The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (20 page)

Full Moon

My schoolwork is plummeting down to new depths. I only got five out of twenty for spelling. I think I might be anorexic.

My father has asked me not to bring Pandora to the canal after school. He says he can’t do anything with the lads after she has gone. It’s true that she is stunningly beautiful, but the lads will just have to learn self-control. I have had to learn it. She has refused to consummate our relationship. Sometimes I wonder what she sees in me. I live in daily terror of our relationship ending.

Pandora and Pandora’s mother have joined my mother’s women’s group. No men or boys are allowed in our front room. My father had to be in charge of the creche in our dining room.

Rick Lemon’s baby daughter Herod was crawling under the table shouting: ‘Tit! Tit!’ My father kept telling Herod to shut up until I explained that Tit was Herod’s mother’s name. Herod is a very radical baby who never eats sweets and stays up until 2 AM.

My father says that women ought to be at home cooking. He said it in a whisper so that he wouldn’t be karate-chopped to death.

My father had a good day on the canal bank. He is almost through to the grass now. To celebrate he brought the skinheads and punks round to our house for a glass of home-made beer. Mrs Singh and my mother looked shocked when the lads trooped into our kitchen, but my father introduced Baz, Daz, Maz, Kev, Melv and Boz and my mother and Mrs Singh relaxed a bit.

Boz is going to help me fix the brakes on my bike, he is an expert bike-fixer. He has been stealing them since he was six.

Boz offered me a sniff of his glue today, but I declined it with thanks.

Third in Lent

All the women I know have gone to a rally to protest about a woman’s right to work. Mrs Singh has gone wearing a disguise.

Saw Rick Lemon in the park, he was pushing Herod too high on a swing. Herod was shouting: ‘Tit! Tit!’

I am loved by two women! Elizabeth Sally Broadway gave Victoria Louise Thomson a note in Science. It said: ‘Ask Adrian Mole if he wants to go out with me.’

Victoria Louise Thomson (hereafter known as V.L.T.) passed on the message. I replied to V.L.T. in the negative.

Elizabeth Sally Broadway (hereafter known as E.S. B.) looked dead sad and started to cry into her bunsen burner.

It is really wonderful to know that Pandora and Elizabeth are both in love with me.

Perhaps I am not so ugly after all.

Pandora and E.S. B. have had a fight in the playground. I am disgusted with Pandora. At the last meeting of the Pink Brigade she swore to be a pacifist all her life. Pandora won! Ha! Ha! Ha!

St Patrick’s Day. Bank Holiday(Ireland). Moon’s Last Quarter

Mr O’Leary was brought home by a police car at 10.30 PM. Mrs O’Leary came over to ask my fatherif he would help her to get Mr O’Leary upstairs to bed. My father is still over there. I can hear the music and singing through the double-glazing.

It is no joke when you need your sleep for school.

I am reading
How Children Fail
, by John Holt. It is dead good. If I fail my O levels it will be all my parents’ fault.

My creative English essay:

Spring, by A Mole

The trees explode into bud, indeed some of them are in leaf. Their branches thrust to the sky like drunken scarecrows. Their trunks writhe and twist into the earth and form a plethora of roots. The brilliant sky hovers uncertainly like a shy bride at the door of her nuptial chamber. Birds wing and scrape their erratic way into the cotton-wool clouds like drunken scarecrows. The translucent brook gurgles majestically towards its journey’s end. ‘To the sea!’ it cries, ‘to the sea!’ it endlessly repeats.

A lonely boy, his loins afire, sits and watches his calm reflection in the torrential brook. His heart is indeed heavy. His eyes fall on to the ground and rest on a wondrous majestic many-hued butterfly. The winged insect takes flightand the boy’s eyes are carried far away until they are but a speck on the red-hued sunset. He senses on the zephyr a hope for mankind.

Pandora thinks this is the best thing I have ever written, but I know I have got a long way to go until I have learned my craft.

Vernal Equinox

My mother has had all her hair cut off. She looks like one of Auntie Susan’s inmates. She doesn’t look a bit maternal any more. I don’t know whether to get her anything for Mother’s Day or not. She was going on about it last night, saying it was a commercial racket fed by gullible fools.

Fourth in Lent. Mothering Sunday

11.30 AM
. Didn’t get my mother anything so she has been in a bad mood all morning.

1 PM
. My father said, ‘If I were you, lad, I’d nip round Cherry’s and get your mother a card and present’. He gave me two pounds so I got a card saying ‘Mummy I love you’ (it was the only one left, just my luck), and five boxes of liquorice allsorts (going cheap because the boxes were squashed). She cheered up and didn’teven mind when my father took a bunch of tulips round to grandma’s and came back five hours later smelling of drink.

Pandora’s mother was taken out and spoilt in a restaurant. I will do the same for my mother when I am famous.

I have catalogued my bedroom library. I have got a hundred and fifty-one books, not counting the Enid Blytons.

I will be fifteen in eleven days. So I have only got to wait one year and eleven days to get married, should I want to.

The only thing that really worries me about my appearance now is my ears. They stick out at an angle of ninety degrees. I have checked them with my geometry set so I know it is a scientific fact.

Lady Day (Quarter Day). New Moon

I have had a spiritual awakening. Two nice men representing a religious group called the Sunshine People called at the house. They talked about how they alone could bring peace to the world. It is twenty pounds to join. I will get the money somehow. Nothing is too expensive where peace is concerned.

Tried to persuade Pandora to join the Sunshine People. She was not swayed by my arguments. They are calling round tomorrow to meet my parents and sign the agreement.

The Sunshine People came at six o’clock. My father made them stand on the doorstep in the rain. Their robes got wet through. My father said they were trying to brainwash a simple child. When they left my mother watched them walk up the cul-de-sac. She said, ‘They don’t look very charismatic now, they just look bloody wet’. I wept a few tears. I think I was weeping out of relief- twenty quid is a lot of money.

Passion Sunday. British Summer Time begins

My father forgot to change the clocks last night so I was late for the Pink Brigade’s meeting in Pandora’s lounge. We voted to exclude Pandora’s father from the meeting on the grounds of his extreme left-wing views. We have decided to back Roy Hattersley in the expected fight for the leadership.

Pandora has gone off Tony Benn since she found out that he is a lapsed aristocrat.

Claire Neilson introduced a new member, her name is Barbara Boyer. She is dead good-looking and also dead intelligent. She disagreed with Pandora over NATO’s nuclear arms policy. Pandora had to concede that China was an unknown factor. Pandora asked Claire Neilson not to bring Barbara again.

I ate my school dinner sitting next to Barbara Boyer. She is a truly wonderful girl. She pointed out that Pandora has got a lot of faults. I was forced to agree with her.

I am committing non-sexual adultery with Barbara. I am at the centre of an eternal triangle. Nigel is the only one to know: he has been sworn to secrecy.

Nigel has blabbed it all over the school. Pandora spent the afternoon in matron’s office.

All Fools’ Day. Moon’s First Quarter

Barbara Boyer has ended our brief
affaire
. I rang her up at the pet shop where she works part time cleaning the cages out. She said she couldn’t bear to see the pain in Pandora’s eyes. I asked her if it was an April Fools’ joke, she said no and pointed out that it was after 12 AM.

I have learnt an important lesson, because of lust I am without love.

I am fifteen tomorrow.

Had a shave to cheer myself up.

I am fifteen, but legally I am still a child. There is nothing I can do today that I couldn’t do yesterday. Worse luck!

Had seven cards from relations and three from friends. My presents were the usual load of Japanese rubbish, though I did get a model aeroplane from Bert that was made in West Germany.

Pandora has ignored my birthday. I don’t blame her. I betrayed her trust.

Boz, Baz, Daz, Maz, Kev and Melv came back from the canal and gave me the bumps. Boz gave me a tube of glue for my model aeroplane.

8 AM
. Britain is at war with Argentina!!! Radio Four has just announced it. I am overcome with excitement. Half of me thinks it is tragic and the other half of me thinks it is dead exciting.

10 AM
. Woke my father up to tell him Argentina has invaded the Falklands. He shot out of bed because he thought the Falklands lay off the coast of Scotland. When I pointed out that they were eight thousand miles away he got back into bed and pulled the covers over his head.

4 PM
. I have just had the most humiliating experience of my life. It started when I began to assemble mymodel aeroplane. I had nearly finished it when I thought I would try an experimental sniff of glue. I put my nose to the undercarriage and sniffed for five seconds, nothing spiritual happened but my nose stuck to the plane! My father took me to Casualty to have it removed, how I endured the laughing and sniggering I don’t know.

The Casualty doctor wrote ‘Glue Sniffer’ on my outpatient’s card.

I rang Pandora; she is coming round after her viola lesson. Love is the only thing that keeps me sane…

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