Diary of a Parent Trainer

by Jennifer Smith

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Jenny Smith

  Cover art copyright © 2012 by Shutterstock

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Great Britain by Scholastic Children’s Books, an imprint of Scholastic Ltd., London, in 2011.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Smith, Jenny (Jennifer Russell)

  Diary of a parent trainer / Jenny Smith. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Katie Sutton, a self-proclaimed expert on grown-up behavior, begins writing a user’s manual to help other teens train and operate their parents, but when her own mother starts dating Yellow Tie Man, Katie needs all of her expertise to get rid of him.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98894-3

  [1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Family life—England—Fiction.

  3. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 4. Diaries—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.S651414Di 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011024704

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment

  and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For my beautiful mum

  With love and thanks

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Congratulations!

  Tuesday, July 28: 4:23 p.m.

  Thursday, July 30: 2:20 p.m.

  Saturday, August 1: 5:21 p.m.

  Wednesday, August 5: 8:07 p.m.

  Thursday, August 6: 4:45 p.m.

  Thursday, August 6: 5:15 p.m.

  Friday, August 7: 3:00 p.m.

  Saturday, August 8: 2:00 p.m.

  Saturday, August 8: 9:30 p.m.

  Sunday, August 9: 10:27 a.m.

  Thursday, August 13: 4:39 p.m.

  Saturday, August 15: 3:20 p.m.

  Sunday, August 16: 10:00 a.m.

  Sunday, August 16: 6:05 p.m.

  Tuesday, August 18: 9:00 p.m.

  Wednesday, August 19: 2:05 p.m.

  Sunday, August 23

  Tuesday, August 25

  Saturday, August 29

  Sunday, August 30

  Monday, August 31

  Wednesday, September 2

  Saturday, September 5

  Saturday, September 5: 10:05 p.m.

  Sunday, September 6

  Sunday, September 13

  Thursday, September 24

  Friday, September 25: 10:39 p.m.

  Saturday, September 26: 9:22 p.m.

  Tuesday, September 29: 8:59 p.m.

  Wednesday, September 30

  Saturday, October 3: Noon

  Saturday, October 3: 6:00 p.m.

  Saturday, October 17: 9:00 p.m.

  Saturday, October 17: 10:30 p.m.

  Sunday, October 18: 3:27 p.m.

  Friday, October 23: Midnight

  Saturday, October 24: 1:00 a.m.

  Friday, October 30: 4:27 p.m.

  Saturday, October 31: 8:44 p.m.

  Saturday, October 31: Midnight

  Saturday, November 14

  Sunday, November 15: 2:01 p.m.

  Sunday, December 6: 3:00 p.m.

  Friday, December 11: 10:00 p.m.

  Monday, December 14: 9:30 p.m.

  Tuesday, December 15: 9:40 p.m.

  Friday, December 18: 7:10 p.m.

  Christmas Eve: 5:00 p.m.

  Christmas Eve: 10:11 p.m.

  Christmas Eve: Later Still

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  You are in possession of at least one Grown-Up. You have probably had your Grown-Up for some time, possibly all of your life. Now, at last, you can discover the skills you need to operate them successfully.

  THIS EASY-TO-FOLLOW USER’S GUIDE WILL HELP YOU TO:

  • achieve optimum performance from your Grown-Up or Grown-Ups

  • undertake straightforward maintenance and repairs

  • ensure smooth operation, in most situations.

  CAUTION

  Your Grown-Up incorporates many complex modes and functions. Familiarization with these is essential before difficult maneuvers are attempted.

  BEFORE USING YOUR GROWN-UP

  Read this guide. It contains detailed information on the operation and care of your Grown-Up. Keep it safe and easy to access for future reference.

  Tuesday, July 28: 4:23 p.m.

  In case you’re wondering what undiscovered genius is writing this User’s Guide, it’s me!

  My name’s Katie Sutton, I’m thirteen years old and I may, quite possibly, be one of the world’s leading experts in Grown-Up behavior. For many years I’ve been studying their strange modes and functions.

  I like to think of myself as a bit like the famous wild-life expert David Attenborough—only instead of studying chimps, hyenas and fruit bats, I’m studying my mum, my nan and my Auntie Julie!

  My studies of them, and of other Grown-Ups I’ve encountered, have led me to write this excellent guide. After all, someone needs to … and who better than an expert on Grown-Up behavior like myself? You see, it’s a jungle out there. One that’s full of Grown-Ups. And according to the law of the jungle, you either eat or you get eaten.…

  In this comprehensive guide, I’m going to share with you my secret knowledge of Grown-Ups, gained from years of intensive study and experimentation.

  You too can become highly skilled at:

  1) understanding their insane behavior

  2) predicting their next moves

  3) operating them to your best advantage.

  With my help, I guarantee you can stay one step ahead of your Grown-Ups so you can survive their embarrassing weirdnesses. How cool is that?

  You probably think an (as of yet) undiscovered genius and possible world expert should live somewhere interesting and stimulating—in a huge exciting city or, failing that, in any town big enough to have a shopping center. Unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. I live in Brindleton, voted the Most Boring Village in Oxfordshire in a recent survey (conducted by me).

  Brindleton’s not the quiet, pretty little village you might imagine it to be. It’s a sprawling sort of a place that’s a mixture of little cottages, posh detached redbrick houses and millions of public housing units—like the one I live in.

  I live with my mum; my older sister, Mandy, who’s fifteen; and my little brother, Jack, who’s eight. Dad’s no longer around. The final member of our family is Rascal. He’s a West Highland terrier and he’s twelve years old, which is eighty-four in human years! He’s a small white scruffy bundle of a dog with hilarious pointy ears, and his main hobby is licking people’s faces.

  My enormous extended family also live in the village. For some reason hardly anybody ever leaves. Spooky but true. On one hand, it’s great for research, but on the other, I can’t walk down the street without being attacked by at least one auntie. I can’t go to the town gardens, the park, the local shops … or anywhere without bumping into someone from my gene pool.

  My nan (Mum’s mum) works in the minimart. So
I can’t even go there without her sticking her very nosy nose in my business. Nothing’s sacred, believe me.

  Take this morning, for example. I went in to buy some ice cream. Nan Williams was grimly stacking toilet paper rolls into a huge pyramid. I tried to sneak past without her noticing me, but it was no good.

  “I hear your brother’s got A BAD STOMACH!” she shouted at full lung capacity, so that anyone within a five-kilometer radius could hear. “Your Auntie Susan told me. How’s he doing; is he getting over it?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, my face burning hot.

  “Messy business! How about you, Katie, have YOU got the runs?”

  There is no such thing as privacy when you live in Brindleton.

  Still, every cloud has a silver lining, as Nan would say. Being surrounded by so many Grown-Ups who think they have a right to broadcast the tragic details of my life and comment on everything I do is tough. But it’s forced me to develop some vital skills and techniques—all of which I will share with you in this brilliantly useful guide.

  USEFUL HINT

  One way you can stop Grown-Ups figuring out your evil master plan for Grown-Up Domination is by covering this guide in brown paper and writing DIFFICULT MATH EQUATIONS on the front in permanent black marker. Your Grown-Up will be delighted and proud when they see you with your nose stuck in it.

  This is exactly the sort of fantastic trick that gives you the advantage when dealing with Grown-Ups.

  You might be wondering why you should believe a word I say, so I should probably tell you a bit more about myself. I’m just your average teenager. I’m five feet tall, with green eyes and straight, shoulder-length black hair, which just hangs round my ears in an uninteresting way. I think my chin is slightly too pointy, which is a family trait. Brindleton’s full of people with pointy chins. And I have hideously skinny legs, which have been compared to Twiglets due to my knobbly knees.

  Mum says I’m “striking-looking,” which is her way of avoiding saying I’m not as beautiful as my cousin Hannah—who has long blond hair and the perfect nose—but Hannah is also my best friend in the whole world, so I don’t mind.

  My other best friend in the whole world is Louise, who we call Loops because she’s got very curly red hair. Hannah and Loops are both totally amazing and fab in every way. They make me laugh so hard, stuff comes out of my nose.

  But now it’s time for a confession. Even though I may consider myself a world expert in operating Grown-Ups (which sounds a bit bigheaded, I have to admit), I’m not always an expert at operating myself.

  I’m not very coordinated. Or as Hannah would put it, I’m massively clumsy. I’m always tripping on the school bus, or bumping into people when I’m hurrying to my next class and dropping my books all over the floor.

  And now that I’m a teenager I regularly have “curse of the giant spot” days, when I have to hide my pointy chin or my nose or whichever part of my face is afflicted behind my homework folder.

  Finally, there’s my tendency to get myself into ridiculously embarrassing situations. For example, in my final year at elementary school I turned up in a costume for charity … one week early. I’m still majorly traumatized by the memory of myself in that clown costume—complete with revolving bow tie and giant shoes.

  But that’s nothing compared with the way I seem to embarrass myself when I’m around one particular person. When he’s anywhere near me, I totally malfunction.

  This is because I’m Officially in Love.

  The lucky person (ha ha) is the unbearably, unbelievably gorgeous Ben Clayden, who doesn’t know that I exist despite the fact that me and Hannah constantly stalk him around the village and school. Hannah’s Officially in Love with him too, but we’ve agreed that in the—admittedly unlikely—event one of us gets him, the other will back off and become a bald, toothless nun who lives in the Himalayas.

  BEN CLAYDEN: THE FACT FILE

  • Three years above us in school

  • Almost sixteen

  • Lives in the posh end of the village because his parents are doctors

  • The most attractive person in Brindleton, and possibly the world

  • Brilliant at art. Probably better than Leonardo da Vinci or Picasso

  • NOT RELATED TO US!!

  That last point is a huge bonus, believe me—and quite possibly a miracle, considering our whole family lives here. Even if Ben Clayden had some hideous deformity we’d still have to consider him for procreation purposes because he’s not a blood relation.

  But he’s not hideous—far from it. He’s tall and athletic and has dark golden-blond hair and lovely eyes—the sort of deep blue you could get lost in. And his chin is not in the least bit pointy! If he went on The X Factor, he’d win even if he sang like a cat being strangled because all the girls, mums and grannies in the whole country would vote for him.

  He’s so good-looking! When I see him I start to hyperventilate. Sometimes, when we walk past him, Hannah has to remind me to breathe.

  Being in love with Ben Clayden has ruined our lives. Nobody else can ever match up to his perfection.

  For example, I used to have a thing with Thomas Finch. His mate Neil Parkhouse asked Hannah to ask me if I’d be Thomas’s girlfriend and I said yes, but then we never talked to each other—how crazy is that? I know he liked me. One time in math he wrote my name on his arm with his ballpoint pen.

  Thomas Finch has lovely puppy-dog chocolate-brown eyes and messy chestnut-brown hair, but as he never said a word to me, the whole boyfriend thing was just too weird. I dumped him right before the summer holidays started.

  It was cowardly how I did it:

  ME: Hannah, will you tell Thomas Finch I’m not going out with him anymore?

  HANNAH: No. Tell him yourself. It’s not fair to get someone else to do it. If someone dumped me, I’d want them to do it themselves, not send a friend to do their dirty work!

  ME: Loops, will you tell Thomas Finch I’m not going out with him anymore?

  LOOPS: Okay.

  (Loops goes up to Thomas Finch.)

  LOOPS: Katie says she isn’t going out with you anymore.

  THOMAS FINCH: Oh.

  Thomas hasn’t spoken to me since (so no change there!). I haven’t seen him for ages. I think he went to Spain on holiday.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have split up with Thomas. It’s quite cool to have a boyfriend; it makes you look more popular. That sounds as if I never cared about him, which isn’t true. In fact, I really did like Thomas, but he can’t have liked me back much or he’d have found something to say to me. It’s just my luck; I’m destined to be alone, bald and toothless.…

  It’s only a few weeks into the summer holidays, so I’m having the best time lazing around, writing this and not having to think about homework or teachers or my evil second cousin Leanne (my Archenemy).

  Apart from living in Brindleton and having about a hundred relatives watching my every move and having freakishly skinny legs and NOT having Ben Clayden as my boyfriend and a few other things, things are pretty okay right now.

  Life is sweet when you’re in control.

  Thursday, July 30: 2:20 p.m.

  GETTING TO KNOW YOUR GROWN-UP

  It is essential to become familiar with your model of Grown-Up before attempting to operate them. Make a note of their most common modes and routine functions and of any recurring problems.

  Soon you will be able to anticipate most of their actions and take the necessary steps to ensure that they perform to your best advantage.

  I just had to use that line: Getting to Know Your Grown-Up. Lots of operating guides use it: Getting to Know Your Tumble Dryer or Getting to Know Your Lawn Mower. But what are the manufacturers expecting? That you exchange life stories with your toaster and then take it out on a date? It’s not a bad idea, actually, now that I think about it—you’re guaranteed some delicious buttered toast at the end of the evening.

  REMINDER TO SELF:

  Must start a website calle
d dateyourtoaster.com.

  The Getting to Know line does, however, apply very well to Grown-Ups.

  To operate them properly, you have to get to know all your Grown-Ups’ weird and wonderful ways. Learning how to handle them is about a thousand times more complicated than it is for regular appliances because Grown-Ups don’t come with a list of product features and they don’t come off an assembly line, so they’re each unique! Also, while a toaster has a few buttons you can press, Grown-Ups have hundreds.

  You might think you don’t need to get to know your Grown-Up. If they’ve been knocking around since they changed your diapers you probably think you understand them and their funny little ways pretty well. But that’s exactly where you are wrong!

  I’ve just been interrupted. I’m writing this in the bedroom I share with Mandy. It’s so tiny we call it the Cupboard. I’m curled up on the bottom bunk, which is the only private space I have in the world. Except it’s not so private. Mandy just crashed in looking for her lip gloss.

  “Have you stolen my lip gloss?” were her first words (unsurprisingly). She always accuses me of stealing things from her.

  “No, I haven’t stolen your stupid lip gloss. It’s on the dresser.”

  She grabbed it.

  “What are you doing? Writing about your interesting life?” she said in her best sarcastic voice, slamming out of the room.

  I didn’t bother replying. As if this were just some diary. Mandy has no idea about the importance of my work.

  Anyway, to get back to Grown-Ups and their strange ways. You might already know them inside out, back to front and sideways … but there can be more to them than you think. And if you take the time to really study them, they can surprise you. It’s a bit like wallpaper—if you stare at it long enough, you see more and more patterns.

  USEFUL HINT

  Look beyond the random splodges of your Grown-Ups. See the patterns. Then you can be one step ahead of them.

  I’m highly accomplished at analyzing the behavior of my mum. I know what every one of her hundreds of buttons does. You could say I’ve got a master’s in mum studies. I certainly deserve one; I’ve put a lot of work in to make sure that I can predict her every move.