Lola Rose

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781407045689

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LOLA ROSE

A CORGI BOOK 978 0 552 55613 2

First published in Great Britain by Doubleday an imprint of Random House Children's Books

Doubleday edition published 2003

First Corgi Yearling edition published 2004

This Corgi Yearling edition published 2007

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 2003

Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 2003

The right of Jacqueline Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

I wonder if you've ever wished you were someone else? If you had a different name, would you take on a whole new identity? Jayni in this book is mousy and doesn't have many friends and she often gets scared. She has good reason to be scared too, because her dad can suddenly lose his temper and become terrifyingly violent. He beats Nicky, Jayni's mum, but then one day he knocks Jayni to the ground too, and that gives them the courage to run away from him.

Nicky and Jayni and little brother Kenny hide in London, starting a new life with the aid of a lucky lottery ticket. They feel their luck has changed. Nicky calls herself Vicky Luck now, Kenny swops his name to Kendall, and Jayne selects the most glamorous name she can find for herself, Lola Rose. She feels instantly more stylish, the sort of girl who isn't scared of anything.

But I'm afraid there are all sorts of scary things still ahead of poor Lola Rose. Vicky gets breast cancer and is very ill. I'd wondered about writing a book where a mum gets cancer but I'd always worried that it might be too upsetting. Several lovely girls have written to me in the past, saying how scared they were when their mums were diagnosed with cancer. One girl wrote ‘Promise me my mum will get better.' I longed to be able to do this, but you can't promise in this sort of situation. I just said I very very much hoped she would get better, and told her truthfully that two dear friends of mine have had breast cancer and made complete recoveries. Then a mother undergoing treatment for cancer wrote to me asking if I'd ever thought of writing about it. She told me the effect it was having on her two daughters, and said they longed for a book that dealt with this subject. So I met them and we talked things over and I said I'd do my best.

I've certainly tried really hard with
Lola Rose
. It's one of the books closest to my heart. I even forced myself to stand in front of the shark tank for an hour at the London Aquarium, and I don't like them any more than Lola Rose! I give my poor little Luck family a horrible time in the book – but then I send them Auntie Barbara. She's one of my all-time favourite characters, she's so kind and cheerful and caring. She'll look after Lola Rose and Kenny and Vicky and keep them safe, no matter what.

Have you ever wondered what you'd do if you won the lottery?

My mum won. She did, really. OK, she didn't win the jackpot. We don't live in a great big mansion. I wouldn't want to even if Mum had won megamillions. I'd hate to live in a big house with heaps of rooms. You'd never be able to keep track of everyone. Someone could be creeping along the corridor ready to get you and you'd never know.

I'd like a really small house. A caravan would be even better. It could be ultra-luxurious, with purple velvet fitted sofas and matching purple curtains and purple satin sheets on the bunk beds. We could even have a huge purple glass plate piled high with big purple bars of Cadbury's milk chocolate for us to nibble on any time we fancy. But it would have this never-fail alarm system if anyone approached. Then I'd strap Kenny and me to the sofa and Mum would jump in the purple Ferrari permanently hooked to the caravan and whizz us off to safety at hundreds of miles an hour.

Mum didn't win the lottery on the television. She won with a scratch card. I'm not talking ten pounds though.
Ten thousand!

She looked at the card in the street and she gave this great whoop. She picked my little brother Kenny up and whirled him round and round until he squealed. She couldn't pick me up too because my mum's quite little and I'm big for my age, but she gave me a huge hug and kissed me on both cheeks and then on the tip of my nose too, which made me giggle.

‘Right, let's get back inside the shop,' she said. ‘We're going to spend spend spend! Only don't tell old Sid behind the counter. He's such a gossip he'll tell everyone on the whole estate and then the next time we're down the pub we'll be buying drinks all round for people we haven't met before.'

‘Right, Mum,' I said. I gave Kenny a little nudge. ‘Are you taking this in, chum? Keep that little lip zipped.'

Kenny giggled and acted out zipping his lip. Then we went back in the shop.

‘Come for another scratch card, Nikki?' said old Sid, shaking his head. ‘You mums and your lottery cards!'

‘Yeah, right, tragic, isn't it?' said Mum. ‘And no one round here ever wins, do they?'

She caught my eye and grinned. Kenny grinned too. He opened his mouth.

‘
Zip!
' I hissed, and hustled him over to the ice-cream cabinet.

‘I've decided to pack in buying scratch cards altogether,' said Mum. ‘So I'm going to spend my lottery money on treats for the kids. OK, Jayni, Kenny, what are you having?'

I chose a white Magnum and a tube of Rolos and a packet of marshmallows and a giant bar of Cadbury's fruit and nut and a bottle of Coke and a
Girltalk
and a
Doll Collector
and a
Puppies and Kittens
because they all have good pictures for my scrapbook.

Kenny chose a small red ice lolly and a
Thomas the Tank Engine
comic.

‘You can have more than that, Kenny. Anything. Sweets, chocolate, more comics, whatever you want.'

‘I don't want whatever. I want my lolly and my comic, like always,' said Kenny.

‘But you can choose
more
, Kenny.'

‘I can't choose,' said Kenny, starting to sound upset.

‘Oh, leave him be, Jayni,' said Mum.

She had no problem choosing a
Hello!
and an
OK!
and a
Cosmo
and a big fat
Vogue
and a bottle of diet Coke and a large pack of posh ciggies.

‘I thought you were buying treats for the kids,' said Sid.

‘Yeah, well, I'm a kid at heart too,' said Mum, paying him.

She used up nearly all the money in her purse but she'd get the £10,000 soon and then we'd be laughing.

‘I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky,' Mum sang, to the old Kylie song. She did a little dance, shaking her hips and sticking her chest out, twirling Sid's carrier bag full of goodies. She took Kenny's hand and mine and made us dance too, even though it was hard for us to hang onto our ice creams. Kenny nearly stuck his lolly up his nose every time he tried to take a lick.

A lorry driver hooted when he saw Mum dancing. He yelled something and Mum laughed and waggled her bum at him.

I just love it when Mum laughs. She tosses her soft blonde hair and opens her mouth and shows all her lovely white teeth. They're little and even and pearly white even though she smokes lots of fags. She doesn't have any fillings. I've got five already.