wants to believe, it would be unkind to spoil it for her by asking too many questions. We all have to find our own things to believe in. That is what Gran said and I think it is true.
What I believe is that even if I have been someone else before and am going to be someone different in the future, it is me as I am now that is important.
And me as I am now is going to go to Wonderland! That is my big, immediate goal. To be twelve years old and go to Wonderland.
I am really determined about it.
You were born Rebecca Banaras, but everyone
calls you Becky Bananas.
It was Sarah started calling me that. The first day I was at Oakfield, out in the playground at break.
“Bananas?” she said. “Is that really your name?” And before I could tell her that it wasn’t, she’d gone and shrieked, “Becky Bananas!” and got everyone giggling.
I didn’t think then that I was going to like her very much. But now she’s my best friend and we do everything together. Well, almost everything. There are some things I can only do with Zoë, and that’s why Zoë is my special friend. But for school and home, it’s me and Sarah. We get on really well.
She’ll be one of the guests when I’m on This is Your Life!
I don’t mind her calling me Becky Bananas. I’ve got used to it. Once I almost wrote it on an exam paper! I got as far as:
and I had to go back and change it:
We didn’t have Mrs Rowe then, which is just as well or she’d have made one of her remarks like “I see we nearly stumbled at the first hurdle, Rebecca!” She said that to Sarah once, when Sarah wrote the date wrong. She can be ever so sarcastic.
And she always always calls us by our full names: Rebecca, Joanna, Suzanne. It’s like she’s scared of being too friendly. She says, “You do not shorten my name. Why should I shorten yours?”
It’s hard to think how you could shorten Rowe. Sarah sometimes calls her Rosy, only not to her face. I don’t think anyone would dare call her that to her face!
She’s all right, really, Mrs Rowe. She’s very fair. She doesn’t pick on people or have favourites, like some teachers. I think she’s one of those that Gran would have said their bark is worse than their bite. I wonder if she’d be one of the guests?
She might be! When I was off school last year she came to see me, which not everybody did. When I told Sarah, Sarah pulled a face and said that if she was off school a visit from Rosy was the last thing she’d want.
“Freeze the blood in your veins, that would!”
But she was really nice and not at all sarcastic. Also, she brought me a book of ballet photographs and a get-well card with a picture of Darcey Bussell on it. I wonder how she knew that Darcey is my ace favourite dancer???
Maybe she’s seen the photos I’ve got pinned inside my locker! But she still must have gone out and bought it specially. Not everyone would have done that. So now I think that seeming to be cold and unfeeling is just her manner, like Sarah is always laughing and making jokes so that maybe you would think she doesn’t care about things, but that would not be true. We wouldn’t be best friends if she didn’t care. For instance, she cried ever so when her favourite goldfish died.
He was called Golden Boy and it was particularly terrible and tragic as her little sister Tasha took him out of the tank when no one was looking and he squiggled through her hands and fell on the floor, and instead of putting him back she got scared and ran screaming for her mum. By the time her mum got there it was too late and he had expired (which is simply another way of saying died).
Sarah was really sad. She said that although goldfish don’t have much in the way of personality it is very upsetting to think of them suffocating on the living-room carpet. I can see that it would be. Especially if it happens to be your favourite one.
We once wrote out long lists of all our favourite things, Sarah and me. We made scrapbooks and stuck them in there, with little drawings and pictures that we’d cut from magazines. Of course we were only young then. I expect if I looked at my list now I would cringe and think “How childish”. I mean, for instance, when I was six years old my favourite food was – jelly babies!
I wonder if it would be fun to make up a new list, now that I am more mature? I think I will!
List of my Favourite Things
Favourite colour – Blue. I don’t know why, but it makes me happy. It is just one of those things.
Favourite book – Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, even though it is old-fashioned. And my favourite character from Ballet Shoes is Posy, because she is the one who becomes a dancer!
Favourite ballet – Swan Lake. Odette is what I want to dance more than anything else! My favourite part is where she is on point, leaning back against Prince Siegfried, and he has his arms round her.
I think that is so beautiful and romantic!
Favourite TV programme – Ask Auntie. I have to say that because it is Mum’s programme! I like it because I like to watch Mum. I suppose if Mum wasn’t in it I might say … General Practice. I really like that.
Sarah says it’s fuddy-duddy. That is an expression she recently read in a book and now she keeps repeating it like a parrot. Everything that she thinks dull and boring is fuddy-duddy. She says that General Practice is for old people. It is true that there are quite a lot of old people in it, but sometimes there are children and that is interesting. Zoë likes it, too. We have thought of writing an episode together and sending it to the BBC.
Favourite Film – Little Women. I have seen it three times and would like to see it again, even though I always drench about ten hankies when Beth gets sick after holding poor Mrs Hummel’s baby. This is because I know that she is going to die, though she doesn’t actually do so in the film. (But I have read Good Wives and that is how I know.) Last time I watched it Mum got worried and said it was too upsetting for me. She would like it if I only watched things that made me laugh, not things that make me weep. I know she means well but you cannot cocoon people. “Wrap them in cotton wool” is what Gran used to say. I don’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool. I want to watch Little Women again and again!
Jo of course is my favourite character. She is Sarah’s too. I think she must be everyone’s. The reason she is my favourite is because she is so full of life. And also because she is brave. Cutting off her hair and behaving like a boy at a time when girls were not supposed to behave like boys.
I wish I were as brave as Jo, but I don’t think I am. If I were, I wouldn’t choose blue as my favourite colour. I would choose … red!
I bet Jo would choose red. Red is bold and exciting. She would probably think blue is a bit boring. Uncle Eddy says it is the colour of peace and rest. That makes it sound like an old person’s colour. Does it mean that I am like an old person?
No! It