Dustbin Baby (16 page)

‘
And you must meet Marion, my foster mum
.'

‘
She won't mind if we keep in touch now?
'

‘
Of course she won't
.'

‘
And we'll always meet to celebrate your birthday?
'

I nod eagerly. I'm so happy – but I'm crying again
. ‘
I'm sorry. I'm hopeless. I always cry
.'

‘
If you hadn't cried when you were stuck in that dustbin I'd never have found you. You saved your own life, April
.'

Then he takes hold of my hand and starts telling me exactly what happened that first day of my life. He tells me what I looked like, how I cried, how my tiny fists closed over his finger. He gives me a real sense of my baby self. A tiny history. My beginning
.

You've finished reading
Dustbin Baby
, but how much of the story do you remember?

1.
Which friend's hairstyle does April copy?

2.
What sort of flowers does Marion give April as part of her birthday breakfast?

3.
April hopes she'll get a mobile phone for her birthday, but Marion gives her a pair of earrings instead. What special stone are they?

4.
April was born in the alleyway behind a restaurant – what is it called?

5.
Which hospital does Frankie take baby April to?

6.
April's pretty friend Hannah goes on a date with a really popular boy – what's his name?

7.
April meets a character from another of Jacqueline Wilson's books in
Dustbin Baby!
Who is it and which book is she from?

8.
When April was adopted by Janet and Daniel, what new first name did they choose for her?

9.
When April first meets Marion – or Miss Bean, as she knows her back then – they argue over a piece of work Miss Bean sets the class. What is it?

10.
Frankie leaves a special message for April in the alleyway, in the hope that she'll get in touch with him. What is it?

1.
Dustbin Baby
begins and ends in the same way – with April in the restaurant, waiting for Frankie to arrive. To start with, of course, we don't know who she is waiting for – who did you imagine this might be? Did you think this might have been April's real mother? Were you surprised, pleased, or even disappointed when you realized it wasn't?

2.
April often has very mixed feelings towards Marion, the teacher who became her foster mother. What do you think of Marion as a character, and as a parent? Is April lucky to have found Marion, or do you think she's too old-fashioned and out of touch to bring up a fourteen-year-old girl?

3.
April's life began with a very unusual and extreme decision by her birth mother – the decision to abandon her baby. What do you think of this action? Are there any circumstances under which you think this could have been the right thing to do?

4.
April has imagined, in detail, the scenario that might have happened when her mother gave birth to her. Discuss the other options, and create your own version of what might have happened. Was April's mother very young? Did she have a boyfriend or a husband, or was she alone? Do you think her own parents knew she was about to be a mother – or perhaps she had no parents?

5.
Imagine that April's birth mother chose to keep her baby, rather than abandoning her. How would April's life and character have been affected by this?

6.
Many people who are adopted decide to search for their biological parents later in life, even if they have grown up with kind and loving adoptive families. Why do you think they feel so compelled to find the people they are related to by blood?

7.
April comments that Frankie isn't allowed to keep her, even though her own mother would have been allowed to have her back, because ‘blood is thicker than water'. What do you think of this statement? Do you think April believes this herself?

8.
Hannah and Cathy, April's friends at school, often comment on the fact that April copies them in a lot of ways. Why do you think April might struggle to see herself as an individual?

9.
Marion wants April to go to university and study History. What it is about this particular subject that you think Marion sees as being right for April? What do you think the future holds in store for her?

10.
When April arranges to meet Frankie and Marion at The Pizza Place, she tells the waiter she's ‘got family coming later'. What do you think of her notion of ‘family' here?

Jodie. It was the first word I ever said. Most babies lisp
Mumma
or
Dadda
or
Drinkie
or
Teddy
. Maybe everyone names the thing they love best. I said
Jodie
, my sister. OK, I said
Dodie
because I couldn't say my Js properly, but I knew what I meant.

I said her name first every morning.

‘Jodie? Jodie! Wake up.
Please
wake up!' She was hopeless in the mornings. I always woke up early – six o'clock, sometimes even earlier. When I was little, I'd delve around my bed to find my three night-time teddies, and then take them for a dawn trek up and down my duvet. I put my knees up and they'd clamber up the mountain and then slide down. Then they'd burrow back to base camp and tuck into their pretend porridge for breakfast.

I
wasn't allowed to eat anything so early. I wasn't even allowed to get up. I was fine once I could read. Sometimes I got through a whole book before the alarm went off. Then I'd lie staring at the ceiling, making up my own stories. I'd wait as long as I could, and then I'd climb into Jodie's bed and whisper her name, give her a little shake and start telling her the new story. They were always about two sisters. They went through an old wardrobe into a magic land, or they went to stage school and became famous actresses, or they went to a ball in beautiful long dresses and danced in glass slippers.

It was always hard to get Jodie to wake up prop- erly. It was as if she'd fallen down a long dark tunnel in the night. It took her ages to crawl back to the surface. But eventually she'd open one eye and her arm went round me automatically. I'd cuddle up and carry on telling her the story. I had to keep nudging her and saying, ‘You
are
still awake, aren't you, Jodie?'

‘I'm wide awake,' she mumbled, but I had to give her little prods to make sure.

When she
was
awake, she'd sometimes take over the story. She'd tell me how the two sisters ruled over the magic land as twin queens, and they acted in their own daily television soap, and they danced with each other all evening at the ball until way past midnight.

Jodie's stories were always much better than mine. I begged her to write them down but she couldn't be bothered.

‘
You
write them down for me,' she said. ‘You're the one that wants to be the writer.'

I wanted to write my own stories and illustrate them too.

‘I can help you with the ideas,' said Jodie. ‘You can do all the drawings and I'll do the colouring in.'