Read Online Little Darlings by Jacqueline Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

but she opened her blue eyes wide and pursed her little rosebud lips and clasped one of my fingers in the cutest way, already playing to the camera.
    When we were done at last, and the photographer and his assistant were packing up all the weird white dishes and silver paper and endless cameras and stands and batteries and cables, I went and knelt by the doll’s house. I woke Mrs Furry and she trailed wretchedly round each room, kissing each bedknob on the bed, the woolly edges of the rug, the rings of the cooker. She even bent down and kissed the toilet.
    â€˜What’s she doing? Is she being sick?’ asked Mark, kneeling down beside me.
    I blushed in case he thought I was being rude. ‘She’s saying goodbye to the house,’ I whispered.
    â€˜Doesn’t she want to live there any more?’
    â€˜Yes, it’s her absolute dream home!’ I said, which made him laugh.
    â€˜Then tell her she can stay there. It looks like the doll’s house is yours to keep.’
    â€˜Really!’
    â€˜We tried to hire it, but it was going to cost so much we bought it outright. I don’t see the point of lumbering it back to the studio. You keep it, sweetie.’
    I thought for one stomach-churning moment that he meant it was my baby sister’s doll’s house. ‘I’m not Sweetie, I’m Sunset,’ I said, crestfallen.
    â€˜I know, darling. I call everyone sweetie.’ He very gently pinched the end of my nose. ‘And you’re a total sweetie.’
    Oh, I loved Mark so much. For a long time I pretended that he and I lived in the pink and white house together, with Mrs Furry as our housekeeper.
    Mum bought me two doll’s house dolls but I never liked them very much. They had china heads and stiff white cloth bodies so they couldn’t sit down properly. I had to prop them up or let themlie flat on the floor as if they’d suddenly fainted. They were dressed in Victorian clothes, the lady in a purple crinoline and the man in a grey frock coat and pinstripe trousers. Mum said I should call them Victoria and Albert. I didn’t really want to. It made them seem stiffer and stranger than ever. I started having bad dreams about six-foot monster dolls with painted heads and staring eyes, ready to fell me with one flick of their stiffly stuffed arms. I banished Victoria and Albert to the very bottom of my sock-and-knicker drawer.
    I invited the next-size-up teddy into the doll’s house to keep Mrs Furry company. This was Mr Fat Bruin, a tubby bear with a big smile who told jolly stories, especially after I’d given him a drink out of a miniature liqueur bottle.
    I decided Mrs Furry and Mr Fat Bruin might like some children, so I gave them Chop Suey, a tiny Chinese cat permanently waving his paw, and Trotty, a pink glass horse, and a baby, Peanut, specially made out of pink Plasticine.
    Mum got cross with me when she found me playing with my new family.
    â€˜Why are you cluttering up your lovely doll’s house with all this
junk
? I bought you proper dollies to play with. These silly things aren’t
dolls
. They look all wrong. They’re too big or too little.And you know I hate you playing with Plasticine – it gets everywhere.’ She squeezed Peanut, mangling her terribly.
    I said I was sorry and agreed I was silly and took my family out of the doll’s house – but as soon as Mum had gone out of the room I brought them all back. I asked Mrs Furry to stand by the stove to cook them my favourite meal of sausage and mash and baked beans. Mr Fat Bruin flopped on the sofa with a tiny folded-up scrap of newspaper. Chop Suey played marbles with tiny beads. Trotty did her ballet exercises wearing a wisp of pink feather. I tenderly moulded Peanut back into shape and tucked her up in her matchbox cot. I’d keep my family safe and splendidly housed no matter what.
    They still live in the doll’s house now, years and years later.