LITMIR.BIZ

      Why I am suddenly starting to write this diary is that Mrs James, who is our English teacher, said that it would be a good thing to do. She said there are several reasons for keeping a diary. These are some that I can remember:

      When Mrs James said about clearing out the cupboard, we did not immediately understand what she meant and some people started giggling and pretending to open cupboard doors and take out cans of fruit and stuff and chuck it away, but Mrs James said the cupboard she was talking about was “the cupboard in your head”. She said that sometimes the cupboard in your head gets all clogged up with bits and pieces that worry you or upset you or make you angry, and that writing them down in a diary helps to get rid of them. She said, “We’ve all got a lot of clutter that needs clearing out.” She told us to go home and think about it – to look into our cupboards and see what was there.

      Amanda Miles told me next day that she’d looked into her cupboard and as far as she could see it was pretty well empty, except for the grudge she still had against Mr Good at Juniors who made her go and stand in the front hall for throwing paint water at Andy Innes when it wasn’t her. She said she didn’t think that was enough to start writing a diary about.

      “I mean, are you going to?” she said.

      To which I just made mumbling noises, since there are some things you can’t talk about to other people, and certainly not to Amanda Miles. The thing in my cupboard is one of them.

      Slimey Roland is the thing in my cupboard.

      I’d do anything to get rid of him. I wish he’d go and walk under a bus. I expect Mum would be sad for a bit, but she’d get over it. She can’t really love him. Nobody could. He’s a total and utter dweeb.

      I nearly had a heart attack when Mum said she was going to marry him. I mean, I really just couldn’t believe it. I thought she’d got better taste. I told her so and she slapped me and then burst into tears and said she was sorry but why did I have to be so selfish and unpleasant all the time?

      I’m not selfish and unpleasant. I don’t think I am. But it’s enough to make you, when your mum goes and marries a total dweeb. And I had to go to their rotten grotty old wedding, which wasn’t even a proper wedding, not the actual marrying part. Just Mum and Slime, and me and the Skinbag, who came to keep me company, and Aunt Jilly, who is Mum’s sister, and this man who was doing it. Marrying them, I mean.

      When he’d finished he said that now they could kiss each other and they did and I looked at Skin and pulled this being-sick face (at which I am rather good) and Skin told me afterwards that I was horrid to do such a thing at my mum’s wedding. It’s all right for her. I know she hasn’t got a dad, but who’d want Slimey?

      One of the worst things about him is his name … Roland Butter. Can you imagine? I thought at first it was just one of his stupid jokes (he’s always making stupid jokes, like: Where do pigs leave their cars? At porking meters. Ha ha ha, I don’t think). Mum, however, said no, he really was called Roland Butter. He’s an artist, sort of. He draws these yucky pictures of elves and teddy bears and stuff for little kids’ books and he has this headed paper with a drawing of a roll and butter on it. Mum thinks it’s brilliant but that’s because she’s besotted. If you ask me, it’s utterly pathetic and I am certainly not going to change my name to Butter, which is what Mum would like me to do. Cherry Butter! I ask you! How could you get anywhere with a name like that?

      Mum’s name is Pat, and guess what? He calls her Butterpat. It’s just so embarrassing.

      Dad used to call her Patty. She was Patty and he was Gregg, unless they were having one of their rows and then they didn’t call each other anything at all except names which I am not going to write in this diary in case it is ever published. It is true that Mum and Dad did have rows quite often, but what I can’t understand is why they couldn’t just kiss and make up like Skinny and I do?

      We had this really awful row once, me and Skin, about a book I’d lent her which she’d gone and lost by leaving it on a bus and then refused to buy a new one because she said I’d never paid her back the money she’d lent me ages ago when we’d gone swimming and I’d left my purse behind, which definitely and positively was not true. We had this absolutely mega row and swore never to speak to each other again, but life wasn’t the same without Skinny, and Skinny said it wasn’t the same without me, and so after a bit, like about a week, we made it up and we’ve been best friends ever since. Why couldn’t Mum and Dad do that?

      Dad’s living in Southampton now. It’s near the New Forest and is really nice, but it takes forever to get there. I can’t go out with him every weekend like I used to when he and Mum first split up and he was still living in London. Then, he’d come and pick me up and we’d do all sorts of things together – McDonald’s, museums, the waxworks. It was really fun. After he got this job and moved to Southampton it meant I could only properly see him in school holidays.

      I could have gone with him if I’d wanted. If I’d really wanted. I bet I could. I only stayed with Mum because I thought she’d be lonely. But then she went and met Slimey Roland at some stupid party and they went and got married and now she’s totally loopy about him and I’m the one that’s lonely, not Mum. So I could have gone with Dad.

      Except that Dad’s got a new wife called Rosemary, and he’s totally loopy about

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