Skinny Melon and Me (5 page)

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.

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.

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?

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
giving them money, because I think that anyone that experiments on animals ought to be experimented on themselves, but at the same time I was watching Mum and Slimey. They had their arms round each other’s waists! Pathetic, really. Mum is going to be thirty-six next year, and I know for a fact that Slime is even older. I don’t think people of that age ought to go about in public with their arms round each other, I think it looks really naff. Especially when one of them is your own mother.

I don’t think I could bear it if Mum was going to have another baby. But surely she would have told me? Maybe she is just suffering from middle-age spread.

While we were doing the shopping I looked at some aubergines (which is how it is spelt, not oberjenes as I originally thought) and they are not in the least like slugs, more like big purple eggs, so I really don’t know what Janetta’s mum was talking about.

After lunch Aunt Jilly and Uncle Ivo came and brought their new baby with them. It is a horrible thing, all sicky and stinky and does nothing but bawl.

Mum and Slimey both drooled over it. Slime kept giving it his bony old finger to hold and making these
silly baby noises. I personally think you ought to talk to babies sensibly, in proper language, so that they can learn things. I don’t see any point in filling their heads with all this gooey yuck. I mean, if they grow up thinking that stuff like “Doo doo doo” is how people communicate, for goodness’ sake, it’s just going to retard them. It stands to reason. They left me alone with it for a few minutes and I went up to it and said, “Good afternoon. How are you today?” and it actually looked at me quite intelligently. I don’t expect it knew what I was saying, but I bet the words have gone into its head and I bet they’ll be some of the first words it ever speaks. I bet they’ll get a surprise one day when it sits up in its pram and says good afternoon to them.

“Good afternoon. How are you today?”

They won’t know it’s me they have to thank.

I’m getting more and more worried about Mum. She and Aunt Jilly went into the kitchen together to look at a plant that keeps shrivelling and they were there for simply ages so I went after them to find out what they were doing and as soon as she saw me, Mum gave Aunt Jilly this warning glance and they both stopped talking,
but not before I’d heard what they were saying. Well, what Mum was saying. She was saying, “Yes, I know, I’m really going to have to pluck up the courage and tell her.”

It doesn’t sound good.