The only person who speaks to Cava-Sue regular-like is my nan from Chadwell Heath. Nan is trying not to get involved in this ’cos Nan and my mum don’t get on. Nan is my dad’s mother. Nan jars Mum’s head by coming over to our house on Sundays and making gravy without lumps and going through our fridge looking at sell-by dates and making us watch
Last of the Summer Wine
repeats and then falling asleep sitting on the remote control with her teeth out, snoring.
Mum says that Nan has never liked her anyhow ’cos back in 1985 Dad used to have a girlfriend called Flo who had her typing qualification, a green bike with a shopping basket, and mousey brown hair with a side part who went to church, and Nan never ever got over the fact that Dad dumped Flo for Mum, ’cos Mum used to wear a tube skirt and a tight sweater and they used to go to see bands in Romford called stuff like Level 42 and come home drunk on brandy.
I just want my family to all get along.
There is no one else for me to talk to about all of this. My brother, Murphy, and dad, Brian, are neither use nor bloody ornament, as Nan would say. They spend all night in the living-room chatting rubbish about West Ham Football Club transfer rumors and then whenever I mention Cava-Sue running away from home it’s like they’ve gone deaf.
I have more sensible conversation with our Staffy, Penny, and believe me she’ll be dead soon as the entire street is in a conspiracy to feed her until she is as big as a small horse, and despite being on a strict low-fat/low-sugar diet I found her at number thirty-four just yesterday in Mrs. Khan’s kitchenette guzzling lamb passanda with a keema nan. She was blowing off garlic and coriander farts all night. Does Kirsten-who-is-trained know anything about dogs?
To make matters worse, me and my best mate, Carrie Draper, have fallen out big time. Carrie has been my best friend in the whole world since Year Seven but then she met this rapper called Bezzie who was a right clown and she turned into a right drippy tart about him. Well, I said some stuff I maybe shouldn’t, like that he was a munter and had no skills as an emcee, and now even though Carrie’s split up with Bezzie ’cos he says she’s a dirty skank, Carrie’s still not talking to me, just ’cos I was the one who gave her all her stuff back, when Bezzie wanted to chuck it over her garden wall.
You can’t do right for doing wrong in this world can you?
Can someone from Fast-Track Family Feud help me make friends again with Carrie ’cos if I got that sorted out then maybe I could do the A-Levels/Cava-Sue/Nan/Mum/Dog’s obesity problems on my own?
Thank you for reading my letter. We are all available to appear on Fast-Track Family Feud on ITV2 whenever you would like and look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Shiraz Bailey Wood
I printed this out and sent it today. On reflection, maybe I shouldn’t have said that we were all available to go on telly, but I got a little bit carried away.
FRIDAY 3RD OCTOBER
It is my sixteenth birthday today. I didn’t tell anyone at school ’cos they’d all want to know what I was doing and the answer is nothing. Mum asked if I wanted to go to the Wimpy for an ice cream sundae or something. I said no ’cos a) the Wimpy closed down in 2001 and b) I’m not four. Mum said I should stop with the lip or I wouldn’t be getting my present, so I shut up quick. Dunno know why I bothered ’cos it was a fluffy hot-water bottle. A bloody fluffy hot-water bottle?! Having paid a bit of attention in geography recently the last thing I’m going to need with global warming is a hot-water bottle. Mum doesn’t give a crap about global warming, she says it’ll be nice to get a bit of sun without having to mix with foreigners and eat their food.
If the ice caps do melt and polar bears begin swimming further afield for sustenance I hope they find her betting shop.
Nan came round and gave me a £5 WH Smith’s gift card and a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. No card from Cava-Sue.
MONDAY 6TH OCTOBER
Carrie and Uma were caught shoplifting in Superdrug in Ilford Mall this afternoon! They got taken down to the Ilford police station and were given a warning. Kezia said that Carrie had two cans of Ambre Solaire spray-tan up her sweater and Uma had a box of condoms and some blue Bourjois eyeshadow down the front of her jeans. Barney Draper had to go and pick Carrie up, then he rang my mum to see if I’d been there with them too. “No Barney,” said my mother with a face as smug as smug. “My daughter was in school. In fact she’s here now doing her homework.”
My mum put the phone down and cackled like a maniac. “See what I told you?” she said. “Carrie Draper, shoplifting in Superdrug! They ruined that girl. Ruined her.”
Carrie isn’t ruined. But she will be if she carries on hanging out with Uma Brunton-Fletcher.
Sometimes I see Carrie looking over at me when I’m having a laugh in class with Sean and Kezia and everyone, like she wants to join in and all that. I just blank her though ’cos I’m not getting shouted at again.
THURSDAY 9TH OCTOBER
Still no word back from
Fast-Track Family Feud.
I’m well disappointed. I thought we’d be right up their street. I should never have mentioned about Penny farting. The TV producers would have found out for themselves soon enough when she let one rip and the skin on their faces started melting. I’ve stopped her sleeping in my bed recently ’cos the smell is so bad it can actually wake you up. If you think about that, that’s quite impressive.
FRIDAY 10TH OCTOBER
A birthday card from Cava-Sue arrived today. Four days late but better than nothing. The message said,
For my favorite little sister from Cava-Sue (and Lewis too!).
It was one of Lewis’s homemade efforts. Black cardboard, words and pictures cut out of magazines then glued on to card, with wonky scribbling on it.
Cava-Sue used to say that Lewis’s art is full of hidden meaning and one day he’ll be a famous artist and we’ll sell these cards and make a fortune.
I looked at the card for ages and tried to find some hidden meaning, but the only one I could come up with was he probably should have his head looked at.
There was no message about her coming home.
SATURDAY 11TH OCTOBER
Went to Ilford Mall with my mother today ’cos she wanted to look at a new washing machine ’cos the old one is knackered. We walked through the town center and my mum was rabbiting on and on about me getting a job and earning some money ’cos then I can help her out buying things like washing machines ’cos after all it’ll be me that’s using it too. I felt like saying, “Yeah, unless I run away from home like Cava-Sue did,” but I didn’t. Me and Mum get along just fine as long as we don’t talk about important things. We wandered through the mall and then my mum’s face lit up like someone had flipped a switch on her head ’cos she saw Collette Brown outside Cheeky’s. Colette’s face seemed to be a bit green.
“’Ere Collette, how are you love?” my mum said.
“Oh all right, Mrs. Wood. Not so bad,” said Collette. “Just getting some fresh air.”
“Ooh, you been out on the town last night, have you?” smiled my mum.
“Erm . . . Not really,” said Collette. “I’m, erm, well . . . I’m three months pregnant, actually.”
“Oh!” my mum gasped, really searching about for words. “Ooooh . . . erm, congratulations, lovey! Good for you!”
“Thanks very much,” said Collette, quietly.
“And it’s you and your fella Curt — ” began my mum.
“Earl!” said Collette, quickly. “It’s my boyfriend Earl’s. Earl who owns Cheeky’s.”
“Yes, Earl,” said Mum. “That’s right.”
I tried to imagine Collette Brown with a baby. Collette pushing a pram. Collette changing a nappy with her acrylic nail extensions. Collette sitting in every night covered in poo with her tiara on. I couldn’t quite picture it.
(“You don’t have to get knocked up aged twenty by some random, Shiraz!” that’s what Cava-Sue said.)
“So was it a surprise?” smiled my mum.
“Well, yeah,” said Collette. “But y’know we would have probably wanted kids soon enough anyway. Earl loves children.”
“Good for you both,” said my mum. Collette smiled a nervous smile. Then she retched a bit.
“Well, we’ll see you again soon, eh? You take it easy,” said my mum as we walked off.
My mum thought for a bit then she said to me, “See, she’s not daft that one? Knocked up by the owner of Cheeky’s? She’ll be quids in there with him. She’ll want for nothing.”
“I think she’s quite young to have a baby,” I said.
“She’s twenty years old,” said my mum. “I’m glad I had mine early, got ’em out of the way. There’s nothing worse than an old mum. So narrow-minded.”
We got the bus home and I went straight into my room and started learning some French vocabulary for my test on Monday. I’ve heard a language GCSE can be dead useful for getting a good job.
TUESDAY 21ST OCTOBER
FAST-TRACK FAMILY FEUD
JETSTAR TELEVISION
ROOM 345 ORION HOUSE
LONDON WC3 H78
Dear Shiraz Bailey Wood,
Thank you very much for getting in touch with
Fast-Track Family Feud
! We really enjoyed hearing all about your dilemma involving your mum, your nan, your sister Cava-Sue, your brother Murphy, your dad, and not forgetting your famous flatulent dog!
The team at
Fast-Track Family Feud
really feel that we could help you with your problems. Here at
Fast-Track Family Feud,
we give you the chance to air your grievances in public and speak to a trained counselor.
Please could you give our researchers, Jocasta and Samantha, a call at 0-800-435-7880 (we’ll call you right back) and we can get the ball rolling.
Yours sincerely,
Zac Flinty-Farnham (Producer)
WEDNESDAY 12TH NOVEMBER
The Wood family appeared on national telly today! No, I can hardly believe it either but it is TOTALLY TRUE. Go look on YouTube if you think I’m a faker. Luther uploaded it right away and it’s had about two thousand seven hundred views already. I am a bloody TV star! The whole thing is totally off the scale. I can hardly explain it. I suppose I should start at the beginning. First thing was that I got a letter back from the
Fast-Track Family Feud
people. That was a shock enough ’cos I’d been watching the show all week and they’d had this one family on last Tuesday called the Barret-Coopers from Doncaster who’d blown up their uncle’s house with a pipe bomb over a row about lottery scratch cards, so I was beginning to think that maybe our family feud wasn’t that exciting after all.
So the letter arrived and I was proper BUZZING. I rang this woman called Jocasta who sounded quite posh and she rang me straight back to save my bill and she said, “So is your family still having problems, Shiraz?”
So I said “Well, Jocasta, my mum is chugging her way through forty Lucky Strikes a day and cries when you mention Cava-Sue and last thing I heard about Cava-Sue was that she was wrapping herself into a tinfoil representation of a Victorian chimney sweep and standing very still on a box near the Houses of Parliament to entertain tourists, so you could say that, yeah.”
Jocasta laughed out proper loud then, before she realized I wasn’t kidding.
“And what about your nan? Has she been any help?” asked Jocasta.
“Well,” I sighed, “Nan was over on Sunday, but she had a right go at Mum about not trying to sort things with Cava-Sue. So Mum told her to go and shove her advice somewhere very rude indeed, then Nan shouted “You’ve no heart, Di! Just a swinging brick on a rope!” Then Nan left without even eating her Sara Lee chocolate gateau, threatening to move to Benidorm and get the hell out of it, which made me right upset, although Murphy was quite pleased as he got Nan’s cake.”
Then Jocasta asked me about our fat dog and I said that no one wanted to take Penny out for a stroll no more on account of the abuse we receive from passersby in cars about animal cruelty, which I don’t really agree with ’cos if you’d seen how happy that dog is when she’s eating jam cookies you’d not think it was cruel at all. Jocasta asked me a load more questions about the family and I rambled on for a bit, then she said she’d put in “a provisional date” of Wednesday, November twelfth. Jocasta said if I gave her some contact details for my family members and connected parties then we “could get this show on the road.”
I went downstairs and my mum was sitting in front of the telly watching
Britain’s Nightmare Plumbers
in her cardigan which used to be white but is now nicotine-colored. I sat beside her on the couch and she put her arm around my shoulder and played with my hair like she used to do when I was a little girl. I got the letter from
Fast-Track Family Feud
out of my pocket and said, “’Ere, Mum, don’t flip out or nothing but I wrote to these people the other day.”
I thought she would hit the roof and start jarring me head but she didn’t. She just read the letter quietly and sighed and said, “Well that Kirsten-who-is-trained woman who sits backstage seems like she knows what she’s doing, don’t she? Maybe we should give it a go.” And before I knew it we were all going on national telly to discuss our problems. Me, Mum, Dad, Murphy, Nan, Cava-Sue, and even the dog.
Fast-Track Family Feud
is filmed in Norwich and the TV people promised to pay for us all to go there and to stay in a hotel overnight and said we’d get our makeup done and said we’d be treated like proper celebrities. I was well excited even though I was dreading the train journey to Norwich ’cos one hour fifty minutes is a long time to be stuck on a train with Mum, Dad, Nan, Murphy, and Penny, especially as Nan and Mum would only talk via me like I was an interpreter, plus our dog spent the first half hour out of Liverpool Street Station either washing her own bum or hell-bent on getting to the buffet car ’cos she could smell bacon sandwiches.
“Ask your nan if she wants a cup of tea,” said my mum.
“Mum says do you want a cup of tea, Nan?” I’d say.
“No I’m fine thanks, tell your mother.”
“Nan says she’s fine thanks, Mum,” I’d say. Then they both sat with their arms crossed staring out of the window, while Murphy and Dad read the sports section of the
Sun
and pretended everything was fine.