Cookie (novel)

Plot

Despite her name, Beauty Cookson is a plain, timid girl who is nicknamed ugly by her peers at school, especially by her main bully, Skye. Worse than the teasing in the playground, though, is the unpredictable criticism from her father. She is frequently berated for breaking any of his fussy house rules, as well as for her lack of looks, confidence and friends, even though she is a wealthy girl who lives in a large house and attends a private school. Beauty adores rabbits, although her father forbids her to have pets. Her favourite television show is "Rabbit Hutch", a show for young children about a man, Sam, and his pet rabbit, Lily.

She has no friends at all at school. The only girl that is nice to her is Rhona, Skye's best friend. However, Rhona desperately wants to be friends with Beauty, which she reveals one day when Skye is at a dentist appointment. Finally, she is invited by Rhona to a birthday party she is holding. For the birthday party, Beauty's dad forces her to get corkscrew curls and popular bullies Skye, Arabella and Emily develop a new nickname for her: Ugly Corkscrew.

Beauty tells her mother, Dilys "Dilly" Cookson about the teasing and Dilly decides to learn how to bake cookies, even though she is an awful cook, in the hope that Beauty will be given a new nickname, Cookie (a play on her surname, Cookson). Gradually, both Beauty and Dilly get the hang of making cookies and become wondrous at it.

Beauty's birthday is approaching and she is dreading it, however her father appears to turn a new leaf and act like an ideal dad. Her dad organises tickets for all of the girls in her class to see a stage show called 'Birthday Bonanza', with a chauffeur driven limousine to escort them there. Beauty invites all the girls, including Skye, and decides to give out cookies at the end of the party. Rhona gives Beauty a pet rabbit, which she names 'Birthday'. The birthday starts to become unbearable when, at the show, Beauty is too shy to go onstage (the show is to celebrate people's birthdays), and he shouts at her in the limousine as well as ruining her cookies.

When Dilly and Beauty learn that Birthday has been killed by a fox after her father let him out of his cage, Dilly tells him she is separating from him, and she and Beauty leave the household. The two drive to Beauty's father's first wife, Auntie Avril, who treats the two kindly but at first looks down upon Dilly's ideas of leaving her husband, saying that she has "deliberately made herself homeless". She lets them stay for the night until they decide to go on holiday. The holiday resort they choose is called Rabbit Cove, which Beauty chooses due to her craze over rabbits. They find themselves in an idyllic seaside resort run by a man named Mike, who takes Dilly on as a breakfast chef in his B&B.

Dilly decides to let her husband know where they are, despite Beauty's objections, but after he shouts at her and calls her a "useless aging dumb blonde" she terminates the call. He tracks them down, and yells at them in front of the customers at the cafe, even going as far as to accuse her of having an affair with Mike and punching him in the nose, before driving off. Even though Dilly is living with Mike and he hints that he wants to start dating, Dilly refuses for the time being, as she wants to be independent. He understands.

Just before summer, Beauty is sent to a new school where she makes friends and is nicknamed Cookie, but she still keeps in touch with Rhona by writing letters. Beauty is asked to go on 'Watchbox', a talent show that Skye really wanted to be on, due to the rise in popularity of her mother's cookies. As a treat, the producers of Watchbox invite Sam and Lily, who tells Beauty that Lily is pregnant with her own baby rabbits. Sam decides to give Beauty her own baby rabbit.

Audiobook

A BBC audiobook was released in the same month as the novel, read by Finty Williams.