f03265-4266-5928-8afe-4eb3465aa598">
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
FIRST EDITION
© Gill Sims 2018
Cover photograph © Tom Gauld 2018
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Gill Sims asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at
Source ISBN: 9780008298784
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008298791
Version: 2019-03-01
To AE and AT
This US edition has been lightly Americanised for your reading pleasure. We have kept certain British words and slang intact but made some changes for clarity. And Mummy insisted on being Mummy throughout the book, although she kindly let us change the title.
CONTENTS
Monday, 18 July
I have one week till the summer vacation begins. I can’t help but feel awfully jealous of the Famous Five’s parents – not only did Julian, Dick and Anne’s mama and papa simply bung them off on Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin at the slightest excuse, but Aunt Fanny was always sending them off to islands and moors and coves FULL OF CRIMINALS AND WRECKERS AND SMUGGLERS so that Uncle Quentin could work in peace at his inventing. I have frequently wondered if I could do similar, as I did once invent a very fabulous app that made splendid amounts of money for a little while, even if the app world is fickle and today’s hit is forgotten tomorrow and no one buys it anymore. I’m sure I could probably do the same again if only I could just send the children to live outdoors and go feral for the summer (and stop faffing about and eating cookies). As I recall, Uncle Quentin’s inventions never even made any money, which was why he and Aunt Fanny were poor and had to look after the beastly cousins, which makes it doubly unfair that it is now so frowned upon to hand your children a bicycle and a packet of sandwiches on the first day of the vacation, and tell them not to come home till it’s time to go back to school. Jane is eleven now, you see, and more than of an age for Famous Fiving. I did once wistfully suggest this to her, when we were in the middle of one of our frequent rows about why she is not allowed an Instagram account yet, and she pointed out the many illegalities with this plan and threatened to call ChildHelp if I ever broached it again.
I am feeling particularly bitter about the expenditure the summer vacation necessitates, because I have been reading the Famous Five books with Peter, though somewhat against his will, as he informs me each night that he would much rather play online games than endure another chapter of marvellous Blyton-y japes, frolics and foiling of beastly common-criminal types. Jane has obviously point-blank refused to take part in any such babyish activity as being read to in the evening, and so we compromised with her promising to read something herself instead, which I felt was a perfectly reasonable offer, until after two chapters she announced that Anne of Green Gables was stupid and boring and why was Anne always wittering on about imagination and I shouted that Jane had no soul and was clearly a changeling as no child of mine would speak thus of Anne Shirley. Now I pretend not to know that she is watching YouTube make-up tutorials instead of wandering the enchanted lanes of Avonlea with Gilbert Blythe (who I still totally would, incidentally).
Peter, however, has not quite succeeded in breaking