All over the country children go to stay with step-parents, stepbrothers and stepsisters at the weekends. It's just like an endless chain. A step-chain. Girls Mean Trouble is the second link in this step-chain.
I'm Ollie. My parents split up a while ago, and my brother and I live with Mum and Peter, my stepdad. He's more laid back than my real dad, so going on a holiday with him should be fun. Except that Peter's daughters are coming along, too. Girls! I just know there'll be trouble...
Ollie thinks that a fortnight away in Devon with his mum’s new boyfriend Peter and his daughters (as featured in the previous book, One Mum’s Enough) is going to be a living hell, with them taking ages to get ready and not wanting to do anything fun and exciting. He is surprised to discover that Frankie, the eldest, is into running races and splashing about in the sea with a body board, rather than playing with dolls, doing her hair and sunbathing. He finds himself feeling ‘strange’ about her, and is jealous when other boys look at her. But his stirring little brother Rory finds out and Ollie must do everything he can to convince him and the rest of his family that he is mistaken, even if it means hurting poor Frankie’s feelings:
“‘…I know you’re in love with her, because I’ve heard you saying her name in your sleep. It’s so embarrassing.’
‘Well, it must have been a nightmare if I did,’ I snapped back at Rory.
Just then when I was on the point of going into the toilet, I saw that Frankie had appeared at the top of the stairs. She must have heard every word.”
Anne Bryant’s punchy yet sympathetic writing provides an insightful exploration of a thirteen-year-old boy’s varied mixture of thoughts and feelings when faced with two ‘new’ sisters.
