Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1: Ugh!

  Chapter 2: The Worst Birthday Ever!

  Chapter 3: The Best Birthday Ever!

  Chapter 4: Traitors!

  Chapter 5: Muddy Heap

  Chapter 6: Detention, Yay!

  Chapter 7: Suzie’s Mansion

  Chapter 8: Sniffling

  Chapter 9: The F Factor

  Chapter 10: Forest Club

  Chapter 11: Scavenger Hunt!

  Chapter 12: A – ZZZZZZZZZZ

  Chapter 13: Shopping Centre Disaster!

  Chapter 14: Camping in the Mud

  Chapter 15: Ghost Stories

  Chapter 16: Actual Ghosts

  Chapter 17: Zipwire!

  Chapter 18: Moral Compass

  Chapter 19: Orienteering

  Chapter 20: Facing Fear in the Face

  Chapter 21: Home Sweet Home

  Appendix

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  Ugh!

  Ugh! Typical! Something just had to go wrong, didn’t it? And everything had been going so well since the beginning of term and the whole ‘Jake thing’.

  I mean, not getting on with Jake almost seems like a blip now!

  It’s weird to think how much I hated Jake at the beginning of the school year. Crazy weird! It’s like that Jake was a different person from this Jake. It’s so easy to judge a book by its cover …

  Now that I’ve got to know him properly he’s GREAT and nothing like I thought back in those early days.

  Me, Jake and Keziah are like a little gang now. Hard to believe, because I’ve never been in a gang before and also cos I never thought anyone could come between me and Keziah. We’ve practically been joined at the hip for the last two years.

  Before Keziah, I’d always been a bit of a loner. Mum says I was even like that at playgroup. All the other kids loved taking part in group activities, whereas I’d always be doing my own thing at the back of the classroom.

  These days, at school, that’s harder to do considering I sit right near the front.

  School is actually quite good at the moment. The head teacher, Mrs De Souza, is into science in a big way, so she’s got everyone interested in climate change and saving the planet, which personally I’m all for because it’s where I live.

  I watched this documentary the other day and it showed how harmful plastics can be. Get this – every day approximately eight million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into the sea. Eight million!!! That’s more plastic in the sea than there are people living in the whole of Scotland! Unbelievable!!!

  So since then I’ve been making the entire family ditch single-use plastic, start recycling and generally be more environmentally friendly.

  Keziah and Jake are both down with the whole eco-friendly thing too. Can you believe that a one-and-a-half-degree rise in average temperature will have an irreversible effect on our planet?! Loads of different species would be wiped out!

  And it would be no good for us humans either. The sea levels would rise, land would be lost and millions of people would be made homeless. How crazy! All because of one and a half degrees. It sounds like nothing!

  We try to be eco-friendly in everything we do now.

  Keziah even cycled over to mine today. Since she got her new bike, her dads let her ride over on her own at weekends, which is SO good – it’s like being an independent grown-up! We can practically spend all of Saturday AND Sunday together. Bliss!

  Thank goodness bikes don’t have carbon emissions like cars do.

  Roubi (my middle sister) has a friend whose dad owns an electric car, which is also really good as it doesn’t use any petrol. You plug it in to charge as though it’s a mobile phone or a tablet. How funny is that?!

  Roubi says it glides along without making any noise and often people don’t hear it coming! In the future, all cars will be electric. They’ll have to start making fake revving sounds or there’ll be a lot of squashed cats on the road!

  Anyhow, me and Keziah are sitting in the garden discussing what I should do for my upcoming birthday when who should jump over the fence but Bluey, the cat I share with Jake. She’s probably getting out the way of next door’s lawnmower.

  As well as sitting beside me at school, Jake is my next-door neighbour. Although I hated this at first, I’ve come to realise it’s actually quite a good thing. It’s useful for missed handouts, having someone to chat to on the walk home from school, checking homework and so on. It’s also nice to have a friend living so close by.

  We can hear Jake cutting the grass next door. His parents pay him to do it, and at quite a good rate too. He gets ten pounds for the back lawn and five pounds for the front, which is WAY smaller.

  If you were going on price per area, he gets a much better deal on the front lawn as it’s a tenth of the size!

  My parents don’t pay me to do anything. I’m just expected to do it all for free. Slave labour if you ask me!

  After Jake is finished, the three of us end up sitting in his back garden making friendship chains with all the freshly cut buttercups and daisies.

  ‘Did you know daisies and buttercups are actually weeds?’ Keziah pipes up.

  ‘My gran reckons a weed is just a plant in the wrong place,’ says Jake. ‘It’s only a weed if you don’t want it where it is.’

  I’ve never thought of it like that! But I suppose if a rare orchid grew in the middle of a football pitch then it kind of would be a weed – you certainly wouldn’t want it there disrupting the game!

  ‘My gran says you can tell if people like butter by holding a buttercup under their chin and seeing if it shines yellow,’ adds Keziah.

  She tries it out on us, confirming we all like butter. I couldn’t really add anything to the ‘what our grannies say about buttercups and weeds’ conversation as my nani lives in Bangladesh and I’m not sure that buttercups and daisies even grow there. Plus, she doesn’t speak any English or even have Skype.

  My mum gets long letters from her every now and then but I have no idea of her views on wildflowers. Although I could always add my own views to this conversation …

  ‘The buttercup test is rubbish!’ I declare. They stare at me so I have to back it up.

  ‘It makes it seem like everyone loves butter, but surely not everyone in the whole world can!’ I continue. ‘What about people with a dairy intolerance?’

  ‘Buttercups are so shiny because they’re trying to attract insects to pollinate them from a huge distance,’ I explain to Jake and Keziah.

  After I say it, I instantly realise how square I sound – it’s like I just swallowed a textbook!

  Luckily it seems to impress Jake, who remarks, ‘With knowledge like that you should go on popular TV quiz show Brainbusters!’ We all laugh.

  It’s starting to get dark outside and Keziah suggests we go in. Keziah has been scared of the dark ever since I can remember. She still sleeps with a night light on whereas I need pitch-black darkness. The first time I stayed over at her house, I couldn’t sleep at all because of her annoying night light.

  I can remember watching her Winnie-the-Pooh alarm clock and counting down the hours till morning. I’ve got used to sleeping at hers since then.

  ‘Nah, let’s stay out longer,’ says Jake. ‘You’ve got to conquer your fears face-on.’

  ‘Bet, you wouldn’t think that if you were scared of something,’ I say.

  ‘Nothing scares me,’ he replies defiantly.

  ‘Everyone’s scared of something,’ says Keziah. ‘Now please can we go inside?’

  After some protesting by Jake that his room is too
messy for visitors and that the beautiful outdoors should be appreciated at night, he finally relents. We sneak past his mum, who is watching the news, and head up to his bedroom. Jake’s mum hasn’t met Keziah before so if she’d seen us, we’d never have got away – she’d have had her chatting for AGES.

  As we head upstairs, I notice a load of half-packed suitcases in Jake’s parents’ bedroom. Keziah asks him if they’re going away and Jake tells us that his dad is taking his little brother on a trip to Disneyland as a treat for his birthday. Jake’s family are SO cool. We NEVER do stuff like that in our family. I can’t imagine getting a trip to Disneyland as a birthday present. That would be off the scale!

  Jake’s bedroom is so much fun to hang out in. It’s really cosy with dark walls plastered with posters over every square centimetre, and a soft, thickly carpeted floor. There are loads of gadgets and gizmos too, including a brand-new Aliana Tiny karaoke machine. Jake is currently obsessed with Aliana Tiny – he has all her music and can do all the dance moves from all her videos.

  Jake’s a really good dancer but me and Keziah are both rubbish. Unlike most kids our age, we’re not really into Aliana Tiny. She’s playing Wembley Stadium soon and all the tickets sold out in the FIRST HOUR! They’re pretty much like gold dust.

  Jake’s dad loves taking him to gigs. Maybe he’s already snapped up a pair!

  We plonk ourselves down on Jake’s bed. Jake has a DOUBLE bed, which is pure luxury. He reckons it’s because he has to give up his room if relatives come to stay, but that’s probably only once a year so he really is getting a good deal. No one else in our class has their OWN double bed. Not even Suzie Ashby. A double bed wouldn’t even fit in my room!

  Keziah looks around. ‘Wow! You have so much stuff,’ she says. ‘All this plastic can’t be good for the environment!’

  ‘But it’s not single use, like a carrier bag or drinking straw,’ Jake protests. ‘None of this is going in the bin any time soon.’

  ‘True,’ smiles Keziah. ‘I’ve never seen so much stuff though. Your room is like Aladdin’s cave!’

  ‘Just birthday presents and bits and pieces that have built up over the years,’ he replies.

  That reminds me … I have to decide what I’m doing for my birthday. I never usually do anything but this one’s the big 1-0. I’ll be an entire decade old! One tenth of a century! Double figures! We all get thinking of a good way to celebrate.

  ‘When is it exactly?’ asks Jake.

  ‘Two Saturdays’ time,’ I say.

  ‘Isn’t that when Suzie Ashby’s birthday party is?’ Jake replies. ‘Apparently she’s inviting everyone in the class. I heard her telling Alison Denbigh. She reckons she’s even getting a party planner.’

  Keziah bursts out laughing. ‘What? That’s a bit grand, isn’t it!? Where’s she holding it? The Ritz?!’

  Ugh! Suzie Ashby is having a party with the whole class at the Ritz – on MY birthday. How can I compete with that? I’ll have to think of something … and fast …

  CHAPTER 2

  The Worst Birthday Ever!

  Suzie Ashby is stealing my birthday. There are 364 other days in the year on which she could’ve had her party. But oh no, she has to go and choose the one day of the year that is MY BIRTHDAY. What are the odds?

  I spend the whole of the next day racking my brains about how to celebrate my birthday. I’d usually be quite happy just going to the cinema with Keziah and Jake and getting pizza afterwards, but Suzie was setting the bar really high here. How could I settle for pizza when she was throwing a BIG soirée?

  Was she really gonna invite the whole class? That’s thirty kids! To be honest, I could imagine her inviting the whole year group – all sixty of us! And not because she’s kind or generous but because she’s a show-off. She just wants to look good in front of everyone.

  It’s all about image with Suzie …

  I’m going to have to come up with something brilliant now. Thanks a bunch, Suze!

  Dad suggests having a few people over to our house for party games.

  ‘I’m not turning five,’ I protest. ‘We can’t play pass the parcel or pin the tail on the donkey!’

  What was he thinking?! Party games indeed. I sit in the kitchen pondering the matter while Roubi makes herself some toast and Dad leafs through the local paper.

  ‘How about a bouncy castle?’ he suggests. ‘There’s a 40 per cent off voucher for bouncy castle hire in here.’

  To be honest, I do still love a good bouncy castle but it is maybe a bit babyish for my tenth birthday party.

  ‘Ugh! Next you’ll be suggesting I go to a soft play centre,’ I reply sarcastically. ‘I’m over halfway to becoming an adult now, you do realise? I need to celebrate like an adult.’

  ‘What?’ chuckles Dad. ‘Going to a disco till past midnight? I don’t think so!’

  Well, I didn’t mean celebrate like an actual adult. I meant some sort of outing or themed party as opposed to musical bumps and jammy dodgers. When Nahid (my eldest sister) finished high school, her whole year group had a leavers’ ‘sun, sea and surf’ party. Everyone wore beach dresses and Hawaiian shirts and there were even fake palm trees, a barbecue and fruit cocktails. Apparently they limbo-danced and played volleyball. THAT’S IT! I’ll do that!

  But it’s not summer, so everyone would freeze …

  Waaah! At this rate Keziah and Jake would be the only two coming – and they’re only coming cos I made them promise me they would. I mean, they’d be real traitors if they went to Suzie’s over mine. I reckon Axel would probably come as well. Axel sits next to Keziah at school. We didn’t really know him at the beginning of term and thought he was a bit strange, but actually he’s really funny. He’s a good judge of character so he definitely wouldn’t want to go to Suzie’s.

  Roubi sits down at the table to eat her toast as Dad chucks his newspaper out.

  ‘This paper is full of adverts and no news!’ he declares, throwing it into the bin.

  ‘Recycling, Dad,’ I sigh. ‘Put it in the recycling bin!’ He always puts paper and plastics in the main bin. When will he learn?

  ‘You should have a “Save the Planet” party, Cookie,’ suggests Roubi. ‘That would be really fun and a worthwhile theme too. Better still, you’re genuinely into it.’

  Genius! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll have a ‘Save the Planet’ party. Everything will be sustainable – no plastic whatsoever. Paper plates, paper cups, paper drinking straws and even paper decorations! Instead of goody bags I’ll give out packets of seeds so people can plant more trees!!

  This idea is coming together already and we’ve only just thought of it! All the food would be vegetarian – meat is a real eco no-no. Luckily, I don’t eat pork anyway so I’m part of the way there.

  I could even encourage people to walk or cycle to the party, and I could give all the leftover food to the homeless.

  The invites could be emailed out so as not to waste paper. Although I’m not allowed on any social media, our school is really into science and technology so it has its very own email network. I can’t wait to message everyone about my party – there’ll be such a buzz!

  Yippee! My first proper birthday party! Up until now I’ve always just done low-key stuff with a few people. Times are changing!

  At school on Monday morning, there’s a bright pink envelope on everyone’s desks. I look down at mine. On the front it says ‘Cookie Haque’ in large swirly gold writing.

  Ugh! I know exactly what this is. I pull out a glossy pink plastic invitation and a multicoloured cloud of glitter explodes all over my desk. I open it and am greeted by a pop-up image of Suzie grinning with the words ‘Happy Birthday to Me!’ printed underneath. Ewww!

  I scan the room for Suzie.

  ‘Hey, Suzie,’ I yell in her direction. ‘What a coincidence – my party is on the same day as your party. We’re birthday buddies!’

  Suzie turns as pink as her invite. ‘My birthday’s actually on the Wednesday before so I�
�m actually older than you and we’re not actually birthday buddies,’ she says.

  ‘How come your party is on the same day as mine anyway? I didn’t get an invite!’

  ‘My birthday is actually on that day and my invites are going out by email as it’s more environmentally friendly,’ I say smugly. ‘You see, it’s a “Save the Planet” party.’

  Suzie turns even pinker and splutters, ‘Errr, yeah, I mean no, I mean … no way, so is mine.’

  There is NOTHING on her invite saying ‘Save the Planet’ party. She’s just made it up on the spot to compete with me!

  Her birthday isn’t even on that day, she’s hired out the most un-eco-friendly fast-food joint AND her invite is made of plastic. But I can’t accuse her of being a liar – not in front of the whole class.

  I mean, Suzie is the least environmentally friendly person I can think of! Everything about her says destroy the planet, not save it.

  At lunch, I report the whole thing to my dinner lady buddy, Selina.

  ‘I’ll come to your party,’ she reassures me, ‘and I can bring my grandchildren if you need to make up the numbers. I have forty-seven in total. Or is it forty-eight?’

  She probably would as well …