What scares me is in case they stop loving each other and Dad goes off to live somewhere else, so that we’re not a family any more. That is the ONLY THING in the universe that I am scared of. I’m not scared of climbing trees right to the very top, I’m not scared of big fierce dogs that run barking at you, I’m not scared of Tracey Bigg and her gang of stupid bullies, no way! I could bash Tracey Bigg to a pulp any time I want. But I don’t think I could bear it if my mum and dad split up.
Every night before I go to sleep I say this special prayer. I haven’t ever let on to anyone about my prayer before, not a single living soul, but Cat told me I’d got to be honest.
Cat’s the one who said I ought to write a book. She said, “I just know that you can do it, Mandy!” I said, “You mean, like … a book about me?” and Cat said, “Well, and why not?” So then I didn’t know what I would have to write about, or what sort of things she’d want me to put, and she said, “It’ll be a true story, right? Your story. So just tell it like it really is.”
All this stuff about myself. I dunno! It seems weird. But if it’s what Cat wants.
So, all right! I’m being honest. I AM BEING HONEST! Watch my lips.
I don’t know—honestly—whether I really believe in God, but that doesn’t stop me saying my prayer. This is what I pray:
Actually, I don’t do that. Kneel, I mean. I sort of put my hands together, but I do it under the duvet when I’m lying in bed. I’ve been doing it for almost two years, now.
Two years is a long time to keep on saying the same prayer. But it’s worked, so far! Even if Dad does sometimes fly off the handle. Even if Mum does do the daftest things. We’re still all together! I wouldn’t ever dream of going to sleep without saying my prayer.
“Please, God, don’t let Mum and Dad get divorced. Please, God! Let them be together for ever and ever, and ever and ever, and ever and ever, and ever and ever, and ever and ever, amen.”
I have to say it ten times, to match my age. The older I get, the more difficult it will be to keep count of all the for evers! But I will still do it. I will always do it.
My life is quite uneventful, really, and I cannot think there is going to be very much to record, but Cat says, “Go for it! Just put whatever occurs to you. Whatever’s important.”
But now that I’ve said about my prayer, and about Mum and Dad, I can’t think of anything else! Just being together as a family is all that is important.
Maybe I should describe “A Day in the Life of Mandy Small”. It is not what I would call very interesting, but I expect Cat would like it.
OK. Well. I always set my special Mickey Mouse alarm clock so’s to be sure of waking up on time in the morning. As soon as it rings I leap madly out of bed and hurriedly rush into my clothes.
If it’s summer I do it more slowly, but in the winter I have to rush or I would freeze to an icicle before I got through dressing. This is because we don’t have any central heating in this crumbly old house. Sometimes it is so cold that when I wake up there are frost patterns on my window, all swirly and beautiful.
Once I am into my clothes I go racing to Mum’s room to make sure that she is awake. Dad has to leave home at six o’clock to go and clean windows with his friend Garry, and sometimes after he’s gone Mum falls asleep again. If I don’t wake her she would be late for work and then she would be threatened with the sack, which is what happened once before.
My nan says, “Oh, really, Sandra!” (Sandra is my mum’s name.) “Fancy having to rely on a child to get you up! Why on earth don’t you set your alarm?”
But the one time Mum set the alarm for seven, after Dad had gone off, she forgot to put it back again to 5.30 and Dad didn’t wake up next morning, so then he was late and that made him fly off the handle, and that is why I have taken charge. It is easier for me to do it. I don’t mind waking up.
After I have shaken Mum, I go into the kitchen and make some tea and toast. I then go back to Mum’s room to check that she is still awake. Sometimes she is, but more often she has gone and nodded off again. It isn’t Mum’s fault that she can’t wake up in the mornings. She’s just not very good at it. Some people are and some people aren’t, and Mum is one of the ones that aren’t. But it’s all right, because she’s got me. She says, “What I’d do without my Mand, I don’t know.”
Mum is Sand and I am Mand. I think that’s really neat!
Dad is Barry. It occurs to me that if they had another baby and it was a boy, they could call it Harry and then we would have Barry and Harry, and that would be neat, as well. I’d quite like a baby brother, but Nan says, “Heaven forbid! They can’t even cope with one of you.” So I don’t think, alas, that they will have another baby. Apart from anything else, where would it sleep?
All we have in this upstairs part of the house is one bedroom for Mum and Dad, one (tiny little) bedroom for me, one room for sitting in, one which is a kitchen, and one which is the bathroom, though that is just a measly bit of room shaped like a wedge of cheese, half-way down the stairs, that we have to share with old Misery Guts, who moans like crazy about tide marks round the bath and hairs in the wash basin. She also used to moan about us using her loo paper, so now she carries her own roll with her whenever she goes there.
Now I’ve forgotten where I was.
I know! Telling about my day.
So. Right. As soon as I’ve eaten a bit of toast, and Mum’s had her cup of tea, we go down the stairs, on tiptoe because of Misery Guts, and close the front door behind us really quietly, and run up the road together, laughing, as it is always a relief to know that a) Mum is not late and won’t be threatened with the sack and b) we have not disturbed old Misery Guts and been yelled at.
Poor Mum! She hates being yelled at. She’s quite a timid person, really. I am more like Dad. I am FIERCE. What my nan calls “aggressive and up-front”. But she can talk! We both take after her. Dad’s dad, my grandy, is well under her thumb. That’s what Mum says, anyway.
Mum hasn’t got a mum and dad. She was dumped when she was just a little kid. I think it must be so terrible to feel that you’re not wanted. That is something I have never felt. I know I was a mistake, because Nan has often told me so. She says that Mum and Dad were “no more than children themselves” and “far too young to go having babies”. But once they’d got over their surprise they were really pleased. Mum says I’m the cleverest thing she’s ever done. She says, “Your dad was so excited! He even came to the hospital to see you arrive!”
So I know that I am loved and wanted. I just wish I could be certain that Mum and Dad love and want each other. I think they do, ’cos they always kiss and make up and Dad is always buying Mum little presents to show how much she means to him. But it just would be nice to be certain sure.
Now I’ve gone and lost track again. Miss Foster – she’s our teacher at school – she’d say I’m not concentrating. She’s always accusing me of not concentrating.
OK.
