone who has read The Illustrated Mum, The Story of Tracy Beaker, Vicky Angel, The Bed and Breakfast Star or any of the other superb award-winning titles this remarkable author has tucked safely under her belt. Age 8 and over. --Susan Harrison
Review
Book Description
Product Description
From the Back Cover
'I keep a diary, too,' said India, and then she blushed.
Treasure and India are two girls with very different backgrounds. As an unlikely but deep friendship develops between them, they keep diaries, inspired by their heroine, Anne Frank. Soon the pages are filled with the details of their most serious secret ever.
A superbly moving novel for older readers from the prize-winning author of The Illustrated Mum and The Story of Tracy Beaker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Excerpted from Secrets by Jacqueline Wilson. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This is the start of my whole new life. I am never going home. I don’t ever want to see Mum again. Or Bethany or Kyle or grizzly little Gary. And I especially don’t ever, ever, ever want to see Terry.
This notebook used to be the Official Terry Torture Manual. I invented a brand-new torture for him every day. It was a lot of fun. But then sneaky Bethany found the notebook under my pillow and showed it to him. He turned the pages very slowly, taking in all my carefully coloured diagrams of torture machines. I’d spent hours on the Terrible Tooth Tweaker and the Excrutiating Ear Enlarger and the Beastly Big Bum-Basher.
Terry looked at them. He nodded. He drew in his breath. Then he ripped the pages out and tore them up into tiny pieces. It was obvious he wanted to tear me into tiny pieces too.
Mum tried to turn it into a joke and pretended it was just my warped sense of humour.
‘That kid of yours is warped all right,’ said Terry. He stood up and unbuckled the heavy leather belt round his jeans. ‘She needs teaching a lesson once and for all.’
Mum tried to laugh him out of it, acting like he was just kidding. She said he didn’t really mean it. He was just trying to scare me. We were all scared. When he raised the belt Mum yelled at me to run for it. I didn’t run fast enough. He got me on the side of my head and broke my glasses and cut me all down my forehead.
Mum cried. Bethany cried because it was all her fault. Kyle cried too though he likes to make out he’s so tough. Gary cried, but that’s nothing new. I didn’t cry. I stood there with blood trickling down into my eyes and I clenched my fists and stared straight at Terry. He looked a bit fuzzy without my specs but he’s got these really cold green eyes that you can’t miss. I focused on them. Staring him out. He was the one who broke first. He looked away, ducking his head like he was ashamed.
He went straight out down the pub even though Nan and Loretta and her little Britney and Willie and Patsy were coming round for tea. It was all laid out on the living-room table: ham sandwiches and sausage rolls and leftover chocolate log and mince pies and fruit cake, though Kyle and I had nicked most of the icing. Bethany’s off sweet stuff at the moment because she thinks she’s fat. Well she is. I annoy her no end because I eat heaps and stay thin as a pin. Mum says it’s my nervous energy.
No wonder I get nervous living with Terry.
But I don’t live with him any more, hurray, hurray, hurray! He did me a huge favour hitting me with his belt. Nan took one look at me and went white.
‘My God, Treasure, what have they done to you?’
I just shrugged. I’m not a tell-tale like some people. Bethany and Kyle and Mum held their breath. Even little Gary stopped grizzling.
My nan’s not daft.
‘Terry did it, didn’t he?’ she said.
Her voice was very quiet in the hushed room. She looked round, her eyes flashing.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s out, Mum. But it wasn’t really Terry’s fault. It was an accident.’
‘Accident my bottom,’ said Nan.
Well, she said something ruder and more alliterative. We have learnt about alliteration at school. I am Top Girl. Which isn’t hard because heaps of our kids have got problems. Our school has got a bad name. But I won’t have to go to it any more. I shall go to a school near my nan’s. I am living with her now.
I can’t believe it! Oh, I love my nan sooooo much. She got it all sorted. She made me stand under the light in the living room and gently pushed back my sticky fringe and peeled off the plasters Mum had stuck on. Nan swore again when she saw the size of the cut.
‘Go and get your coat, Treasure,’ she said quietly.
‘What are you on about, Mum?’ said my mum.
‘We’re off,’ said Nan. She nodded at the rest of the family. ‘Come on. We’ll have tea back at our place, once we’ve taken Treasure up the hospital.’
‘Hospital?’ Mum whispered.
‘She needs stitches, Tammy. How did he do it? Did he knife her?’
‘No, no, it was an accident, his belt—’
‘His belt,’ said Nan. She hugged me tight. ‘Right. Bethany, you get yourself upstairs with a big carrier bag and get Treasure’s clothes packed. She’s staying with me from now on.’
We all stared at Nan.
‘Jump to it, Bethany!’ Nan commanded.
‘Yes, Nan,’ said Bethany, jumping. She’s not her nan but she does as Nan tells her. We all do.
‘You can’t, Mum,’ said my mum, starting to cry.
I thought she meant I couldn’t stay with Nan. I nearly cried then, because I didn’t want Mum to feel I was walking out on her. She needed me. She’s useless at keeping Bethany and Kyle under control and she doesn’t always get up for Gary in the night. And then there’s Terry. He hits her too.
I decided maybe I should stay.
But it turned out she didn’t mean that at all.
