The Secret Life of Sally Tomato

I said that I wasn’t starting. “I just want to know what you do!”

“Do you really need to ask?” said Dad, fanning the air. “I’m surprised they let you into school smothered in that muck.”

“It happens to be perfume,” said Iz.

“Where do you put it?” I said. I like to be clear about these things. “All over? Or just—”

“Oh, go jump in a bucket!” said Iz. “You get on my tits!”

She doesn’t have any tits, so I don’t know how I was supposed to have got on them. An ant couldn’t get on her tits, hardly.

My sister is obviously just as weird as the rest of the family. Yesterday I asked Mum if she thought she was quite normal.

“Your sister?” she said. She sounded surprised. Like, why would I ask such a thing?

“I was just wondering,” I said, “if all girls were like her.”

Mum sighed and said, “Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?” I said.

“Well … it’s a phase they go through,” said Mum.

“All of them?”

“Most of them.”

“Like about … how many?”

“About 99.9%. Why?”

I explained that I was making a study of them. For some reason Mum seemed to think this was amusing. She said, “And what have you discovered so far?”

I said, “Well, I’ve discovered that they like to be clean.”

“Really?” said Mum. “What made you come to that conclusion?”

“Observation,” I said. “Taking a million hours in the bathroom.”

Mum laughed. I think it is what is called a hollow laugh.

“They don’t go into the bathroom to get clean!”

“So what do they go in there for?” I said. “Just to splosh perfume over themselves?”

“Oh, more than that,” said Mum. “Far more than that! It’s a total experience … it’s a happening. They look at themselves … all over, from every angle. They agonise over spots and whether their noses are too big or their mouths are too small. They use their dad’s razor to shave their legs – and don’t bother to clean up after themselves. They drench the place in talcum powder. Their mother’s talcum powder. They snip bits off their hair and block the plug hole. They cut their toenails in the hand basin. They varnish their toe nails in the hand basin. They drop great blobs of it and ruin the enamel, thus making their mums and dads extremely angry. They—”

Mum broke off. “What else can I tell you?”

I said, “Um … well! They do wash a bit, I suppose?”

“I don’t know about washing. They have hot baths and stay in there for hours on end, wasting water and putting up their parents’ water bills.”

“It’d make them pretty clean, though,” I said, “wouldn’t it?”

“It might make their bodies clean,” said Mum. “The state of their bedrooms, on the other hand, leaves a very great deal to be desired!”

I don’t know why she brought bedrooms into it. She sounded kind of bitter. But at least I have learnt a few more things about girls.

This afternoon when I got home an old friend of Mum’s from school had arrived. She is staying with us over night. When she was at school she was called Match, as she was extremely thin. She is still called Match even though she is now extremely fat. She and Mum seem to think this is very funny and giggle a lot.

The fat Match person has not seen me since I was little. She said to Mum, “My! Hasn’t Sal shot up? He’ll be quite a lady killer when he’s filled out.”

“You reckon?” said Mum.

“Oh, yes,” trills the fat Match. “He’s going to be a real charmer!”

My sister was there and she made this loud vomiting noise. As far as she is concerned, I am just something that has been brought into the house on the bottom of a shoe. Any feeling of triumph I may have had, however, was short-lived. The next thing to come out of this person’s lips completely destroyed me.

“He looks such a nice young lad!”

To which my sister went, “Hah!”

This is extremely disturbing. I don’t want to look like a nice young lad! I want to look sultry and degenerate.

I am still worried that I may be gay and not know it. Kelvin Clegg keeps referring to me as Sally Tomato. Even Bonesy sniggers.

B (#ulink_7abc2580-1982-59ad-ad3b-d24fab0960b8) stands for boob and also for breast.

As letters go, it’s one of the best!

It’s also for babe and for bust and for bra

Plus in addition of course there are:

Backside and bottom and bosom and bum

And some which would certainly not please

your mum!

A nice young lad would not write a poem like that. And three massive cheers! I can forget about being gay! I fancy Lucy West like crazy. She is the one for me! My hormones are beginning to rage and froth. Even just looking at her gets them going. Now I know how Bones felt when he grabbed Nasreen Flynn and pressed his lips against hers. I have made up my mind: by the time I reach Z, I am going to have pressed my lips against Lucy’s!

I just wish I knew how to begin. I can’t do what Bonesy did as we are never on our own together, and even if we were I am not sure I would dare. Maybe this is because my hormones are not yet raging enough. Maybe if I keep gazing at Lucy they’ll do a sudden splurge and I’ll be like a ravening beast and jump on her!

I have been made a library assistant. This is great as it means that on two days a week you get to stay in the library during your dinner break instead of having to go out and brave the elements (by which I mean Kelvin Clegg and his gang) along with all the rest. You wear a special badge saying LIBRARY ASSISTANT and you stamp the books when they go out and remove the tickets when they come back in. You can also, if you’re not too busy, sit down and have a read.

Last term it was one of my greatest ambitions to be made a library assistant, and now it has happened. If Lucy could have been made one with me, I would have been in heaven, but it was not to be. (Mainly because I don’t think Lucy reads books.) The other one from my year is Harmony Hynde. I have nothing against Harmony Hynde, except that I don’t think she will do much for my hormones. She is not the sort of girl to make your hormones rage. I don’t mean to be sexist, but some girls do and some girls don’t and that is just a fact of life.