Lacy's Diary

By Isabel Thorne

Hi! I am Lacy! I got this diary because my life is SO CRAZY, and I need something to help keep things on track. This is going to be the story of my CATASTROPHIC summer holidays. I haven't started them yet, but I already know they will be DISASTROUS, because everything in the Kennedy family is...

All Lacy wants is a normal summe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bottlenose Books
• Release date: May 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9789811897276

Book preview

Lacy’s Diary

by

Isabel Thorne

This eBook is also available in a print edition.

Copyright © 2024 Isabel Thorne

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers (including, but not restricted to, Google and Amazon), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

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Edited & Internal Design by Zena Shapter

To Holey Coley and Stingy Stella, for laughing all the way through the book.

Tuesday 4 April

8:07pm

Hi! I am Lacy! I got this diary because my life is SO CRAZY, and I need something to help keep things on track. This is going to be the story of my CATASTROPHIC summer holidays. I haven’t started them yet, but I already know they will be DISASTROUS, because everything in the Kennedy family is. I might have another diary after this, but I’m not sure yet.

Anyway, I should probably introduce my family now, so you know the kind of drama I deal with EVERY DAY.

Oh, and I look like this:

Here’s my Dad:

My dad has a tendency to get into MASSIVE MESSES. He means well, but every idea he has ends badly. Like the time he thought it would be funny to pretend to be Frankenstein on Halloween and jump out of the bushes to scare Mrs Cauliflower, our old lady neighbour.

It wasn’t.

Mrs Cauliflower called the police, convinced Dad was trying to frighten her to death, and Dad had to spend two weeks in prison for ‘attempted murder’ before everyone realised it was just a prank. Mrs Cauliflower still hates my dad and avoids him at all costs. She doesn’t come out on Halloween anymore, which stinks because she used to give out such delicious toffees.

My dad also had the idea to cut the branch from the oak tree in our garden… while sitting on it! Luckily, he was close enough to the ground to not die, but he did break both his legs. That was three months ago now.

Here’s my mum:

She’s normally okay, except she has an obsession… with collecting marbles. She has the BIGGEST MARBLE COLLECTION EVER. I am not joking. They take up the whole spare room, and everywhere we go she is always looking for a chance to purchase more marbles.

Her favourite marble is this one she calls Jeremy. Jeremy is about the size of my palm and he has this really cool pattern of crystallised glass on his rim.

I have to admit that Jeremy is impressive, even if he did cost £20 and an hour of our time waiting to buy him.

Here’s my older sister, Cordelia:

I don’t have much to say about her. Everyone is always talking about how much she looks like my mum at her age and how beautiful she is.

Cordelia is the first-born child AND the most popular. I’m not sure if we’ve ever had a real conversation; at least not since I was seven (I’m twelve now, which means I am the second oldest). Cordelia is fifteen and she is, I guess, what any parent would call a normal teen. She’s rebellious, goes out dancing on school nights, is super popular, and always has her phone on. She has about a million likes in her Instagram account. I think she cares about selfies more than family, but anyway…

Here are my younger sisters, Athena and Petal:

They both look like this, but this photo is of Athena. I think it was Athena…

They are twins. Like, identical twins, so identical that half the time you can’t tell them apart. But, unlike the twins in most books, they don’t switch places or pretend to be each other, so it’s usually fine.

They are really sneaky though, and I am a little worried they might grow up to be criminals. Take yesterday, for example, Athena suddenly burst into tears and everyone rushed to comfort her and ask what was wrong. A few seconds later, I spotted Petal slipping out of the kitchen with the box of chocolates Mum had been saving for a special occasion, which made me wonder if Athena could have just been a distraction, especially since I saw the twins scoffing the chocolates behind the sofa later on that day.

Finally, there’s Teddy:

Imagine a tornado, mixed with a tsunami, and then throw an earthquake into the mix and you’re close to the level of mayhem that Teddy causes DAILY. He screams so much you kind of tune him out after a while.

I remember last year, when my mum was pregnant with Teddy, she kept saying that she would be a quiet baby. That’s right. She thought Teddy was going to be a girl.

The reason for this is because Mum insisted on something called a gender-reveal party, which is when a close friend of the parents is told the gender of their expected baby, and the parents are not. Then this close friend hosts a big party, in which they reveal the gender of the baby.

My mum couldn’t find any close friends, so instead she brought in Aunt Sara, her sister, who’s about the most unreliable person on the planet. The doctor told Aunt Sara that the baby was a BOY, but she somehow came home sure the Kennedy family were going to be a family of five GIRLS.

So Dad sighed over the fact he was the only man in a family of women, and I expected a cute baby Beatrice, or maybe Delilah, or even Sophie. Instead, my mum came home, very confused, with a boy.

Named Teddy.

Who screamed all the time.

As for Aunt Sara. It’s