Angus, thongs, and full-frontal snogging

Sunday august 23rd

My bedroom

Raining

10:00 a.m.

Dad had Uncle Eddie round, so naturally they had to come and see what I was up to. If Uncle Eddie(who is bald as a coot) says to me one more time, "Should bald heads be buttered?" I may kiss myself. He doesn't seem to realize that I no longer wear romper suits. I feel like yelling at him "I am fourteen years old, Uncle Eddie! I am bursting with womanhood, I wear a bra! O, it's a bit on the loose side and does ride up round my neck if I run for the bus...but the womanly potential is there, you bald coot!"

Talking of breasts, I'm worried that I may end up like the rest of the women in my family, with just one bust, like a sort of shelf affair. Mum can balance things on hers when her hands are full-at parties, and so on, she can have a sandwich and drink and save a snack for later by putting it on her shelf. It's very unattractive. I would like a proper amount of breastiness but not to go too far with it like Melanie Andrews, for instance. I got the most awful shock in the showers after hockey last term. Her bra looks like two shopping bags. I suspect she is a bit unbalance hormonally. She certainly is when she tries to run for the ball. I thought she'd run right through the fence with all the momentum of her "bosoomers," as Jas would so amusingly calls them.

Still in my room.

Still raining

Still sunday.

11:30 a.m.

I don't see why I can't have a lock on my bedroom door. Every time I suggest anything around this place, people start shaking their heads and tutting. It's like living in a house full of chickens dressed in frocks and trousers. Or a house full of those nodding ding dongs, or a house full of...anyway...I can't have a lock on my door is the short and short of it.

"Why not?" I ask Mum reasonably (catching her in one of the rare minutes when she's not at Italian evening class or at another party.)

"Because you might have an accident and we couldn't get in"

"An accident like what?" I persisted.

"Well...you might faint," she said.

Then Dad joined in. "You might set fire to your bed and be overcome with fumes."

What is the matter with these people? I know why they don't want me to have a lock on my door. It's because it would be a first sign of my path to adulthood and they can't bear the idea of that because it would mean they might have to et on with their own lives and leave me alone.

Still sunday

11:35 a.m.

There are six things very wrong with my life:

(1) I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never come to a head, but lurk in a red way for the next two years.

(2) It is on my nose.

(3) I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere in my room.

(4)In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and it will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberführer Frau Simpson and her bunch of sadistic "teachers."

(5) I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home

(6) I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive.

11:40 a.m.

OK that's it. I'm turning over a new leaf. I found an article in Mum's Cosmo about how to be happy if you are very unhappy(which I am). The article is called "Emotional Confidence." What you have to do is Recall ...Experience...and HEAL. So you think of a painful incident and you remember all the ghastly details of it...this is the Recall bit. Then you experience the emotions and acknowledge them and then you JUST LET IT GO.

2:00 p.m.

Uncle Eddie had gone, thank the Lord. He actually asked me if I'd like to ride in the sidecar on his motorbike. Are all adults from planet Xenon? What should I have said? "Yes, certainly. Uncle Eddie, I would like to go in your prewar sidecar with a bit of luck all of my friends will see me with some mad, bald bloke and that will me the end of my life. Thank you."

4:00 p.m.

Jas came round. She said it took her ages to get out of her catsuit after the fancy-dress party. I wasn't very interested, but i asked her why out of politeness.

She said, "Well the boy behind the counter in the fancy-dress shop was really good-looking."

"Yes, so?"

"Well, so I lied about my size-I got a size ten catsuit instead of twelve."

She showed me the marks around her neck and waist; they were quite deep. I said, "Your head looks a bit swollen up."

"No, that's just Sunday"

I told her about the Cosmo article and so we spent a few hours recalling the fancy-dress party (i.e., the painful incident) and experiencing the emotions in order to heal them.

I blame Jas entirely. It may have been my idea to go as a stuffed olive, but she didn't stop me like a pal should do. In fact, she encouraged me. We made the stuffed olive costume out of chicken wire and green crêpe paper-that was for the "olive" bit. It has a little shoulder straps to keep it up and I wore a green tights underneath. It was the "stuffed: bit that Jas helped with mostly. As I recall, it was her who suggested I use crazy color to dye my hair and head and face and neck red...sort of like a pimento. It was, I have to say, quite funny at the time. Well, when we were in my room. The difficulty came when I tried to get out of my room. I had to go down the stairs sideways.

When I did get to the door, I had to go back and change my tights because my cat, Angus, had one of his "Call of the Wild" episodes.

He really is completely bonkers. We got him when we went on holiday to Loch Lomond. On the last day I found him wandering around the garden of the guest hose we were staying in. Tarry-a-Wee-While, it was called. That should give you some idea of what the holiday was like.

I should have guessed all was not entirely well in the cat department when I picked him up and he began savaging my cardigan. But he was such a lovely-looking kitten, All tabby and long-haired, with huge yellow eyes. Even as a kitten he looked like a small dog. I begged and pleaded to take him home.

"He'll die here; he has no mummy or daddy," I said plaintively.

My dad said, "He's probably eaten them." Honestly, he can be callous. I worked on Mum, and in the end I brought him home. The Scottish land-lady did say she thought he was probably mixed breed, half domestic tabby and half Scottish wild-cat. I remember thinking, "Oh that will be exotic." I didn't realize he would grow to the size of a small Labrador, only mad. I used to drag him around on a lead but, as I explained to Mrs. Next Door, he ate it.

Anyway, sometimes he hears the call of the Scottish Highlands. So, as I was passing by as a stuffed olive, he leaped out from his concealed hiding place behind the curtains (or his lair, as I supposed he imagined it in his cat brain) and attacked my tights or "prey." I couldn't break his hole by banging his head because he was darting side to side. In the end, I managed to reach the outdoor brook by the door and beat him off with it.

Then I couldn't get in Dad's Volvo. Dad said "Why don't you take off the olive bit and stick it in the book."

Honestly, what is the point? I said, "Dad, if you think I am sitting next to you in a green T-shirt and tights, you're mad."

He got all shirty like parents do as soon as you point out how stupid and useless they are. "Well, you'll have to walk, then. I'll drive along really slowly with Jas if you walk alongside."

I couldn't believe it. "If I have to walk, why don't Jas and I both walk here and forget about the car?"

He got that tight-lipped look that dads get when they think they are being reasonable. "Because I want to be sure of where you are going. I don't want you out wandering the streets at night."

Unbelievable! I said, "What would I be doing walking the streets at night as a stuffed olive, gate-crashing cocktail parties?"

Jas smirked, but Dad got all outraged parenty. "Don't you speak to me like that, otherwise you won't go at all."

What is the point?