The Dare Game

infobox Book |
name = The Dare Game


image_caption =
author = Jacqueline Wilson
illustrator = Nick Sharratt
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Children's novel
publisher = Doubleday
pub_date = 2 March 2000
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 256 pp
isbn = ISBN 038540901X
preceded_by = The Story of Tracy Beaker
followed_by = Starring Tracy Beaker

"The Dare Game" is a children's novel written by Jacqueline Wilson and illustrated by Nick Sharratt, first published in 2000. It is a sequel to the bestselling "The Story of Tracy Beaker".

Plot summary

Tracy and Cam often argue about anything, including Tracy's new school, where she has a ghastly class teacher, whom she has christened Mrs "Vomit" Bagley. Most of her classmates spread rumors about her mum leaving her on purpose. Tracy decides to play truant and go to her own secret house. After a few days she discovers she's not the only truant as she meet two new friends, Alexander and Football. Alexander is a feeble little boy, whereas Football is the complete opposite, very burly, strong and large. Like Tracy, both boys have family problems: Alexander's dad hates him, and Football has a mother who is always going on at him; his Dad has left, and keeps promising to take him to a football match, but he never does, so he takes his promiscuous girlfriend instead. They all stay at a secret house and play dares day after day, childish dares, silly dares and downright daft dares (an example of this is when Tracy hung her underwear on a fir tree outside the house).

Suddenly, Tracy's Mum, Carly, appears out of the blue and Tracy is thrilled. She is allowed to stay with her for a weekend, and her Mum showers her with expensive gifts. Cam is upset about losing Tracy, but Tracy is hell-bent on going to live with her mother forever.

However, when she goes to her Mum's for a second time, something awful happens; her mother leaves her on her own for hours and hours, while she attends a karaoke night at her local pub. Tracy feels frightened and anxious, and remembers that this is what her Mum used to do when she was younger. Eventually, her Mum comes home with a boyfriend in tow; they were obviously planning on sharing a night of passion, but she has to send him home when she remembers that Tracy is there. However, before leaving, she arranges to spend the weekend with her boyfriend instead of Tracy. Tracy, who had pretended to be asleep and knows that her Mum doesn't care about her, does a bunk back to her secret house, and soon realises she must make a choice: Cam or her mum.