Hunky Dory
JEAN URE

Jem ma Mason Rachel Cornforth and Amelia Rose Slaughter

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Also by Jean Ure

Copyright

About the Publisher

One

I am having terrible trouble with girls. They won’t leave me alone! This morning in geography this girl in my class, Amy Wilkerson, deliberately came and sat next to me. I mean, like, out of about three zillion empty seats she had to come and park herself next to me. Why did she do this? It was extremely embarrassing, especially when she started getting all cosy and leaning up against me so she could talk to her friend Sharleen on the other side of the gangway. Why didn’t she go and sit next to Sharleen? That’s what she normally does. Why does she want to come squashing herself all over me?

I really like geography, it’s one of my favourite classes, but how can you concentrate when there’s someone nudging you all the time, and breathing over you, and banging at you with their knees? She ruined it for me! I couldn’t get away from her. Plus she’s lefthanded, so whenever we had to write stuff our hands kept touching. I’m sure they didn’t have to keep touching. If she hadn’t been hunched right up close to me they wouldn’t have. It was almost like she wanted them to. So now I’ve got a messy page in my geography book where my handwriting suddenly jerks up and down where she’s jogged me. I try to keep my stuff tidy. I don’t like it all messy! I hope she doesn’t think she’s going to make a habit of this, cos if she does I shall have to—

I don’t know! I don’t know what I shall do. It’s getting beyond a joke! Amy Wilkerson is not the only one. The other day, in art, Janine Edwards kept beaming at me. I’m not imagining it! Every time I looked up, she caught my eye and she beamed. What was she beaming for???

It’s quite scary. They’re all at it! Beaming, breathing, giggling. It’s even happening with Year 6. On my way out of school this afternoon there was a great gaggle of them, hanging around by the main gate. I recognised some of them from when I was in Juniors; I think they may be friends of the Microdot (otherwise known as my sister). When they saw me they all started to giggle and squeak and stuff their hands into their mouths. It’s very off-putting when girls behave like that. I had to keep looking at myself in shop windows to check I’d got my clothes on right. I still don’t know what they were giggling at. It makes me very self-conscious.

Maybe that’s why they do it? Maybe it’s their secret weapon. They get together in groups and lurk about, waiting for boys to giggle at. But why pick on me???

I didn’t mean to write all that. All that about girls. They are not part of my plan and I don’t know how they got there. From now on I am going to ignore them. They are going to be KEPT OUT.

Right. That’s it! They’ve gone. Now I can get started on what I was going to get started on before I was interrupted. By girls.

What follows is the official autobiography of my life so far. So far as I have lived it, which is eleven years plus nine months, three days, and probably a little bit extra, only I am not sure of the exact time I was born as Mum says she can’t remember. She just says vaguely that it was “in the early hours of the morning”.

That is typical of Mum! She is quite a slapdash sort of person. Anyway, however long I have lived it makes a total of at least one hundred and eight thousand and forty-four hours (not counting leap years). That might not seem a lot to some people—my granddad, for instance, who is almost eighty—but I think I have lived long enough to make a start. One day when I am famous as an expert on dinosaurs, people might be quite curious to read about my early struggles. Not just with Amy Wilkerson but with my family, and especially with the Microdot. Getting them to take me seriously. That is my biggest struggle.

Now that I have started, I am not sure what to put in and what to leave out. There is not much to be said about my beginnings; they were just quite ordinary. There isn’t anything much to say about where I live, either. That is also quite ordinary. A bit depressing, really, though I do my best not to dwell on it. I’m sure that lots of people who are now famous had what Dad calls “humble oranges” (he means humble origins; it is Dad’s idea of a joke. He is always coming out with these things).

I suppose I should say something about where I go to school, except that I can’t really think of anything much worth saying. School is also just ordinary! But one day people might be interested. I think I shall make headings.

School

Easthaven High.

I am in Year 7, and these are my favourite lessons:

Geography

Science

Maths

These are my least favourite lessons:

French

PE

Cross country running. (This is not really a lesson but we have to do it once a week and it is like a form of torture.)

I expect I would quite enjoy English if we could read more interesting books, instead of the rather soppy ones that Mrs Baxter always goes for, and I would definitely like history if we could do the Triassic Period, but Mr Islip says this is not on the curriculum as no one knows enough about it. Pardon me, but I know enough about it! I bet I could do an entire exam on the Triassic Period. Just because Mr Islip is ignorant, I don’t think he should accuse other people of being so. He didn’t even know when the Triassic Period was! He thought it was only about two million years ago. When I told him it was twenty-three million, he just said, “Well, there you are. That proves my point.” Actually, all it proves is that even teachers don’t necessarily have any idea what they’re talking about.

Anyway, that is enough about school. On the whole it’s not a bad sort of place. The worst thing about it is where it is: right next door to the Juniors. This means that the Microdot and her friends can gather and giggle every day if they want, and there is nothing that I can do to stop them. And there is no other way of getting out of school! Not that the Microdot was actually there when they were giggling, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was the one that organised it.

“Go and wait by the gates until my brother comes out and then start giggling!”

I can just hear her. It’s just the sort of thing she’d do. I’m not going to ask her about it; I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. And if she dares ask me, like, “Did you notice my friends when you left school today?” I shall simply say, “Friends? What friends? I didn’t know you had any.” I mean, what were they giggling about?

Now I have gone and upset myself again. I think I shall make a list. Any list! List of my family.

My Family Oliver Jones. My dad.

My dad is very long and thin, with big hands and feet which people tease him about. Recently he has developed a bald patch on the top of his head. He is very sensitive about his bald patch, so that sometimes he combs his hair over it in a vain attempt to stop it showing. Mum says he is being ridiculous. “A man of your age!” Personally I think that is a bit unfair, cos how would she like to go bald?

Dad is a wood sculptor. He works in his shed in the back garden, sculpting wood strange and curious shapes. People pay him for this. When they are not paying him—when there are not enough people who want bits of wood in strange and curious shapes—he makes rustic

furniture for the local garden centre. Once for my birthday, when I was little, he made me a wooden dinosaur. He was really supposed to be making a rocking horse, but he said, “The wood wouldn’t let me”. Often, according to Dad, you just have to make what the wood tells you to make. So I got a rocking dinosaur, instead, and that was what set me off on the whole dinosaur trail. I have Dad to thank for it!

Sara Jones. My mum.

Mum is almost the opposite of Dad, being very short and a bit on the plump side, with a round beaming face. Everyone says that she is pretty, and I guess she is, though it is hard to be sure when it’s your own mum. Certainly, in spite of being plump, she is a really fast mover. She whizzes about all over the place like she is jet-propelled. Dad is for ever telling her to “Just stay still for a minute, woman! You’re making me feel giddy”.

Mum, I think, is a bit eccentric; she is definitely not like other people’s mums. Not the ones that I have met. For instance, she hates cooking, she hates housework, she hates shopping, and most of the time she wears old jeans and sweaters covered in hairs. Animal hairs. Actually, the whole house is covered in animal hairs. Sometimes they even get into the food. It is all very disgusting, but what can you do? I don’t think Mum even notices.

When she was first married, Mum used to be a veterinary nurse. Now she runs a cattery in the back garden (opposite Dad’s shed) where people leave their cats when they go on holiday. There is a big wire enclosure with a row of little huts, each with its own snuggle bag and litter tray. Even its own scratching post and catnip toy. Dad says it is like a five-star hotel.

One of the maddest things about Mum is her passion for Jack Russells.

She started off with one and now she has five. Every time she hears of a Jack Russell that needs a home, she goes racing off to get it. There are Jack Russells all over the place! On the chairs, on the table, on the beds. Last week one even jumped into the bath with me. It’s kind of zany, but you get used to it.

William Jones. My brother.

William is fifteen, and is tall like Dad, but not so thin. I think he is probably quite good looking, or will be when he has grown out of his pimply phase. Will’s pimples cause him much distress. He has special cream to put on them but so far it doesn’t seem to have done much good. His life, just at the moment, is dominated by pimples. I feel very sorry for him and just hope it never happens to me.

Dorian Jones. Myself.

I think I have said enough about me for the moment. Obviously there will be more later on.

Annabel Jones. My sister.

The Microdot takes after Mum, being so short she practically can’t be measured. Like Mum she is always busy; but while Mum scuttles about like a demented hen, all mad and happy, the Microdot hurls herself to and fro in a frantic rage, like a porcupine with its quills stuck up.

I call her the Microdot to pay her back for calling me

Doreen, which is what she does when she wants to annoy me. The Microdot suits her. Annabel is a ridiculous name for someone that’s hardly any taller than a milk carton. She says Dorian is a ridiculous name full stop. “Specially for some geeky nerd that’s into dinosaurs!”

I have a lot of trouble with my sister. I am not going to say any more about her; it will only get me all hot and bothered again. I know she was behind the giggling.

I am not going to think about it.

Grandparents Mum’s mum: Wee Scots Granny.

Wee Scots lives in Glasgow, and as we are down south—“true Sassenachs”, as she calls us—we don’t get to see her all that often. Which I think is a pity, as she is what is known as a character, meaning that she is even madder than Mum. She is also smaller than Mum, and rounder than Mum, but if they ever had a mum-and-granny race I’d back Wee Scots any time. She goes like the wind! She is the origin of my catch phrase, Great galloping grandmothers! I use this phrase all the time. I am famous for it. I have this mental picture of all these ancient old grannies, galloping along. Wheeee! There goes another one.

Wee Scots would beat the lot. She is full of energy! Even though she is sixty years old she still bombs around on a moped. “Fattest woman on a moped in Glasgow!”

If Mum hadn’t put a stop to it she’d probably bomb down here on a moped, as well. As it is, she comes by coach, arriving hot and flushed with too much usquebaugh (pronounced ooskabaw). That is the Gaelic word for whisky, and is what Wee Scots always says when Mum accuses her of having “tippled”.

Dad’s mum and dad: Gran and Granddad.

There is not a lot to say about Granddad as he is a rather quiet sort of person. He is also very old (he is the one that is almost eighty). He likes to play old-fashioned games that he played when he was a boy, such as Ludo and Shove Ha’penny, which he keeps in a cupboard. We always have to play them when we go to visit. I don’t mind, if it makes him happy. I think when you have lived as long as he has, you deserve to be happy.

Gran—Big Nan—is not quite as old as Granddad, but I still can’t think of much to say about her. She is very strict, and is always reminding us to watch our manners. She says that nobody under the age of fifty seems to have any these days. It bothers her quite a lot.

She and Granddad live in Weymouth, which is not very far away so we see them quite often, but fortunately only one day at a time. They don’t come to stay. They came once, for Christmas, a few years ago,

but Gran couldn’t take Jack Russells all over the place. Dad says the Russells are our secret weapon!

It occurs to me that I might not have been quite fair to Gran and Granddad, but it is very difficult, sometimes, when people are old; you can’t tell what they are really like. You can’t imagine them, for instance, ever being young. I have just tried to imagine Gran being in Year 6 and giggling. Or being in Year 7 and sitting herself next to a boy and breathing over him. No way! It is like trying to picture the Queen going to the toilet. The mind bogles. (Or is it boggles?)

I can imagine Wee Scots. I bet she scared all the boys rigid! I wonder if Mum did? I wonder if she used to giggle at Dad? Maybe I’ll ask him and find out. I’d like to know if he had the same trouble I do. I didn’t have it last term! Why has it suddenly started? And how long is it going to go on?

I’m getting worked up again. I shall finish my list! I’ve done Family, what else can I do? Dogs! I could do dogs. After all, they are part of the family.

Jack Russells

Molly, Polly, Dolly, Roly, and Jack. They are mostly white with brown splodges except for Roly, who has a black patch over one eye, and they are all mad and busy, just like Mum. They bark a lot and run around and jump on things. They also dig holes in the garden and play tug with people’s knickers and underpants and bury chew sticks under cushions so that when you sit down you go “Ow! Ouch!” and wonder what is sticking into you. They are what Dad calls “dogs with attitude”.

I have just thought of something else to add to my list and that is friends. I have two of them. Well, I have lots of people I am friendly with, but only two that are best mates. They are:

Rosemary Jones, who is my Uncle Clive’s step daughter, which is why we have the same surname. I usually call her the Herb, as she hates the name Rosemary. In return, she calls me DJ, or Deeje.

She is kind of shortish and stubbyish, with blonde hair which she wears in spikes. Even though she is a girl, we get on really well. She does sometimes giggle, but not in an embarrassing kind of way, and she never does that screechy thing that lots of girls do, like when one of the Russells jumps up and scrapes her leg or puts great dollops of mud all over her. Most girls would go shrieeeek! Ow! Look what it’s done! but not the Herb. She doesn’t mind getting muddy. She doesn’t mind her legs being scraped. She doesn’t mind getting rained on or falling off her bike and banging her head. For a girl, she is all right. She lives just round the corner, and as we go to the same school and are even in the same year (though not in the

same class) we see each other pretty much all the time.

My other best mate is Aaron. Aaron Chandler. I have known him for ever. He is a small, knobbly kind of person. Knobbly knees, knobbly wrists. His face is covered in freckles and he has bright orange hair the colour of carrots. Carrots is what I used to call him, back in Juniors, until he said to me one day that he didn’t think I should, as it “wasn’t politically correct”, so after that I didn’t do it any more. I couldn’t really see what was wrong with it, like I couldn’t see that calling someone Carrots was insulting or anything, I mean what’s wrong with carrots? But he is my friend and I didn’t want to upset him.

Me and Aaron not only go to the same school but are in the same class. We hang out with Calum Bickerstaff and Joe Icard, but Joe and Calum live way over the other side of town so out of school we don’t meet up that often. It’s usually just Aaron and me—and the Herb. The Herb’s like an honorary boy; she joins us most of the time. Aaron reckons she’s OK.

Actually, I’m a bit worried about Aaron. He wasn’t in school today, which was how Amy Wilkerson got to park herself next to me. If Aaron had been there, she wouldn’t have dared. I just hope he’s back tomorrow! I can’t cope with this; it’s all too much. I don’t want another messed up page in my geography book!

Why can’t all girls be like the Herb?

Two
Thursday

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Name your favourite

Food Maggot pie and chips

Drink Wet sick

Colour Puke greenS

ong Mr Smelly Goes to Town

TV programme Secrets of a Sewage Farm

Band Flaming Flamingos

The Microdot gave me this questionnaire. She said she was doing tests, and I had to fill it in. So I filled it in, and she screamed at me.

“This is just stupid!”

Actually, I thought it was quite funny, but the Microdot has no sense of humour. She screeched, “I suppose you think you’re being clever?”

I guess I might have smirked a bit. Not exactly meaning to; more like a sort of nervous tic. It does my head in when she screeches. Trouble is, once she starts she can’t seem to stop. She just rages on and on. She screeched at me that it wasn’t clever, it was stupid.

“There isn’t any such programme as Secrets of a Sewage Farm, and if it was it would be disgusting!”

I said, “Pardon me, that is just your interpretation.”

“What about maggot pie? Are you trying to tell me that’s not disgusting? And what’s this stupid Flamingo thing? I’ve never heard of a band called that. You just made it up!”

I said, “How do you know? You don’t know the name of every band there’s ever been.”

Witheringly she said that nobody would call a band anything that stupid. “It’s just about the stupidest name I ever heard!”

I told her that that was the fifth time she’d used the word stupid. I said, “You ought to get a bit more vocabulary.”

She screeched, “Yes, and you ought to get a life! You know what this shows, don’t you?” She snatched up the questionnaire and waved it at me. “It shows that you’re repressed.”

I said, “Yeah?” I don’t think she even knows what the word means.

She said, “Yeah! It shows you’re too scared to reveal your true self…you have to hide behind being stupid.”

“That makes the sixth time,” I said.

“Sixth time what?”

“Sixth time you’ve used that word.”

“That’s cos it’s the only one that describes you!”

All because I treated her silly little questionnaire as a joke. I bet even if I’d taken it seriously she’d still have said it showed there was something weird about me. She’s always saying I’m weird. She told me the other day I was like a human hermit crab.

“Skulking in your shell!”

If I’m like a hermit crab, she’s like a hornet, all angry and buzzing. Zzz, zzz, zzz! You’re stupid, you’re weird!

I’m not like a hermit crab; I don’t skulk. She just can’t bear it when other people don’t share her interests. Shopping, and shrieking, and giggling. I reckon she ought to learn to be a bit more tolerant.

Now she’s threatening to give me more of her idiotic tests. She gets them out of girly mags. Ten Ways to Tell if a Boy’s Interested in You. (Like any boy ever would be, the way she carries on.) Check your Popularity. Check your Street Cred. It’s all rubbish! She’d better not try any of them on me. She tried one on Dad the other day. Something about hair. What your Latest Hair Style reveals about You. Dad practically hasn’t got any hair. Will said, “What it reveals is that Dad is going bald.” She didn’t have a go at him. She didn’t accuse him of being stupid. It’s just me she’s got it in for. Her and her tests!

If she gives me that one about Check your Popularity I shall refuse to answer it. I don’t see why, just because she’s my sister, she should be allowed to humiliate me.

Friday

Aaron came back to school today; he said he’d been off with earache. I told him what had happened with Amy Wilkerson, parking herself next to me and breathing over me. He drew in his breath and said, “I’d keep an eye on her, if I were you. Gobbles boys up for breakfast, that one. Obviously fancies you. It’s what they do, they come and breathe over you, and touch you…did she touch you?”

I said, “She kept nudging me with her knee.”

“See, this is what I mean,” said Aaron. “She fancies you! She’s got her sights set on you…donk!” He shot out the first two fingers of both hands, straight into my face. “It’s like smoke signals, you gotta be aware of the signs. You gotta know how to respond.”

I said, “I don’t want to respond!”

“No, but if you did.”

“I don’t!”

“Can’t say I blame you,” said Aaron. He sucked in his cheeks. “Amy Wilkerson! Have to be careful with that one.”

I wish now that I hadn’t mentioned it to him. Aaron is one of those people, he always claims to know everything about everything. But you can’t actually rely on him. Like the time he told me that a prendergast was someone that molested children, and for ages I believed him and wouldn’t go into the newspaper shop cos of the lady in there being called Mrs Prendergast, until in the end Mum wanted to know what the problem was, so I told her, and she laughed and laughed and explained that Prendergast was just a perfectly ordinary surname like Smith or Jones and nothing whatsoever to do with molesting children. Aaron had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. As usual. It was very embarrassing.

I refuse to let him embarrass me again! When it comes to girls, I’m not convinced he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t believe that Amy Wilkerson fancies me. Why should she? I’ve hardly ever spoken to her. I reckon she was just, like, doing it for a joke. I bet what it was, her friend Sharleen had dared her. I bet that’s what it was! Like the Microdot getting all her friends to hang about at the gates and giggle. Just to upset me.

On the other hand, who told Janine Edwards to keep beaming? There can’t be two of them that fancy me! I don’t want to be fancied; I just want to be left alone!

I’m really glad it’s Friday; I am beginning to feel persecuted.

Wee Scots is coming tomorrow. That should be liven things up.

Saturday

Wee Scots arrived this morning, bright red as usual with the usquebaugh. Mum went to fetch her from the bus station. As they came through the front door Dad said, “Watch out, here she is, Hell’s Granny!” Wee Scots bashed him with her handbag and cried, “Och, awa’ wi’ ye!” They have a really good relationship.

After lunch, while me and the Microdot were doing the washing up, which is one of the tedious tasks we have to perform in order to get any pocket money, the Microdot said she’d got a secret to tell me. She said, “You know my friend Linzi?”

I didn’t, but I didn’t bother to say so; I just grunted. The Microdot has so many friends I can’t keep up with them. Last year for her birthday she invited twenty people. Boys, as well as girls. She claimed they were “all my friends”. I can’t understand why she’s so popular; she is very bed-tempered.

“My friend Linzi?” She snatched a plate out of my hand before I’d even had time to put it on the draining board. She always treats washing up like it’s some kind of competition. “The one with the plaits?”

When she said that, I had this faint uneasy feeling come over me. I’d noticed a girl with plaits in the middle of the gigglers. She’d been giggling along with the rest, but more in a sort of embarrassed way. Grudgingly I said, “What about her?”

“She’s got a crush on you.”

“What?” I was so alarmed I let a glass go slipping through my fingers on to the kitchen floor.

“Now look what you’ve done,” said the Microdot. “You’ve gone and broken it.” Like I needed her to tell me? “That was Granny’s favourite usquebaugh glass.” I said, “It’s not an usquebaugh glass. She uses tumblers for usquebaugh. This is a water glass.”

“It’s still broken.”

“I can see that, thank you very much!”

“Yes, well, anyway. Like I was saying…about Linzi. She’s got this massive crush on you.”

I said, “What d’you mean, crush?”

“Crush! Like she wants to crrrrrrush you!”

Before I knew what was happening, the Microdot had flung both arms round me and was squeezing me to a pulp. I said, “Geddoff!”

“I’m just showing you what she’d like to do to you. She’d like to hug you! And kiss you. Aaaah…it’s so sweet!”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” I said.

“Cos I want you to know how she feels. She’s in love with you! Only she’s too shy to tell you, so I thought I would.”

I said, “Is that what all the stupid giggling was about?”

“Yes. It’s really pathetic! They’ve all got crushes on you…they think you’re so cute!” She gave this great cackle, like she was inviting me to join in. “But poor Linzi, she’s got it worse than anyone. She is totally gone. She is, like, demented. She’s written your name all over, everywhere! I’ve told her what you’re like, but she just can’t stop herself. I feel sooo sorry for her.”

Crawling round the floor with the dustpan and brush, keeping my face hidden because I just knew I’d gone bright beetroot, I said, “So what did you tell her I was like?”

“Well, like you are…peculiar! Anyone that spends their time digging holes in the back garden and playing about in the mud…where’s the sense in having a crush on someone like that?”

This is what I mean about my family, and the difficulties I face. Scorn and derision at every turn. I don’t play in the mud and I’m not just digging a hole, I am excavating. It is serious work. They know this perfectly well; I’ve told them over and over. It is an archaeological dig. But the Microdot still treats me like I’m some kind of geek. Even Mum and Dad have a secret giggle—well, not all that secret, either, cos I heard them the other day telling someone about “Dory’s hole”, like it was just totally hilarious. It is an uphill struggle, in this house, trying to make something of yourself. One day when I’m Sir Dorian, and famous for my work on dinosaurs, they’ll look back and feel ashamed of the way they treated me.

Of course I might be famous as a Crime Scene Investigator. That’s another career I’m thinking of pursuing. I reckon I’d be good at it, as I find it most interesting on television when they examine the contents of people’s stomachs or collect maggots and bugs that have taken up residence inside dead bodies. The Microdot says I am gruesome. She says it is totally disgusting and would make any normal person feel sick, but that is just her point of view. Mine happens to be different.

Anyway, if I’m peculiar so is she. She screamed her head off the other day, all because there was a spider walking across her bedroom ceiling. She screeched, “Get rid of it, get rid of it!”

I’ve told her about a hundred times that spiders are perfectly pleasant and harmless creatures, just going about their business.

“What d’you think they’re going to do, bite you?”

She screeched that they might fall on top of her while she was in bed. They might even get into the bed.

“They could get down my nightdress!”

How peculiar is that? Fantasising about spiders getting down her nightdress. What makes her think any self-respecting spider would want to? I can’t understand it when girls start freaking out at the sight of anything with multiple legs. The Herb came across a centipede the other day; she didn’t freak. But then the Herb is different.

I spent the whole afternoon excavating. I’ve only got till the end of the month, then the builders are coming in to build Dad’s new workshop, so I’m trying to get as much done as I can. Aaron and the Herb are helping me: they are my official assistants. I am doing my best to train them, but I have to say it is uphill work. They don’t seem able to grasp the fact that there is more to excavating than simply picking up a trowel and digging as fast as you can. I’ve told them, you have to dig slowly. You have to dig carefully. You have to sift. Then if you find anything, you have to label it, and say where

it was, like how far down, and how far in. The Herb asked me today exactly what it was we were hoping to discover. Before I could give a more scholarly reply, Aaron had jumped in and yelled, “Dinosaur bones!”

“What, in Warrington Crescent?” said the Herb.

Aaron said why not. They’d have stamped about in Warrington Crescent same as they did anywhere else.

“In the back garden?”

“You gotta remember,” said Aaron, “it was all primeval swamp in them days. That’s what it still is, deep down. Then the bones kind of work their way up. Prob’ly quite near the surface, some of ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came across the odd one now and again.”

I said, “I would.” This is exactly what I mean about Aaron always claiming to know everything when in fact he knows nothing. I said, “I’d be very surprised.”

“So what are we searching for?” demanded the Herb.

I had to explain that it wasn’t dinosaur bones, which in any case would be fossils by now, but just whatever turned up. So far I have discovered:

An old coin dating from 1936 A piece of broken china (a shard, as we professionals call it) A small blue bottle (probably contained poison) A rusty penknife, almost certainly antique.

They are all cleaned up and properly labelled. I showed them to my assistants, thinking they would be impressed—thinking they might actually learn something—but the Herb just giggled and Aaron said, “Is that it?”

I said, “This is history, this is.”

“Some history,” said Aaron.

The Herb giggled again. Everything’s always a big joke with her; she finds it very difficult to take things seriously. “You never know,” she said, “it could be the scene of a hideous crime. We’ve got the murder weapon!”

“If you’re talking about that penknife,” I said, “it wouldn’t go in deep enough.” I know about these things; I’ve studied them.

“All right, then!” She snatched up the bottle. “Poison!”

It was all they needed. Next thing I know, they’re both going mad with their trowels, showering earth in all directions. I told them quite sharply to stop.

“This is not the way you’re supposed to do it! You’re ruining the site!”

Aaron panted, “We’re looking for a body!”

“You’ve got to admit, bodies would be interesting,” said the Herb. “More interesting than bits of broken china.”

I had to be very stern with them. I mean, yes, OK, body parts would be great. Teeth, or skulls, or thigh bones. I’d like to discover body parts just as much as anyone else, but it’s not the way that it’s done.

“If you’re going to help, then help properly,” I said. “Just try to be a little bit professional.”

The Herb mumbled “Professional, professional,” and stroked an imaginary beard, while Aaron went into exaggerated slow motion with his trowel. I said, “That’s better. You’re worse than the dogs!”

Dad has erected a special wire netting enclosure for the hole. He did it so that Mum, in her daffy way, wouldn’t go trundling down the garden with a barrow full of used cat litter and fall into it, but it also serves to keep the Russells at bay. I do love the Russells, but I sometimes can’t help wishing Mum had developed a passion for a more useful breed of dog. Dogs that could fetch, or carry, or herd. If the Russells got into the hole it would be total chaos. As it is, they all sit on the other side of the netting and whinge.

“Dunno why you don’t let ’em in,” said Aaron. “Get the job done far quicker.”

“Wouldn’t be professional,” said the Herb. “Hey, I just thought of a joke! Is it OK to tell jokes?”

I think I must have hesitated, cos she said, “It’s all right, it’s a professional joke…it’s a dinosaur joke.”

“Yeah, yeah, go on!” said Aaron. “Tell it!”

“Right. What’s a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

“I don’t know,” said Aaron. “What is a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

The Herb said, “A dinosore-arse!” She looked at me, triumphantly. “Funny?”

“Your mum wouldn’t think so,” I said. “She’d say you were being vulgar.”

The Herb gave one of her cackles. “Rude, rude, Mum’s a prude!”

“I reckon it’s pretty good,” said Aaron. “Here!” He gave me a nudge. “You tell the Herb about Amy Wilkerson?”

Herb said, “Ooh, another joke?”

“She fancies him,” said Aaron.

“Amy Wilkerson?”

“Yeah, she went and sat next to him and started breathing over him.”

“Yuck, yuck, yuck!” said the Herb. She turned, and made vomiting noises. “Amy Wilkerson…puke!”

“She’s not that bad,” said Aaron. “I’ve seen worse.”

“OK then, you have her,” I said.

“Yes, you have her,” said the Herb. “Amy Wilkerson…bluurgh!”

I really wish I’d never mentioned it. I’m certainly not going to say anything about the Microdot and her gang of gigglers. It’s funny, though, I never knew the Herb had it in for Amy Wilkerson.

When we went back in for tea I found Wee Scots doing things with mothballs. Threading string through them and tying knots.

“She’s making necklaces,” said Will. “To go round trees.”

I said, “What do trees want necklaces for?”

Wee Scots cried, “Mothball necklaces, laddie!”

I screwed up my nose and looked at Will. Solemnly, he said, “It’s to stop the dogs using them as toilets.”

And the Microdot says I’m weird?

Three
Sunday

She said to draw a house and garden. I drew a house and garden. She looked at it and said, “That’s supposed to be a house?” I said yes. I have never claimed to be any good at drawing.

She told me that I’d done it the wrong way round. She said, “Look at it! It’s back to front.”

Sometimes she is just totally illogical. How can a house be back to front? I explained that it was simply seen from the rear. She said, “So who draws a house seen from the rear? Honestly! It’s so anti-social. It’s like turning your back on people.”

I said, “That is just your opinion.”

“It isn’t an opinion,” she said. “It’s psychology.”

Huh! I bet she doesn’t even know how to spell the word. She says she’s going to give me one test a week until she’s built up a profile. “Then we shall see!”

I told her she wouldn’t see anything if I refused to do them, but she said that was where I was wrong. “If you refuse to do them it’ll simply show you’re scared.”

I said, “Scared of what?”

She said, “Of having your true self revealed! So whether you do them or whether you don’t, we shall still see.”

I think this is a form of bullying. I told her so, and she said, “How can I bully you? I’m only ten years old.”

“Which is far too young,” I said, “to know the first thing about psychology.”

“I’m learning,” she said. “Ten isn’t too young to start learning. Or to fall in love! Poor Linzi is heartsick. She’s suffering. I’m really worried, cos she’s my best friend—one of my best friends—and I’m just so frightened for her. If you keep on rejecting her like this—”

I resented that. I said, “I’m not rejecting her!”

“Excuse me,” said the Microdot, “you walked straight past her the other day. You didn’t even look at her!”

“Cos I didn’t even see her!”

“That’s even worse! Not even seeing her. Like she’s invisible! If I told her that,” said the Microdot, “I dread to think what she might do. She might do something really awful. And if she did, you’d be the one that was responsible for it!”

This is definitely getting beyond a joke; it’s putting me under a lot of stress. I don’t know how much more of it I can take!

Monday

This morning at breakfast, in sickly sweet tones that practically oozed a trail of treacle right across the table, the Microdot announced that she was becoming “ever so worried about Dory”. I knew at once that she was up to no good. I glared at her, but she just smirked and wrenched the marmalade away from me. Turning to Mum, still all sweet and sickly, she said, “You don’t think he needs his eyes tested, do you?”

Mum, of course, latched on to it immediately. She is such a sucker! She said, “What makes you ask?”

“Well, it’s the way he keeps missing things,” said the Microdot.

“What things?”

“People,” said the Microdot.

“Och, he jist has his head in the clouds,” said Wee Scots. “He’s a bit of a dreamer, aren’t ye, laddie?”

“You’d think he’d notice girls,” said the Microdot.

Wee Scots gave one of her throaty chuckles. (Mum says it’s all the usquebaugh.) “I bet the girls notice him all right! I’d have noticed him when I was a wee lass.”

“Dunno why you’d bother,” said the Microdot.

If Dad had been there, he might have come to my rescue. Will was sitting opposite and I tried to catch his eye so that we could pull faces at each other, but he just went on cramming his mouth with cornflakes and refused to look at me. I think he should have done: after all, he is my brother. We ought to stick together!

Did some digging after tea. Aaron and the Herb came round and I gave them the house and garden test. The Herb said, “Ooh, do we get marked out of ten?” I said I would tell her after she’d done it.

Aaron got a bit stroppy and said he thought we weren’t supposed to have time for anything except digging. “Way you were carrying on the other day, all bossy and got to be professional.”

I had to soothe him. I said, “These are important psychological tests.”

To be honest I think they are rubbish, but it is very undermining when a person of ten years old keeps telling you that you are weird and peculiar and anti-social. I really needed some kind of reassurance. I’m feeling a lot happier now; now that I’ve seen what Aaron and the Herb came up with. If I’m weird, they’re even weirder. I mean, how’s this for whacky: the Herb drew a house with a face

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