Fear The Tracy Beaker Survival Files - Tales from the Dumping Ground

My name is Tracy Beaker and these are my Survival Files,

your essential guide to the ups and downs of growing up.

-Tracy.

-Tracy!

Life in the Dumping Ground has taught me a lot about stuff.

Tracy Beaker.

Scary stuff.

THEY SCREAM

Complicated stuff. Stuff that can make you want to scream.

SCREAMING

If you can cope with the stuff that happens here,

you can cope with almost anything.

I've spent most of my life here. First, as a kid,

and now it's where I work.

I've learned a lot about friends,

about enemies...

..about what life can throw at you.

It's not always been pretty

but it's made me who I am today

and now I'm passing on my wisdom to you guys in a video blog.

I've lived through all this so you don't have to.

On The Tracy Beaker Survival Files this time...

What makes us frightened? Why do we love a good scare?

And how to conquer our biggest fears.

Cam once told me, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

If so, we should be terrified,

cos the world is full of wusses. Take a look at this lot.

THEY SCREAM

HE SCREAMS

Some people are scared of everything.

But if that's you, don't despair. I'm here to help.

ALL: Oooooh! Toby!

HE SCREAMS

Everyone knows I don't scare easy. Not everyone's as fearless as me.

Some people are frightened of the smallest things.

Like toys.

THEY SCREAM

-SHE SCREAMS

-Or maggots.

THEY SCREAM

SHE SCREAMS A giant spider!

'Or spiders.'

Oh, flush it down the plughole!

Killing a spider's bad luck.

Ohh!

Don't be such a baby. It's just a tiny little... Urgh!

'What a big fuss over a teensy, harmless creature.'

IT GROWLS

It's OK. I will deal with it.

'Time for a calm, collected adult to take charge.'

-Get it out! Get rid of it!

-It's so hairy! It's huge as well.

It's probably made a huge web in the plughole.

SHE SCREAMS

Don't get too close, it can move really fast.

SHE CLEARS THROAT

SHE SCREAMS

# You can get it if you really want

# You can get it if you really want

# You can get it if you really want

# But you must try

# Try and try, try and try... #

Get the door!

# Try and try

# You'll succeed at last. #

Were you scared?

No, of course she wasn't.

I... No. And do you know why?

When I touched it, I realised it was all in the mind.

And it just tickled.

Spiders are at the top of the list of things

that I'm absolutely in no way scared of.

But what scares the young people in the Dumping Ground?

What scares me? Nothing much, really.

Well, I don't exactly like being alone in the dark.

Or the funny noises at night.

I hate when really big dogs jump up at you.

Or screechy fireworks.

What scares me?

-SHE LAUGHS

-Nothing scares me.

And it's really scary in the take-off bit in a plane. And landing.

And pretty much just sitting there in between.

The thought that we might never get fostered,

and be stuck here forever, that's scary.

Rats, mice, hedgehogs...

What frightens me is the thought of not seeing my sisters again.

So, yeah. Not a lot, really. Sorry about that.

Oh, and one more thing, werewolves.

Werewolf attack! There's a werewolf outside!

# A-woo! Werewolves of London

# A-woo! #

You think we don't get many werewolves here? Think again.

IT GROWLS

# A-woo!... #

SHE SCREAMS

-That's it. That's what I saw.

-A werewolf? You saw a werewolf?

Werewolves don't exist, do they?

They might. There's been legends about them for centuries.

Usually, they appear when there's a full moon.

There's a full moon tonight. But werewolves don't exist.

Well, they do cos I saw one.

Providing three square meals a day for the kids,

coping with endless paperwork and dealing with werewolves.

All part of your average day as a care worker.

Of course there's no such thing as werewolves.

But once that lot get an idea in their heads, you try shifting it.

Did you see it then?

Had it transformed back into human form?

There is something outside... the garden!

But Mike was wrong. There was something out there.

And it was coming inside...

..up the stairs...

..looking for someone.

It went into Sapph's room.

Hi, sis.

-Riff?

-I'm knackered.

Riff, what are you doing here?

-I needed to talk to you.

-In a werewolf mask?

So the werewolf was Sapphire's brother Riff

who had come to see her wearing a funny mask.

If you confront what scares you,

it's probably not as scary as you thought.

It's often what you don't know or can't see that scares you most.

Louise? Louise, where are you?

For instance, when I was a kid,

my mate Jackie had this massive phobia of the dark.

Oooooooh!

ALL: Oooooooh!

So for Jackie, power cuts were a big deal.

Ooooooh!

She hated them. Really hated them.

-SHE SCREAMS

-You gave me the fright of my life!

-It's not funny.

-You're really scared of the dark.

I'm not scared of anything. Leave me alone.

-If that's what you want, stay alone.

-Wait! Don't go!

I mean, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to stay.

OK, it's true. I am scared of the dark. Especially since I came here.

It wasn't so bad when I lived with Grandpa.

He would read me these amazing stories until I fell asleep.

ALL: Oooooooh!

Zzzzap!

'Without her grandpa, Jackie needed help to conquer her fear.

'Luckily, I was on hand to sort her out.'

-Darkness has potential, you know?

-Potential for what?

Mucking about, stuff like that.

Hmm, there's a few things we'll be needing from the attic.

'Once I'd explained my plan to Jackie

'and she saw how brilliant it was,

'she knew we had to go through with it.'

WIND BLOWS

Tracy, I'm going to go on my own.

But you can't. It's too spooky.

It's OK, I want to do this, prove something to myself.

-Good luck.

-Thanks.

You do know what to get, don't you?

'And so it was time for Jackie to face her fears.'

WIND WHISTLES

CREAKING

You can do it. You can do it. You can...

SHE GASPS

Come on, Jackie. You can do it!

I did it!

I would've gone up the spooky stairs to the creepy, dark attic myself

but Jackie needed to get over her phobia, and I'm glad I could help.

It went so well, we gave Shelly and Duke a chance to face up to fear.

-It's very quiet.

-Wonderful, isn't it?

I suppose we could go and sit down until they get bored.

We could. Well, they are enjoying themselves, aren't they?

THEY SCREAM

THEY LAUGH

THEY MOAN

What's going on?

'When I say darkness has potential for mucking about,

'you'd better believe it.'

THEY LAUGH

Well, who did it?

-Not me.

-It wasn't us.

-You've got to be careful.

You never know what's waiting to get you.

THEY LAUGH

Here's something weird.

Most people seem to find the world scary.

So why go out of our way to make it even scarier?

The cellar was dark and cold. The little girl shivered with fear,

as she heard a drip, drip, drip...

Was it blood or a leaking pipe?

She sensed she wasn't alone,

as a cold, bony hand reached out and grabbed her.

SHE SCREAMS

The big question is, why this obsession

with giving ourselves the heebie-jeebies?

Why do we like scaring each other so much? Let's hear from some experts.

It's a laugh, isn't it?

Getting a big reaction off people.

-Aaargh!

-Wah!

HE LAUGHS

Never get bored with that one.

-Raaar!

-Frank!

All that playing tricks, scaring people, carrying on,

I can do without it...

BOTH: Raaaar! HE SCREAMS

..most of the time. SHE LAUGHS

Gus, why do you think we like scaring each other?

Some people enjoy scaring other people.

Other people enjoy being scared by other people.

Some people enjoy both. I don't understand why.

HE LAUGHS

-You trying to scare me?

-Why would I want to do that?

What can I do for you?

Toby and Frank told Liam that there was a tin of sweets,

so he opened it and a scary face with glitter popped out.

What made that scary?

The fact that he was expecting it to be full of sweets

and instead something jumped out and surprised him.

-So, surprises are scary?

-Yeah, they can be.

-Boo!

-Why did you do that?

I don't know.

So what have we learnt

about fear to upload to the Tracy Beaker Survival Files?

Three big discoveries, I'd say.

One - most people have a fear but what frightens them

can be different, depending on the person.

It might be the dark or werewolves.

It could even be spiders.

Imagine that, being scared of spiders!

Two - it's important to conquer those fears,

by facing up to what scares you.

And three - don't let your imagination run away with you.

What you think is a terrifying beast

may just be a stray teenager with dodgy taste in headwear.

CAMERA BEEPS

As we've seen, it can be fun to be scared.

When I was a kid, we made a horror movie.

It was seriously disturbing. In a good way.

Here we go.

'We're in a very scary place...

'Tracy sees something.

'It's the monster. It's gruesome and it smells really bad.

'What are we going to do now?

'Tracy's now reaching out towards the monster...

'Raaaar!' THEY SCREAM

-Goodnight!

-THEY SCREAM

'Yeah, it was a cinematic triumph.

'But, that night, everyone's imaginations were running riot.'

-I want to go to the toilet.

-Louise!

Can you come with me?

DOOR CREAKS

'Louise and Justine were totally spooked...'

FLOORBOARD CREAKS

'..but not me.'

Oooooh!

Wah-ha-ha-ha!

THUNDER CLAP

Wah-ha-ha-ha!

SHE GASPS

Tracy Beaker, Ghostbuster.

ALL: Woooooo!

SHE YELLS

'Told you, I never did scare easy.

'I strode fearlessly down the corridor.

'And then I saw this ghoulish goo scarily dripping onto the floor.'

SHE SCREAMS

THEY SCREAM

'But once again, there was a perfectly simple explanation.'

THEY ALL SCREAM

Great!

First I get sent to a dump.

Then it's full of complete nutters.

DOOR SLAMS

There you go. It wasn't alien goo from another world.

It was hair gel from a new girl called Amber.

Though I reckon Amber could've scared off most aliens.

It's not just kids who get scared.

Grown-ups get freaked out too. Even ones who maybe should know better.

OK, Cam. My question to you is,

think of a time you were really scared.

Ooh, that's a good question.

Do you remember that camping trip?

That was sort of scary.

Why are you looking at me like that?

OK, here's why.

The kids were all on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere.

But Cam promised me a special surprise.

I thought we were off on the holiday of a lifetime.

-Please tell me where we're going.

-Hmmm.

STARTS ENGINE

You can open your eyes now.

Tracy! Surprise!

-You are not serious!

-What?

Camping with Elaine the Pain! Why?

I thought you'd love a holiday with your friends.

You always say you miss them.

I've spent my whole life trying to escape.

This is my worst nightmare ever!

Sorry we're such a pain.

'It was like a bad dream. Not so much in a scary way,

'more in a "can I really believe this is happening to me?"

'kind of way.'

BLOWS WHISTLE

'And then... Oh, joy! Elaine took us on a nature trail.'

Wild peacocks!

They're pheasants, Elaine.

THEY LAUGH

Tick it off then... On page 19, I think.

It shows you, we've all got our limits.

I've coped with spiders, ghosts, haunted attics, aliens, werewolves.

But Elaine the Pain's nature trail was too for me.

And that must be a sycamore or it could be... Ahhh!

THEY LAUGH

'It was rubbish.

'We all took our chances and started sneaking off in small groups.

'And that's when things got... interesting.'

Keep together, everyone. Where's Layla and Rio?

One minute they were here, the next they'd completely disappeared.

Don't you know about these woods? It was in all the papers.

People go in but they don't come out.

Much more interesting. But not exactly in a good way.

HOWLING

'It didn't bother me, of course.'

HOWLING

'But I was worried about the others. Especially Cam,

'lost in the woods, alone.'

Remember all that strange, ghostly howling?

-You must have been terrified.

-Oh, come on, Tracy.

It takes more than a few weird noises to scare me.

HOWLING

SHE GASPS

So, you weren't scared at all? Right.

I wasn't! You were the one that got just a bit petrified.

THUNDERCLAP

CREAKING

HOWLING

THUNDERCLAP

As it turned out, there was no reason to be scared. Not that I was.

Cam got that wrong, her memory's not what it used to be.

-Did you hear that noise?

-Yeah, but I wasn't scared.

-Nothing scares me.

-Except coming on holiday with us.

The so-called monster was just Crash and Jackie. Or so I thought.

WAILING

-Ah! I don't like it!

-Where's it coming from?

SHE SCREAMS

Your mind can play tricks on you.

It's important to step back and look at the situation

sensibly and rationally. So I did.

-Are you OK?

-No!

-Maybe we're letting our imaginations take over.

Maybe it was an old woman out for a walk.

-In a long, hooded cloak?

-Maybe she feels the cold.

This is like the film where the tourists get lost in the forest.

-Do they get home safely?

-No. They get eaten by zombies.

It will take more than zombies to scare me.

Zombies and spooky old women are no match for me.

Only one thing got to me that day, thinking Cam was in danger.

-SCREAMING

-Help!

-That's Cam!

-It's coming from that creepy place.

-Cam!

-What if it's a trap set by that spooky old woman?

-Cam's in trouble.

PANTING

Thank goodness! I thought I'd never see you again.

I'm fine. I just sprained my ankle.

You must have been so relieved when I saved you.

-Saved me from what?

-Uh, yourself?

Face it, you were so scared you managed to hurt your ankle.

-Lucky it wasn't much worse.

-Excuse me!

You didn't stop shaking till we got back to camp!

-It's a shame how time plays tricks on the minds of the elderly.

-Tracy!

Where did you get to?

-You disappeared, I thought something had happened to you.

-Found him.

Me? I was fine. These two found it a bit freaky though.

Wolfy, Lol and Bouncer seemed to be having a great time

when I saw them earlier. Lol had a blanket round him

-and Wolfy had your red jumper.

-I'll kill them!

Yet again, there was a rational explanation.

It was all down to some of my friends.

But, sometimes, bad things do happen,

which is why real life is much scarier than noises in the woods.

Take Toby. He'd had a really tough time.

His parents died.

And then a lot of other bad stuff happened.

Watch it, bad-luck boy!

So poor old Tobes was always waiting for the next disaster.

Perfect!

THEY LAUGH

I'll do you another one.

What's the point? I told you, from the day I was born, I'm jinxed.

It wasn't just bad stuff he was scared of. But good stuff too.

In case it turned bad as well.

'When he got the news that every care kid longs for,

'that someone wanted to foster him, all it did was make him sad.'

You look like you'd rather get fostered by crocodiles.

-Gina was saying they're nice.

-Yeah.

-What's wrong?

It's bound to go horribly wrong.

He's a great lad. And you can't blame him for fearing the worst.

He's had more than his fair share of tough times.

There's no such thing as jinxes, curses or bad omens.

That's what you think.

It's just something to blame when bad things happen. It's not real.

Living with the Scotts could be real.

So were my mum and dad.

HE CRIES

It's difficult. When a kid's already seen their worst fears come true,

how can you tell him not to be scared?

I'd say the best thing is to be there if he needs a shoulder to cry on.

Which is what you did.

Toby, listen. Nothing will ever bring your mum and dad back

but if they could see you now, they'd want you to be happy.

To give the Scotts a chance.

Whatever happens in life, mostly it's up to us.

Not chance or fate or whatever.

Don't miss out on the good because you're scared of the bad.

Come on.

He needed to face up to his past, to make decisions about the future.

And he had a huge decision to make when he met the Scotts.

We thought you might like a new CD.

We hope you like it.

-We're not sure what you like.

-Thanks. The thing is...

Maybe one day we'll get to find out.

The thing is, I've been really nervous about meeting you

in case it all goes wrong.

But Tracy said I should go for what I really want.

And I realised something massive...

..I don't want to get fostered.

-Come on, Toby.

-Not yet.

I thought I had to, but I don't, do I?

That's what you meant.

That's what you mean. It's what you want.

It feels good here.

I want to stay here with everyone. Yeah. I do.

For definite.

Is that OK?

Yes, Toby.

That was really brave of Toby.

He did what we all need to do. Face up to our fears.

Once you do that, nothing can stop you.

Oi! Oi!

How tall do you think I am?

Can I join in?

It won't be easy for Toby to put his past behind him

but with a little help he'll be OK.

WHISTLE BLOWS

THE CHILDREN LAUGH AND PLAY

So what can I tell you about fear

to put into the Tracy Beaker Survival Files?

We all have fears and phobias and they are different for us all.

Often it's the unknown that frightens us the most.

We know some fears are silly, like a fear of the dark,

but that doesn't make it easier.

And fear is something that affects us all.

So don't be afraid to talk about you fears.

Chances are, other people will feel just the same.

We like to give ourselves little scares that we can laugh about.

And sometimes we are right to be scared. Bad things can happen.

The world can be a scary place.

But you cant let fear rule your life.

We all have to face our fears one day. Why not make it today?

That's the Beaker Guide To Scary Stuff

safely uploaded to the Tracy Beaker Survival Files.

More gems of wisdom from my experiences next time.

Don't miss it.

I've been through all this so you don't have to.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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