Excerpt from Rainbow Chaser © Miranda Dickinson 2007

Sunday 13th May

Dear Diary, 

I think I should probably introduce myself, before I say anything else. My name is Olivia Grace Emerson, I am 8 and-a-half years old and I am going to be a star. 

Nobody else thinks I will be – well, almost nobody, except for Mrs Fogarty who owns the newspaper shop and Cara, my best friend. I don’t mind though. My teacher, Miss Henshaw, says that if you believe something enough and work hard, anything is possible. I told her in the playground once that I was going to be famous and she said “Good for you, Olivia,” then blew the whistle for everyone to line up to go back into school.

Mrs Fogarty said to me that the people who get to be stars are the ones who never give up. She says that lots of people will say you can’t be a star, but you mustn’t believe them. “Look at Marilyn Monroe. Nobody believed she could be a star,” she said, “Or The Beatles.” I wasn’t sure who they were, but I found a picture of them in the Encyclopedia book in my school library. They are all very old or even dead now, but the book said that people still remember them and miss them, and think they are stars.

I would like people to miss me when I am dead. I think Cara will, if she doesn’t die before me. Or maybe I will be a tragic star like Marilyn Monroe and die even before Mrs Fogarty does. She’s 42 and her birthday is 23rd June. I’m not supposed to know that, but Mr Fogarty whispered it to me when she was unpacking a box of Hobnobs last week. I like Mr Fogarty, but sometimes he speaks to me like I’m a baby and messes up my hair. I make sure I smile at him every time he does it, but then I have to tidy my hair up when I leave the shop.

 At school, we have been learning about diaries and journals. Miss Henshaw says that a diary is like your own secret friend that you can tell everything to. You can write it all down and nobody else has to read it, ever, unless you want them to. Jack Evans asked if you could tell your diary about Aston Villa. Miss Henshaw said yes, you can write anything you like, it’s up to you. She told us to ask our mums to buy us a notebook so that we could write things down in it. That made everyone talk about what sort of notebook they were going to ask for. Katie Allen says her mum can get her a pink fluffy one with stars on it because she works at WHSmiths and she gets staff discount. Katie Allen always gets the nicest stuff from her mum. I think she will probably get the best diary in the whole school.