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Monday

Skinny Melon and me have decided that we're going to keep diaries.

Skinny is going to start hers on Saturday, after she buys a special book to do it in. She says it's no use doing it in an ordinary pocket diary with spaces for each day because there will be times when we feel like writing a great deal and other times when we may not want to write anything at all, except perhaps what we had to eat for lunch. I agree with Skinny. But I feel inspired to start immediately and can't wait to buy a special book, so I'm using an old writing notebook with wide lines (I can't stand narrow ones).

I think that when a person is writing a diary, they ought to introduce themselves in case it's unearthed in a hundred years, when nobody would know who has written it. I will say right off that this is the diary of me, Cherry Louise Waterton, age eleven (and two months), and I am writing for prosperity, in other words, the future. To begin with, I suppose I must put down some facts, such as, for instance, that I'm of average height and neither fat not thin but somewhere in between, have short brown hair, with bangs, and a chubby round face (I think I have to be honest).

I know that it's round because I saw these charts in a magazine at the dentist's office, showing all different shapes of faces: heart shaped, egg shaped, diamond shaped, turnip shaped, square shaped, and round.

Mine is definitely round. Unfortunately. Round-faced people tend to have blobby noses, which is what I have.

The school I go to is Ruskin Manor. It's not the school I would have chosen if I had a choice. If I had a choice, I would have chosen a boarding school because I think boarding school would be fun and also it would take me away from Slimey. Anything that took me away from Slimey would have to be a good thing. I did ask Mum if I could go to a boarding school, but she just said, "Over my dead body." She was really pleased when I got into Ruskin because it's the school she wanted for me. She says all the others are rough.

Ruskin is okay, I suppose, though we have tons of homework, which Mum, needless to say, approves of. On the other hand, I have only been there for three weeks, so there's no telling how I might feel by the end of the term. Anything could happen. Our class teacher, Mr. Sherwood, who at the moment seems quite nice, could, for instance, suddenly grow fangs, or the principal could turn out to be a werewolf.

I mean, you just never know. (The principal is called Mrs. Hoad. What kind of name is Hoad? It sounds sinister to me.)

My best friend, Melanie, also goes to Ruskin. Her last name is Skinner, and she is very tall and thin, so I call her Skinny Melon, or Skinbag, or sometimes just Skin. John Lloyd, a boy in our class, said last week that we were the "long and the short of it," but that's only because Skinny Melon is so tall, not because I am short. Skin's face shape wasn't shown in the magazine description. It's long and thin, the same as the rest of her. Sausage shaped, I suppose you would call it. Like a hot dog.

Me and Skin have been best friends since third grade, and we're going to go on being best friends "through and thin and come what may." We've made a pledge and signed it and buried it in plastic bag under an apple tree in my mother's garden. If we ever decided to stop being best friends, we'll have to dig up the pledge and solemnly burn it. This is what we've agreed on.

I live at 141 Arethusa Road, London W5. W5 is Ealing and it's right at the end of the red and green lines on the Underground. Skin and I once decided to go and see what Epping was like because we had heard there was a forest there, but we got on the wrong train and went to a place called Fairlop instead.

Ealing doesn't have any forests, just a bit of a scrubby downtown that you can walk from Arethusa Road. There's also a park where Skinny Melon and me tale her dog, Lulu, to meet other dogs. I wish more than anything, I could have a dog! Well, almost more than anything.

What I would wish for more than anything is to turn the clock back, which is something cannot do unless you happen to be living in a science-fiction novel where people travel into the past and change things. I would love to travel into the past and change things. That's what I would like more than anything else. But after that, the next thing I would like is a dog.

Any sort of dog would do. Big dog, small dog, I wouldn't mind.

The reason I am suddenly starting to write this diary is that Mrs. James, who is our English teacher, said that is wold be a good thing to do. She said that there are several reasons for keeping a diary. These are some that I can remember:

a. It's good practice when it comes to writing essays for school.
b. It's a record of your life and will be interesting to look back on when you're older.
c. It's a social document (for historical purposes, etc.)
d. It can help to clear out the cupboard.

The class did not immediately understand what Mrs. James meant about clearing our the cupboard, and some people started giggling and pretending to open cupboard doors and take out cans of fruit and stuff and throw them away. But Mrs. James said that the cupboard she was talking about was "the cupboard in your head." She said that sometimes the cupboard in your head gets clogged up with bits and pieces that may worry you or upset you or make you angry and that writing them down in a diary helps get rid of them. She said, "We're all got a lot of clutter that needs cleaning out." She told us to go home and think about it -- to look into our cupboards and see what was there.

Amanda Miles told me the next day that she'd looked into her cupboard, and as far as she could see, it was pretty empty, except for the grudge she still had against Mr. Good, who made her stand in the front hall for throwing water at Andy Innes (which she didn't do). She said that she didn't think that was enough to start writing in a diary.

"Are you going to?" Amanda asked me.

To which I just made mumbling noises, since there are some things you can't talk about to other people, and certainly not to Amanda Miles. The thing in my cupboard is one of them.

Slimey Roland is the thing in my cupboard. I'd do anything to get rid of him. I wish he'd go and walk under a bus. I expect Mum would be sad for a while, but she'd get over it. She can't really love him. Nobody could.

I nearly had a heart attack when Mum said she was going to marry him. I mean, I really just couldn't believe it. I thought she had better taste. I told her so, and she slapped me and then burst into tears and said that she was sorry but why did I have to be so selfish and unpleasant all the time.

I'm not selfish and unpleasant. At least, I don't think I am. But it's enough to make you act as though you are, when your mum goes and marries a dweeb. And I had to go to their wedding, which wasn't even a proper wedding, not the actual marrying part. Just Mum and Slime, me and the Skinbag, who came to keep me company, Aunt Jilly, who is Mum's sister, and this man who was doing it. Marrying Mum and Slimey, I mean.

When he'd finished he said that now they could kiss each other, and they did, and I looked at Skin an made this sick face (which I am rather good at), and Skin told me afterward that I was horrible to do such a thing at my mum's wedding. It's all right for her, I know she doesn't have a dad, but who'd want Slimey?

One of the worst things about him is his name -- Roland Butter. Can you imagine? I thought at first it was just one of his dorky jokes, like: "Where do pigs leave their cars? At porking meters." Ha-ha-ha -- I don't think so. Mum, however, said no, that his name is really Roland Butter. He's an artist, sort of. He draws these silly picture of elves and teddy bears and stuff for children's books, and he has this stationery with a drawing of a roll and butter on it. Mum thinks it's brilliant, but that's because she's in love. If you ask me, it's pathetic, and I am certainly not going to change my last name to Butter, which is what Mum would like me to do. Cherry Butter! How could you get anywhere with a name like that?

Mum's name is Pat, and guess what? He calls her Butter Pat. It's so embarrassing.

Dad used to call her Patty. She was Patty and he as Greg, unless they were having one of their fights and then they didn't call each other anything at all except names that I am not going to write in this diary in case it is ever published. It's true that Mum and Dad did have fights often, but what I can't understand is why they couldn't just make up like Skinny and I do.

We had this really awful fight once, me and Skin, about a book I'd lent her, which she lost by leaving it on a bus and then refused to buy me a new one because she said I'd never paid her back the money she'd lent me ages ago when we went swimming and I'd left my wallet behind, which definitely and positively was not true. We had this absolute megafight and swore never to speak to each other again. But life wasn't the same without Skinny, and Skinny said it wasn't the same without me, and so after about a week, we made up, and we've been best friends ever since. Why couldn't Mum and Dad do that?

Dad's living in Southampton now. It's near New Forest and is really nice, but it takes forever to get there. I can't go out with him every weekend like I used to when he and Mum first split up and he was still living in London. Then, he'd come and pick me up and we'd do all sorts of things together -- McDonald's, museums, shopping. It was really fun. After he got a new job, though, and moved to Southampton, it meant I could only see him on holidays and school vacations.

I could have gone with him if I'd wanted. If I'd really wanted. I bet I could. I only stayed with Mum because I thought she'd be lonely. But then she went and met Slimey Roland at some stupid party and got married, and now she's nuts about him, and I'm the one that's lonely, not Mum. So I should have gone with Dad.

Except that Dad's got a new wife named Rosemary, and he's crazy about her, so maybe he wouldn't want me, either. Maybe nobody wants me. Mum says she does, but how could she go and marry this creep sf that was the case? He's really slimy. Look at him! Ha! He's not the only one that can draw. There's nothing to it. That's exactly how he looks. Straggly red hair and a beard and this long, droopy face. And he's all freckled with pale skin like a mushroom. Whatever does Mum see in him?

She says that if I love her, I'll try and love Slimey, for her sake. I've tried. But how can you love someone who has freckles and makes these awful jokes all the time? Another thing he likes to do is slip these cards under my bedroom door while I'm sleep. It's sort of creepy. I find them lying there waiting for me when I wake up. They're all covered in sappy drawings, which I thing are supposed to be messages. I don't bother to read them. I just throw them straight into the wastebasket.

I know why he's doing it. He's trying to impress me. Well, good luck!

Mum's best friend, Carol, who is my godmother but who has now gone to live in Austin, Texas (though she has promised to send me a real American baseball bat for my Christmas present), told me that Mum and Dad had become unhappy together on account of "developing in different directions," which meant they didn't really have anything in common anymore -- apart from me, that is, but I guess children don't count.

Carol said that it's nice for Mum to be with Slimey because they're both in the same business, with Slimey being an illustrator of children's books and Mum being something called a copy editor, which means going through books that other people have written and making sure they've got their facts right and have put all the commas and periods in the right places and haven't called their heroine Anne Smith on one page and Anne Jones on another.

All I can say is that it may be nice for Mum, but it isn't very nice for me. And if writing a diary means clearing Slimey Roland out of the cupboard, then I am ALL FOR IT.