Skinny Melon And Me. Jean Ure

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