I blame Chantalle Strong in class 10C for all of this. Last summer when Uma had a party (or a bashment as Uma was calling it), Chantalle went home at 1am (two hours past curfew), fell through the door with her eyes spinning as big as dinner plates, then grabbed her mother and started cuddling her.
“Cuddling me?!” Chantalle’s mum told my mum. “I thought, right, she’s GOTTA be on drugs.”
My mother knows all about Chantalle Strong taking E. My mother even knows all about where Chantalle got the E from. My mother reckons she knows everything that has ever happened to everyone in Goodmayes EVER. That’s why it takes her two hours to pop to the bleeding shop for an
Ilford Bugle
and six eggs. She is on bloody surveillance.
7
PM
— THIS IS THE ANNOYING THING. What has Chantalle Strong got to do with me? I have never ever taken E and NEVER EVER WILL. As far as I can see E just makes you dance about like a knob, pulling a weird face with drool in the corners of your mouth and the whites of your eyes showing. Do I need to look more like a minger at parties? I already spend every night out holding Carrie’s hoodie while she decides which lad to snog. This is so unfair.
7:05
PM
— AND ANYWAY, knowing my luck, I’d be the one who would take a pill and end up on life support getting sung to by the Jonas Brothers (and I totally hate the Jonas Brothers).
8
PM
— Carrie just called. She’s not allowed to go to Uma’s party either. Carrie says she’s going to go with her mum and dad to the New Year’s party at Luciano’s Italian Restaurant in Romford. I told my mum and she just tutted and said, “LUCIANO’S? Very nice! Well
bonne chance
to them!”
I could tell from her face that she didn’t really mean it. Her mouth was all puckered like Penny’s bumhole.
MONDAY 31ST DECEMBER — NEW YEAR’S EVE
10
AM
— I am STILL not allowed to go to Uma’s party. I have tried everything. I have tried ignoring everybody, shouting at them, mumbling to myself like I’m having a mental episode, crying dead loud, and my last attempt was telling Murphy to tell Mum that I am upstairs starving myself to death. (I’m not really. I’ve got a raspberry Poptart and a box of spready cheese triangles under my pillow, not that anyone cares.)
4:40
PM
— Mum is trying to suck up to me. Mum says we can “have our own party” — me, her, and Dad. She has bought Dad some lagers and herself a bottle of that Peach Lambrella wine you always see advertised on the sides of buses.
Peach Lambrella: the ultimate party perker-upper!
Mum says she saw it on sale and just liked the name.
4:45
PM
— I hope to God Mum’s past getting knocked up again or the poor brat would get called Lambrella Wood, even if it was a boy.
5
PM
— Cava-Sue is going to watch some bands play at Trafalgar Square with Lewis from college. Lewis is a boy who is her friend, but not her boyfriend, so she says, which doesn’t explain why she’s been covering her spots with makeup and sticking panty-liners to her boobs to fill out her bra since noon. Mum keeps moaning that Cava-Sue’s got no business going off to central London, which is eleven miles away, and Cava-Sue shouldn’t come running to her when she gets trampled by police horses, blown up by terrorists, then raped on the subway home.
Luckily for her, Cava-Sue is eighteen and NOT IN PRISON LIKE ME, so she is still going.
5:30
PM
— Cava-Sue has just come downstairs dressed for her night out wearing BLACK EYELINER. Mum just nearly choked on a chocolate-covered brazil nut. “Have you been learning to be a clown at that Theatre Studies A-Level, Cava-Sue!?” Mum laughed, “’cos you’re certainly dressed like somefin’ from Billy Smart’s Circus!”
Mum then moaned about the lovely pink tracksuit she got Cava-Sue for Christmas that’s still got the TJ Maxx tags on. “What you gotta wear those tatty jeans for!” she moaned. “All that cash me and yer father spend on keeping you nice and you look like a bag of crap.”
Cava-Sue has just left, slamming the door so loud the Christmas-tree fairy fell off and startled the dog.
6
PM
— MURPHY HAS GONE OUT NOW!!! He’s gone to Tariq’s for a fireworks display. Tariq’s uncles have got loads of fireworks left over from Eid so they’re going to let them all off at midnight and have food. I can’t believe it. Murphy is thirteen years old. He eats his own snot. He spends all day watching
Police, Camera, Action
reruns and has to be forced by my mother to change his underpants twice a month. AND HE’S GOING TO A NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY AND I’M NOT. I hate him.
6:30
PM
— The first people have arrived at Uma’s. Luther Dinsdale from my class has just been dropped off by his dad. And Kezia Marshall too. I am spiraling into some sort of depression that not even my
Hip Hop Honeyz
CD can lift.
8
PM
— Mum must feel guilty. She has given me a glass of Peach Lambrella. It tastes of fizzy liquid farts but it blocks out the pain.
8:05
PM
— Actually this Lambrella stuff is not that bad. If you sip it quickly, it just tastes a bit like Summer Fruits liquid detergent. There are fifteen people in Uma’s garden, smoking, shouting, and LAUGHING. I am really annoyed now. Don’t worry, Mother — I’ll just watch the highlights tomorrow on everyone’s MySpace slideshows, YOU OLD WITCH.
9
PM
— Chantalle has just texted to say Uma’s laundry room is full of Year Eleven boys from Stratford Hill Academy drinking bottles of lager and where are me and Carrie?
9:10
PM
— WHERE AM I?? I am stuck in the living-room with my mum and dad who are a bit pissed and dancing to their
Best of Level 42
album! My mother dances like a football mascot. Her arms and feet go at different speeds.
9:47
PM
— Oh God. My mum and dad are slow-dancing to a song called “Careless Whisper.” I have got dead bad hiccups and am going to sneak another glass of Lambrella to my room and phone some people.
10:30
PM
— Why is Carrie not picking up her phone?!!!! Why?! Why has Chantalle or no one even rang again from Uma’s to see where I am? NO ONE CARES ABOUT ME. NO ONE. I WISH I WAS DEAD. I feel a bit sick now. Mum has just been into my bedroom and STOLEN my glass of Peach Lambrella back off me and says I should lie down and drink water as my face looks green.
10:47
PM
— Dear Diary, I amm stilll notapppy aboout not beeein aloowed to Uma’s party ’cos. ’COS . . . I am not a kid. And now I have been put to bed like a bloody kid!!!! WHY DOES EVRYONE TREET ME LIKE A BLOOODY KID AND I AM NOT ONE!! What is wrong with me and why are the bunk beds feeling like they are moving. Oh god I feel totally crap. Oh. Oh god. Oh no
TUESDAY 1ST JANUARY — NEW YEAR’S DAY
Nobody in the Wood household is speaking to me. NOBODY. Not Mum. Not Dad (no change there). Not Murphy. (Don’t care about him, he can go spin on one.) Not Cava-Sue (especially not Cava-Sue as I vommed all over her bunk bed last night). Even the dog is pretending to be deaf and refusing to play Fetch the Squeaky Bart Simpson Doll.
“Ugggghhhh, Shiraz!” screamed Cava-Sue, when she got back indoors at 2
AM
. “This room stinks of chopped carrots now! Oh bleeding hell, I hate living here! Why do you have to be such a selfish little git? Mum says you only had one and a half glasses of fake wine too??!”
The only clean duvet cover Cava-Sue could find was her old Barbie one. That annoyed her even more ’cos she thinks she’s like a total woman since she started at that bloody college.
3
PM
— I have a blob of Wite-Out on my forehead and it won’t come off. After I spewed I think I tried to Wite-Out some stuff out of the diary and then fell asleep and got my face stuck to the page. I have scrubbed and scrubbed but it will not budge.
Murphy laughed so much when he saw, I thought he was going to poo himself.
4
PM
— Carrie just called to wish us all Happy New Year. I told her that I’d had “a chilled one” with my mum and dad. Carrie sounded like she had a brilliant time at Luciano’s. Carrie drank a glass of real champagne called Pikey Hidesick and there was a Robbie Williams tribute singer and everything.
Carrie said the singer was EXACTLY like Robbie but he was called Keith and he had a double chin and was shorter and couldn’t really do the high notes in “Angels” but he was dead good anyway. It was £50 per person and you got your food and the Pikey Hidesick for that too.
8
PM
— I told Mum about the restaurant and the singer. Mum is still officially not speaking to me but she couldn’t help herself.
“Fifty quid?” she said. “Fifty QUID? Ha! I remember when Carrie’s mother used to earn FIFTY PENCE an hour at Goodmayes Working Men’s Club, pouring pints!” Mum shook her head and chucked the dog another Sweet Chilli Pringle. “She used to turn up in runny tights! Runny tights!”
What a weird thing to remember.
THURSDAY 3RD JANUARY
Went to Ilford Mall with Mum ’cos Nan had bought her a foot spa from Boots which she didn’t want. “When do I get the chance to bleedin’ sit down?!” Mum tutted.
I felt like saying “Every bleedin’ night!” but I didn’t, ’cos she’s just started speaking to me again and it’s stuff like this that gets me called “a gob on a stick.”
Mum wanted the foot spa money refunded to spend on “Back To School” clothes for Murphy. Apparently Murphy needs new school trousers and a sweatshirt as he’s grown almost six inches since last summer. Mum is dead proud of Murphy growing. I dunno why. He is turning into a giant. I reckon we should sell him to China and he could be in one of those traveling freak shows that I saw on the Discovery Channel. Mum keeps telling everyone we meet how big Murphy is and making him stand back to back with her to prove it.
Mum said Murphy didn’t have to come shopping. Mum said Murphy was allowed to stay at home ’cos “shopping isn’t men’s work.” Murphy cackled when Mum said this and texted Tariq to bring over his Xbox. We left them in the living-room playing
Star Wars Battle Front
and making fart noises under their arms with their hands.
We saw Collette Brown, Cava-Sue’s ex-best friend, coming out of Cheeky’s Vertical Tanning Salon and Nail Emporium on the high street. Collette looked totally beautiful, like a footballer’s girlfriend or something. Collette’s skin was really tanned and her hair was all straight and dyed white-blonde. She had long black boots on and a little fur jacket, and big thick gold hoops that actually looked like proper gold (not like the ones my mum got me for Christmas that are turning the backs of my ears green).
I felt like a right hound standing beside her in my white Umbro trackie top and Niko trainers. I kept playing with my bangs so my hand covered the Wite-Out blob.
“Happy New Year, Mrs. Wood! All right little Shiz!” Collette said. She was talking into a cell phone and smoking a ciggie at the same time. Collette’s cool like that.
“All right Collette, lovey!” said my mum, her face lighting up.
Collette chucked her cell into her white handbag that had a big D&G on the side.
“Cava-Sue all right, Mrs. W?!” Collette asked.
“Yeah, well not so bad,” said my mum. “Still studying.”
“Ooh rather her than me!” said Collette. “’Ere, I just had these done, what you reckon?”
Collette showed us her nails. They were dead long and painted pink with white tips.
“Oooh, very posh!” said my mum. I didn’t say anything. I can never think of anything to say when Collette is about.
“Freebie, ’cos I work there! I got a full set of French acrylic tips! Meant to be forty-eight pound fifty!” said Collette.
Just then a black BMW pulled up and tooted its horn. There was a big bloke with a shaved head in the front.
“’Ere, this is my lift, best go, tell Cava-Sue to call me!” shouted Collette.
“Will do, lovey. Take care of yourself!” said my mum.
Collette jumped in and they drove off, playing dead loud R&B.
“Cava-Sue won’t ring her,” I said to Mum. “Cava-Sue never rings her any more.”
“I know,” said my mother, then she looked quite sad.
We brought home Murphy two sweatshirts in two different sizes. Murphy tried them both on and he liked the bigger one better.
Mum said, “I’m taking the one that doesn’t fit back to Top Man tomorrow.”
SATURDAY 5TH JANUARY
4
AM
— Woke up in the night proper worried about going back to Mayflower. I totally KNOW Mr. Bamblebury will not have forgotten about the Mayflower Academy Winter Festival incident thingy. Kezia texted me today and said that there is a video getting put up on everyone’s MySpace that proves I was the one that caused all the trouble. Our crap PC has got a virus and won’t play Flash so I’ve not seen it yet. I believe her though.
Why, when I try really really hard not to get involved in stuff do I always end up as “A RINGLEADER”?
10
AM
— Carrie rang, she just saw the movie. Carrie said that it TOTALLY TOTALLY looks like it was me who started all the trouble. Carrie said that you can totally hear me singing the dead rude version of the Christmas carol that Miss Bunt with the moustache had taught us, called “Jesus Was A Very Special Boy.”
I AM SO GUTTED. I totally never made up those words. Luther did!
Carrie said that on the movie all the Year Nines, Tens, and Elevens are in the school hall, and the parents are all there (well mine aren’t — Mum couldn’t take time off from the bookie) and we’re singing the chorus part which goes:
“Oh how the bells begin to chime! La la la la, it’s Christmastime! Oh how our hearts all soar with joy! Jesus was a very special boy! Jesus was a very special boy!”
But me and Uma and Luther and all the back row weren’t singing the right words ’cos Luther made up other rude words weeks ago that made us wet ourselves.
So Carrie said that everyone’s singing dead loud and then Sonia Cathcart’s dad who is a Seventh Day Adventist stands up and starts waving his arms like a nutter at Miss Bunt. Carrie said that Uma, Chantalle, her, Luther and everyone else just shuts up singing then and it’s only me singing, and I’m going:
“Oh how the bells begin to chime! La la la la, it’s Christmastime! Oh how our hearts all soar with joy! Jesus was a batty batty boy! Jesus was a batty batty booooooooy!”