Gemma and Alice have known each other all their lives, but when Gemma reads Alice's diary at a sleepover, it eventually leads her to discover Alice is to England moving. Because of their distance, Gemma and Alice struggle to stay friends, with the possibility of each other making new friends. The story's theme throughout the whole story is that true friends will be together until the end. Calling the Old Man Out: Knowing full well her father will beat her mother the moment she and Kenny go to bed, Jayni yells at him how she hates him for ruining everything. This is the catalyst that prompts him to hit her for the first time and for Nikki to run away with the kids. Several other stories have very young protagonists who are left to look after younger siblings alone while the parents work long hours or (in The Bed and Breakfast Star) just sleep all day.

Dull Eyes of Unhappiness - In Dustbin Baby, April goes to visit the grave of her adoptive mother, whose headstone has a picture of her on her wedding day. April notes how bright her adoptive mother's eyes are in the picture, and sadly reflects that they didn't look at all like that when April knew her. Prudence is her father's favourite in Love Lessons, but he barely treats her any better than her mother or sister. Em's biological father was a "violent nutter" (although a meeting with him shows that he's most likely changed, having a new wife and kids he's fine with), and while Vita's father Frankie in Clean Break may not be physically abusive, but he is a "sleazy charmer" with major commitment issues and is completely oblivious to the pain he is causing to his wife and kids.This comes up in Emerald Star when Hetty chooses to go with the circus despite Jem's offer to marry her. Doorstop Baby - April of Dustbin Baby, who as the title suggests was actually found abandoned in a bin. In Cookie, Beauty considers not inviting Skye to her birthday party and tearing up the invitation in front of her class, but sees how desperate she is to attend and invites her, despite how mean she is.

Wilson's first book for children, Nobody's Perfect, involved a girl looking for her biological father. Martha in The Longest Whale Song repeatedly taunts Ella that her mother will be in a coma indefinitely but after seeing how her mother and stepfather treat her, Ella realises that she's being horrible because she's unhappy. No Social Skills: A huge part of Prudence's problems in Love Lessons, when she is incapable of fitting in with others thanks to years of homeschooling and her own rather headstrong attitude. Ironically, her younger sister ends up happy and makes friends easily even though she is frequently considered 'slow' by her family.

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Tracy Beaker, and Elsie in Queenie, end up being taken into children's homes because they had been left at home alone by their mothers (although in Elsie's case, she's able to go and live with her grandmother.)

Jayni's mother in Lola Rose leaves her two young children alone while she works a bar job late at night, eventually leaving them for several days when she goes into hospital for an operation (although they are able to trace their estranged aunt, and get help.) Most on the time this isn't deliberate, though Jayni mentions that Nikki has often stayed out without warning, leaving her to look after her brother. Billy "Biscuits" McVitie: The girls' schoolfriend, a tubby boy who loves food, both eating and cooking. Gemma and Alice form a temporary hatred for him when he "tells on them" to his mother about their plots on running away. When Alice is gone, Gemma and Biscuits become closer as friends and work together for a project on famous TV chef "Fat Larry", as well as Biscuits making Gemma her special birthday cake at her party. Towards the beginning, Gemma is friends with Biscuits which is not so much shared by Alice, but this changes when the running away happened (the disliking for him became mutual), however as time slowly passes she realises what he did was out of care, and he just wants his special friend Gemma to be safe and happy. Biscuits is described as good-natured, kind and cheerful, as well as loved by all of his friends.In Opal Plumstead, Opal's mother's actions make it clear she prefers Cassie to Opal. Opal doesn't really care, but she also believes that her father also can't help liking Cassie more, which bothers her.