Schoolbooks paint lively portraits

Historical essays written by Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were produced today, providing a further glimpse into the personalities of the bubbly best friends.

The neatly-written, imaginative essays, which earned praise at the time from the missing girls' teachers, were in schoolbooks which the police showed reporters today.

The four books, two from each girl, show carefully-worded letters, short essays about different topics and illustrations which the girls coloured in themselves.

The 10-year-old friends each wrote one schoolbook about the Victorians and another about ancient Egypt. The books on the Victorians include letters from the girls, written to their families, about a day they spent at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire last September, when they pretended to be Victorian servants.

A school photo released earlier this week showed Holly and her classmates wearing mob caps and Victorian clothing during the visit. Holly, writing in character as a Victorian servant called Sally, wrote: "It was a brilliant day as a servant, and I am definitely going to enjoy it in the future."

Jessica, also writing in character, told how the girls had been taught to curtsy, write with pens dipped in ink, serve food, fold napkins and make beds. She wrote: "It was really really fun. I will like it here."

The girls both have tidy handwriting, using blue ink. The books on ancient Egypt include pages on geography, history, the legends of the civilisation, and hieroglyphics.

Inseparable best friends, Holly and Jessica are in the same class at school, live only a few streets away from each other, and spend their free time chatting, playing and styling each other's hair.

Of the two, friends describe blonde Holly as the quieter and more girlish. The only daughter of Nicola, 35, and Kevin, 38, who runs a contract cleaning business, she lives with them and her 12-year-old brother Oliver in a four-bedroom modern detached house in Red House Gardens, a quiet, cul-de-sac off Soham's main street.

Detective Sergeant Chris Mead, the liaison officer who has helped the family from the start of their ordeal, described how Oliver has been traumatised by his younger sister's disappearance.

He said: "Oliver is missing Holly and looks forward to the time when he can argue with her and do all the other normal things brothers and sisters do."

An affectionate and creative child, Holly has spent hours making cards and keepsakes for friends, including a "thank you for teaching me" card for her form teacher, Joy Pederson.

Jessica is the more outgoing and confident of the two, a spirited tomboy with a cheeky grin who dotes on her pet cat Fluffy and dog Toby.

Sean Flack, 10, who knows both girls well, said: "Holly prefers stuff a girly girl would do, makeup and doing her hair. But Jessica likes playing football - she is not a girly girl."

Jessica is the youngest daughter of Sharon, 43, and engineer Leslie, 51. They and her sisters Rebecca, 16, and Alison, 14, live in a four-bedroom semidetached house in Brook Street, near Soham's picturesque pond.