Shine
Tiff's mum is a thief and she's about to get caught … A brilliant novel from a fantastic writer for girls.Twelve-year-old Tiff loves her mum, Carla, who is glitzy and fun and always coming home with shiny new amazing stuff. The trouble is, Tiff's mum doesn't buy things, she takes them. The fact is, Tiff's mum is a thief…When Carla gets caught, Tiff’s shiny life is ruined. She's packed off to a remote island to live with Carla's family. A family her mum never even talks about and that Tiff has never even met! How can she survive in this dull, dull place?But the island of Sark isn't as awful as Tiff imagined it would be. The islanders are kind and honest and she's happy spending time with them. So three months later, when it's finally time for her mum to join her, Tiff can't help feeling more than a little bit worried…
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Shine
Kate Maryon
HarperCollins Children’s Books A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010
Shine Text copyright © Kate Maryon 2010
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007326273
Ebook edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007351961 Version: 2018-08-13
For my brother Tim and sister Susie, Against all odds – like stars at night we shine, I love you both with all my heart x
Contents
Shine
When Kate Maryon isn’t writing, or walking her large Newfoundland dog, Ellie, or spending time with her grown-up children, Jane and Tim, or her grown-up stepchildren, Sam, Joe and Ben, or having fun with her partner Daniel, or visiting the rest of her family, or sitting in cafés and other lovely places with her friends, she can be found working from a clinic in Somerset, where she practises homeopathy, or in Devon where she works on detox retreats. And with all this going on there’s never a shortage of stories and wonderful things to write about.
Kate loves chocolate, films, eating out, reading, writing and lying on sunny beaches. She dislikes snakes, spiders, peppermint and honey.
she’s just like a real magpie…
My mum totally loves shiny things, like silver and gold and jewels and big, fast, shiny cars. Mikey, her business partner, calls her ‘Magpie’ because she’s always on the lookout for things, just like one of those magpie-birds that takes shiny stuff and hoards it in its nest. The only difference is that my mum hoards things in our flat, which means if she doesn’t stop soon we’ll be facing an emergency situation due to lack of space.
The thing I worry about most is that my mum says she can’t stop herself. She is truly addicted. And the worst thing is that often she doesn’t even buy things, she just takes them. Anything shiny is just too tempting for her. Some people might call it ‘stealing’; my mum calls it ‘borrowing’. It is stealing though and, well, that’s not exactly a good thing is it? And though me and Mum do some pretty cool stuff, sometimes she can be so embarrassing. Like the other day when we were walking through the market and she saw a fluffy scarf that she wanted for me. She just strolled up to the stall and while she was busy talking to the lady about the weather, she slipped it into her bag. And then what am I supposed to do? I can hardly scream “Thief” and get my mum arrested for shoplifting! So I just stay close and keep my mouth shut, and if people notice we make a run for it, fast.
I also know that she spends money on the internet using other people’s credit cards. You might think that’s a good thing for me because I have stuff, like three iPods, seven watches, a drawer full of rings, bangles and necklaces, two giant plasma TVs and my own laptop. And I do like getting all that stuff…and I love my mum and we’re a team, just me and her. But sometimes I wish she was more like a normal mum. I can’t tell anyone the truth about the stealing or say anything to her about it because I don’t want to upset her, and I’m afraid that if I do say anything she’ll go off on one of her temper tantrums, which means she’ll go straight out to the shops again, just to cheer herself up.
Last month we had a row and Mum drank loads of wine. Then she went out and came back with an amazing mega-red sports car that Mikey got hold of. I wanted us to make up, so I squashed down my worries and had fun as Mum and me zoomed about all over the place with the roof down wearing headscarves and big sunglasses like movie stars do. “Living the dream, that’s what we’re doing, babe,” Mum giggled as we raced down the High Street. But a couple of days ago Mum got bored of it, and sold it on to this uber-rich lady while I was at school.
