The Tutti-frutti Collection

On the way home from school we had a bit of an argument. Well, a bit of a quarrel really, I suppose. The Skinbag revealed to me that she thinks wearing a bra makes it look as if she has a real bust. Ho ho! What a laugh! I told her she was kidding herself and she got quite snappish and said, “Well, you needn’t imagine you’d win any prizes! Two goose pimples is all you’ve got.”

I thought that was uncalled for. I mean, that was a very personal sort of remark to make. You don’t expect it from someone calling herself your best friend. We grouched at each other all the way home. Skinny said I was a midget, which isn’t true because there are at least two people in our class that are shorter than me, and I said she didn’t have any waist, which is true, and she can’t deny it. She hasn’t any shape at all. Then she said I had a nose like a squashed tomato, and I said she had a face like a Frankfurter, and by the time we got to her road we weren’t talking any more, just stomping along in a simmering silence.

I went on simmering all through tea, because I think it’s good to let people stew in their own juice for a bit otherwise they think you’re crawling. I mean, I didn’t see why I should be the one to ring when she was just as much to blame as I was. In fact she was the one who started it, going on about the goldfish. If she hadn’t gone on about goldfish, I wouldn’t have said that about her kidding herself over her bust. I know the goldfish were earlier, but it really maddened me her saying what she said. That is, about me being horrible to Slime. She ought to try living with him.

For instance, all the time I’m simmering he’s sitting there at the table cracking his fingers, which is this thing that he does. Crack, crack, crack, going off like pistol shots. And then he starts making more of his stupid jokes like, “What do you get if you cross a witch with an ice cube? A cold spell,” until I couldn’t stand it any more so I went and tried ringing the Skinbag, only her number was engaged, but then seconds later she rang me and said she’d tried to get me before but my number was engaged, and I said, “That was me trying to get you,” and she said, “Oh, right,” and there was this awkward pause, and then we both spoke together in a rush.

I said, “I’m really sorry I said that about your face looking like a Frankfurter,” and Skinny said, “I apologise for saying you were a midget.” And so then we were friends again and started talking about our maths homework.

Why couldn’t Mum and Dad be like that?

Wednesday

Scum and matter pie, and a dollop of cold sick. Well, that’s what it looked like. Skinny and me have this theory about school dinners. We reckon they take all the stuff that’s scraped off the plates and recycle it. Then they dish it back up as slime or slush or squidgy messes and give it fancy names such as Cheese and Onion Tart or Lentil Bake. No wonder the staff don’t eat with us. Mrs James says it’s to avoid the rabble (meaning us). She says, “We like a bit of peace and quiet.”

I bet! They like a bit of proper food and not regurgitated yuck.

Thursday

Rat hot-pot. Slimey Roland wouldn’t have touched it! He’s a cranky vegetarian. He said to me yesterday, “You wouldn’t eat a puppy, would you? So why eat a lamb?” He has a nerve, talking about puppies. If it weren’t for him I could have one. I’m going to see them tomorrow.

Friday

I saw them. They are gorgeous! They look like little balls of fluff.

But all of them have been spoken for except one. I came rushing home to tell Mum and she said, “Oh, Cherry, don’t start that again!” in a pleading sort of voice, which shows she’s got a guilty conscience. I said, “But Mum, they’re so gorgeous!” and at that point Slimey Roland came barging into the conversation. He said, “Oh, Cherry Pie, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault. Don’t go on at your mum!”

I hope he isn’t going to make a habit of calling me Cherry Pie. It makes me want to throw up.

Saturday

Slime said to me at breakfast this morning, “By the way, little lambs are rather gorgeous, too.”

What’s that to do with anything? I’m not asking for a lamb!

141 Arethusa Road

London W5

Sunday 2 October

Dearest Carol,

Just a quickie as I have to go and help Roly with the pond. It’s coming along apace! Cherry still refuses to have anything to do with it but she’ll come round. When we actually get the fish she won’t be able to resist it. She’s still resentful of the fact that she can’t have a dog, and I must say that I would rather like one myself, and so would Roly. He is not opposed to dogs, in fact he loves them, as he loves all small creatures (including cross-grained eleven year olds!) but we simply can’t run the risk of setting off his allergy. I think left to himself he might weaken, but I’m not having him ruin his health just to keep Cherry happy. I know it was upsetting for her when Gregg and I separated; on the other hand she is extremely lucky to have a step-dad as warm and funny and caring as Roly.

He’ll win her over in the end. I know he will!

Lots of love,

PS I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t got around to telling Cherry about you-know-what. I’m terrified of breaking it to her in case she reacts badly. So far I’ve managed to keep it hidden by wearing baggy T-shirts but it’s reached the point where not even the baggiest of T-shirts will hide the bulge! Fortunately, at the moment, she is so wrapped up in her own affairs that she probably wouldn’t notice anyway. But I can’t afford to leave it very much longer. As Roly says, it’s not fair on her.

Chapter 3 (#u9bfd9cb0-0f56-5bd1-83bf-75605afd6e61)

Monday

Janetta Barnes found a slug in her salad today. She’s taken it home to show her mum. I’m hoping her mum will sue someone and then maybe we’ll get to have better dinners.

Tuesday

We all had to line up in the hall at break while Mrs James and Miss Burgess walked up and down looking at us. They said they were looking for interesting faces for the Christmas play. I have been picked to be an angel! A singing angel.

I rushed home to tell Mum, thinking she’d be pleased, and all she did was laugh and say, “You? An angel?” I said, “Miss Burgess says I have an angelic face.” Mum said, “Yes, you do! I’ll grant you that. Isn’t it strange how looks can be so deceiving?” I told her that it was a play and that I was going to be acting. I said, “And singing as well, as a matter of fact.” Mum said, “Singing?” That really impressed her, I could tell. Mum never knew that I could sing. But I can!

Wednesday

All the puppies have gone! Oh, and they were so beeeeeeauuuutiful! I hope they’ve been taken by people who will be kind to them and look after them. If I had a dog and it had puppies I would never give any of them away, ever, because you can’t trust what people might be going to do with them. There are some people that are just so cruel it is unbelievable. Avril says her mum checked most carefully and they have all gone to good homes where they will be loved, but nobody could love them as much as I would have done!

Curried compost-heap for dinner today. I found what looked like the remains of a beetle in mine. Janetta says she showed the slug that she found to her mum and her mum said it wasn’t a slug but a bit of oberjene (?) but Janetta is still sure it was a slug. She thinks what happened was it got squashed in her bag on the way home, on account of all the homework we have to lug about with us, and had therefore gone a bit flat. I think her mum just didn’t want to admit that it was a slug. I’ve noticed that whenever you tell parents anything bad about school, like rotten school dinners or one of the teachers having a go at you for doing something when it wasn’t you they always take the teacher’s side and say, “Well, you must have done something”, or “You must be exaggerating”. They hate to admit you could ever be right and a teacher might be wrong. I’m dead sure it was a beetle I found but it’s no use taking it home as Mum would only say it was a mustard seed or something.

I forgot to record that Skinny was not picked to be anything in the Christmas play, I suppose because a long, thin face is perhaps not as interesting as a round, blobby one but fortunately she doesn’t mind as she has no wish to be an actress. She says even if they had picked her she wouldn’t have wanted to be in it. It is a relief that she is not jealous, but I have to say that on the whole Skinny has a very nice nature. She has promised to come to one of the performances and cheer me on.

Thursday

Today I ate a plate of cold sick with dubious-looking objects floating in it. I had this vision of one of the cooks throwing up in the kitchen and someone running at her with a basin yelling, “Don’t waste anything, don’t waste anything! Recycle!” Skinny Melon says I am disgusting but I just happen to have this very vivid sort of imagination.

Skinny came back with me for tea after school and it was so embarrassing, I didn’t know where to put myself. Slimey Roland was there, all covered in mud from digging this stupid pond he keeps on about. He looked such a sight! I could have died when he came and sat down with us at the table. I was so ashamed of him. And then he started making these awful jokes, the way he does, like, “What do you call two spiders who’ve just got married? Newly Webs!” and “What’s full of sandwiches and hides in a bell tower? The Lunch Pack of Notre Dame!” I mean, they’re just not funny. I don’t think they are.

Skinny was really brilliant and kept groaning and giggling and making like she was amused. She was only doing it out of pity for me, I could tell. It was nice of her, but then he started to think he was some kind of big comedy star and just went on and on till I wanted to scream. Skinny actually choked at one point and I thought she was going to suffocate, she went so red. I expect the reason she choked was he was being so ex-cru-cia-ting.

I apologised to her afterwards. I said, “He’s really grungy, isn’t he?” I thought we could have a nice hate-Slimey session but Skinny wouldn’t play. She has this thing about fathers, which is because hers went and died when she was really young so that she never properly knew him and as a result she thinks even a dad like Slime is better than no dad at all. I told her that a) he wasn’t my dad. I already had a dad, thank you very much. Just because he isn’t living with us doesn’t make him not my dad any more and b) she’d change her mind quickly enough if Slimey Roland married her mum and went to live in her house.

I said, “Imagine listening to those yucky jokes every day!” Skinny said that she would be quite happy listening to yucky jokes. She agreed that they were yucky but said she thought that Slime was “an ace joke-teller”. I said “Oh, do you?” and she said, yes, she did, so I said, “Well, I don’t. I think he’s pathetic.” I said, “He’s a wimp and a weed and he sniffles.” To which Skinny retorted, “So what?” She then had the nerve to tell me that I wasn’t being fair.

Friday

The Skinbag must be mad. She said to me today that she thinks Slimey Roland is “really nice”. She also said, “Is your mum going to have a baby?” which made me want to knock her head off. I said, “No, of course she isn’t! What makes you think that?” and she said, “‘Cos she looks as if she is.” So I said, “Oh?” raising both my eyebrows up into my fringe to show I was displeased. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” She said, “Well she’s all kind of bulgy round the middle.”

I told her I’d poke her eyes out if she said anything like that about my mum again, so then she said, “Sorry, I’m sure,” meaning she wasn’t sorry at all, and went into a huff and shut up. We haven’t talked all the rest of the day.

How dare she say Mum’s bulgy round the middle? That would be like me saying her mum had sticking-out teeth, which she has.

But I wouldn’t ever say it because it would be rude. And anyway, what would Mum want a baby for? When she’s already got me?

Saturday

I’ve been thinking about what Skinny said. I have a horrible feeling that it might be true. Mum is looking bulgy. I suddenly saw it when she was getting off the bus. And this morning after we’d done all the shopping and were going to go and have what Slimey calls “coffee and cakies”. (He spends so much time drawing pictures of elves that his mind has gone completely infantile.) I couldn’t help noticing that they spent ages standing outside a baby shop gorming at all the prams and potties and carry-cots. They didn’t realise I was watching them. They thought I was too busy giving money to a person that was collecting for anti-vivisection, and I was giving them money, because I think that anyone that experiments on animals ought to be experimented on themselves, but at the same time I was watching Mum and Slimey. They had their arms round each other’s waists! Pathetic, really. Mum is going to be thirty-six next year, and I know for a fact that Slime is even older. I don’t think people of that age ought to go about in public with their arms round each other, I think it looks really naff. Especially when one of them is your own mother.

I don’t think I could bear it if Mum was going to have another baby. But surely she would have told me? Maybe she is just suffering from middle-age spread.