Amelia Foster

RUNNER UP

The Wilson Formula

There is an ice-cold can of Sprite in my right hand, an Amazon Kindle in my left. At the foot of my parents’ sun loungers, I am slathered in Factor 50 while reading on a stationary lilo. My aviators are Claire’s, my bikini is neon, and my baseball cap is Juicy velour. It is classy. It is chic. It is undeniably Majorca, 2015.

Aged eight and ten, my brother and I centre the seven-day all-inclusive holiday around the pursuit of Maxi Bons, a beautiful biscuity brick of an ice cream which we are permitted one of per day. There’s a mutual understanding between the two of us that we would willingly sacrifice the other in the name of a Maxi Bon. (Twelve years later, spotting one is like finding a Unicorn; it still elicits the same gleeful response). 

When not thinking about my next ice cream sandwich, I am working my way through Jaqueline Wilson’s entire body of work. I’m at the awkward age where, despite my limitations, I want to be treated like a grown-up. I buy hand cream, and I ask my mum to pick up Benefit samples for me when she’s in Boots. I wear pantyliners in preparation, although my period waits, three years away. I am ten, going on thirty-seven. Jaqueline is my bridge to this unknown and looming next stage in life; she rears me for adolescence, one I anticipate to be full of Short Skirts, McDonald’s and Older Boys. My teachers would rather I become the poster girl for the Childhood Literacy Crisis if it meant I never opened another book by the Dame again. They believe I’m so dependent on the Wilson formula that I’m beginning to write like her. I’m hooked up, so much so that they keep finding words like “mega” and “uber cool” where they shouldn’t*. Henry the Eighth had mega wives. Stalin was not uber cool (with knobs on). 

I have been prescribed something to uproot my dependence — The Hobbit. But alas, Tolkien is no antidote in my house except for insomnia. The teachers hope his drawl will seep into my brain and dissolve all of Wilson’s damage, but they are wrong. It just leaves me wanting more of her delicious, Comic Sans-clad prose. If he has taught me anything, it’s that no child should be introduced to Times New Roman so early. I’ve tried to branch out on my own accord. I’ve brought The Hunger Games with me to Majorca, but have already cast it aside — I simply cannot take to Katniss. Despite possessing the traumatic make-up of a Wilson heroine, she doesn’t know what a Topshop is. She has never rolled her skirt up or shortened her tie. Katniss Everdeen has never eaten cheesy beans on toast, and therefore, I cannot yet relate to her, let alone empathise. 

I tried to leave Jaqueline. I was fifteen when I decided I was done. I dusted off my Kindle and deleted every single word of Wilson’s writing — even her books for older readers. I decided I had outgrown her, and promptly downloaded The Communist Manifesto and Animal Farm, in the place Love Lessons used to stand. I was mature now; I cared about state capital and symbolism and anthropomorphism, as any good fifteen-year-old going somewhere should. It didn’t last, and I came crawling back within a week, telling myself I was being ironic.

It was not ironic. 

She’s my Achilles heel. No matter how cultured or well-read I wanted to appear as a teen, I could not escape the fact that she was - and still is -  my favourite author. That’s not to say Wilson isn’t a very literary lady — through her books, I was introduced to Dodie Smith, Charlotte Brontë, and Jane Austen. I read I Capture the Castle because she referenced it endlessly. I read Jane Eyre because she was inspired to write about a boarding school, as she did in My Sister Jodie. She makes reference to the classics in every text — something my teachers never gave her credit for. Through noughties slang and dated pop culture references, she built life long readers. 

In my daydreams, I sit next to her on Graham Norton’s purple sofa. We laugh, and I tell her she was such a crucial part of my childhood and adolescence. I quip that if I was ever invited on Celebrity Mastermind (for in this daydream, I am a renowned Woman Who Does Things), she would be my specialist subject. The life and work of Jaqueline Wilson. She laughs politely and promises that she’ll sign my copy of Opal Plumstead, but I can see she’s making eyes at Graham, as if to say, where did you find this weirdo at the end of the sofa who knows my star sign? (Sagittarius) I would have much preferred to converse with Alison Hammond.