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Friday January 1st

11:00 a.m.

Resolutions:

I will be a much nicer person, to people who deserve it.

I will be interested in my future.

I will speak nicely to Mr and Mrs Next Door.

I will be less superficial and vain.

I will concentrate on my positive and not my negative, e.g. I will think less about my nose and more about my quite attractive teeth.

Saturday January 2nd

11:30 a.m.

At last! News of Jas. It seems that she might have glandular fever. I’m wearing a scarf over my mouth and nose when I visit her, just in case. Apparently you get glandular fever from kissing. It’s a nightmare, this kissing business – if it’s not a mysterious hand on the breast it’s huge swollen glands. Celibacy or a huge fat neck, that is the stark choice. I wonder if Slim has got big fat feet from too much kissing in the foot area? Uuurgghh, now I feel really sick. I’m far too ill to visit the sick. I must go home to bed.

No... Jas needs me. I’ll just try not to breathe the same air as her.

4:00 p.m.

Jas has finally let me see her. She’s all pale and thin, just lying in bed. Her bedroom is tidy, which is a bad sign and she has turned her mirror to the wall. She didn’t even open her eyes when I came in. I sat on her bed.

“Jas, what are you doing? What’s the matter? Come on, tell me, your best pal.”

Silence.

“Come on, Jas, whatever it is, you can trust me.”

Silence.

“I know what it is, you think that just because everyone else besides Nauseating P. Green and Hairy Kate the lezzo have got boyfriends – or have kissed someone properly – there is something really wrong with you, don’t you?”

Silence. I was getting a bit irritated. I was trying to help and I had problems of my own. I was practically an orphan, for instance... and a substitute parent. It was all, “Will you babysit Libby?” since Dad had selfishly gone to the other side of the world. What did Jas know of trouble? Had she taken her little sister to the swimming pool? No, she didn’t even have a little sister. Had her little sister’s swimming knickers exploded at the top of the toddlers’ water slide? No. Is there ever any point in trying to tell Mum that Libby always has bottom trouble after baked beans? No, there is not. The swimming knickers could not contain Libby’s poo explosion and it was all over the slide and nearby toddlers. Did Jas know what it was to see a pool being cleared of sobbing toddlers, dragged out by their water wings? No. Did she know what it was like to sluice her little sister down and then have to walk the gamut of shame past all the mothers and toddlers and swimming-pool attendants in masks with scrubbing brushes? I think not. I had to take it on the chin like a taking-it-on-the-chin person, so why couldn’t Jas?

I didn’t say any of this to Jas but I took a tough line.

“Come on, Jas, what can be so bad about swollen-up glands?”

Jas spoke in a quiet voice so I had to bend down to hear her. “I haven’t got swollen-up glands. I don’t think I’ll ever get a boyfriend, no one asked me to dance even. Tom was my only chance and even he preferred his onions.”

Aha, time for all that stuff I read in Mum’s Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway book. I got Jas’s mirror from the wall and held it in front of her face. “Look into that mirror, Jas, and love the person that you see. Say, I love you.”

Jas looked in the mirror – she couldn’t help it, it was about three centimetres away from her nose. She was almost sick. “Uuurggghhhh, I look hideous.”

She wasn’t really getting it. I said, “Jas, Jas, love yourself, love the beauty that is there, look at that lovely face, look at that lovely mouth. The mouth that your friend marked eight out of ten. Think of that, Jas. Think of all the poor people who only got six and a third... and you have an eight for a mouth...” (I can be like an elephant for remembering things that annoy me. Sadly I can remember nothing to do with French, history, maths or biology.)

Jas was definitely perking up. She was puckering her mouth and trying for a half-smile. “Do you really think I have got a nice mouth?”

“Yes, yes, but look at the rest of you, look at those eyes, look at the spot-free skin...”

Jas sat up. “I know, it’s good, isn’t it? I’ve been drinking lemon and hot water first thing.”

Monday January 4th

7:00 a.m.

Woke up and felt happy for a minute until I realised I had to go back to loony headquarters (school) today.

2:30 p.m.

Gym. Discovered Angus had stored his afternoon snack in my rucksack. There are hedgehog quills in my sports knickers.

Tuesday January 12th

Noon

Victory. Victory.

Madame Slack has been on my case about being lazy in French and I have just got eighty-five per cent in a test. Hahahaha. Fermez la bouche, Madame Slack. I did it by learning twenty-five words and then making sure I answered every question by using only those words. So to question one – “In French, what is your favourite food?” my answer was “Lapin” (rabbit).

For my essay, “What did you do on a sunny day?” I made sure I played with a rabbit.

Describe a favourite book – Watership Down – lots of lapins in that.

1:00 p.m.

In line with my new resolution to concentrate on school and not boys I went to do my yoga in the gym at lunchtime. My yoga routine is called The Sun Salute and you stretch up to welcome the sun and then you bend down as if to say “I am not worthy.” Then you do cobra pose and dog pose... it’s all very flowing and soothing.

1:15 p.m.

Miss Stamp came in just as I was doing dog post. She said, “Oh, don’t let me disturb you. I’m glad you’re taking an interest in yoga, it’s one of the best exercises for the body. It will be really good for your tennis in summer. Don’t mind me, I’m just getting ready for this afternoon.” Well, I was upside down with my bottom sticking up in the air. Not something you want to do in front of a lesbian. So I quickly went into cobra but that made it look like I was sticking my breasts out at her. I think she may now be growing a beard as well as a moustache.

Honestly, there is no bloody peace in this place.

1:30 p.m.

I tried my yoga outside, even though it was hard to do it with my gloves and coat on. Again I’d just got into dog pose when Elvis appeared round the corner. He’s a grumpy old nutcase. “What are you up to?” he shouted at me.

I said, from upside down, “Nnn doing nmy nyoga.”

He pulled down his cap. “I don’t care if you’re doing nuclear physics, you’re not doing it in my yard. Clear off before I report you.”

As I went, I said, “Did you know that Elvis is dead?”

4:30 p.m.

Saw Mark on my way home. I smiled in a mature way at him. He just said, “All right?”

6:00 p.m.

Mum has gone mental in Vati’s absence. When I asked Mum if she would pay for my nose reduction surgery she came out with the old “We can barely afford to feed Angus” line. As if he needs feeding anyway; there’s never a day goes by that I don’t find something decomposing in the airing cupboard. Anyway, she can’t afford to invest in the happiness of her daughter but she can afford to have the lounge decorated, apparently, because the decorator is coming next week.

9:30 p.m.

Watching TV Mum said, “Do you miss your dad?” and I said, “Who?”

Monday January 18th

Biology

2:40 p.m.

I can do a great impression of a lockjaw germ. Rosie passed me a note: Dear G. You know we have a double free period on Thursday? Well, do you fancy bunking off and going down town? Rrrrrrrrrxxxxx

4:30 p.m.

Walking home with Jas. I think she is well on the way to recovery. “What do you think of this lip gloss? Do you think it makes me look a bit like Claudia Schiffer? My mouth is the same shape, I think.” I wish I hadn’t started this. Still, if she wants to live in a fantasy wonderland and it cheers her up... We went to her house and up to her room. Oh, the bliss of a normal household, no mad mum, no strange sister, no wild animals. Jas’s mum asked us if we would like some Ribena and sandwiches. Imagine my mum doing that?... Imagine my mum being in! I suppose she is a good role model... if you want to be a hospital administrator – but couldn’t she make the odd sandwich as well?

In Jas’s bedroom we did our vital statistics with her tape measure. I am thirty-two, twenty-three, thirty-two and Jas is thirty, twenty-three, thirty-three. I think she was breathing in for the twenty-three myself. Also my legs are two inches longer than hers. (I didn’t mention it to Jas but one of my legs is two inches longer and the other one is only one and a half inches longer. How can you develop a limp at my age? It might be because I carry my bag on one shoulder and it’s making that side longer. I must remember to swap sides. Nobody likes a lopsided girl.)

Thursday January 28th

3:30 p.m.

Rosie got up first and left the room. Miss Wilson came in as we were working, to “supervise”, but we asked her who invented God and she left pretty quickly. We were busy making a list of all the qualities we want in a boyfriend – sense of humour, good dancer, good kisser, nice smile, six-pack, etc. Rosie sent her list and it just said, HUGE. I wrote back, Huge teeth, you mean? And she replied, Yes. Sven has begun to infect her with his Danishness, I think.

Anyway, Rosie, Jools and Ellen went out first, and then me and Jas. We met up in the ground floor loos and put our boots and skinny tops and make-up on. We made sure the coast was clear and then went out of the back doors. We had to crouch down beneath the science-block windows – Hawkeye was teaching in there and she could smell a girl at twenty paces. Once past the Science block it was a quick dash behind Elvis’s hut. He was in there, reading his newspaper, and as we crept by we heard him fart loudly and say “Pardon”. I started giggling and then everyone caught it. We had to run like mad. All afternoon if anyone did anything we’d say “Pardon”.

Great in Boots. We tried all the testers, and this stuff that you put on your hair, like a wand and it puts a streak of colour into your own hair. I tried all of them but blonde looked really brilliant. Just a streak across the front, I knew it would look good. I’m going to get Mum to let me dye my hair blonde now that Vati’s safely in Whangamata.

Midnight

Brilliant day!!! Jas and I sung “Respect” by Aretha Franklin on the way home.