Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Also by Jean Ure

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1
Monday

Skinny Melon and me have decided: we are going to keep diaries.

Skinny is going to start hers on Saturday when she has bought a special book to do it in. She says it is no use doing it in an ordinary pocket diary with spaces for each day as there will be times when we feel like writing a great deal and other times when we may not want to write anything at all, except perhaps what we had to eat for dinner. I agree with her but feel inspired to start immediately and so cannot wait to buy a special book but am using an old writing block with wide lines (I can’t stand narrow ones).

I think when a person is writing a diary they ought to introduce themselves in case it is unearthed in a hundred years’ time and nobody would know who has written it, so I will say straight away that this is the diary of me, Cherry Louise Waterton, aged eleven years and two months, and I am writing for posterity, in other words the future.

To begin with I suppose I must put down some facts, such as, for instance, that I am medium tall and neither fat nor thin but somewhere in between, have short brown hair and a fringe, and a face which is chubbyish (I think I have to be honest) and also round.

I know that it is round because I saw these charts in a magazine at the dentist showing all different shapes of faces, including heart-shaped, egg-shaped, diamond-shaped, turnip-shaped, square-shaped and round.

Mine is definitely round. Unfortunately. Round-faced people tend to have blobby noses, which is what I have got.

The school I go to is Ruskin Manor. It is not the school I would have chosen if I had had any choice. If I had had any choice I would have chosen a boarding school because I think a boarding school would be fun and also it would take me away from Slimey. Anything that took me away from Slimey would have to be a good thing. I did ask Mum if I could go to one but she just said, “Over my dead body”. She was really pleased when I got to Ruskin because it’s the one she wanted for me. She says all the others are rough.

Ruskin is OK, I suppose, though we have simply stacks of homework, which Mum needless to say approves of. On the other hand, I have only been there for three weeks so there is no telling how I might feel by the end of term. Anything could happen. Our class teacher, Mr Sherwood, who at the moment seems quite nice, could for instance suddenly grow fangs, or the Head Teacher turn out to be a werewolf.

I mean, you just never know. (The Head Teacher is called Mrs Hoad. What kind of name is Hoad? It sounds rather sinister to me.)

My best friend Melanie also goes to Ruskin. Her surname is Skinner and she is very tall and thin so I call her Skinny Melon, or Skinbag, or sometimes just Skin. John Lloyd, who is a boy in our class, said last week that we were the Long and the Short of it, but that is only because Skinny Melon is so tall, not because I am short.

Skin’s face shape wasn’t shown in the magazine. It’s long and thin, the same as the rest of her. Sausage-shaped, I suppose you would call it. Like a Frankfurter.

Me and Skin have been best friends since Year 5 and we are going to go on being best friends “through thick and thin and come what may”. We have made a pledge and signed it and buried it in a polythene food bag under an apple tree in my back garden. If ever we decide to stop being best friends we will have to dig up the pledge and solemnly burn it. This is what we have agreed on.

Where I live is 141 Arethusa Road, London W5. W5 is Ealing and it is right at the end of the red and green lines on the Underground.

Skin and I once decided to go and see what Epping was like as we had heard there was some forest there, but we got on the wrong train and went to a place called Fairlop instead.

Ealing doesn’t have any forests, just a bit of scrubby common which you can walk to from Arethusa Road. There is also a park where Skinny Melon and me take her dog Lulu to meet other dogs. I wish more than anything I could have a dog! Well almost more than anything.

What I would wish more than anything is alas impossible as it would mean turning the clock back, which is something you cannot do unless you happen to be living in a science fiction novel where people travel into the past and change things. I would like to travel into the past and change things. That is what I would like more than anything else. But after that the next thing that I would like is a dog.

Any sort of dog would do. Big dog, small dog, I wouldn’t mind.

Why I am suddenly starting to write this diary is that Mrs James, who is our English teacher, said that it would be a good thing to do. She said there are several reasons for keeping a diary. These are some that I can remember:

1 It is good practice for when it comes to writing essays etc. for school.

2 It is a record of one’s life and will be interesting to look back on when one is old.

3 It is a social document (for historical purposes, etc.).

4 It can help to clear out the cupboard.

When Mrs James said about clearing out the cupboard, we did not immediately understand what she meant and some people started giggling and pretending to open cupboard doors and take out cans of fruit and stuff and chuck it away, but Mrs James said the cupboard she was talking about was “the cupboard in your head”. She said that sometimes the cupboard in your head gets all clogged up with bits and pieces that worry you or upset you or make you angry, and that writing them down in a diary helps to get rid of them. She said, “We’ve all got a lot of clutter that needs clearing out.” She told us to go home and think about it – to look into our cupboards and see what was there.

Amanda Miles told me next day that she’d looked into her cupboard and as far as she could see it was pretty well empty, except for the grudge she still had against Mr Good at Juniors who made her go and stand in the front hall for throwing paint water at Andy Innes when it wasn’t her. She said she didn’t think that was enough to start writing a diary about.

“I mean, are you going to?” she said.

To which I just made mumbling noises, since there are some things you can’t talk about to other people, and certainly not to Amanda Miles. The thing in my cupboard is one of them.

Slimey Roland is the thing in my cupboard.

I’d do anything to get rid of him. I wish he’d go and walk under a bus. I expect Mum would be sad for a bit, but she’d get over it. She can’t really love him. Nobody could. He’s a total and utter dweeb.

I nearly had a heart attack when Mum said she was going to marry him. I mean, I really just couldn’t believe it. I thought she’d got better taste. I told her so and she slapped me and then burst into tears and said she was sorry but why did I have to be so selfish and unpleasant all the time?

I’m not selfish and unpleasant. I don’t think I am. But it’s enough to make you, when your mum goes and marries a total dweeb. And I had to go to their rotten grotty old wedding, which wasn’t even a proper wedding, not the actual marrying part. Just Mum and Slime, and me and the Skinbag, who came to keep me company, and Aunt Jilly, who is Mum’s sister, and this man who was doing it. Marrying them, I mean.

When he’d finished he said that now they could kiss each other and they did and I looked at Skin and pulled this being-sick face (at which I am rather good) and Skin told me afterwards that I was horrid to do such a thing at my mum’s wedding. It’s all right for her. I know she hasn’t got a dad, but who’d want Slimey?

One of the worst things about him is his name … Roland Butter. Can you imagine? I thought at first it was just one of his stupid jokes (he’s always making stupid jokes, like: Where do pigs leave their cars? At porking meters. Ha ha ha, I don’t think). Mum, however, said no, he really was called Roland Butter. He’s an artist, sort of. He draws these yucky pictures of elves and teddy bears and stuff for little kids’ books and he has this headed paper with a drawing of a roll and butter on it. Mum thinks it’s brilliant but that’s because she’s besotted. If you ask me, it’s utterly pathetic and I am certainly not going to change my name to Butter, which is what Mum would like me to do. Cherry Butter! I ask you! How could you get anywhere with a name like that?

Mum’s name is Pat, and guess what? He calls her Butterpat. It’s just so embarrassing.

Dad used to call her Patty. She was Patty and he was Gregg, unless they were having one of their rows and then they didn’t call each other anything at all except names which I am not going to write in this diary in case it is ever published. It is true that Mum and Dad did have rows quite often, but what I can’t understand is why they couldn’t just kiss and make up like Skinny and I do?

We had this really awful row once, me and Skin, about a book I’d lent her which she’d gone and lost by leaving it on a bus and then refused to buy a new one because she said I’d never paid her back the money she’d lent me ages ago when we’d gone swimming and I’d left my purse behind, which definitely and positively was not true. We had this absolutely mega row and swore never to speak to each other again, but life wasn’t the same without Skinny, and Skinny said it wasn’t the same without me, and so after a bit, like about a week, we made it up and we’ve been best friends ever since. Why couldn’t Mum and Dad do that?

Dad’s living in Southampton now. It’s near the New Forest and is really nice, but it takes forever to get there. I can’t go out with him every weekend like I used to when he and Mum first split up and he was still living in London. Then, he’d come and pick me up and we’d do all sorts of things together – McDonald’s, museums, the waxworks. It was really fun. After he got this job and moved to Southampton it meant I could only properly see him in school holidays.

I could have gone with him if I’d wanted. If I’d really wanted. I bet I could. I only stayed with Mum because I thought she’d be lonely. But then she went and met Slimey Roland at some stupid party and they went and got married and now she’s totally loopy about him and I’m the one that’s lonely, not Mum. So I could have gone with Dad.

Except that Dad’s got a new wife called Rosemary, and he’s totally loopy about her, so maybe he wouldn’t want me either. Maybe nobody wants me. Mum says she does but how could she go and marry this creep if that was the case? He’s really slimy. Look at him!

Ha! He’s not the only one that can draw. There’s nothing to it. That is exactly how he looks. Straggly hair and a beard and this long, droopy face like a damp dishcloth. And he’s all freckled and gingery with white skin like a mushroom. Ugh! Whatever does Mum see in him?

She says that if I love her I’ll try and love Slimey, for her sake. I’ve tried. But how can you love someone who has freckles and makes these awful jokes all the time? Another thing he does, he shoves these cards under the bedroom door while I’m asleep. It’s really creepy. I find them lying there waiting for me when I wake up. They’re all covered in these soppy drawings which I think are supposed to be messages. I don’t bother to read them. I just chuck them straight into the waste-paper basket.

I know why he’s doing it. He’s so transparent it’s pathetic. He’s trying to impress me. Well, some hopes! I just think he’s a total nerd.

Mum’s best friend Carol that she was at school with and who is my godmother, but who has now gone to live in Austin, Texas, alas (though she has promised to send me a real American baseball bat for my Christmas present), told me that Mum and Dad had become very unhappy together on account of “developing in different directions”, which meant they didn’t really have anything in common any more – apart from me, that is, but it seems children don’t count.

Carol said that it’s lovely for Mum to be with Slimey because they are both in the same business, with Slimey being an illustrator of children’s books and Mum being something called a copy editor, which means going through books that other people have written and making sure they’ve got their facts right and have put all the commas and fullstops in the right places and haven’t called their heroine Anne Smith on one page and Anne Jones on another.

All I can say is that it may be lovely for Mum, but it isn’t very lovely for me. And if writing a diary means clearing Slimey Roland out of the cupboard then I am ALL FOR IT.

Tuesday

He made another of his awful jokes this morning. He said, “What’s a cannibal’s favourite game?” To humour him and keep Mum happy I said, “What is a cannibal’s favourite game?” though in fact I already knew the answer because it was a joke that was going round when I was in Year 5, for goodness’ sake. So he beams into his beard, all jolly ho ho, and says, “Swallow my leader!” and Mum groans and rolls her eyes, but in a way that means she thinks it’s really quite funny, and I just give this tight little smile and get on with my breakfast. It is extremely irritating when grown-ups behave in this infantile fashion. Doesn’t he realise he’s making a complete idiot of himself?

I have decided to record occasionally what I eat for dinner, because this school’s canteen must I think be the secret weapon of someone who has a hate thing against children. Skinny asked Mr Sherwood the other day why he didn’t eat there. She said, “Is it because you don’t want to be poisoned?” Mr Sherwood said that at his age being poisoned was a distinct possibility. He said, “My digestive system is no longer geared to the hazards of a school canteen.”

If that isn’t an admission, what is???

I told Mum what Mr Sherwood said. I actually put it to her: “If you don’t want to lose me, then maybe I ought to take sandwiches?” All she said was, “Oh, Cherry, don’t be silly! What do you want sandwiches for? You’re spoilt for choice, you people! In my day it was wet mash and soggy greens and that was that, like it or lump it. Now it’s more like a five-star hotel.”

I can only conclude that Mum has never been to a five-star hotel. I asked her to name one and she said, “Oh, the Ritz! The Savoy!” I bet the Ritz and the Savoy don’t dish up plates of disgusting white worms in congealed blood and call it spaghetti. That’s what I had today, white worms in blood. Utterly foul.

Wednesday

Brown worms today. Brown worms in something-I-won’t-put-a-name-to as it makes me feel sick. And anyway, I don’t know how to spell it. Yeeeeeurgh!!!!!

Thursday

There are times when I hate Mum for the way she treats me. Skinny Melon couldn’t walk home with me after school today because, guess what? Her mum was taking her to buy a bra! Skinny Melon who is as thin as a piece of thread! Not a bump to be seen. Not even the beginnings of a bump. I am practically a double-D cup compared to her. I mean, she doesn’t even get on the chart! But her mum is so nice. It’s like she went out and bought her brother a razor for his birthday even though he hadn’t got anything to shave, hardly. So the Melon hasn’t got anything to put in a bra, but still her mum takes her seriously.

She even takes the Blob seriously, for heaven’s sake! The Blob is Skin’s sister and rather immature, as one tends to be at only eight years old. She is still at the stage of asking these dippy questions such as “Where do babies come from?” Skinny’s mum never fobs her off with yucky stories about storks or gooseberry bushes but treats her like a real person and tells her the truth. That’s how grown-ups ought to behave. It is very patronising and hurtful when they laugh at you behind your back, which is what Mum and Slimey do. I’m not saying they do it all the time but it is what they did tonight.

When I got back from school, Slimey was up in his studio (the back bedroom, which ought by rights to have been mine) and I took the opportunity to suggest to Mum in strictest confidence that maybe it was time I, too, started to wear a bra. I said, “If the Melon does and I don’t, I shall get the most terrific inferiority complex … It could stunt the whole of my future sexlife.” Mum said, “Oh, my goodness, we can’t have that! But really why you all want to grow up so quickly I can’t imagine.”

I said, “Why? Isn’t it any fun being grown-up?” and she said, “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.” So, as I said to her, where’s the difference? She needn’t think it’s all fun being a child, because I can assure her it most definitely is not. Not when the parents go and split up and the child is just left like an old bit of baggage. “Who is going to take it? You or me?” And then they both go and get married again and probably wish there wasn’t any child because really it is such a nuisance, always being so selfish and unpleasant. “Why did we ever have it in the first place?”

If Mum thinks that’s fun, she must have a very strange sense of humour, that’s all I can say.

Anyway, she agreed we could go in on Saturday maybe and buy me a bra, so that was all right. In fact I felt quite warm towards her and thought that in spite of divorcing Dad and marrying the Slime she was every bit as nice a Mum as Skinny’s. I thought of what Carol had said about her and Dad growing apart and I thought that perhaps it was just one of those things that happened and that it wasn’t really her fault. I even half made up my mind that in future I would try to be nicer to her and forgive her for what she’d done.

And THEN she had to go and blow it all. She went and betrayed me with him.

What happened, I’d gone upstairs to wash and she was in the back bedroom with Slimey and she’d left the door a bit open. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but even if I had been, so what? I think one has a right to know what people are saying about one behind one’s back. What I heard Mum say was, “Hasn’t got anything there!” and then go off into these idiotic peals of laughter. I hate her for that. I shall never trust her again. I bet old Slimey thought it was really funny.

And anyway, I’ve got more than Skinny has!

Friday

There is a girl at school called Avril Roper whose dog has just had puppies. She said if anyone wants one they can have one free because the puppies were a mistake and her mum is only interested in them going to people who will love them, not in making money. I tore home like the wind and burst into the kitchen and yelled, “Mum, Mum, can we have a puppy? They’re going free! And they’re small ones, Mum!” I said this because last time I found some puppies, which was before she married Slimey, they were in a pet shop and cost £50 each and were some sort of mixture that was going to grow as tall as the kitchen table and eat us out of house and home. So naturally I thought as these were free, and were tiny, she’d say yes right away, no problem.

Instead she just laughed, sort of nervously, and said, “Puppies are always small, to my knowledge.”

I said, “Yes, but these are going to stay small. Their mum is a Jack Russell and their dad was a Yorkshire terrier.”

You can’t get much smaller than a Yorkshire terrier. And anyway, she promised. As good as. After Dad left and Mum and me were on our own she said, “We’ll get a dog to keep us company.” But she never did. Now here was I offering her one free, so why didn’t she jump at it?

Because of Slimey Roland, that’s why. I said, “You promised!” and this shifty look came into her eyes and she didn’t want to meet my gaze, which is a sure sign of guilt. She said, “I don’t think I actually promised.” I said, “You did! You promised!” Mum said, “I may have mentioned it as a possibility. That’s all.” I said, “Well, now it is a possibility! They’re going for free!”

And then Mum sighed and said, “Cherry, I’d love a dog as much as you would, but how can we? You know Roly’s allergic.” I said, “Allergic to dogs?” How can anyone be allergic to dogs? I said, “I know he has hay fever.” But hay fever is pollen. Mum said, “I’m afraid it’s not just hay fever. The poor man’s allergic to all kinds of things – dust, pollution, house mites …”

And dogs. He just would be, wouldn’t he? He’s that sort of person. All wimpy and sniffly and red-eyed. So Mum has to break her promise just because of him!

Saturday

That creep shoved another note under my door. Something about a tortoise. I don’t want a rotten tortoise! I want a dog. Mum promised me.

This morning we went into the shops and I got a couple of bras, one white and one pink. I suppose they’re all right, but it’s all gone a bit sour now that I know she and Slime have been sniggering about it. I keep picturing them lying in bed together having this good laugh.

I chucked his note into the waste-paper basket along with all the others. If he doesn’t stop doing it, it’ll soon be full to overflowing. Mum said today that we are going to have a new regime. She said, “I looked into your bedroom yesterday and it’s like a pigsty,” to which I instantly retorted that as a matter of fact pigs left to themselves are extremely clean and intelligent animals. It’s only horrible farmers that make them dirty by not allowing them to lead natural lives. To which Mum said, thinking herself very clever, “Well in future I am going to leave you to yourself and we shall see how clean and intelligent you are. From here on in -” (that is a phrase she has picked up from Carol my godmother, who has picked it up in Austin, Texas) “- from here on in I wash my hands of your bedroom. You can take sole responsibility for it. Right?”

I just humped a shoulder, feeling generally disgruntled on account of Mum breaking her promise about the dog. Mum said again, “Right?” and I muttered “Right,” and Slimey Roland did his best to catch my eye across the table and wink, but I refused to take any notice.

Later on, Avril Roper rang to find out if we were going to have one of the puppies. I didn’t want to say no, so I said we hadn’t yet decided, and she said me and Skinny could go round and see them sometime if I liked. She said, “They’re so sweet. You won’t be able to resist them. You can hold them in the palm of your hand!”

So then I rushed back to Mum and said, “Mum, they’re so tiny you can hold them in the palm of your hand! Oh, Mum, can’t we have one? Please?” thinking that if I really begged hard enough she wouldn’t be able to say no, but she was obviously feeling in a mean mood because all she did was snap at me. She said, “I already told you, the answer is no! Roly’s health happens to be of more importance to me than a dog. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

I gave her this really venomous look as I slunk out of the room.

Sunday

It is after breakfast and I am writing this sitting on my bed. If Mum doesn’t do my bedroom soon the waste-paper basket will be overflowing with notes from Slimey Roland. I am on strike. Mum always used to do my bedroom.

I used to help Dad clean the car but Slimey hasn’t got one because he can’t drive. And Mum can’t have one because Slimey won’t let her. He says they pollute the environment and we all have to walk or use bicycles. I am not going to help him clean his bicycle!!! He looks like a total idiot riding about with his helmet on and his soppy little cycling shorts. Like a stick insect with his head stuck in a goldfish bowl.

Anyway, I help with laying the table and putting things away and doing the wiping up. She won’t let me do the washing up any more because she says I use too much washing-up liquid (Greencare, natch. Slimey won’t have ordinary Fairy liquid in the house, you bet he won’t. He’s a complete nutter. He goes round reading all the labels and checking the lists of ingredients and spying on me and Mum to make sure we don’t buy anything that might punch holes in the ozone layer).

Another reason Mum won’t let me do the washing up is that she says I cause too many breakages. So now Slimey gets to do it and he does it ever so s-l-o-w-l-y and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y and nearly drives me mad.

Dad never used to help in the kitchen, it was one of the things that he and Mum had rows about. But Dad used to go out to work all day. Slimey works at home (if it can be called work, just drawing pictures of elves). It’s only fair that he should help.

It wouldn’t have been fair if Dad had had to. I don’t think it would. When I was little and Dad was in an office we were really really happy. He and Mum hardly ever had rows or shouted at each other. It was only when Dad got made redundant and couldn’t find another job and had to go and do the mini-cabbing that it all became horrible. That was when the rows started, because of Dad having to go out and do something he didn’t like while Mum just went on sitting at home and reading her books. Of course she was being paid money to do it but it wasn’t the same as having to go mini-cabbing. That was what Dad said.

One thing about Slimey, he is interested in Mum’s work. Sometimes he reads the books and they discuss them together. Also, he and Mum don’t have rows. Yet. But they sit and hold hands and do a lot of kissing and I can’t stand it! I hate to think of them holding hands and kissing all day while I’m at school. It makes me feel sick. Kissing with a beard. I hate beards.

It’s eleven o’clock now and I’m going to go down the road and fetch their Sunday papers for them, which is another of the jobs I have to do that Mum doesn’t take into consideration when she goes on about my bedroom. When I come back I might ring Skinny Melon and see if she’s going to take Lulu up the park. Or I might ring Avril and find out how the puppies are. Imagine having a dog all of your own! I could have, if it weren’t for Slimey. He’s in the back bedroom at the moment, drawing elves, and Mum is downstairs on the word processor, writing to her friend, Carol in Austin, Texas. They write to each other every single week! It’s almost unbelievable. What on earth do they find to say???

141 Arethusa Road

London W5

Sunday 27 September

My dear Carol,

Lovely to have all your news and so glad things are working out for you. Just forget all about Martin. He was a jerk and you are well rid of him. Some people are better apart. Take Gregg and me, for instance. We made each other utterly wretched, yet I couldn’t be happier with Roly! I’m sure you’ll soon meet someone else, though I confess I live in dread that it will turn out to be some big handsome Texan and that you’ll settle down for good and all in the States! It’s a long way to come and visit …

You ask how Cherry is getting on at her new school. Quite well, as far as I can make out, though she doesn’t say very much. The thing she is most vociferous about is the food! She is becoming terribly faddy, but I suppose it’s her age. I seem to recall when I was eleven going through a phase when I wanted to eat nothing but Mars Bars. Ah, those were the days! One Mars Bar, one KitKat, one Penguin biscuit, all gobbled up before the morning break and not a spare inch of flesh to be seen! Of course I wouldn’t let Cherry eat stuff like that. Roly, fortunately, is educating me in the way to healthy living. No more junk food! No more snacks! In fact I think we shall all end up as veggies.

I wish I could say that Cherry’s attitude towards Roland had changed for the better, but she is still very cold. It’s so unfair, because he tries so hard. He keeps sending her these really charming little cards with coded messages in the form of pictures. Any other child would be delighted. But I see Cherry simply throws them in her waste-paper basket. It’s so ungracious. As a result I am refusing to clean up her bedroom for her. She can jolly well do it herself!

She is a bit peeved at the moment because a girl at school has offered her a puppy and she has taken it into her head that I actually promised her she could have one. I’m sure I only said that I would think about it. Anyway, as it happens it’s just not possible as poor Roly is seriously allergic. He’s going to start digging a pond in the back garden so that we can have some fish. I think she’ll like that.

Oh, I must tell you! It was so funny the other day. Cherry, as you may remember, has this friend called Melanie who is like a beanpole, and Melanie, my dear, was going out to buy a bra! So naturally Cherry decided that she wanted one, too, and we had to trundle out yesterday morning to get her a couple. But the joke is, she has nothing there! As flat as the proverbial pancake! Well, it probably makes her feel sophisticated and Roly says we mustn’t laugh as one is very sensitive to these things when one is young.

Roly really is a most extraordinarily understanding sort of person. And sympathetic! Far more than I am when she starts playing up. She has really been trying my patience just recently. But Roly never loses his temper. He never allows himself to be goaded. That is why it makes me so angry, the way Cherry treats him. He could be such a wonderful dad to her! If only she would let him. I am hoping that the goldfish will do the trick …

Write soon! All love,

Chapter 2
Monday

Dad rang last night. He said his new job is keeping him really busy. He is having to work at weekends and that is why he can’t come up to London to see me. But maybe I can go and stay with him at half-term. He is going to speak to Mum. She’d better say yes! It’s the least she can do, now she’s gone and broken her promise about letting me have a dog.

Old Slimey is digging up the back garden. He’s trying to get me interested in goldfish and suchlike junk. Huh! He needn’t think that will make up for not having one of Avril’s puppies. How can you communicate with a fish?

Tuesday

Slime stew for dinner today. It had a cardboard lid which I thought they had forgotten to remove before heating but John Lloyd said it was pastry. All I can say is it didn’t taste like it.

I told Skin about Slimey and his stupid goldfish and she said that as a matter of fact you can communicate with goldfish “in a sort of way”. She said that they get used to you and will come to the surface for food. I said, “Oh, brilliant! Do they speak to you? Do they play games? Can you take them for walks?” Skinny told me not to be stupid. She said, “A fish is not a dog.” I said, “I know that, thank you very much.” She then informed me that I was just being horrible “because the fish were Roly’s idea and nothing that he thinks of is ever right for you.”

Cheek! What does she know about it?

On the way home from school we had a bit of an argument. Well, a bit of a quarrel really, I suppose. The Skinbag revealed to me that she thinks wearing a bra makes it look as if she has a real bust. Ho ho! What a laugh! I told her she was kidding herself and she got quite snappish and said, “Well, you needn’t imagine you’d win any prizes! Two goose pimples is all you’ve got.”

I thought that was uncalled for. I mean, that was a very personal sort of remark to make. You don’t expect it from someone calling herself your best friend. We grouched at each other all the way home. Skinny said I was a midget, which isn’t true because there are at least two people in our class that are shorter than me, and I said she didn’t have any waist, which is true, and she can’t deny it. She hasn’t any shape at all. Then she said I had a nose like a squashed tomato, and I said she had a face like a Frankfurter, and by the time we got to her road we weren’t talking any more, just stomping along in a simmering silence.

I went on simmering all through tea, because I think it’s good to let people stew in their own juice for a bit otherwise they think you’re crawling. I mean, I didn’t see why I should be the one to ring when she was just as much to blame as I was. In fact she was the one who started it, going on about the goldfish. If she hadn’t gone on about goldfish, I wouldn’t have said that about her kidding herself over her bust. I know the goldfish were earlier, but it really maddened me her saying what she said. That is, about me being horrible to Slime. She ought to try living with him.

For instance, all the time I’m simmering he’s sitting there at the table cracking his fingers, which is this thing that he does. Crack, crack, crack, going off like pistol shots. And then he starts making more of his stupid jokes like, “What do you get if you cross a witch with an ice cube? A cold spell,” until I couldn’t stand it any more so I went and tried ringing the Skinbag, only her number was engaged, but then seconds later she rang me and said she’d tried to get me before but my number was engaged, and I said, “That was me trying to get you,” and she said, “Oh, right,” and there was this awkward pause, and then we both spoke together in a rush.

I said, “I’m really sorry I said that about your face looking like a Frankfurter,” and Skinny said, “I apologise for saying you were a midget.” And so then we were friends again and started talking about our maths homework.

Why couldn’t Mum and Dad be like that?

Wednesday

Scum and matter pie, and a dollop of cold sick. Well, that’s what it looked like. Skinny and me have this theory about school dinners. We reckon they take all the stuff that’s scraped off the plates and recycle it. Then they dish it back up as slime or slush or squidgy messes and give it fancy names such as Cheese and Onion Tart or Lentil Bake. No wonder the staff don’t eat with us. Mrs James says it’s to avoid the rabble (meaning us). She says, “We like a bit of peace and quiet.”

I bet! They like a bit of proper food and not regurgitated yuck.

Thursday

Rat hot-pot. Slimey Roland wouldn’t have touched it! He’s a cranky vegetarian. He said to me yesterday, “You wouldn’t eat a puppy, would you? So why eat a lamb?” He has a nerve, talking about puppies. If it weren’t for him I could have one. I’m going to see them tomorrow.

Friday

I saw them. They are gorgeous! They look like little balls of fluff.

But all of them have been spoken for except one. I came rushing home to tell Mum and she said, “Oh, Cherry, don’t start that again!” in a pleading sort of voice, which shows she’s got a guilty conscience. I said, “But Mum, they’re so gorgeous!” and at that point Slimey Roland came barging into the conversation. He said, “Oh, Cherry Pie, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault. Don’t go on at your mum!”

I hope he isn’t going to make a habit of calling me Cherry Pie. It makes me want to throw up.

Saturday

Slime said to me at breakfast this morning, “By the way, little lambs are rather gorgeous, too.”

What’s that to do with anything? I’m not asking for a lamb!

141 Arethusa Road

London W5

Sunday 2 October

Dearest Carol,

Just a quickie as I have to go and help Roly with the pond. It’s coming along apace! Cherry still refuses to have anything to do with it but she’ll come round. When we actually get the fish she won’t be able to resist it. She’s still resentful of the fact that she can’t have a dog, and I must say that I would rather like one myself, and so would Roly. He is not opposed to dogs, in fact he loves them, as he loves all small creatures (including cross-grained eleven year olds!) but we simply can’t run the risk of setting off his allergy. I think left to himself he might weaken, but I’m not having him ruin his health just to keep Cherry happy. I know it was upsetting for her when Gregg and I separated; on the other hand she is extremely lucky to have a step-dad as warm and funny and caring as Roly.

He’ll win her over in the end. I know he will!

Lots of love,

PS I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t got around to telling Cherry about you-know-what. I’m terrified of breaking it to her in case she reacts badly. So far I’ve managed to keep it hidden by wearing baggy T-shirts but it’s reached the point where not even the baggiest of T-shirts will hide the bulge! Fortunately, at the moment, she is so wrapped up in her own affairs that she probably wouldn’t notice anyway. But I can’t afford to leave it very much longer. As Roly says, it’s not fair on her.

Chapter 3
Monday

Janetta Barnes found a slug in her salad today. She’s taken it home to show her mum. I’m hoping her mum will sue someone and then maybe we’ll get to have better dinners.

Tuesday

We all had to line up in the hall at break while Mrs James and Miss Burgess walked up and down looking at us. They said they were looking for interesting faces for the Christmas play. I have been picked to be an angel! A singing angel.

I rushed home to tell Mum, thinking she’d be pleased, and all she did was laugh and say, “You? An angel?” I said, “Miss Burgess says I have an angelic face.” Mum said, “Yes, you do! I’ll grant you that. Isn’t it strange how looks can be so deceiving?” I told her that it was a play and that I was going to be acting. I said, “And singing as well, as a matter of fact.” Mum said, “Singing?” That really impressed her, I could tell. Mum never knew that I could sing. But I can!

Wednesday

All the puppies have gone! Oh, and they were so beeeeeeauuuutiful! I hope they’ve been taken by people who will be kind to them and look after them. If I had a dog and it had puppies I would never give any of them away, ever, because you can’t trust what people might be going to do with them. There are some people that are just so cruel it is unbelievable. Avril says her mum checked most carefully and they have all gone to good homes where they will be loved, but nobody could love them as much as I would have done!

Curried compost-heap for dinner today. I found what looked like the remains of a beetle in mine. Janetta says she showed the slug that she found to her mum and her mum said it wasn’t a slug but a bit of oberjene (?) but Janetta is still sure it was a slug. She thinks what happened was it got squashed in her bag on the way home, on account of all the homework we have to lug about with us, and had therefore gone a bit flat. I think her mum just didn’t want to admit that it was a slug. I’ve noticed that whenever you tell parents anything bad about school, like rotten school dinners or one of the teachers having a go at you for doing something when it wasn’t you they always take the teacher’s side and say, “Well, you must have done something”, or “You must be exaggerating”. They hate to admit you could ever be right and a teacher might be wrong. I’m dead sure it was a beetle I found but it’s no use taking it home as Mum would only say it was a mustard seed or something.

I forgot to record that Skinny was not picked to be anything in the Christmas play, I suppose because a long, thin face is perhaps not as interesting as a round, blobby one but fortunately she doesn’t mind as she has no wish to be an actress. She says even if they had picked her she wouldn’t have wanted to be in it. It is a relief that she is not jealous, but I have to say that on the whole Skinny has a very nice nature. She has promised to come to one of the performances and cheer me on.

Thursday

Today I ate a plate of cold sick with dubious-looking objects floating in it. I had this vision of one of the cooks throwing up in the kitchen and someone running at her with a basin yelling, “Don’t waste anything, don’t waste anything! Recycle!” Skinny Melon says I am disgusting but I just happen to have this very vivid sort of imagination.

Skinny came back with me for tea after school and it was so embarrassing, I didn’t know where to put myself. Slimey Roland was there, all covered in mud from digging this stupid pond he keeps on about. He looked such a sight! I could have died when he came and sat down with us at the table. I was so ashamed of him. And then he started making these awful jokes, the way he does, like, “What do you call two spiders who’ve just got married? Newly Webs!” and “What’s full of sandwiches and hides in a bell tower? The Lunch Pack of Notre Dame!” I mean, they’re just not funny. I don’t think they are.

Skinny was really brilliant and kept groaning and giggling and making like she was amused. She was only doing it out of pity for me, I could tell. It was nice of her, but then he started to think he was some kind of big comedy star and just went on and on till I wanted to scream. Skinny actually choked at one point and I thought she was going to suffocate, she went so red. I expect the reason she choked was he was being so ex-cru-cia-ting.

I apologised to her afterwards. I said, “He’s really grungy, isn’t he?” I thought we could have a nice hate-Slimey session but Skinny wouldn’t play. She has this thing about fathers, which is because hers went and died when she was really young so that she never properly knew him and as a result she thinks even a dad like Slime is better than no dad at all. I told her that a) he wasn’t my dad. I already had a dad, thank you very much. Just because he isn’t living with us doesn’t make him not my dad any more and b) she’d change her mind quickly enough if Slimey Roland married her mum and went to live in her house.

I said, “Imagine listening to those yucky jokes every day!” Skinny said that she would be quite happy listening to yucky jokes. She agreed that they were yucky but said she thought that Slime was “an ace joke-teller”. I said “Oh, do you?” and she said, yes, she did, so I said, “Well, I don’t. I think he’s pathetic.” I said, “He’s a wimp and a weed and he sniffles.” To which Skinny retorted, “So what?” She then had the nerve to tell me that I wasn’t being fair.

Friday

The Skinbag must be mad. She said to me today that she thinks Slimey Roland is “really nice”. She also said, “Is your mum going to have a baby?” which made me want to knock her head off. I said, “No, of course she isn’t! What makes you think that?” and she said, “‘Cos she looks as if she is.” So I said, “Oh?” raising both my eyebrows up into my fringe to show I was displeased. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” She said, “Well she’s all kind of bulgy round the middle.”

I told her I’d poke her eyes out if she said anything like that about my mum again, so then she said, “Sorry, I’m sure,” meaning she wasn’t sorry at all, and went into a huff and shut up. We haven’t talked all the rest of the day.

How dare she say Mum’s bulgy round the middle? That would be like me saying her mum had sticking-out teeth, which she has.

But I wouldn’t ever say it because it would be rude. And anyway, what would Mum want a baby for? When she’s already got me?

Saturday

I’ve been thinking about what Skinny said. I have a horrible feeling that it might be true. Mum is looking bulgy. I suddenly saw it when she was getting off the bus. And this morning after we’d done all the shopping and were going to go and have what Slimey calls “coffee and cakies”. (He spends so much time drawing pictures of elves that his mind has gone completely infantile.) I couldn’t help noticing that they spent ages standing outside a baby shop gorming at all the prams and potties and carry-cots. They didn’t realise I was watching them. They thought I was too busy giving money to a person that was collecting for anti-vivisection, and I was

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