He said, “See you around,” when I left to come home. I think he might go to the thick boys’ school but, hey ho, he can be my bit of rough. Snigger snigger.
Angus is curled up on my bed, which means I can’t straighten my legs, but I daren’t move him. He’s got a singed ear and his whiskers are burnt off but he’s purring.
Wednesday November 11th
4:20 p.m.
Jas comes round for a bit of a “talk” after school. I make her my special milky coffee drink. She starts to moan on. “Tom is going to be working again this weekend.”
I said, “Well, I told you, it’s a family business.” I felt like a very wise person and also I seemed to have turned into a Jewess. I’ve never said “family business” in my life. Ay vay.
Jas didn’t seem to notice my sudden Jewishness, she just raved on, “I don’t know, I mean, I really, really like him but I want to have fun... I don’t want to have to be all serious and think about the future and never go out.”
I’d really got into the swing of my new role now. “Look, Jas, you’re intelligent (see what I mean? I could say these things without any hint of sarcasm), you’re a good-looking young girl, the world is at your feet. Do you want to end up with a fruit and veg man? Stay with him and the next thing you know you’ll have five children and be up at dawn arguing about cabbages. Look what happened to my mum,” I said meaningfully.
Jas had been following me up until that point but then she said, “What did happen to your mum?” and I said, “She got Dad.”
Jas said, “I see what you mean.”
Monday November 16th
4:10 p.m.
Jas has finished with Tom. She came in all ashen-faced and swollen-eyed this morning. I had to wait until break to talk to her.
We went to the tennis courts even though it was bloody freezing. I refuse to wear a vest, though. I’m going to persevere with my bra, even if it does bunch up. I think my breasts are definitely growing. Fondling is supposed to make them bigger. Melanie Griffiths must do nothing but fondle hers, they’re gigantic. Anyway, Jas told me the whole thing about Tom and how she has now become a dumper.
(Verb to dump: I dump, you dump, he/she/it dumps etc.)
Jas said, “He was upset and angry at the same time. He said he thought we were good together.”
Jas looked as if she was about to cry again so I put my arm round her. Then I took it away quickly – I don’t want to start the lesbian rumour again. I said, “Jas, there’s plenty of other boys. You deserve better than a greengrocer with a horrible bigger brother.”
10:00 p.m.
Oh dear God, Jas on the phone again. Has she done the right thing? etc. etc. etc… I must get her interested in someone else.
Thursday November 19th
8:00 p.m.
Drama drama!!!
We had a substitute teacher today for biology. No, I don’t mean substitute, I mean reserve, no, I don’t mean that, I mean... oh anyway, a student teacher. She was very nervous and short-sighted and we’d all got that mad bug that you get some days and we couldn’t stop laughing. The student teacher, Miss Idris, asked me to hand out pipettes or something and I tried to get up, only to find that Ellen and Jools had tied my Science overall tapes to the drawer handles.
They were helpless with laughter and so couldn’t undo them. It took me ages to get free. Then Rosie wrote a note:
This is the plan – Operation Movio Deskio. Whenever Miss Idris writes on the board we all shift our desks back a couple of centimetres, really quietly.
By the end of the lesson when she looked round from the board we were all squashed up against the back wall and there was a three metre gap in front of her. We were speechless with laughing. She just blinked through her glasses and didn’t say anything.
Then it happened. Jas and I got to the school gate and Robbie was there. For one moment I thought he had realised that it was ME ME ME he wanted and not old dumbo, but he gave me a HORRIBLE look as I passed by. I said to Jas, “Did you see that? What’s he got against me? All right, he’s seen my knickers, but it’s not a hanging offence.”
Jas went a bit red. I said, “Do you know something I don’t?”
And she said nervously, in a rush, “Well, erm, maybe. I think he’s a bit cross, because Tom’s upset we’re not going out and I said it was partly because I’d spoken to you and you had said I really shouldn’t go out with someone in a fruit and veg shop because it was not really good enough for me. Well, you did say that.”
I got hold of her by her tie. “You said what????!!!”
She just blinked and went pink and white.
Midnight
I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. Stabbed in the back by my so-called best friend. It was never like this in the Famous Five books. No wonder Robbie is so moody and stroppy with me.
Monday November 23rd
4:15 p.m.
Terrible day. Jackie “suggested” that we do something to pass the time in German, whilst Herr Kamyer amused himself declining verbs on the blackboard. (What a stupid language German is, you have to wait until the end of the sentence to find out what the verb is. But my attitude by then is, Who cares?? I think I might start calling my father Vater and my mum Mutter just for a change. Vati and Mutti, for short.)
Anyway, Jackie said we should mark each other out of ten for physical attractiveness. The list was skin, hair, eyes, nose, figure, mouth, teeth. You had to write out the list and put your name on the top of the paper and then pass it round to everyone to give you a mark. It was Jackie, Alison, Jas, Rosie, Jules, Ellen and Beth Morgan. I didn’t want to do it but you don’t say no to Jackie. I more or less gave everyone near top marks for everything... even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. For instance, I gave Beth seven for her teeth – my logic was that they might be nice when the front ones grow back in, you never know. All the marks were given anonymously. Then we got our papers back with the marks listed.
My list was:
Someone gave me a nought for my nose!!! I got the lowest marks out of anyone. My best feature was my teeth! Jas had got mostly eights for all of her features and so she was in that really annoying mood when you’ve done quite well in an exam and it makes you sort of “kind” to people who haven’t done as well. We compared marks on the way home.
“You’ve got more marks for your mouth than me, Jas. What’s wrong with mine? Why is yours so much better? Did you give me six and a third? That looks like your handwriting.”
She was squirming a bit by now. “Does it?... No, I don’t think it is.”
Then I had her. “Well, if it’s not that one you must have given me even less than that.”
