The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982)

by Sue Townsend

  Used my father’s library tickets to get War and Peace out. I have lost my own.

  Took dog to meet Blossom. They got on well.

  Saturday March 7th

  After paper round went back to bed and stayed there all morning reading Big and Bouncy. Felt like I have never felt before.

  Went to Sainsbury’s with my mother and father but the women in there reminded me of Big and Bouncy, even the ones over thirty! My mother said I looked hot and bothered and sent me back to the multi-storey car park to keep the dog company.

  The dog already had company, it was barking and whining so loudly that a crowd of people were standing around saying ‘the poor thing’ and ‘how cruel to leave it tied up in such a fashion’. The dog had twisted itscollar on the gear lever and its eyes were bulging out of its head. When it saw me it tried to jump up and nearly killed itself.

  I tried to explain to the people that I was going to be a vet when I grew up, but they wouldn’t listen and started to say things about the RSPCA. The car was locked so I was forced to break the little window open and unlock the door by putting my hand through. The dog went mad with joy when I untangled him, so the people went away. But my father didn’t go mad with joy when he saw the damage, he went mad with rage. He threw the Sainsbury’s bags down, broke the eggs, squashed the cakes and drove home too fast. Nobody said anything on the way home, and only the dog was smiling.

  Finished War and Peace. It was quite good.

  Sunday March 8th

  First in Lent

  My mother has gone to a woman’s workshop on assertiveness training. Men aren’t allowed. I asked my father what ‘assertiveness training’ is. He said ‘God knows, but whatever it is, it’s bad news for me’.

  We had boil-in-the-bag cod in butter sauce and oven-cooked chips for Sunday dinner, followed by tinned peaches and Dream-topping. My father opened a bottle of white wine and let me have some. I don’t know much about wine but it seemed a pleasant enough vintage. We watched a film on television, then my mother came home and started bossing us around. She said, ‘The worm has turned’, and ‘Things are going to be different around here’, and things like that. Then she went into the kitchen and started making a chart dividing all the housework into three. I pointed out to her that I already had a paper round to do, an old age pensioner to look after and a dog to feed, as well as my school work, but she didn’t listen, she put the chart on the wall and said ‘We start tomorrow’.

  Monday March 9th

  Commonwealth Day

  Cleaned toilet, washed basin and bath before doing my paper round. Came home, made breakfast, put washing in machine, went to school. Gave Barry Kent his menaces money, went to Bert Baxter’s, waited for social worker who didn’t come, had school dinner. Had Domestic Science—made apple crumble. Came home. Vacuumed hall, lounge, and breakfast room. Peeled potatoes, chopped up cabbage, cut finger, rinsed blood off cabbage. Put chops under grill, looked in cookery book for a recipe for gravy. Made gravy. Strained lumps out with a colander. Set table, served dinner, washed up. Put burnt saucepans in to soak. Got washing out of machine; everything blue, including white underwear and handkerchiefs. Hung washing on clothes-horse. Fed dog. Ironed PE kit, cleaned shoes. Did homework. Took dog for a walk, had bath. Cleaned bath. Made three cups of tea. Washed cupsup. Went to bed. Just my luck to have an assertive mother!

  Tuesday March 10th

  Prince Edward born, 1964

  Why couldn’t I have been born Prince Edward and Prince Edward been born Adrian Mole? I am treated like a serf.

  Wednesday March 11th

  Dragged myself to school after doing paper round and housework. My mother wouldn’t give me a note excusing me from Games so I left my PE kit at home. I just couldn’t face running about in the cold wind.

  That sadist Mr Jones made me run all the way home to fetch my PE kit. The dog must have followed me out of the house because when I got to the school gate it was there before me. I tried to shut the dog out but it squeezed through the railings and followed me into the playground. I ran into the changing rooms and left the dog outside but I could hear its loud bark echoing around the school. I tried to sneak into the playing fields but the dog saw me and followed behind, then it saw the football and joined in the lesson! The dog is dead good at football, even Mr Jones was laughing until the dog punctured the ball.

  Mr Scruton, the pop-eyed headmaster, saweverything from his window. He ordered me to take the dog home. I told him I would miss my sitting for school dinners but he said it would teach me not to bring pets to school.

  Mrs Leech, the kitchen supervisor, did a very kind thing. She put my curry and rice, spotted dick and custard into the oven to keep warm. Mrs Leech doesn’t like Mr Scruton so she gave me a large marrow-bone to take home for the dog.

  Thursday March 12th

  Woke up this morning to find my face covered in huge red spots. My mother said they were caused by nerves but I am still convinced that my diet is inadequate. We have been eating a lot of boil-in-the-bag stuff lately. Perhaps I am allergic to plastic. My mother rang Dr Gray’s receptionist to make an appointment, but the earliest he can see me is next Monday! For all he knows I could have lassa fever and be spreading it all around the district! I told my mother to say that I was an emergency case but she said I was ‘over-reacting as usual’. She said a few spots didn’t mean I was dying. I couldn’t believe it when she said she was going to work as usual. Surely her child should come before her job?

  I rang my grandma and she came round in a taxi and took me to her house and put me to bed. I am there now. It is very clean and peaceful. I am wearing my dead grandad’s pyjamas. I have just had a bowl ofbarley and beef soup. It is my first proper nourishment for weeks.

  I expect there will be a row when my mother comes home and finds that I have gone. But frankly, my dear diary, I don’t give a damn.

  Friday March 13th

  Moon’s First Quarter

  The emergency doctor came to my grandma’s last night at 11.30 PM. He diagnosed that I am suffering from acne vulgaris. He said it was so common that it is regarded as a normal state of adolescence. He thought it was highly unlikely that I have got lassa fever because I have not been to Africa this year. He told grandma to take the disinfected sheets off the doors and windows. Grandma said she would like a second opinion. That was when the doctor lost his temper. He shouted in a very loud voice, ‘The lad has only got a few teenage spots, for Christ’s sake!’

  Grandma said she would complain to the Medical Council but the doctor just laughed and went downstairs and slammed the door. My father came round before he went to work and brought my Social Studies homework and the dog. He said that if I was not out of bed when he got home at lunchtime he would thrash me to within an inch of my life.

  He took my grandma into the kitchen and had a loud talk with her. I heard him saying,’ Things are very bad between me and Pauline, and all we are arguing over now is who doesn’t get custody of Adrian’. Surely my father made a mistake. He must have meant who did get custody of me.

  So the worst has happened, my skin has gone to pot and my parents are splitting up.

  Saturday March 14th

  It is official. They are getting a divorce! Neither of them wants to leave the house so the spare room is being turned into a bedsitter for my father. This could have a very bad effect on me. It could prevent me from being a vet.

  My mother gave me five pounds this morning and told me not to tell my father. I bought some bio-spot cream for my skin and the new Abba L.P.

  I rang Mr Cherry and said I had personal problems and would be unable to work for a few weeks. Mr Cherry said that he knew that my parents were divorcing because my father had cancelled my mother’s Cosmopolitan.

  My father gave me five pounds and told me not to tell my mother. I spent some of it on buying some purple paper and envelopes so that the BBC will be impressed and read my poems. The rest of it will have to go on Barry Kent and his menaces money. I don’t
think anybody in the world can be as unhappy as me. If I didn’t have my poetry I would be a raving loonie by now.

  Went out for a sad walk and took Pandora’s horsetwo pounds of cooking apples. Thought of a poem about Blossom. Wrote it down when I got back to the house where I live.

  Blossom, by Adrian Mole, aged nearly fourteen

  Little Brown Horse

  Eating apples in a field,

  Perhaps one day

  My heart will be healed.

  I stroke the places Pandora has sat

  Wearing her jodphurs and riding hat.

  Goodbye, brown horse.

  I turn and retreat,

  The rain and mud are wetting my feet.

  I have sent it to the BBC. I marked the envelope ‘Urgent’.

  Sunday March 15th

  Second in Lent

  The house is very quiet. My father sits in the spare room smoking and my mother sits in the bedroom smoking. They are not eating much.

  Mr Lucas has phoned my mother three times. All she says to him is ‘not yet, it’s too early’. Perhaps he has asked her to go to the pub for a drink and take her mind off her troubles.

  My father has put the stereo in his bedroom. He is playing his Jim Reeves records and staring out of thewindow. I took him a cup of tea and he said ‘Thanks, son’ in a choked-up voice.

  My mother was looking at old letters in my father’s handwriting when I took her tea in; she said, ‘Adrian, what must you think of us?’ I said that Rick Lemon, the youth leader, thinks divorce is society’s fault. My mother said, ‘Bugger society’.

  I washed and ironed my school uniform ready for school tomorrow. I am getting quite good at housework.

  My spots are so horrific that I can’t bear to write about them. I will be the laughing stock at school.

  I am reading The Manin the Iron Mask. I know exactly how he feels.

  Monday March 16th

  Went to school. Found it closed. In my anguish I had forgotten that I am on holiday. Didn’t want to go home, so went to see Bert Baxter instead. He said the social worker had been to see him and had promised to get Sabre a new kennel but he can’t have a home help. (Bert, not Sabre.)

  There must have been a full week’s washing up in the sink again. Bert says he saves it for me because I make a good job of it. While I washed up I told Bert about my parents getting a divorce. He said he didn’t hold with divorce. He said he was married for thirty-five miserable years so why should anybody else get away with it? He told me that he has got four childrenand that none of them come to see him. Two of them are in Australia so they can’t be blamed, but I think the other two should be ashamed of themselves. Bert showed me a photograph of his dead wife, it was taken in the days before they had plastic surgery. Bert told me that he was a hostler when he got married (a hostler is somebody doing things with horses) and didn’t really notice that his wife looked like a horse until he left to work on the railways. I asked him if he would like to see a horse again. He said he would, so I took him to see Blossom.

  It took us ages to get there. Bert walks dead slow and he kept having to sit down on garden walls, but we got there eventually. Bert said that Blossom was not a horse, she was a girl pony. He kept patting her and saying ‘who’s a beauty then, eh?’ Then Blossom went for a run about so we sat down on the scrap car, and Bert had a Woodbine and I had a Mars bar. Then we walked back to Bert’s house. I went to the shops and bought a packet of Vesta chow mein and a butterscotch Instant Whip for our dinner, so Bert ate a decent meal for once. We watched Pebble Mill at One, then Bert showed me his old horse brushes and photographs of the big house where he worked when he was a boy. He said he was made into a communist when he was there, but he fell asleep before he could tell me why.

  Came home, nobody was in so I played my Abba records at the highest volume until the deaf woman next door banged on the wall.

  Tuesday March 17th

  St Patrick’s Day. Bank Holiday in N. Ireland and Rep. of Ireland

  Looked at Big and Bouncy. Measured my ‘thing’. It was eleven centimetres.

  Mr O’Leary who lives across the road from us was drunk at ten o’clock in the morning! He got thrown out of the butcher’s for singing.

  Wednesday March 18th

  My mother and father are both speaking to solicitors. I expect they are fighting over who gets custody of me. I will be a tug-of-love child, and my picture will be in the newspapers. I hope my spots clear up before then.

  Thursday March 19th

  Mr Lucas has put his house up for sale. My mother says the asking price is thirty thousand pounds!!

  What will he do with all that money?

  My mother says he will buy another bigger house. How stupid can you get?

  If I had thirty thousand pounds I would wander the world having experiences.

  I wouldn’t take any real money with me because I have read that most foreigners are thieves. Instead I would have three thousand pounds’ worth of traveller’s cheques sewn into my trousers. Before I set off, I would:

  Send Pandora three dozen red roses.

  Pay a mercenary fifty pounds to duff Barry Kent up.

  Buy the best racing bike in the world and ride it past Nigel’s house.

  Order a massive crate of expensive dog food so that the dog is properly fed while I’m away.

  Buy a housekeeper for Bert Baxter.

  Offer my mother and father a thousand pounds (each) to stay together.

  When I came back from the world I would be tall, brown and full of ironical experiences and Pandora would cry into her pillow at night because of the chance she missed to be Mrs Pandora Mole. I would qualify to be a vet in record time then I would buy a farmhouse. I would convert one room into a study so that I could have somewhere quiet to be intellectual in.

  I wouldn’t waste thirty thousand pounds on buying a semi-detached house!

  Friday March 20th

  First day of Spring. Full Moon

  It is the first day of spring. The council have chopped all the elms down in Elm Tree Avenue.

  Saturday March 21st

  My parents are eating different things at different times, so I usually have six meals a day because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

  The television is in my room now because they couldn’t decide who it belongs to. I can lie in bed and watch the late-night horror.

  I am starting to get a bit suspicious about my mother’s feelings towards Mr Lucas. I found a note she had from him; it says: ‘Pauline how much longer? For God’s sake come away with me. Yours forever, Bimbo.’

  Although it was signed ‘Bimbo’ I know it was from Mr Lucas because it was written on the back of his red electricity bill.

  My father should be informed. I have put the note under my mattress next to the Big and Bouncy magazines.

  Sunday March 22nd

  Third in Lent. British Summer Time begins

  It is my grandma’s birthday today; she is seventy-six and looks it. I took her a card and a pot plant; it is called Leopard Lily, its foreign name is Dieffenbachia. It had a plastic label stuck in the soil which said, ‘The sap in this plant is poisonous so take care’. My grandmaasked me who chose the plant. I told her my mother did.

  My grandma is quite pleased that my parents are getting a divorce! She said that she always thought that my mother had a wanton streak in her and that now she had been proved right.

  I didn’t like to hear my mother being spoken of in such a way so I came home. I pretended to grandma that I had promised to meet a friend. But I haven’t really got a friend any more, it must be because I’m an intellectual. I expect people are in awe of me. Looked in my dictionary to find out what ‘wanton’ means. It is not very nice!

  Monday March 23rd

  Back to school, worse luck! We had Domestic Science today. We did baked potatoes in the oven with cheese filling. My potatoes were bigger than anyone else’s so they weren’t properly cooked by the time the lesson ended, so I finished them
off at Bert Baxter’s. He wanted to see Blossom again which was a bit of a drag because he takes so long to walk anywhere. But we went, anything is better than doing Maths at school. Bert took his horse brushes with him and gave Blossom a good clean, she was shining like a conker by the time he’d finished. Bert got out of breath so he sat on the scrap car and had a Woodbine, then we walked back to Bert’s house.

  Sabre is in a better temper since he got his new kennel and Bert’s house is in a better condition as a result of Sabre being outside. Bert told me that the social worker thought he ought to go into an old people’s home where he can be properly looked after. Bert doesn’t want to. He told a lie to the social worker, he said his grandson came in every day and looked after him. The social worker is going to check up so I could be in trouble for impersonation!!! I don’t know how much more worry I can take.

  Tuesday March 24th

  Late last night I saw my mother and Mr Lucas going out in Mr Lucas’s car. They went somewhere special because my mother was wearing a boiler suit with sequins. She did look a bit wanton. Mr Lucas was wearing his best suit and he had a lot of gold jewellery on. For an old person he certainly knows how to dress.

  If my father took more care of his appearance, none of this would have happened. It stands to reason that any woman would prefer a man to wear a suit and a lot of gold jewellery to one like my father who hardly ever shaves and wears old clothes and no jewellery.

  I am going to stay awake and find out what time my mother comes home. Midnight. Mother still not home. 2 AM. No sign of my mother.

  Wednesday March 25th

  Annunciation of B.V. Mary

  Fell asleep, so don’t know what time my mother got home. My father said she had gone to the insurance firm’s Christmas dinner and dance. In March! Come off it dad! I was not born yesterday! We had swimming in Games today. The water was freezing cold and so were the changing cubicles. I will try to get athlete’s foot so that I don’t have to go next week.