The Dare Game: Part 5

By JACQUELINE WILSON, Illustrator NICK SHARRATT

But Dorothy acts in an extremely dumb manner all the way through the film. You'd think she'd have sussed out for herself that all she had to do was click those ruby slippers and she"d get back home. That's it. That's the bit. Where she says, "There's no place like home."

It gets to me. Because there's no place like home for me. No place at all. I haven't got a home.

Well. I didn't have up until recently. Unless you count the Home. If a home has a capital letter at the front you can be pretty sure it isn"t like a real home. It's just a dumping ground for kids with problems. The ugly kids, the bad kids, the daft kids. The ones no-one wants to foster. The kids way past their sell-by date so they're all chucked on the rubbish heap. There were certainly some ultra-rubbishy kids at that Home. Especially a certain Justine Littlewood ...

Publisher: Random House, $16.95 Age group: 8-12 years