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For Henrietta
(We made each other laugh)
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V and W
X, Y and Z
Footnote
Also by Jean Ure
Copyright
About the Publisher
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 super-normal!
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 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!”
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 toenails 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 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.
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 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. A is small,
B is medium,
C is large,
D is huge
and E is simply humungous!
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, metalwork, 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 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.
It’s very bad for the concentration when all you can think of is cup sizes. So the only bit I really got was the last bit, how the cat can be taken as a symbol of pouring rain and the dog as a symbol of strong gusts of wind.