Read Online Diamond Girls by Jacqueline Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

Bluebell,’ I whispered down my neck.
    The alleyway looked disappointingly ordinary and English. There was black creosote fencing the other side, and if I craned my neck like a meerkat I could see over a big gate into another back garden. It was very very different from my jungle garden. The grass was bright green and mowed into stripes. They looked as if they’d been drawn with a ruler. The beds of flowers were impossibly neat too, planted in a pattern, each plant so perfect I wondered if they might be plastic.
    Down at the end of the garden there was a swing. It looked very fancy, with a white canopy and a padded seat. I wondered how high you could swing on it. I
loved
swinging. Jude used to take me to the rec back at Bletchworth, but then all the junkies started hanging out there and so we had to stop going.
    I looked longingly at the swing. I could jump down off the wall, run across the alley, nip through the gate and jump on the swing. I pretended I was perched on that padded seat, rocking backwards and forwards.
    Then a little girl walked down the garden, straight to the swing. I blinked, wondering if I was making her up. No, she was real, a very clean, tidy little girl of about six. She had the neatest plaits tied with pink polka-dot hair ribbons, and a pink dress to match. I saw her knickers when she climbed on the swing. They were snowy white with pink lace round the legs. She had white socks too and white sandals. I saw the rubber soles as she started swinging. Even they were spotless. It was like she lived on another planet altogether where dirt had been banished.
    I jumped down off my wall and ran across the alley. I went to the gate and stuck my chin over the top.
    â€˜Hiya!’ I said.
    She was so startled she nearly fell straight off the swing. She looked back towards her house anxiously. It didn’t look real either. It was a big black and white house with a red pointy roof and flowers growing up a trellis in a regular pattern, like wallpaper.
    â€˜It’s all right! I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?’
    She stopped swinging, her chin on her chest. ‘Mary,’ she said, in this tiny little voice.
    â€˜I’m Dixie,’ I said. ‘And this is Bluebell.’
    She raised her head a little.
    â€˜Here she is,’ I said, holding Bluebell out on one finger over the gate.
    She sucked in her breath. ‘A little bird!’ she whispered.
    â€˜Yes, she’s my budgie. Want to stroke her?’
    Mary nodded. She slid off the swing and came over to the gate. I could see she’d been crying. Her blue eyes were very watery and her little lashes were spiky with tears. She sniffed, wiped her eyes carefully and then held up her hand. She had remarkably clean hands with pearly fingernails, as if she was fresh out of the bath. I wished my own fingernails weren’t so grimy. I noticed my cardie cuffs were grey too. I turned them over to hide the worst of the dirt.
    I dangled Bluebell over the fence. Mary could just about reach. She tickled the back of Bluebell’s head with one delicate little finger. Then she stopped, looking worried.
    â€˜Is it … dead?’
    â€˜What? No!’
    â€˜It’s cold like it’s dead. My kitten’s dead now.’
    â€˜Oh, how sad. Is that why you’re crying?’
    â€˜No, it died weeks ago. It got run over. It was my fault. I was very bad.’
    â€˜Why was it your fault?’
    â€˜Mummy said I left the front door open.’
    â€˜But you didn’t
mean
to.’
    â€˜No, I loved my kitten.’
    â€˜Did you have a funeral? I love funerals. I had this mouse once. It wasn’t really a pet mouse, but I caught it and kept it in a box. I tried to make it a special little mouse house and I fed it lots of cheese but it kept trying to eat the cardboard box instead. I should have let it go free but I really wanted a pet and so I kept it and then it died. I turned the house into a