Fruit and Nutcase

I still can’t really understand why Cat wants me to record all this stuff. All about me and my boring life. When I asked her she said, “Well, look at it this way. It’s not everyone can say they’ve written a book. Think what an achievement it would be!”

I said, “But nothing’s ever happened to me.” Meaning, I’ve never been kidnapped,

or lost at sea

or rescued anyone from drowning

or been in a plane that’s been hijacked.

I have never been on a plane full stop. A BIG full stop.

I’ve never been abroad, I’ve never been on a boat, I’ve only been to the seaside once and that was two years ago when Nan gave us the money to go to Clacton and stay in a bed-and-breakfast. Even then it rained all the time. And Mum put some clothes to dry on the heater and the clothes caught fire while we were out and set light to the curtains and Dad got in a hump and spent all our money playing the fruit machines down the pub which meant we had to come home three days early and the bed-and-breakfast lady kept sending threatening letters about her curtains!

Nan and Crandy had to pay her in the end, to buy some new ones. Nan was ever so horrid about it. She said that Mum was like a child and that Dad was irresponsible and we didn’t deserve to have holidays. So we’ve never had one since and now I don’t suppose we’ll ever have one again. See if I care!

That Tracey Bigg, she goes off all over the place. Places like Florida and Gran Canaria (wherever that is). She’s always boasting about it. I haven’t got anything to boast about. I just don’t see what Cat wants me to say into this tape machine she’s given me.

I said this to Cat and she chirruped, “Oh, Mandy, you’ve got all sorts of things!” Cat’s always chirruping and chirping. She’s ever such a cheerful person. So am I, I suppose, really. On the whole. Maybe that’s why we’re friends. She told me that things didn’t have to be big and dramatic to be put into books.

“Just ordinary everyday happenings. That’s what interests people.”

Does she mean that other people are going to read about me???

I could be famous! I could be rich! They could make a film about me!

Yes, and if they do I know one person that’s not going to be in it, and that’s Tracey Bigg. If anyone gets to play her it’ll be some ugly, cross-eyed, po-faced tub.

Serve her right! I can’t stand that girl.

(#ulink_efeb8d6c-4866-5a64-995b-a0098aaa85d8)

This is her.

Tracey Bigg. She’s always picking on me, just because she’s Bigg and I’m Small. Which we really are. Unfortunately.

She’s horrible! I hate her. She says these really mean and spiteful things just to try and hurt people. Like at the beginning of term when Miss Foster said we’d all got to read as many books as we could and get people to sponsor us, and the money we raised was going to go to charity, and Tracey Bigg sniggered and said, “What happens if we can’t read, Miss?” and everyone knew she was talking about me.

Me and Oliver Pratt. Not that I cared, I don’t care what anyone says, but Oliver went red as radishes and I felt really sorry for him. I mean, for all Tracey Bigg knows we’ve got that thing where you muddle your letters,

(#litres_trial_promo) which is a sort of illness and nothing to do with being lazy or stupid. It’s like being handicapped and people mocking at you.

Tracey Bigg is the sort of person that would mock at anyone that was handicapped. She’d kick a blind man’s stick away from him just for fun, she would.

Tracey Bigg is garbage.

Miss Foster said that anyone that found reading difficult could choose books with pictures, but it didn’t make any difference, I couldn’t have found anyone to sponsor me anyway. I knew I couldn’t ask Mum and Dad ’cos they were already worried about money, where is the next penny going to come from? and how are we going to pay all the bills? And I couldn’t ask the neighbours ’cos Mum doesn’t like me to do that. She says if I ask them, their kids will ask her, and then she’ll feel embarrassed when she has to say no. And I could just imagine what would happen if I tried asking old Misery Guts!

When it was time to give the forms back I had to pretend I’d lost mine. Miss Foster got really ratty with me. She said, “Mandy Small, what is the matter with you? You are the most careless, thoughtless child I have ever met!” And Tracey Bigg was there and she didn’t half sneer. ’Cos she’d read more books than anyone, hadn’t she? And made a load more money.

When we went into the playground at break she kept going on with this rhyme she’d made up.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the dumbest girl of all? Mandee! Mandy Small!”

She taught it to Aimee Wilcox and Leanne Trimble that are her best friends and they went round chanting it all through break and doing this stupid dance that made everyone laugh.

I just took no notice. I mean, my skin is really tough. It’s like I’m wearing body armour. You could shoot arrows at it and they’d just bounce off. You could shoot bullets. You could hurl dead elephants.

Tracey Bigg can’t hurt me. But all the same, it does get on my nerves. You get to feeling like you’re on the point of exploding. Like a bottle of fizzy pop that’s been all shaken up and the cork is just about to b … low!

That’s what happened back at half term. My cork just blew, and I bopped her one. Actually, I bashed her. Right on the conk.

She bled gallons! She bled everywhere. All down her chin, drip-drip-drip. All down the front of her dress, drip-drop, drip-drop, splodge. What a mess! But it was her own fault. She asked for it. See, what happened, Miss Foster gave us these forms to take home. More forms. She’s always giving us forms. Usually I just chuck mine away. I mean, I can’t keep bothering Mum all the time. She’d only get fussed.

This lot was forms for going to summer camp. Down in Devon, on a farm.

“I don’t expect most of you have ever been on a farm, have you?”

Tracey Bigg had. Of course. She’s been everywhere. She’s been to America. She’s been to Australia. She’s been to Switzerland and gone sking in the mountains. She would!

I haven’t ever been anywhere except to Clacton where it rained and Dad spent all our money. Oh, and to my nan’s, but that’s only a tube ride away. I would quite like to have seen a farm but I didn’t think I could leave Mum and Dad for a whole fortnight even if Nan and Grandy offered to pay, which they might have done as on the whole they are quite generous. But I am always frightened that if I’m not there something disastrous will happen. Like I’ll get back and find that Mum has burnt the house down or Dad’s gone through the roof. Or even worse, that one of them has run away.

So I told Miss Foster I couldn’t go and she seemed disappointed and said, “Oh, Mandy, that’s a pity! I feel a change of scene would do you good.”

I don’t know what she meant by that. I don’t need any change of scene! I’m quite happy where I am.

Anyway, out in the playground afterwards Tracey Bigg made up another of her stupid rhymes.

That was when I bashed her. And she yelled, and grabbed my hair, and tried to scratch my eyes out so I kicked her, really hard, on the ankle and she tore at my sleeve and that was when Miss Foster and another teacher came running across and separated us.

’Course, I got into dead trouble for that. Dead trouble. Tracey said it was all my fault, and so did Aimee and Leanne. They said, “She attacked her, Miss.”

Nobody ever asked me why I’d attacked her, and I wouldn’t have told them even if they had. Not any of their business. But they didn’t ever ask.

It’s like I’ve got this reputation for being aggressive and Tracey’s got this reputation for being good and that’s all anyone cares. But sometimes I think you have to be a bit aggressive or people just stamp all over you. Like with Oliver, and Billy Murdo’s gang. They bully him something rotten and no one ever does a thing about it. That’s because they do it where the teachers can’t see. And Oliver, he’s such a sad, weedy little guy, he never sticks up for himself.

I bet if he did, Miss Foster would say it was all his fault, even though Billy Murdo’s about ten times bigger.

Sometimes you just can’t win. But on the other hand, you can’t just sit back and do nothing. I don’t think you can.

Half-past three is when school ends. I can’t wait to get out! I never stay behind for anything; not if I can help it. I run like a whirlwind to Bunjy’s to pick Mum up and go shopping with her.

Bunjy’s is the name of the baker’s where Mum works. But the lady who owns it, the one who keeps threatening to give her the sack, isn’t called Mrs Bunjy but Mrs Sowerbutts. Mum calls her old Sourpuss. She’s not quite as bad as Misery Guts, but they both give Mum a lot of hassle.

Sometimes when I get there I’m a few minutes early. If old Sourpuss is around Mum pulls this face at me through the window and I know that I will have to wait.

Old Sourpuss wasn’t there that day, the day I bashed Tracey Bigg and made her nose bleed. Mum came waltzing out looking all happy and giggly ‘cos she’d left a few minutes before she ought!

I love it when Mum behaves like that. It means we’re going to have fun!