The Secret Life of Sally Tomato

When I got home wearing my badge, my sister was there. She said, “Only nerds get to be made library assistants.”

I have been pondering this. Am I a nerd? I may have been last term. I may have been on Monday. But on Tuesday I fell in love with Lucy and my hormones started up. I lust after Lucy! It makes me feel quite macho.

But I think Harmony Hynde may be one. A nerd, I mean. Not just because she is a library assistant but because of everything about her. She is just a very nerdy sort of person. I realise, of course, that she can’t help it. It’s hardly her fault she has to wear glasses and have a brace on her teeth. It’s simply a cruel trick of nature.

Like her hair. Lucy’s hair is smooth and silky, the colour of spun gold. Harmony’s is a mad messy frizz like a Brillo pad, the colour of carrots.

You can’t expect all girls to have hair like Lucy’s.

In English, Mr Mounsey told us to think of figures of speech for Monday’s lesson. This evening Dad arrived home and announced that it was raining cats and dogs. I said, “Is that a figure of speech?” Dad said, “No, it’s a damned nuisance.”

But I think it is a figure of speech. It’s going to be my one for Monday!

C (#ulink_81ebed81-fa62-5c1b-8723-e7d1fd8f802e) is for chuck

As in chuck up, or spew.

As in, “I’m going to chuck up

All over you.”

I only wrote that because my sister said to me this morning, “Throw up!”

I don’t know why she said it. I don’t know why she says a lot of the things that she says. She is a total mystery.

I realise too late that C could also be for cup sizes … I have learnt all about them! Stuart Sprague told us. Me and Bonesy. He did these drawings to illustrate.

Bonesy asked Stoo how he knew all of this, and Stoo tapped the side of his nose and closed one eye and said, “I know a whole lot of things. Specially about women … anything you want to know about women, you come to me!”

It is interesting, how people are gifted in different ways. Bones, for instance, is brilliant at woodwork, metal work, anything to do with making things. I am quite good at exams and stuff. But we are both dead ignorant when it comes to women. Even Bones, in spite of having pressed flesh with Nasreen Flynn. (Which actually was almost a year ago. He’s never done it since and he certainly didn’t know about cup sizes.) Stuart Sprague is Special Needs but he has this incredible wealth of erudition – meaning learning – that me and Bones have entirely missed out on. It really makes you think.

Now that I have been let into the mysteries of cup sizes I am finding it very difficult to stop myself staring at breasts and wondering what size they are. I wonder what size Lucy is? Maybe only an A at the moment, as she is not yet fully grown. But once she is … whew! I reckon it’ll be about a G or an H!

Do they make them that big???

The mind boggles!

On Monday we did figures of speech. I told Mr Mounsey my one, raining cats and dogs, and he said it was an excellent choice and did anyone happen to know the name for this particular type of phrase? At which old Harmony shoots her hand up and goes, “It’s a cliché!”

Mr Mounsey said “Well, yes that is certainly one name for it – cliché. Meaning worn out or hackneyed.”

I looked at Harmony with some annoyance. What a nerd!

Mr Mounsey then went on to tell us that as well as being a cliché, my figure of speech was also a metaphor.

“This is when one thing – the rain – is said to actually be another thing – cats and dogs.”

Kelvin Clegg immediately shouted out, “How can rain be cats and dogs?”

Kelvin Clegg is lower down the scale of evolution than an amoeba, but I think he actually had a point there. How can rain be cats and dogs?

You could tell that Mr Mounsey was at a bit of a loss. He went on about symbolism in a very vague sort of way. Just burbling, really. Obviously didn’t have the faintest idea. He was saved by the bell, as teachers often are. He said, “Yes, well! Why don’t you all go away and try thinking of other figures of speech that are metaphors?”

I have been trying to think of one but it is not easy at the moment as my mind is on other things. Well, when I say other things … what I mean is sex. What I mean is kissing. What I mean is … Lucy!

My hormones are positively seething.

I asked Dad last night when he started going with girls. He said, “So long ago I can’t even remember.”

I urged him to try. I know he is getting on and his memory may be going, but this sort of knowledge is very important to me. It is a vital part of my education.

“When did you first kiss a girl?”

“Oh, I can remember that!” chuckled Dad. “That was Jenny Libovitch. We were six years old.”

Blimey! I am definitely a late developer. I have a lot of catching up to do!

D (#ulink_216d2f1d-5c1c-5fa2-b093-a45be907cc1a) is for diarrhoea

Also known as THE RUNS.

It comes from fear

Or from upset tums.

It is gross and mucky.

Decidedly yucky.

And I wish my sister could get it! I wish she would break out into a hideous rash and all her toenails drop off and her hair fall out in great chunks. While we were eating tea, the phone rang and she rushed off to get it. Whenever the phone rings in this house it is almost always for her. She leads this mad social life full of hectic activity. I don’t know how she gets to have so many friends as she is a really quite obnoxious person.

She came back into the kitchen chanting, “Sally’s got a girlfriend, Sally’s got a girlfriend!”

I fixed her with this stony look. (This is something I have been practising.) I said, “What are you talking about?”

She said, “Your girlyfriend! She’s on the phone.”

I said, “I haven’t got a girlyfriend.”

“Well, whoever it is,” said Izzy, “it’s a female person and it’s waiting for you.”

My heart did this battering thing that hearts do when you are agitated. Or maybe it was my hormones starting up. The only girl I could think of was – Lucy!

It wasn’t Lucy, however, it was Harmony Hynde. Ringing to tell me about cats and dogs. She said, “I suddenly remembered! We’ve got this book at home called Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, so I looked it up. Raining cats and dogs … it’s really interesting! Do you want to hear?”

I did, sort of, so I said all right, and she said, “I’ll read it to you. Listen! In Northern mythology – “

It might have been quite instructive if I’d been able to pay attention properly, but my hormones were raging like mad and all I could think was why couldn’t it have been Lucy? Well, and I also found myself wondering what cup size Harmony Hynde was and deciding that she probably wasn’t any cup size at all. I mean, that girl is totally flat. She is like a playing card.