Skinny Melon and Me (15 page)

Amanda Miles said to me today, “Was that your stepfather that was with you on Friday?” I couldn’t think who she was talking about for a moment as I don’t think of Slimey as being my stepfather but I suppose he is. So I said, “Yes. Why?” And she gave this silly smirk and said, “Oh, I just wondered.” I felt like hitting her.

Nothing very much happened today.

Nor today.

Nothing seems to be happening at all in my life right now.

Dad never rang me last Sunday, like he promised. Maybe he will this Sunday. If that woman lets him.

Skinny came back with me after school and we watched a video but she couldn’t stay the night as she has to go and visit her gran over the weekend. She said, “Dire Melvyn’s going to drive us there in his posh car.” I said, “What’s he got? A Merc?” Skinny didn’t know. “Something big and shiny,” is all she knows. She’s useless at things like that.

“I think we ought to go by train,” she said. “Otherwise we’re polluting the atmosphere.”

She picked that up from Slimey. She’d never have thought of it for herself.

I don’t know how much longer I can go on writing this diary. It is very difficult when one’s life is completely empty. I know it is good practice if one day I want to be a writer but if books are still around when I grow up I think I would rather draw the pictures that go inside them than have to write the words. I think actually I am quite good at drawing. This, for instance, is Slimey before and after:

It rained all day. Dad still didn’t ring.

Asked the Melon if she’d found out what car Dire Melvyn drives and she said she’d forgotten to look. She said she’s not interested in his car. She’s not interested in him. She wishes her mum had never met him. She is sick and tired of him always being there.

I said I knew how she felt because it was exactly what I’d felt when Mum started going out with Slimey Roland. I thought this was the sort of thing she would like to hear, but all she did was snap at me. She said, “That was totally different!”

How? That is what I should like to know. The Melon is really becoming very grumpy these days.

No card from Slimey for ages. Perhaps he’s got the message at last?

I hope Mum hasn’t gone and told old Slime that I chuck his cards in the waste-paper basket. It’s just the mean sort of thing she’d do. I think I’ll go and take them out and put them somewhere she can’t see them.

I’ve taken them out. I’ve put them in a box under the bed. Now I suppose she’ll think that I’ve stopped being on strike and am going to start tidying the rest of the room.

If that’s what she thinks then she is wrong. I have only done it not to hurt Slime’s feelings.

Dad rang. He said he’s been very “tied up” at the office. He also said that he hasn’t forgotten his promise to buy me a personal computer for Christmas. I expect when I’ve got used to it I will find it quite interesting. At the moment I’m more into drawing and painting. A big parcel of books arrived for Slimey today. They were all the same book, from his publishers. It is one of his
Freddy the Frog
ones. Freddy the Frog looks like this:

Well, something like that. I can’t quite draw it as well as Slimey does, but he’s had lots more practice than me. I bet I could if I kept at it.

I meant to ask Dad about coming to see me in the school play but I forgot. I don’t expect it matters. I don’t expect he’d have been able to come. He’d probably have a meeting or be going out to an important dinner party. I do see that it is difficult for him, being so busy and living so far away. Also I don’t expect that woman would have let him.

Twenty-four days to go until Christmas! I wonder what Mum will buy me?

I asked Slimey Roland at tea-time whether he was a crusty roll and butter or a soft roll and butter. I thought that was quite a good joke. So did Roly. I mean Slimey. He laughed. Mum didn’t. I don’t think Mum has much sense of humour. She never appreciates my jokes. She said, “He’s a great big softie, as you well know, and you do anything to take advantage!”

She’s always accusing me of these things. I don’t know what she means.

I’ve been drawing frogs all day long and can now do them almost as well as Slimey.

He pushed another card under my door last night. He is not so bad really, I suppose. It’s just that he is not my dad!

Today I took out all Slimey’s cards and read them, which I never really bothered to do before. Once you get used to it, it is quite easy. At first you have to puzzle a bit but then you learn the symbols, like he always draws a
for words like he or we. And a
for not. I’m going to write out what they say and practise doing it myself. It would be fun to write picture messages in Christmas cards!