by KE Payne
Uncle Buck stayed too long out in the rain today so his fur’s gone all matted! Han texted me tonight to ask me what I was doing, so I sent her a reply saying, ‘I’m brushing my bunny.’ She sent me one back saying, ‘Is that a euphemism?’
Uncle Buck is now shining like a conker once more. I think he was pleased to have been brushed. I definitely detected a spring in his step tonight when I gave him his bedtime carrot.
Tuesday 13 November
HRBH has taken up jogging again. Apparently she’s not losing as much weight as she’d like to on this Health Drive of hers. She says she put on half a stone in a week in Italy but it’s taken her six days to lose just one pound of that. I declined the offer to go jogging with her, bearing in mind I didn’t even make it to the end of the road last time without doubling over with a stitch. I’ve come to the conclusion that me and exercise don’t mix. I just don’t get it; it’s supposed to release endolphins or something, and make you feel great, but all it does for me is make me feel tired and out of breath. Besides, if God really wanted us to be serious about exercise, he’d have made Lycra more forgiving.
Suddenly realised tonight that I didn’t find out anything about Facebook the other day so Googled it when I got in from school today. What a revelation! It’s like this networking thing where you can add friends and leave them messages, post pictures, videos and stuff like that. You can even take quizzes to find out what your name would be if you were a porn star. (I didn’t bother with that, but the point is it’s there, so I could if I wanted to!)
I found Han on there and sent her a request to be my friend, and then did the same for Ems and Matty. Didn’t really want to add Alice, or see her profile, or anything like that—I don’t know why.
But I’ll have three friends on Facebook. How cool is that?!
Wednesday 14 November
Found Caroline on Facebook and added her. So now I have four friends!! Wrote on my profile that I was fed up with all the schoolwork I gotta do at the moment but when I checked just before bed, no one had replied to it.
Thursday 15 November
HRBH has bought herself one of those dance DVDs that bimbos who were in some lousy soap opera, like, five years ago, are always bringing out. Anyway, this one is called Boogie Your Way to a Better Belly and is by some bird who came fourth in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2005. She, of course, is built like an ironing board, so she has this air of superiority as she’s jogging on the spot, grinning like a buffoon and telling her unseen audience to ‘squeeze them buttocks.’ Personally, I think it would take an industrial car crusher for HRBH to get her buttocks anywhere near something resembling clenched, but that’s neither here nor there.
Sat and watched HRBH bouncing and do-si-doing up and down the lounge until the sight of all her jiggling, and the nasally northern tones of the Ironing Board on the screen were finally too much for me, and I went to seek sanctuary with Chairman Meow up in my room.
Friday 16 November
Invited Han over after school to have a play on Boogie Your Way to a Better Belly, ’cos everyone was out so we could piss about in peace. We dressed up in jogging bottoms and Han put her school tie round her head so she looked a bit like Rambo, and we danced and wiggled along with the bimbette on the screen in front of us. This dance exercise stuff is harder than I realised. I couldn’t keep up with her, and every time she told me to go left, my brain (and legs) sent me right so I kept crashing into Han, who had the dancing down to a fine art and was boogie-ing and side-stepping as if she was the spawn of Jane Fonda or something. I kept tripping over my feet as well, but that was probably because I still had my Snoopy fluffy slippers on.
Started to get a bit grumpy with the whole thing, so flopped down on the sofa and contented myself with watching Han’s jiggling arse from behind, but my viewing pleasure was rudely interrupted when HRBH came home, stomped into the lounge, and turned the bloody DVD off. Somehow I think all the fun left that girl when she hit adolescence.
Saturday 17 November
Me and Han went into town this morning to buy some gear for the My Chemical Romance concert—sorry, gig—tonight!! I went to the pet shop and got myself a wicked studded dog collar, then to the chemist to get some black nail varnish and some black ribbons to tie in my hair. Han’s got some black lipstick and eyeliner at home, and some other bits and pieces that I can wear to complete the look. I also bought a false eyebrow bar ’cos I think they look great, but unlike Han I’m way too squeamish to ever get my brow pierced.
We went back to Han’s afterwards and started putting ourselves together. I have to say, we looked sick! My eyebrow bar looked well cool; I’d smudged black eyeliner round my eyes and put loads of mascara on so my eyes looked wicked as well. Han wore a full-length black leather coat which she said she would be boiled in, but it would be worth it ’cos it looked wicked. She had these black and red striped tights on and her fuck-off biker boots, a black mini-skirt and ripped shirt and she looked hot as hell! I wore some skinny jeans and a T-shirt I’d borrowed off Matty which said ‘Bitch Ass’ on it.
Anyway, we came downstairs and presented ourselves to Han’s parents, who were sitting in the lounge watching Oprah on the telly. They both looked totally unbothered by our gear, but then I figured Han’s mum’s a nurse so she’s probably seen it all before! Toffee did look a little bit worried but cheered up a bit when Han tickled her ears and coochy-cooed at her.
Han’s dad dropped us off at the venue, with strict instructions ‘not to talk to anyone who looks like they might knife you’, before driving off again. The concert—sorry, gig—was sicker than sick! It was dead hot and dead dark inside and Han did well to keep her leather coat on for a full hour before admitting defeat and taking it off. We bought T-shirts and mugs and posters while the support act was on (we watched them for 10 minutes before deciding they were crap) and then wondered how we managed to spend, like, 50 quid in the space of 2 minutes.
Then it was the concert—sorry, gig! Oh My Actual God! It…was…mental!! I’m not a seasoned gig-goer so I didn’t know what to expect. But there were these kids, no older than ten or eleven, I reckon, dressed from head to foot in black, with various bits of themselves covered in fake tattoos. They wore My Chemical Romance T-shirts, held up banners, and, like, threw themselves down into the mosh-pit five minutes before the band came on and then refused to move for the next hour and a half.
These kids were scary, I’m telling you! When Han’s dad told us not to look at anyone who looked like they’d knife us, I doubt he meant ten-year-olds dressed in studs and leather. The parents of these kids looked so…respectable! They hung around in groups, by the bar area, looking like they’d rather be at home reading their Reader’s Digest than squashed up against some sweaty Goth reeking of beer. There were small groups of mothers, who would break off their conversations about how ‘Harrods have struck gold in their knicker department at last’, to occasionally wave and ‘yoo-hoo’ to their little dears who were busy moshing as if their lives depended on it.
Then there were the other types of parents. OMG! They were sooooo old (like, in their 30s) and trying sooooo hard to keep up with their kids. Some had squeezed themselves into tiny jeans and even tinier ‘I was at Glastonbury ’96’ T-shirts, while others had gone for the grunge look and looked like bag ladies (but with posh accents). Trying desperately to keep up with their kids. This lot of parents grunted and squirmed at the sides of the crowds (obviously the mosh-pit was a step too far) while sweating profusely and occasionally saying about how they were only here ’cos ‘Toby so loves this genre of music’, but that next time ‘they’d really rather prefer to see Phantom of the Opera’.
Me and Han had a great time! We got ourselves down in the pit so we had a really good view and were jumping up and down and screaming and singing along with everyone else. My Chemical Romance played the whole range, and Han videoed ‘Mama’ on her phone for Matty, ’cos that’s one of her favourite songs. Everything was wicked until some l
ittle brat next to us jumped up and bashed me in the face with his studded wristband, and it was only when I felt something trickle down my face that I realised the little shit had smacked the fake metal bar out of my eyebrow and cut me to ribbons in the process! Great! So not only had I lost my eye bar, but now I had blood all down my face and my T-shirt. Han got me into the loos and cleaned me up, but I looked like I’d done ten rounds with some heavyweight boxer!!
Of course, the only non-black thing I was wearing had to be my T-shirt, and that now had blood all down the front of it. My eye had swollen up, I was sweating so my hair was wet and sticking up, and I had dried blood in it. Needless to say when Dad met us outside the venue, he took one look at me and paled. Great! The first concert—sorry, gig—I ever go to and I look like I’ve been scrapping with bloody ten-year-olds!
Sunday 18 November
Woke up and tried to open my right eye but couldn’t. It’s swollen right up and beginning to bruise magnificently!! I think it looks revolting but Han keeps telling me she thinks it’s sexy and is making a meal of looking after me in the privacy of my bedroom (not that I mind, of course). She says I need a steak to help the swelling go down, but I’m not sure if I need to eat it or put it on my eye?
I took my swollen eye over to show her mum this morning after getting no sympathy off my own mother when I staggered downstairs looking like a prize-fighter. The fact I hadn’t taken last night’s black eye makeup off probably made me look 100 times worse as well, but I have to admit I was expecting a bit more sympathy than, ‘Dear God, what DO you look like?’
I think Han should follow in her mum’s footsteps and become a nurse because she has a very good bedside manner, and keeps planting kisses on my swollen, hot eye (not that I expect your average nurse to do that). I kinda enjoy being looked after by her, but now I’m a bit worried that I might have that funny old Munchkins Disease, or whatever it’s called?
Monday 19 November
Got, like, a MEGA reaction from people at school today ’cos of my eye!! Everyone crowded round me and kept trying to touch it, asking me if it hurt very much. It’s still swollen practically shut, and I can’t see very well out of my other eye anyway, so I’m hoping Mrs. Unwin will take pity on me and send me home. Han had her arm slung casually round my shoulders while everyone was fussing round me and took great pleasure in telling them how she’d looked after me all day yesterday, because she thought it her duty, bearing in mind she’d been with me when it happened. She said something about nursing me, adding that she’d ‘Drawn the line at giving her a bed-bath, though’, and everyone laughed. I noticed Alice went bright red, though.
Didn’t get sent home from school, worse luck!
Realised tonight that I STILL have hardly any friends on Facebook so added Susan Divine (yes, I know, dear diary, desperate measures!) ’cos I don’t want to look like a right old Billy No-Mates. I just hope I don’t ever write anything on there to upset her ’cos she’ll probably put a fatwa on my head or something.
Tuesday 20 November
Ohhh the best news! It’s Mum and Dad’s twentieth wedding anniversary in December and they’ve booked up to go to Paris for the weekend. It means I’ll have to put up with HRBH for the weekend, but if I annoy her enough she’ll bugger off to a mate’s, hopefully, leaving me to install Han in our house for 48 glorious hours! I can’t wait! I’ll just have to work on HRBH, make absolutely sure she stays away, then I can have my lovely girlfriend to myself aaaaaall weekend. Can’t wait!
Eye still kinda gummed shut. Han says I look cute, HRBH says I look like a nutcase and asked me to ‘stop leering at her with that wizened old hen’s eye’. This is all the sympathy I get off her! She’ll make a great stepmother one day.
Wednesday 21 November
Watched England getting a thorough spanking by Croatia in the football tonight so looks like we’re not going to the European Championships next year. HRBH said she was pleased ’cos at least she won’t have to put up with the sight of overweight men squeezing themselves into England strips and singing ‘Olé Olé Olé’ down the High Street whilst slurping from cans of high-strength lager and waggling their flags in her face. She has NO sense of patriotism!
Thursday 22 November
Woke up with a head that felt like I’d been smacked with a baseball bat this morning, and a throat that felt like I’d been moonlighting as a fire-eater, so stayed off school. Texted Han to tell her I wasn’t well and she replied with ‘My poor baby. I’ll mix you up some special medicine in the Chemistry lab later xxx.’
It’s now 7:30 p.m. and my head’s pounding, my nose is streaming, and my throat’s still on fire, so I think it’s safe to say I have a common cold.
Friday 23 November
Why is it called a common cold? Why common? Does it live on a council estate? Does it steal cigarettes from the newsagents? Does it wear cheap gold jewellery? Has it taken lie detector tests on The Jerry Springer Show?
I think I’m delirious. Maybe I overdosed on Lemsip??
Saturday 24 November
HRBH is going out with some bloke called Joe who’s a drummer in a band. She’s on a diet again, no doubt spurred by the fact she’s actually going out with someone for the first time since all that business with Ade. I hate it when she does this dieting lark; she eats, like, nothing, then sits and looks at my dinner like some hungry spaniel, irritating the hell out of me!
I got up for the first time since Wednesday and managed a little scrambled egg on toast in front of American Idol. Han wanted to come over and see me but I look like shit. My nose is bright red and my good eye is competing with my bruised eye in the puffiness stakes, which is streaming as though someone’s squirted onion juice in it. Needless to say I declined her kind offer to come over and rub Vicks on my chest!!
Sunday 25 November
Sat downstairs this afternoon wrapped in a fleece blanket and watched The Great Escape from beginning to end on Channel Five. It’s one of those movies that you never see all of—like Gone with the Wind or The Sound of Music—just kinda dipping in and out of them, so it was good to see the whole lot. Decided at around 8 p.m. that I was still too unwell for school so told Mum I would be staying off tomorrow as well. When she said she thought I was sounding better, I blew my nose and showed the tissue to her, then sat back and smugly listened to her cooing at the state of the brown/green mess within. I nodded wisely when she told me I was to stay off school until my snot was clear again.
Monday 26 November
Got up around midday and drank a bit of the chicken soup Mum had left for me in the kitchen. Actually feel a lot better but decided to stay off until tomorrow just to be sure. Besides, we had a Maths test today and I’ve done zippo work for it. Well, I’ve been ill, haven’t I?
HRBH told me about this Joe fellow she’s seeing. Apparently he’s 20 and a student (studying Music Technology at uni) and he lives with two other boys in some rented pit across the other side of town. This is all the information I can get out of HRBH. She’s notoriously cagey about her boyfriends, but particularly cagey about this one, which means she probably really, really likes him.
Tuesday 27 November
Went back to school today and was disappointed that no one said I still looked ill.
Alice did at least ask me how I was, which was nice of her; I seized the opportunity of talking to her, and managed to finally ask her about that night at Caroline’s.
I tried to act all casual, like, and asked her if she was still seeing Vince. She did have the grace to blush, I noticed, at the mention of his name but told me she hadn’t seen him since Caroline’s party. I was shocked but I thought I hid it well, instead I just asked her why, trying really hard not to add: ‘bearing in mind you did sleep with him that night’ and trying even harder not to add ‘trollop’. She was dead vague about it all, just saying that she was drunk the night of the party and hadn’t really known what she was doing, but that the next morning reality had hit her like a hammer when she woke up and
found Vince snoring next to her with all his dangly bits hanging out.
She went on to say that she realised she’d made a huge mistake and she had no idea why she’d done it but she sure as hell wouldn’t be doing it again, she wouldn’t touch Vince with a barge pole ever again and she said she’d more or less told Vince that when he’d texted her later in the week. I don’t know Vince from Adam, but I have to say I do kinda feel sorry for the guy; it must be dead confusing to think you’ve scored only to be told it was a mistake and not to go near the girl you scored with ever again or she’ll punch your lights out!
Anyway, I was pleased that Alice did at least speak to me, bearing in mind we’ve hardly said two words to each other since the summer. I don’t know what I feel about her and Vince, though. Perhaps part of me wants her to get herself a boyfriend, especially if it means it takes her mind off me (if it’s still on me, that is) but at the same time, I feel a right cow thinking that she probably only slept with Vince because I was there at the party that night and maybe it was her way of getting over me. Or getting back at me??
