The Secret Life of Sally Tomato

Some people keep diaries: I am going to keep an alphabet! I am going to do two letters a week, starting from Monday. (The beginning of the spring term.) For every letter, I am going to write a poem. Some of them may be quite rude; it depends how I’m feeling. In between the poems I shall write down chunks of everyday life. My life! All the things that are happening to me, and especially with girls. If by the time I reach Z I still have not done it, I shall most probably go out and shoot myself.

Or drown myself, as I don’t have a gun.

Or swallow fifty-eight bottles of aspirin, or hurl myself madly in front of a train, or tell Kelvin Clegg he’s a dork and get myself totalled.

I have got to have done it before then!

When I say done it, I mean kissed someone.

When I say someone, I mean – a girl!

When I say kiss, I mean – KISS! Not just a peck on the cheek. Though as a matter of fact, I haven’t even done that. I am twelve years old and I haven’t even pecked a girl on the cheek!

I am seriously worried that there may be something wrong with me. It surely can’t be normal to have reached the age of twelve and never kissed a girl? Even Bones has done it! He’s done it twice. The first time was with his cousin Jemma, who is rather forward and actually kissed him, so he couldn’t make the most of it.

The second was with Nasreen Flynn, at Juniors. They were alone in the classroom, being Tidiness Monitors, and he made a grab at her and she didn’t resist.

I asked him what it was like and he said it was like pressing your lips against a ripe peach. I could try asking Mum if she’ll buy some peaches so that I can practise, but it’s not the same as the real thing. How come Bones gets to do it and not me?

Answer: because he is normal. That’s why. My sister calls him Bullet Head, and I don’t think he’s what most girls would consider hunky as he is quite short and squat and has a face like a beaming garden gnome but he obviously exudes manliness in great quantity. His hormones rage and froth. When he sees a girl he’s like a wild beast, with this uncontrollable urge to kiss and grapple.

I don’t seem to have any hormones. Or if I do, they don’t seem to be working properly.

I hope I’m not gay! Except I don’t see how I can be because if I was gay I would fancy Bones, which I most definitely do not.

Unless I fancy him without knowing it???

This is frightening! Why can’t I be the same as other people?

Yesterday I bumped into Kelvin Clegg and his mates as I was on my way to Bonesy’s. Kelvin called out, “Whey-hey, it’s Sally Tomato!” and they all sniggered. I know they only do it because of my name being what it is, and because of Kelvin Clegg having the mental age of a retarded flea and thinking he is being amusing. I know this. All the same, I sometimes can’t help wondering if they sense something? These Neanderthal types often do. They’re like dogs, they can sniff things out.

This is a list of the things I feel are abnormal about me:

1. My name. Salvatore d’Amato. Salvatore! I ask you! It’s ridiculous. I don’t even speak Italian! Nobody in the family speaks Italian. It’s like some kind of sick joke. OK if you’re living in Rome or somewhere, but I’m not! I’m living in London, five minutes away from Kelvin Clegg, who calls me Sally Tomato.

When I’m not being called Sally, I’m being called Sal. It must have a psychological effect. Parents can be very cruel to their offspring in their choice of names. Like Mr and Mrs Cart, who christened their baby Orson.

I’d rather be Orson Cart than Sally Tomato!

2. The second thing that is not normal about me: I am not into sports. Only swimming, and that doesn’t count. Not at our school. The only thing that counts at our school is football. Well, and bashing people if you happen to be Kelvin Clegg.

3. The third thing: I read a lot of books. That’s a really nerdy sort of thing to do. My sister hasn’t read a book in years. She’s more interested in boys. Dad says she’s obsessed with boys. She’s almost supernormal!

4. The fourth naff thing about me: I write poetry. That is even more nerdy than reading books. It is so nerdy that I have never told anyone, not even Bones.

5. I am scared of heights.

6. I am scared of getting a brain tumour. and

7. This is one I have just thought of. A few weeks ago I saw Lassie Come Home on television and I cried. My sister cried, too, but that is all right because she is a girl. Even though she is fourteen, she is allowed to cry. Boys are not supposed to.

What is the matter with me???

If it turns out that I am truly as abnormal as I fear, it will be all my parents’ fault. My parents are seriously weird. But seriously. I mean, Dad! A dentist. Only a warped personality would choose to become a dentist.

And Mum. A housewife! How could I tell anyone that my mum is a housewife? They wouldn’t know what I was talking about. It’s like something out of the Dark Ages! Other people have mums that are marine biologists or bank managers or work in Tesco’s. Why can’t I?

Mum says she hasn’t got time to do any of those things, she’s too busy with her classes. Last year she took classes in car maintenance and reflexology. This year it’s vegan cookery and antiques. She keeps making all these gungy dishes like carrot and oatmeal pudding and stuffed cabbage leaves. When she’s not doing that she’s rushing off to car boot sales to look for genuine antique junk. I guess it’s no more than you can expect of someone that married a dentist. If she wasn’t weird before, she’s become weird since.

She’s quite nice; so’s Dad. I don’t dislike them or anything. But I do think they are weird! Bones’s dad is a long-distance lorry driver and his mum works at B&Q. That’s what I call normal.

It’s why Bones is normal and gets to kiss girls and I don’t. But I intend to! I have made up my mind. I mean this most sincerely! It is my project for this term.

– to work on getting to know girls better

– if possible, to acquire an actual girlfriend

– if I can’t do that, then at least kiss one, preferably Lucy West, but if I can’t get her then I wouldn’t mind Emma Crick or Carrie Pringle.

– if all else fails I will make do with Nasreen Flynn, though I would rather not kiss one that has already been kissed by Bones.

By the time I reach Z, I might have kissed them all!

A, B, C, D

Here I come!

Swifter than the wind

From a polecat’s bum!

A (#ulink_2e0585e0-1f54-51a5-a23a-a14cf75ca5d2) is for armpit,

Which smells when you’re hot.

Specially great hairy ones.

They smell A LOT.

You can check whether your armpit smells by holding up your arm and burying your nose in it. Your armpit, I mean. I have done this. I could not detect any odour.

It is very important not to have odour if you want to kiss a girl. Girls are into cleanliness in a big way. At least, they are if my sister is anything to go by. She spends for ever in the bathroom. Dad gets really mad at her. Sometimes he yells.

“Have you become a permanent fixture?” he goes. “There are other people in this house besides you, you know!”

The other morning, at breakfast (after Dad had been yelling) I asked her what she did in there. I wasn’t being nosy; it was serious research. I am trying to learn all I can about girls and their habits.

My sister gave me this really poisonous look, like I was some kind of noxious bug, and snarled, “Don’t you start!”