The Tutti-frutti Collection - Jean Ure

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row with Mum this morning when I arrived downstairs in T-shirt and leggings and my Doc Marten’s. She screamed, “You can’t wear that gear to school! You go back upstairs and change immediately!” I said, “Into what?” I said, “It may have escaped your memory, but we don’t happen to have any school uniform at this school, we can wear whatever we like, and right now everybody is wearing T-shirt and tights and Doc Marten’s.”

      Mum said not to take that tone with her. (What tone? What is she talking about?) She said she didn’t care what other people were wearing, she wasn’t having her daughter go to school looking like some kind of big-footed grotesque. I said, “That is very big-footist.” And she snarled, “Never mind the smart mouth! I have spoken and that is flat and final. How can you expect to do any serious learning in that ridiculous get-up?”

      Mum is incredibly hidebound. I said, “Well, if it comes to that, how can you expect to have any serious baby, wearing those ridiculous dungarees?” which is what she has taken to wearing now that her secret is out. I said, “I bet the Queen didn’t wear dungarees when she was having babies.” Mum started to get all red and hot, but old Slimey laughed and said, “She’s got you there!” almost as if he were on my side against Mum. She still wouldn’t budge.

      I met the Skinbag at the school gates and asked her what the sleep-over was like. She said it was brilliant and that Harry meeting Sally was even better second time round and why wouldn’t my mum let me go? I told her it was because of Gemma’s brother saying That Word and Mum thinking I might start saying it and the Melon agreed that mothers could be a real drag. She said that right at this moment hers was being even more of a drag than usual which I found hard to believe as the Melon’s mum is really nice. She would for instance never make promises and then break them. Like if she said the Melon could have a dog, then she’d let her have a dog. I mean she’s already got one, of course, but if she’d said she could have another, or choose a video or whatever, she would let her. So I said, “How is she being a drag?” but the Melon wouldn’t tell me. She just said, “Behaving like a teenager.”

      I don’t see anything particularly draggy about that.

      When I got home from school, Mum started on about the baby again, wondering whether it was going to be a boy or a girl, trying to get me to say which I’d prefer. I wouldn’t prefer either! I don’t want to know about the beastly baby. I hope it never comes out. I hope it withers on the vine. I hate it!

      Tuesday

      Boiled organs and baked toenails for dinner. It was one of the boys that said they were organs. Male organs. He fished some out and made rude patterns with them on the table. Boys like doing that kind of thing. Skinny said she thought the toenails might in fact be potato skins, but who wants to eat potato skins? What happened to the insides of the potatoes? Skinny says we’ll probably get to have those tomorrow, all lumpy and foul.

      Got into trouble with Mrs James today because she said I was rude to her. I wasn’t! She accused me of passing notes and I wasn’t passing notes, it was John Lloyd and Steven Carter, I just happened to pick one up off the floor for them. Mrs James said, “There are other ways of letting me know that you have been falsely accused. There is no need to be aggressive.”

      I complained to Skinny Melon about it afterwards and Skinny said, “Well, you were aggressive. You always are, these days. People hardly dare open their mouths in case you jump on them.”

      I can’t help it. I feel aggressive. I feel like screaming, sometimes. It’s living with Mum and Slimey and this baby that Mum’s carting around with her. That’s what’s doing it.

      I keep remembering when Dad was here, before he and Mum started having rows. I was happy then. I haven’t been happy ever since Mum and Dad split up. I hate them all!

      Wednesday

      Got into more trouble. Miss Bradley, this time. We were playing netball and she pulled me up for running with the ball when I wasn’t. She just thought I was because someone barged into me. I explained this to her, as polite as could be. I said, “Excuse me, but you have made a mistake,” and she instantly leapt down my throat and yelled that she was sick and tired of what she called my “attitude”, and that if there was any more of it I would be suspended from the team. Why does everyone keep getting at me all the time? I can’t wait till it’s half-term and I can go and stay with Dad!

      I was so disgruntled, what with Miss Bradley having a go at me and Skinny and me being a bit distant after her telling me yesterday I was aggressive, that I decided I wasn’t going to stay in at lunch-time like we’re supposed to. For one thing I couldn’t stand the thought of having to eat the insides of yesterday’s potatoes, and for another, I saw Skinny going off with Avril Roper and Uchenna Jackson, so I hopped out through the gates when no one was looking and went into town. I got some crisps and a bottle of Coke and walked up the road to the station, which is where the cab company is that Dad used to work for after he’d been made redundant.

      Lots of the same drivers were there and they remembered me and asked me how I was doing and how Dad was liking his new job. They’re ever so much more fun than the people Mum and Slimey know. All of Mum and Slimey’s friends are either writers or publishers or something else to do with books. Books are all they ever talk about. They’re always pushing them at me. “Here’s a copy of my new book for you, Cherry.” “Here’s a copy of a book we’ve just published, Cherry.” “Here’s a copy of a book I thought you might like, Cherry.”

      And then I’m expected to sit down and read them and say what I think of them, which most of the time isn’t much, only I’m not allowed to say so for fear of being thought rude or hurting their feelings. It’s not that I don’t like books, just that I don’t like their books. The sort they push at me. They’re all so babyish! I’m more into the hard stuff. Horror, and that. Mum and Slimey are horrified (ho ho!) but I say what’s wrong with reading something a bit scary? They don’t seem to realise that I’ve grown out of all this kiddy crud.

      Anyway, when it was time to go back to school one of the drivers, who is called Ivy, said she’d take me in her cab. We talked a bit on the way and Ivy asked me how I was getting on with my mum’s new husband. I was glad she didn’t say “your new dad” as I can’t stand it when people do that. So I pulled a face, and Ivy said, “Tough going?” And then she told me how it had happened to her when she was about my age and how she’d thought she’d never get used to her mum having a new bloke, “Never!” but how in the end she had and, “Now we’re the best of friends.”

      I know Ivy was only trying to be helpful, but I am afraid it is not going to work out like that for me. I still have my real dad, even if he does live miles away. It was different for Ivy as her real dad was not really a very nice person. In fact Ivy said he was “a right *******”. (I have to put stars as the word Ivy used is not the sort of word I wish to record in this diary.) I told her that my dad is the best dad in the world and that I am going to stay with him over half-term. I said that I am really looking forward to it. Ivy said, “Well, have a good time, but don’t expect too much, will you?”

      I don’t know why she said that. I didn’t have a chance to ask her as we had already reached the school gates. Skinny was mooning about nearby with Avril and Uchenna. You should have seen their faces when they realised who was in the cab!

      They couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d stepped out of a Rolls Royce. Skinny shrieked, “Where have you been?” It was just my bad luck that Mrs James happened to be passing at that particular moment and also wanted to know where I had been. I told her I’d been visiting my dad’s old work-mates and she said, “You do know you’re not supposed to leave the premises at lunch time without permission?” and I said yes, which was a dumb thing to say. I should have said no, though I don’t expect ignorance is any

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