Me Life Story by Scarlett Moffatt (best classic books of all time txt) 📗

myself, giving myself a little pep talk and doing something I detest – referring to myself in the third person. ‘Come on, Scarlett, you can do it, it’s just five minutes out of your life. You’ve overcome worse things than this,’ I whispered.

It was so dark, that kind of darkness where you can’t even see the shadow of your hands in front of your face. I could barely hear Ant and Dec. I lay there with my mouth tightly closed, grabbing onto my goggles, ready for anything that was about to happen. The cave started to fill with cold water and – joy of joys – rats. Obviously, because the rats wanted to get out of the water, they all started to burrow under my neck, as that was the warmest area. One was trying to nibble at my collarbone. I had scratches on me afterwards for about three weeks. I was clawing at the walls, scraping them with my little nimble fingers. All sorts of creepy crawlies were falling on me, but I didn’t care; I just knew I wanted to get out of that confined space. I was like a woman possessed. I was screaming and pulling bits off the wall, pulling anything off! I was literally pulling the prop apart. I had bits of plasticine in my hand from pulling it away. I did it: I got all the stars in a minute and a half because I just wanted to get out.

Even then, I apologised to the rats. When I got out, they wouldn’t get off me, so I was like, ‘Please, I’m sorry. I know you’ve just been scratching me, but you need to get down now.’

One strange aspect of the show is that you can’t see the cameras – they’re hidden. So you essentially feel like you’re all alone. It was a great experience for me though. The only downside was missing my family. Even though I knew they were watching, I often forgot. Many a time I would say, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell my mam and dad.’

And Ant and Dec would remind me: ‘Scarlett, they’re watching. They’re going to see this.’

But every time I did a trial or something funny happened, I’d just want to pick up the phone and be like, ‘Guess what’s happened here?’, even though they would already know.

I just wanted to discuss it with them and talk to my friends – ‘Carol Vorderman washed my hair today!’ I wanted to tell someone so badly, but you can’t. It was just unreal.

The really good thing is that nothing has altered between my friends and me. They just see what I do as an extra job. I don’t ever feel that anyone I’m close to has changed the way they are with me or treated me any differently. They just see it as extra-curricular.

‘What are you doing today?’

‘Oh, I’m filming.’

‘Oh, right, have fun.’

It’s actually people who I don’t really know, people who were horrible to us at school, who all of a sudden want to be my best friend. It’s really bizarre – the number of people who bullied me at school who are now saying, ‘Remember when we did this?’

‘No.’

I think they want fame by association. But I don’t want them to think that what they did at school was all right. It’s not that I’m holding grudges – I think you become a bitter person if you do that – but I just don’t want to associate myself with those people or think that I ought to be nice to them. I don’t have to be any more.

It’s so funny because as a family we never missed an episode of I’m a Celebrity, so I know the programme back to front. When I was in the jungle, my knowledge of the show was a standing joke. All my camp-mates called me ‘the encyclopaedia’.

I’d be saying to the others, ‘We haven’t done the second eating trial yet. One is normally at the beginning, and then we do another one later.’ So I’d be waiting for it. I would also tell them, ‘Eight more days till Cyclone. Seven more days. Six more days.’ I’d have a countdown.

I knew, too, that I was going to be doing a trial underground because there hadn’t been one yet. So I went into the Bushtucker Hut and told the producers, ‘You do know that I hate being underground.’

‘Don’t worry, your trial is not underground.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Yes, it is. I know it is. We may as well start to talk about it now because I know that I am doing one underground. I’ve watched this show since I was twelve. Do not try and make out that I don’t know what I’m talking about!’

When it came to the final day, I was ridiculously nervous. The three of us – Joel Dommett, Adam Thomas and I – were sitting down in the camp waiting to hear who was going to be the King or Queen of the Jungle.

My mam and dad have brought us up with a lot of manners. So every time that I was saved, I would say thank you. I was the only person that said thank you. But I remembered Sam Quek had said, ‘You need to stop saying thank you. It comes across desperate.’

‘It is not. I’m just genuinely thankful that people have voted.’ I cannot help it. I also say sorry when I shouldn’t. I am just very English.

So every time I was saved, I was like, ‘This is so bizarre. Why have I stayed and Carol Vorderman, Larry Lamb and all these amazing people have gone?’

When it was down to the last three, and Ant and Dec said Adam had come third, I was just looking at Joel as if to say, ‘What?!’ We were both bemused. Joel and I had spent the whole time in the jungle sleeping. I thought, ‘How can we be as entertaining as Adam? He’s so funny all the time.’ Adam