Don't Even Think About It Page 5

  I can’t understand the way I feel today. I thought I’d be on top of the world – no more Santa, no more visits to Smelly Nelly’s office – but I’m not. I’m lonely and sad, and I miss everyone like mad already, even though I’ll probably meet most of them around town over the summer.

  Isn’t it funny? All through sixth class, we couldn’t wait to be finished with primary school. We counted down the days since Easter, and moaned and groaned about how bored we were – and now that it’s finished at last, there’s just this giant empty space.

  And now we’re going from being the oldest kids in school, the ones in charge, to being the youngest – that’ll be really strange.

  Mam says she remembers feeling exactly the same. I e-mail her from the Internet café most days now on the way home from school, and usually she answers me back straight away. The great thing is I can print off her mails, which I couldn’t do at home. I have a bundle of them in my knicker drawer, the only place I can be sure Dad won’t go near, ha ha.

  Of course I didn’t tell her about being caught shoplifting – but the good news is that Smelly Nelly didn’t tell anyone about it either. She did call me into her office, the day after it happened, but for once I didn’t try to be smart, or look bored or whatever. I sat quietly and listened to her saying all the same kind of things that Dad had said to me the day before, and then I told her that I’d definitely learnt my lesson, and would never do it again.

  And she smiled at me and shook my hand, and said she believed me, which for some weird reason made me feel really good. I know Smelly and I haven’t always been the best of friends, especially since Mam left, but right then, she was OK. She wished me luck in secondary school, and she said she hoped I’d keep making the most of my artistic talent, and that she knew I’d go far. Imagine.

  And now it’s three days later, and we had our graduation ceremony in the hall this afternoon, and Dad was there along with all the other parents, and loads of them had brought along camcorders and cameras, and it was like the Oscars.

  And naturally Catherine Eggleston was in floods of tears, but I have to say she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was passing around autograph books, or just copies, and getting e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

  It just feels very weird right now. Tomorrow Bumble and I are going into town to meet up with a few of the others for lunch. Wonder if we’ll all drift apart, when we’re scattered in different schools.

  Not Bumble and me, of course, even though he’s going to the Comprehensive and I’m going to St Rita’s. We’ll be best friends forever, even if we end up living on opposite sides of the world. But guess what? The only other person who’s going with me to St Rita’s is Chloe Nelligan – can you believe it? Old garlic breath Chloe. I’ll have to practise breathing through my mouth until I make new friends.

  I think I need some ice cream now. If I sneak past the sitting room Dad won’t hear.

  Seven o’clock, Saturday, middle of July.

  It was SO hot today. We went to the seaside, me and Dad and Bumble. Yesterday was Bumble’s thirteenth birthday. I got him a faded grey t-shirt in Next that I knew he liked, and he wore it today.

  My nose is burnt, because I forgot to bring sunscreen with me. When we dropped Bumble home, his Mam gave me a little tub of natural yoghurt to put on my nose, but it seemed such a waste of good food. I love yoghurt, especially with a banana chopped into it. Luckily, we had one banana left at home.

  One good thing is that Marjorie Baloney has kept her distance since the whole shoplifting business. She and Dad still go out, usually on Friday nights, but she hasn’t been around to our house since that day, which suits me just fine, and Dad never mentions her. He’ll probably get sick of her any day now, and that’ll be the end of that.

  Dad only goes into work in the mornings while I’m on holidays. In the afternoons, he works from home, on the computer that he brought back home again. He said nothing when he carried it into the house, and neither did I. I haven’t gone near it, even when he’s out at work in the mornings. Who needs it now?

  I can’t believe I’ll be starting secondary school in a month and a bit. It’ll be the first time Bumble and I won’t be together since Junior Infants.

  That was where we met. We were sitting beside one another on our first day at school, and I hit him and made him cry when he broke one of my crayons, and I was put sitting on a chair facing the wall, and the next day he gave me a new box of crayons that his mam bought when he told her what happened, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

  Of course we’ll still meet after school and at weekends and stuff, but I’m a bit afraid it won’t be the same. He’ll probably start hanging around with boys now, and maybe he’ll be ashamed to be seen with me, so we’ll have to meet in secret.

  Or maybe I’ll have to disguise myself as a boy. I’ve been practising making my voice lower, just in case. Bumble’s voice was the first to break in the class, just after we went into sixth, and he got an awful slagging from the other boys. I bet it was because they were jealous that Bumble sounded all grown up, and they were still talking like girls.

  And now Chris Thompson is the only one whose voice still hasn’t broken. Hopefully he’s not in a hurry to get a girlfriend. Maybe some girls wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend with the same kind of voice as them, although I have to say I’d be a bit embarrassed.

  But apart from his voice, there’s nothing wrong with Chris – he’s easily the cutest-looking guy from our old class, with greenish-brown eyes and lovely floppy, dark blonde hair, and a gorgeous dimple in one cheek when he smiles, much nicer than my horrible chin dimple.

  And really straight teeth too, once his braces came off.

  Next week I’m going to be fitted for my new school uniform. It’s brown and cream, not that colours really matter when you’re talking about a school uniform – they’re not exactly the height of fashion. My old one was blue, and just as boring. I’m going to see if Dad will spring for a new pair of shoes too, even though I got some in May. Maybe he’s forgotten.

  It’s usually pretty easy to get money from Dad for stuff – I just tell him I have to buy girl’s things, and he gets his wallet out really quickly and asks how much I need. You can guess what he thinks I’m getting.

  I have to tell you – Ruth Wallace was wearing the dorkiest hat I ever saw yesterday. It was bright orange with a fat red stripe going through the middle of it. It looked like a baboon’s bottom sitting on her head. I didn’t say that, of course, not even when she made puking noises as I passed her.

  What a moron she is. I am not going anywhere near Wallaces until this nose calms down. Imagine the fun she’d have with it.

  It’s really stinging now. Pity I ate all that yoghurt. Maybe I’ve got sunstroke. Can you die of that? Imagine if Dad came in here in the morning, wondering why I wasn’t getting up for breakfast, and found me stretched out on the floor, deathly pale except for a bright red nose.

  You’d think he’d have remembered the sun cream. Mam would have – and she’d have had natural yogurt too.

  When Mam lived here, our fridge was always full of healthy food like cottage cheese and cucumbers and broccoli. Now we have things like salami and smoked mackerel and tubs of duck pate, which Dad loves, and big jars of crunchy peanut butter and Nutella for me.

  And we eat white bread, which Mam never bought. She said it was rubbish, even the kind with the seeds and stuff in it.

  And these days there’s always at least one tub of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer. When Mam lived with us, we’d get Ben & Jerry’s once in a blue moon, only on very special occasions. And the funny thing is, I’m not half as mad about it now as I was then. I mean, I still eat it, quite a lot actually, but somehow it’s not the treat it used to be.

  Funny, isn’t it?

  And when Mam was here, she stuck things like bin collection times and dentist appointments and the plumber’s emergency number on the front of the fridge. Now it’s covered with takeaway menus, all
our favourite ones. I wonder where all the other stuff went. Maybe it’s still there, under the menus.

  Not that I’m bothered. I just wonder, that’s all.

  Way past bedtime, Sunday, 31st August.

  God, I can’t believe summer’s over. Tomorrow I start secondary school, and I just know I’m not going to sleep a wink. I’m scared stiff, to tell you the truth. Just hope Chloe Nelligan is there before me.

  I’m getting a bus to school, because it’s too far to walk, and Dad’s work is in the opposite direction. Mam or Dad always brought me to primary school, so this’ll be my first time on a school bus. I won’t know a single person on it.

  What if they pick on the new people? What if there’s one horrible bully on it who decides that I look like a good target? What if I do something stupid, like get my bag tangled in the seat, or trip or something, and they all laugh? What if someone sticks chewing gum in my hair?

  This is so horrible. I wish Mam was here. I hate her for going. No, I don’t mean that – of course I don’t hate her. But I sure wish she was here.

  I’m meeting Bumble after school, so we can compare notes. It’s OK for him – loads of people from our old class are going to the Comp, so he’ll have plenty of pals. Why am I going to stupid St Rita’s?

  I never thought I’d be looking forward to meeting Chloe.

  I’ve started biting my nails again. Bugger. I hadn’t done it all summer, and they were just beginning to look really good. Now they’re all raggy again.

  Ten to nine, Monday, 1st September.

  Well, that wasn’t too bad.

  The bus was OK. I had to sit beside someone because it was quite full, so I picked a quiet-looking girl with the same colour hair as Mam, and then I pretended to be really interested in my new science book for the whole journey. She must have thought I was a right swot, ha ha.

  Chloe Nelligan was in the yard. She came straight up to me when I walked off the bus, and boy was I glad to see her. I hardly even noticed the garlic breath. She looked just as scared as I felt. We chatted until the bell rang – she was in the Isle of Man for the whole month of July, staying with cousins – and then we were brought into the hall where the principal met us and gave us a talk, and after that we were split into groups and shown around the school.

  The art room is brilliant. Imagine, a room especially for painting. I can’t wait to get in there. We’ve double art on Thursdays, hurrah. Wonder what the teacher’s like – we didn’t get to meet her because she was teaching another class, but she looked OK.

  We’ve got a form teacher, which means she’ll be sort of like our minder – if we’ve got any problems we can go to her. Her name’s Mrs Keogh, and she seems really nice and friendly. And there are two sixth-year prefects in charge of our class too, like we used to look after the Junior Infants sometimes in primary.

  Some of the sixth years look like proper grown-ups. Imagine I’ll be like that in five years’ time. It’s kind of scary and kind of exciting at the same time.

  When I got home from school there was a letter from San Francisco waiting for me, which turned out to be a Good Luck card from Mam with a $50 note inside it. I really miss her. It seems like forever since we met.

  Bumble was late, as usual, but it was because he was signing up for the after-school soccer club. He says the Comp is brilliant. They have their own swimming pool, which I’m dead jealous about. He’s in the same class as Chris Thompson (remember the one with the girly voice?) and Terry McNamara, who’s still going out with Catherine Eggleston. She’s going to the Comp too, but she was put into a different class. The dunces’ one probably, ha ha.

  Anyway, I think secondary school is going to be OK after all.

  Wonder how many euros I’ll get for $50. There’s a really cool top in River Island that I might try on tomorrow.

  Twenty to eight, Tuesday, 9th September.

  Tomorrow is Dad’s birthday. He’ll be thirty-six, I think. I was going to get him a bottle of the aftershave he always uses, when I realised that it would make him smell nice for Marjorie Baloney, so I didn’t. He’s getting a book token now, which is really far more useful.

  I’m sure he’d love to read a book, if the newspaper didn’t take him so long every day. He’ll have plenty of time for reading during the Christmas holidays, when he’s off work.

  Can you believe that he’s still meeting Marjorie? Even though I’m pretty sure they’re just friends, it’s still a bit embarrassing, at their age. I’m not sure how old Marjorie is, but I’m willing to bet she’s at least thirty-six. Probably a lot more. I bet that’s why she dyes her hair, to disguise the grey.

  Mam did not have one single bit of grey – that was definitely NOT the reason she coloured her hair. And Mam’s looked really natural anyway, not a bit fake.

  I haven’t seen Bumble since the first day of school, but we’ve been on the phone a lot. At least, I’ve been ringing him a lot – he isn’t great at phoning, which I suppose is typical of boys. He says he really likes the Comp. He says they get lots of homework, especially science, but he’s good at that, so he doesn’t really mind.

  It’s kind of cool to have different teachers for every subject. A lot better than having to look at Santa all day long, with his wonky eyes and red-haired ears. We have a lovely teacher for English and social studies called Miss Purtill. She’s youngish, only about twenty-three or four I’d say, and she’s got bobbed blonde hair and grey eyes, and she has real classy clothes that you know didn’t come from Penney’s.

  She smells great too – sort of flowery, but not too strong. And her nails are always perfectly done. (I’ve stopped biting mine again, by the way. We’re allowed nail varnish in this school, so I’m going to get a bottle of pearly pink, like Miss Purtill wears. It’s so feminine.)

  So anyway, I’ve decided that Miss Purtill is just what Dad needs to get him away from Marjorie – which is why I’ve been mentioning her a lot at home (Miss Purtill obviously, not Marjorie). I’ve been saying what a great teacher she is too, so he’ll be going in to see her with a really positive attitude.

  And next to art, English is my best subject – I’ve always got high marks in it. And everyone does well at social studies; it’s just that kind of subject, so Miss Purtill will be giving Dad a good report. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that Dad will ask her out to dinner or something, and that’ll be the end of him and Marjorie Baloney.

  Now I’d better stop. I have an essay on the War of Independence to finish, and history is far from my best subject, so it’s going to take quite a while.

  Oh by the way, I’m planning to cook Dad a birthday dinner on Friday night, which should be interesting, as I’ve never really cooked a full meal on my own before.

  After dinner, Friday, 12th September.

  I am NEVER cooking anything ever again. It was a total and utter disaster.

  I decided to do Hawaiian Pork Chops, because they sounded dead easy – just chops with pineapple rings sitting on top of them. Except that I bought pineapple pieces instead of rings by mistake, so I tried to join the pieces together to make circles, which was very messy and not all that successful. The chops got a bit burnt too, while I was trying to make swans out of the serviettes. I covered the black parts with pineapple pieces, but it didn’t make them taste any better.

  Dad was great. He said it all tasted wonderful, and he ate every bit of his chop, even the fat, which I thought was really nice of him. He ate some of the rice too, even though it was extremely salty because I thought ‘tsp’ meant tablespoon instead of teaspoon.

  Dad sure drank loads of water.

  At least the dessert was OK – baked apples in the microwave with a dollop of Ben & Jerry’s on top. You can’t really go wrong with dessert as long as Ben & Jerry’s is in there somewhere.

  Dad and Marjorie Baloney are going out to dinner tomorrow night, and I suppose whatever they get will be a lot tastier than burnt pork chops with broken pineapple rings on top, but as Granny Daly would
say, IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS.

  Marjorie gave Dad a silver photo frame for his birthday, which I thought showed very little imagination. I was going to suggest that he put a photo of the family in there – meaning one of him, Mam and me – but then I decided it would be more mature just to ignore it. He hasn’t put anything into it yet anyway, which is a big relief.

  I can’t wait till he meets Miss Purtill.

  I’m still pretending not to see Marjorie across the street now, although she always waves over at me. She doesn’t even notice that I’m ignoring her. Some people are so unobservant.

  Half past six, Tuesday, beginning of October.

  Bumble is auditioning for the part of Danny in Grease – that’s the Christmas show the Comp is putting on. I’ve offered to help him with his lines, but so far he hasn’t asked me. Imagine I never knew Bumble could sing. Actually I can’t imagine him hip-hopping to ‘Summer Loving’, but I do hope he gets the part – it would be cool to see him onstage at Christmas.

  I’m not sure how I feel about Christmas this year. Everything is bound to remind Dad and me of Mam, since she was here for all the other ones. And we always used to hang the decorations on the tree together – it was kind of a family tradition.

  We’d wait till Dad got home from work, and I’d do the low down ones and Mam would be in the middle and Dad would do the high bits, and at the end Dad would lift me up and I’d hang the star on top, and then Mam would make hot chocolate with marshmallows, and we’d play Pictionary while we drank it, and I’d win and Dad would come last. It was always the same, every year.

  I can’t believe it’s almost a year since I’ve seen Mam. She hasn’t mentioned coming back to Ireland for Christmas – maybe she’s planning to surprise me.