JULIA JONES - My Worst Day Ever! - Book 1: aged 9 - 12 Read Online Free PDF

out of cars and within minutes, Jackie was laden with
gifts from all her guests. Then I noticed Sara strolling down the driveway with
her mom. She had so much stuff that she needed help to carry it. And in her
hands was a huge box that was gift wrapped in the most beautiful lilac colored
wrapping paper with an enormous white bow adorning the top.
    “Oh my gosh, Sara!” Jackie exclaimed. “What
is inside that parcel?”
    “Oh, it’s just something small!” Sara replied
sweetly. “But I hope you like it!”
    Right behind Sara, I saw Blake and his
friend, Jack. When Sara spotted them both, I could see her sudden spark of
interest.
    “Hi boys!” she called out in her usual
friendly manner. “Can you please help me with all of this?” And she indicated
the gear that her mom was carrying for her. They quickly moved to relieve her
of all the bags and bits and pieces and then followed Sara into the house.
    Trailing Jackie into her bedroom, the girls
all stored their belongings and quickly got changed to go swimming. Because the
boys were already dressed in swimming trunks, they had raced straight down to
the pool, keen to get into the water. In typical boy style, by the time the
girls joined them the boys were already doing bomb dives off the trampoline
that stood by the pool’s edge.
    Squealing with excitement at being
splashed, the girls stood by laughing and giggling as they watched the boys in
action.
    “I’m going to try that too!” Sara exclaimed
as she followed Blake up onto the trampoline.
    “Only two are allowed on the trampoline at
once,” Jackie warned as Alex and a couple of the girls tried to climb up and
join in the fun.
    “But we can all jump off the diving deck
together!” Jackie continued, running around to the other side of the pool and
onto the large diving platform.
    “This is an awesome setup, Jackie!” called
out Sara as she gave Blake a shove into the pool and then bomb dived into the
water right next to him.
    I stood alongside Millie, watching everyone
and in particular, Sara who was paying so much attention to Blake. It was
clearly obvious that she really liked him and it seemed that she wanted him and
everyone else to know it.

    Grabbing his head, she tried to dunk him
under the water but he quickly swam away, jumped out of the pool and back onto
the trampoline.
    “Show us your biggest bomb dive, Blake,”
Sara called out, but he just grinned and kept bouncing on the tramp.
    “Let’s go in,” Millie called, grabbing my
hand and leading me onto the diving deck. Holding hands, we ran and did a big
jump into the pool together. I was determined to just enjoy myself and not
worry about Sara or Blake. It was shaping up to be a great party and there was
too much fun to be had, to be bothered worrying about them.
    Just then I noticed Becky, one of the girls
from our dance group, sitting on a chair in the gazebo watching everyone in the
water.
    “Becky!” I called. “Aren’t you coming in?”
Becky hadn’t changed into her swimmers and I wondered why.
    Hopping out of the pool, I grabbed my towel
and went over to join her. When I asked again why she wasn’t swimming, she
simply replied that she didn’t want to.
    By that time, Millie had joined us and
quietly whispered in my ear. “She’s too embarrassed to put swimmers on.”
    I looked at Becky with sympathy. She was
such a nice girl but had developed a real paranoia about her weight. Even
though she wasn’t what you would call fat, she had become very self-conscious about
her body and I remembered that towards the end of the previous summer she had
started declining all offers to go swimming. No one else had commented, but
Millie and I had figured out the reason why.
    “It’s so much fun, Becky and the water is
really warm!” I coaxed. “Why don’t you put your swimmers on and hop in with
us?”
    “I forgot to bring them,” she explained in
a quiet voice.
    I knew that she would intentionally have
left them behind, but then I