Exclusive look at first chapter of Jacqueline Wilson's Think Again
More than 20 years since we last caught up with Ellie, Nadine and Magda in the Girls in Love series, Jacqueline Wilson is back with her first adult novel Think Again, reuniting us with our favourite trio, as Ellie celebrates her 40th birthday, and we have your exclusive look at the first chapter.
Announced earlier this year, we have been counting down the days until Think Again is released in bookshops. The new novel will focus on Ellie, who feels like her life has been on auto-pilot for the last few years. She's got a beautiful daughter, a cat and a flat she adores, but when life hands her a curveball on her 40th birthday she takes the opportunity to dive into the deep end and start something new. And of course we'll also be catching up with Nadine and Magda whose lives have also taken them on interesting journeys.
Ready to catch up with this iconic trio? Then scroll on for the full first chapter of Think Again. You're welcome.
I wake to find Stella rubbing her head against mine and lick-ing my neck suggestively. That sounds misleading. Sadly I’m not enjoying an exciting sex life. I am currently not having any kind of sex life, exciting or not. I might have squeezed a double bed into my tiny flat, but apparently I was being overly optimistic.
“Hello, Stella!” I mumble. “Have you come to wish me happy birthday?”
She purrs agreeably and I stroke her from the top of her head, down her long silky fur to the tip of her tail. She’s absolutely the Queen of Cats, though she came from humble beginnings, like many a fairy princess. I rescued her from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home last year. Lottie says she’s my replacement daughter – but my role is more servant than mother to Stella. She gives me orders and likes me to keep to a strict routine. Ideally, she would like to be free at night to roam the streets, but that’s not wise on a council estate in London. She feels five a.m. is a suitable time for her first breakfast and seems puzzled when I don’t greet her with top-of-the-morning joy-fulness. I peer at my watch, prepared to push her away and burrow beneath the covers for another couple of hours. But it’s gone seven! Stella’s given me a birthday lie-in. Perhaps she senses it’s a special birthday. One with an O.
Forty!
Dear God, how did I get so old? I slide out of bed, pad over to the mirror on my dressing table and peer at my forehead. Yep, wrinkles – three of them, and two little lines like apostrophes over my nose. I try smoothing them out, but they snap back into place the moment I let them go. I suppose peering over my desk a lot and not always bothering with my glasses is taking its toll. Time for Botox? Magda takes little trips to the Beauty Clinic now and looks great. But then she’s always looked great. Nadine’s a Botox veteran too. She started in her twenties, which was ridiculous, but I suppose that was because she was modelling then.
I pull a pouty face to try to make my cheeks model-thin. I look stupid. I turn sideways and suck in my stomach. It’s the bit of me I still can’t bear. I had a mummy tummy long before I had Lottie. I look at the snapshots stuck all round my mirror. There’s a Polaroid of Nadine and me in a paddling pool when we were four. Nadine is already willowy and striking a pose, while I’m pulling a face, an infant roly-poly with a belly like a little beach ball.
I peer at Magda’s early childhood photo beside it. We didn’t meet until secondary school, but I didn’t want to leave her out. She’s in the bath, shaking her curls and dimpling at the camera, posing even then. She looks like a Raphael cherub.
Nadine and Magda, my two best friends. The two most important women in my life, after my daughter. Lottie’s photos have taken over the rest of my frame, starting when she was a baby. I peel off my favourite photo: she is only a few months old, and I’m lifting her up and blowing rasp-berries on her lovely round tummy, making her giggle. Nearly two decades later, I smile along with her. I thought she might take after me, because her baby hair was fluffy and inclined to curl, and she was delightfully chubby then – but now look at her! I put the old photo back and pick up the one big silver frame that sits on my dressing table and stroke her face fondly. Long straight hair, strong, slim body, huge grin, mad clothes.
“My girl,” I murmur.
The photo was taken just before she went to university. Oh God, I still miss her so much.
Stella miaows imperiously.
“OK, you’re my girl too,” I say.
She allows me a quick dash to the bathroom, then we head into the kitchen and I give her a bowl of chopped chicken with a little broth as a special treat. We can pretend it’s her birthday as well. I give her fresh water, too, in her special ceramic bowl. She licks and laps daintily, careful not to get her long silvery whiskers wet.
I make myself a coffee and shake a small portion of healthy muesli into my bowl. A few spoonfuls of sawdust isn’t exactly birthday breakfast material so I make myself two slices of buttery toast spread with strawberry jam, picking out most of the whole strawberries from the jar. It’s my birthday, for God’s sake. The diet I’d planned can wait until tomorrow.
Hey, how about Myrtle going on a diet? I wander into the living room, still munching, sit at my desk and put on my glasses. I pick up my ideas book and start sketching her in her own kitchen having breakfast. Big ears, pointy nose, long whiskers – but she’s got human arms and legs and is wearing a stripy teeshirt and boyfriend jeans, which have a discreet hole at the back for her long tail to poke through.
She hasn’t changed all that much since I started drawing her for a competition when I was a schoolgirl. I’ve kept the letter Nicola Sharp sent me then. She was my favourite illustrator – still is, in fact. I’ve tried to keep the letter pristine, but I’ve read it so many times it’s as fragile as tissue paper now.
I can honestly say your Myrtle is outstandingly original. I’d be proud to have invented her myself. You are going to have to be an illustrator when you grow up!
Wonderfully, I am an illustrator now. And an art teacher.
I’d never admit it, but I love it when I go to parties and people ask me what I do for a living. I don’t usually mention the prosaic teacher bit.
“Oh, I do a little weekly newspaper cartoon strip,” I mumble modestly.
“‘What, in the local rag?” they might ask.
“It’s in the Guardian, actually,” I say, though I always blush because it sounds like showing off. Well, it is showing off, I suppose, but never mind.
“Come on then, Myrtle,” I murmur. “Here you are, looking at yourself in the mirror, noticing your jeans are getting much too tight. Then second picture, you’re perched on a stool at your kitchen island, frowning at a little packet of low-cal cheese and a carton of fat-free milk. Then picture number three . . .”
But doubt creeps in. My Myrtle comic strip is supposed to be a cute, mousey take on modern life. Do modern women obsess about their figures so much? I certainly do. But what about Lottie and her friends? Surely they’re all into health and strength and pride in your body, whatever your size or shape? I tap my pencil against my lip, frowning.
I’ll ask Lottie when I see her today. I’m meeting her at Victoria. She’ll text me when she’s on the train. I hope it will be early enough for us to have lunch. We could go to Maison Bertaux and have a private birthday celebration just the two of us. Then we can hang out together, go to a gallery, go shopping, maybe just chill out here at the flat, before we travel down together to Kingtown for the family dinner.
My phone trills. It’s Lottie herself! I answer immediately.
“Hi, Lots!”
“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy BIRTHDAY . . .”
I wince and hold the phone away from my ear. I love Lottie with all my heart and I’m one of those pathetic mums who can’t bear any criticism of her child, but even I know that she sings much too loudly for someone who can’t hold a tune.
I rub my ear better and then replace the phone just as she sings the last happy birthday.
“‘That’s so lovely, darling!” I say. “There, you’ve started my birthday off splendidly. But how come you’re awake so early?”
“‘I – I’ve been checking my phone. About my train,” she says.
“I can’t wait to see you!” I say eagerly.
I have to make the most of her. We only meet up every couple of months now she’s studying at Sussex. I was secretly so upset when she told me she wouldn’t be coming home for the summer. I knew she’d want to see friends, maybe go travelling, and I truly wanted that to happen, but I did hope I’d see her some of the time. Then she told me that she’d got a job as a summer camp counsellor for international kids for eight weeks. She’s fantastic with children, she’s full of fun yet responsible too; it’s no wonder they picked her. It’s just that I miss her so.
Still, it means so much that she’s coming home for my birthday weekend. And yet she’s paused for several seconds.
“Lottie?” I say tentatively.
“Oh Mum, I’m so sorry, there’s some kind of problem on the railway line. I don’t know, engineering works, whatever,” she says quickly. “The trains up to London have all been cancelled.”
“Oh no! What a bore. But surely it’ll be fixed?”
“It says all travel on the line is cancelled for the day, Mum. I’m so sorry!”
She sounds really sorry too, but there’s something odd about her voice. I nibble at my lip. She’s not lying to me, is she?
I take a deep breath.
“All right,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “So, what about the birthday dinner?”
“I’d give anything to be there, but it’s just not possible,” she says.
“Oh Lottie,” I wail pathetically, unable to help it.
“You’ll still have Grandad, Anna, Ben and Simon at the dinner,” she says.
“Yes, of course.”
“I truly am sorry, Mum. Don’t let it spoil your special day.” She sounds really uncomfortable now.
I think she’s definitely making excuses. Or perhaps I’m just being paranoid? Maybe this train problem is the gospel truth and Lottie is really sad not to be seeing me on my birthday. And if she’s got better things to do than hanging out with her mum, that’s totally understandable. She’s nineteen, for God’s sake. And I’m fucking forty, so I’d better start acting like it.
I fix a smile on my face so that it comes through in my voice.
“Don’t worry, love. I’ve got a lovely day planned. I’ll be fine.”Despite my efforts, my voice comes out a bit shaky. I pause and hunt around for a change of subject. “Lottie, do you and your friends fuss about your figures?”
“What?”
“Sorry. Is it a bit old-fashioned to keep starting diets?”
“Mum, what is this? Do you think I should go on a diet?” She sounds baffled, but amused.
“No, it’s for Myrtle,” I explain.
“Don’t mice want to eat all the time? I don’t think they’re picky with their food.”
“Yes, but Myrtle’s really a girl – well, a woman – in mouse guise,” I explain. “Oh, never mind. I’m not sure the idea would work. I’ll dream up something else,” I say quickly.
“OK. But don’t work too much, not on your birthday. Go out and have fun. And don’t worry, I just know you’re going to have a fabulous time tonight, whether I’m there or not. Lots of love. See you!”
“See you,” I echo, and switch off her call.
I lean on my desk, head in hands. I can feel another worry line forming right this minute. I peer through my fingers at the sketch of Myrtle in the kitchen. I’m really not sure about the theme now. And didn’t I have Myrtle on a diet ages ago, anyway? I can’t start repeating myself.
I try to think up another idea but I keep hearing Lottie’s voice in my head, telling me all that guff about the train. Surely there must be replacement buses? I reach for my phone, then pull back. No, I am not going to google her train line to check. What sort of person would that make me? What sort of mother? And even if I see all the trains are running perfectly, it’s not a criminal offence to make a travel excuse. It’s better than telling me that she simply can’t be bothered to come.
I’m going to stop obsessing. Forty-year-old women are strong and secure. They take things in their stride. I’ll check my emails, see if the payment for my last batch of Myrtles has gone through to Jude. She often works late on a Friday, clearing her desk for the weekend.
Yes, there’s a message from Judith Barnes Agency – apparently, it popped in last night. I open it, and the sight of the payment statement sends a wave of relief through me. That’s next month’s rent sorted!
Then, below the statement, I see a message. I give it a fleeting glance, then lean in and give it my full attention. My heart starts thudding. I blink hard and read it again, slowly.
Hi Ellie, I’m so sorry to have to pass on some rather sad news. I’ve had a long phone call with Cassie. It’s been decided that your amazing Myrtle Mouse strip is not really chiming with their readership any more. I’m afraid the Guardian doesn’t want to renew your contract. Still, maybe you’ll be able to come up with a new idea for them? Here’s hoping!
I slump, blinking back tears. It’s real. It’s there, in front of me. A chunk of my income, gone. An even bigger part of my identity. And as for a new idea . . . Hope away, Jude. My chime is fading fast. I’ve lost my touch. I’m not current any more. I’m middle-aged. Past it. Finished.
Myrtle means so much to me. Mum drew pictures of her when I was little, and then I went on to make her Myrtle mine. I was nearly fourteen when I entered the cartoon of her for the Nicola Sharp drawing competition. I went on drawing Myrtle even at art school, having her waving in a corner of most of my works, though you’d have to peer for ages before you found her, like a little rodent Where’s Wally?
I drew her for Lottie all the time I was finishing my degree as a mature student, getting my PGCE, starting teaching, and doing some magazine illustration for extra cash. Then in a fit of madness I sent a Myrtle cartoon to the Guardian and they accepted it. I couldn’t believe it. But now they’ve rejected it. Rejected me.
I give a slight moan and Stella pauses grooming herself and mews. She blinks at me slowly with her great green eyes and then decides to take pity on me. She strolls over, gathers muster, and leaps onto my lap.
“Oh, Stella! This is turning into such a crap birthday,” I say, rubbing my cheek against her soft head.
I want to cry but I can’t drip all over Stella. I shut my eyes tight, then blink away the tears, a sudden resolve building within me. You want a new idea, Cassie and Jude? Fine. I’ll get a new idea. I start doodling in my ideas book. Half-formed creatures bob up here and there in an increasingly frenzied maze of sketches.
Stella gets impatient and climbs off my lap, her sympathy evaporating. Getting nowhere with my doodles, I draw her instead. She looks good as a cartoon. But there are already so many famous fictional cats: Garfield, Tom, Felix, Mog, The Cat in the Hat . . . And why would Stella be any more current than poor, axed Myrtle? I sketch her now, an axe sunk deep into her little mousey head, and print RIP underneath her.
Perhaps I could try turning Stella into a children’s picture book? The Story of Stella the Cat. But picture books have changed so much since I was little, since Lottie was little.
An adult novel? But I don’t seem to be leading a proper adult life now, for all that I’m forty. I draw, I go to school, I read, I message Nadine and Magda . . . much the same life I was leading when I was fourteen, but with WhatsApp instead of whispered conversations on the landline. A wave of nostalgia engulfs me. How I’d love to go back to those simpler times, even just for a day.
I look down at the axe embedded in Myrtle’s head. How about a crime novel? Maybe one of the cosy crimes that are so popular now? But crime round here isn’t cosy in the slightest, which is why I have a bolt on my front door. And those complicated plots would be a total nightmare too. I’m used to Myrtle’s neat layout, a set of little pictures, story told, job done.
What am I going to do without her?
I give myself a shake. Come on, think! What do you want to do? Draw. Add words. Then it hits me: a graphic novel! Not superheroes with their underpants over their tights. Not fantasy with pointy-breasted women in skimpy animal skins. Real men, real women. Maybe childhood friends who have grown up together, like me and Magda and Nadine? Or would that be too tame?
Come on, Ellie, I think crossly. I need to try something, if nothing else for my finances. I’ve come to rely on the extra Myrtle money. Now I’ll just have my salary.
I still find it hard to believe I’ve ended up a teacher. I had such big ideas when I started at art school. They were all kicked into touch when I had Lottie so young.
How about a graphic novel about a girl getting pregnant at art school and dithering about whether to choose to have an abortion? Everyone advises it. Even her two best friends, and her parents. Even the tutor she confides in. And especially the baby’s father she hardly knows. She’s almost persuaded. But she can’t do it. Of course she can’t, because she knows deep down she wants this baby in spite of everything.
How right I was – and how wrong it would be to write this story, because while I would never judge anyone’s choices, I couldn’t ever bear for Lottie to know what I was once contemplating.
So what else? I can’t just sit here at my desk, agonising. I’ve got to seize the day. Yep, carpe diem. Celebrate my birthday. I could still go to Maison Bertaux, a gallery, shopping . . . but it might be a bit lonely by myself, today of all days.
Shall I contact Nadine? Or Magda? Both? I don’t see enough of them now we live so far apart. Though I can’t help being hurt that they haven’t been in touch with me. How can they have forgotten my birthday? I suppose we’ve grown apart over the last few years. Nadine is still busy partying, seeing new guys most weeks. Magda’s seemingly settled at last with Chris, her Third Time Lucky partner – plus his two kids.
They probably haven’t got time for me now. Oh, stop the self-pity! It’s not as if I’m going to be on my own this evening.
I’m seeing Dad, Anna, Ben and Simon for a special birthday meal at some posh new restaurant back at home. Old home, I mean. Where I grew up. The Vine? I google it. It looks ridiculously pretentious, not my sort of place at all. Ben and Simon obviously chose it, thinking it will be a huge treat for me. I know how much they love me and it means a lot, but they treat me like a poor old maiden aunt sometimes. I don’t mind not having much money and living in my little tower block flat right up in the sky. A lot less money now that poor Myrtle’s been axed, I remember with a lurch of my stomach, but I’ll manage.
It’s a disadvantage being single because I’ll never have the cash to buy a stylish mansion flat like theirs, but I don’t really care that much. I’m fine by myself. Really. Whereas they’re such an old married couple now they’ve practically become one person.
I never thought pesky little Eggs would grow up to be such a great guy. No more nicknames. He’s not a mouthy brat any more. He’s Benedict Allard, the interior designer employed by celebrities to add dazzle to their décor. He looks a bit like a boy band pin-up himself, though he’s over thirty now.
Simon is pretty hot too. Both Magda and Nadine had a mini-crush on him, though they both knew he was gay, of course. Maybe I’d have had a crush, too, though it would be beyond weird to fancy my brother’s boyfriend. Simon earns a lot as a music producer so their flat is out of this world. But it’s not my world. I’m fine where I am.
Will it be good to see Dad and Anna? I love Anna now, and we get along really well, but she’ll never take the place of Mum. I start sketching Mum now, trying to remember every single detail, her wild curls like mine, her beautiful smile, her head on one side, her lovely arms outstretched, ready to give me a hug – but it’s getting harder and harder now to remember exactly what she was like.
“Oh Mum,” I whisper. It still hurts after all these years. I don’t mind, though. I want to keep missing her. The worst thing ever would be to forget her altogether. If only I could have a birthday dinner with her. But she never got to be forty. Bloody cancer.
I pick Stella up for comfort but I’m holding her too needily and she wriggles away.
I wonder if Dad still misses Mum the way I do. Oh, he does,I’m sure he does, but I don’t really know if he was a great husband to her. I used to think he was a great dad too, long ago – but I can’t ever forgive him for the things he said when I told him I was pregnant. He was furious with me, horrified that I’d have to leave Saint Martins when so few people were lucky enough to get there. He wanted to pay for me to go to a private clinic for a termination so I wouldn’t ruin my life. Did he act like that with any of his former girlfriends? Did he actually want to terminate me?
I know he adores Lottie now, but the damage is done. I was so proud when I applied for a council flat as a single mum and managed to get it all arranged. I tried hard to decorate it and make it into a haven for Lottie and me. I hoped Dad would be impressed but he said I was off my head wanting to live in such a dump, and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him help me find somewhere decent. He even looked down on my teaching job at the failing secondary near my flat, saying he couldn’t see the point of trying to imbue a love of art in a lot of rowdy yobbos. He kids himself he’s so arty-liberal and then comes out with offensive rubbish like that. Anna said it was because he just wanted the best for me and felt frustrated that I wouldn’t let him help me. I’m not convinced.
He was entirely flummoxed when the Guardian started running my Myrtle cartoons. Maybe even a bit jealous? I don’t relish telling him that they’ve axed her now. He’ll see she’s gone missing anyway, because he’s an archetypal Guardian reader and gets the actual printed version with the magazine.
I could always pretend that it’s my decision, that I’ve got bored with Myrtle, that I’m starting on a brand new project. Stella leaps up onto my desk, agitating for attention. I stroke her and return her slow blink.
“Maybe I should start a graphic novel today? I’ll buy a beautiful new sketch book, and begin. No more messing about. Carpe diem, right?”
Stella purrs in agreement.
I’ve actually got several lovely blank sketch books, all of them untouched. Each time I buy one I think that this will be the one. But it isn’t. I doodle on the backs of envelopes and receipts, or the standard paper I use for my cartoons, but my Pigma pen wobbles whenever I approach a virgin sketch book.
I pick up one of these pens, fiddling with it idly. I use them because they’re permanent, though why I want to preserve my little cartoons I don’t really know. I’ve got several stacks of Guardians in the airing cupboard. Oh God, I won’t be adding to those piles any more. They’re now as big as they’re ever going to be. The thought makes tears prick at my eyes.
I blink hard. I’m going to have an amazing birthday, even though Lottie’s gone AWOL and Myrtle’s been axed. I really will go shopping and buy a fantastic outfit to wear to the posh dinner tonight. I wish I could buy a fantastic body too. I suppose my boobs are still OK, so something low cut yet not too tight around the rest of me. In a colour I never wear. Red? With a red lipstick to match? Maybe not – I’ll look like I’m channelling Magda. Or a black dress, with very dark lipstick and black nail varnish? No, then I’ll look like Nadine’s small, podgy twin.
Or I could wear my usual go-to dressy outfit, the emerald Indian loose top with silver threads that glint when they catch the light. Plus my best black jeans and black boots. I feel like me in it. So maybe I’ll just stick with that for tonight. It’s only a family dinner so why am I fussing so? Dad won’t even notice what I’m wearing. Anna probably will, but we have entirely different ideas about what looks good. She’s a camel kind of woman, camel coat, camel cashmere, camel patent heels. I’ve never worn camel in my life since I was dressed as a dromedary for a Nativity play in the Infants.
I ferret in my wardrobe for the black jeans. I try them on, just to check. Oh dear, just like Myrtle, I have to wriggle hard to get them over my hips and it’s a struggle to zip them up. They still fit, sort of, but I’ll have to be careful what I eat tonight. I could buy new jeans but it’s such a performance trying them on in changing rooms with other younger, skimpier women all around me. I always imagine they’re peering at me, raising their eyebrows, giggling.
“Shut up!” I say out loud, startling Stella. She retreats to her cat tower by the window. “No, come back, Stella! I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m just cross with myself for being so self-conscious.”
I force myself to meet my own eyes in the mirror. I’m a strong, powerful forty-year-old woman. I have a wonderful daughter, a great family, a beautiful cat. I’ve had a successful artistic career for years. This is my opportunity to branch out in a new direction. A graphic novel. Definitely. And I always have my teaching to tide me over. I’m independent. I certainly don’t need a man in my life to make myself whole. When has that ever happened? Not with any of the men in my life so far.
I take my jeans off and breathe out. I look in the mirror and breathe in again. I poke my tummy.
Maybe it’s time I got fit. Exercise more. Start classes? No, I absolutely hated PE at school. Jog? I get out of breath in two minutes. I look at the photo of little-girl me at the paddling pool. I’ve always liked swimming – so why not go again? I search in my drawers for my costume.
Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson is available for preorder now and is out on 12th September.
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