GRANDAD'S SHOP

8am

It’s Saturday and I’m sniffing Joop in Mum and Dad’s room. Dad has got a job, but it means he has to live in Germany and we only get to see him once a month.

Last week I sprayed Joop on my school jumper so I could smell Dad all day. Zoe in my class said I smelled like her Uncle Tony though, and everyone called me Uncle Tony, so now I just sniff the bottle.

8.30am

Mum’s working in Grandad’s shop today. He gave Aunty Mandy the sack last week, for giving Nanny Pam a discount, and begged mum to work last night. We have to go too because Nanny Pam's in Tenerife with her boyfriend Colin, and can't look after us. 

9.30am

We get to Grandad’s shop and he’s having a fag outside. He blocks the door to the shop with his leg, so we can’t go in. Then he tells us his list of shop rules:

1.  Don’t call me Grandad; there are lots of lovely young ladies round ‘ere that think I’m still in me forties.

2. Don’t touch anything!

3. Don't go near the aisle closest to the back door!

4.You can have one bag of pic-n-mix each, but don’t take the piss, none of the posh stuff with wrappers on. And don’t open the tub of foam bananas, I trapped a fly in there yesterday and I don’t think the bastards dead yet. 

10am

The inside of Grandad’s shop smells like wee and dettol. There is junk everywhere, and Grandad has made some of the shelves himself out of stacked up old fag boxes and planks of wood.

Me and Jenny push Josh up and down the shop in his buggy, and look at all the stuff. It’s hard pushing the buggy because the whole shop floor has thick hairy carpet. Jenny says the orange and brown swirly pattern on it is to hide all the dog poo and sick.

 Grandad sells all sorts, fishing rods, tin openers, fake stuff… We try on some Roy Ban’s sunglasses and Jenny sprays on some Melvin Klien perfume. I smell the bottle that looks like Joop but its called Dupe, it doesn't smell anything like Dad.

I ask Jenny what she thinks is in the aisle we’re not allowed in. Jenny says it’s probably guns, tear gas and grenades, but I think she’s just saying that because she’s been learning about World War One at school.

11am

An old lady asks Mum at the till if she can have a discount on a plate because it has a crack in.

Grandad snatches the plate off Mum and smashes it on the floor. Then he says, ‘You can have it for free love.’

Mum says sorry to the old lady, but she just says something about ‘bloody gyppos’ and walks out the shop.

Grandad shouts after her, ‘Don’t bother coming back unless you can afford the price tag, you tight arsed old cow…’

12pm

Grandad has gone out to the cash and carry and Mum is sorting out the rental videos near the front of the shop. 

Me and Jenny leave Josh in the garden ornament aisle with a little stone hedgehog and a bag of pic-n-mix. Then we sneak to the aisle nearest the back door.

There is lots of dressing up stuff for grown-ups. One of the outfits is really shiny and looks like a cross between a police woman and a swimming costume, and the lady on the packaging has lots of make-up on. Jenny passes me a candle that is shaped like a willy and I pretend to do a wee with it.

There’s loads of other weird stuff too. Jenny told me what condoms do last year, but I still don’t really get it. I don’t think she even understands what the Pina-Colada flavoured ones we find are for though.

1pm

Grandad comes back with lunch. He’s holding a bag of chips in one hand and is picking his nose with the other.

He serves the chips up with his hands and puts them on paper plates for us all. Me and Jenny inspect each chip for bogeys before we eat them. Mum doesn’t eat anything.

4pm

Grandad gives mum some money for working, but says that he’s taking off the money for the chips, so she only gets a tenner. I feel really angry at Grandad. I wouldn’t have eaten any of those bogey chips if I knew mum had to pay for them. When Grandad’s not looking me and Jenny stuff a load of posh pic-n-mix under Josh’s buggy.

6pm

We get home and Mum lets us ring Dad. When it’s Jenny’s turn to speak, she tells him all about the funny outfits in Grandad’s shop. I know she’s told Dad on purpose as he won’t let us go there again.

I tell Dad that I miss him and read him the postcard Nanny Pam sent us from Tenerife. He laughs when I tell him the bit about Colin eating a dodgy roast dinner at the beach bar, and losing a stone in one night.  

6.30pm

Mum has locked her bedroom door and we can hear her crying. Jenny says its because Grandad's been an arse hole and she misses Dad. We push some posh pic 'n' mix under her door until she lets us in, then we snuggle and watch Blind Date. 

LADIES NIGHT

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6pm

Mum and Dad have gone to see my Uncle Steve’s band, Spaghetti Funktion, play. Jenny and me are too young to watch a band, so we’re getting dropped off round Nanny Pam’s house.

Mum wasn’t sure about letting us go to Nanny Pam’s tonight, because she’s having one of her Ladies nights. I heard Nanny Pam tell her it would be ok though, because Derek’s put his back out, so won’t be able to perform this time.

When we get to Nanny Pam’s, Maeve answers the door. Maeve works with Nanny Pam on the fag counter in Tesco. I like her, she tells funny stories. Once she told us that her sister had collected all the hair from her Alsatian out of the carpet for three years, and then made a jumper out of it. Another time she said an elephant nicked a Wagon Wheel out of her handbag at West Midlands Safari park.

A few more of Nanny Pam’s friends from the fag counter and neighbors are sat in her living room.  Nanny Pam is showing them her new dimmer switch by turning the light off, and then turning it back on really slowly.

6.15pm

Maeve gets a fag out of her purse and lights it with her rudey naked man lighter. Nanny Pam asks, ‘What the hell are you smoking? They bloody stink!’ Maeve says she’s got a bit of a cold, so she’s smoking menthols.

6.45pm

I’m not sure I like ladies night so far. A cheesy looking lady called Lisa, who smells like the sniffy bits in the Avon catalogue, is trying to sell some plastic boxes. Nanny Pam’s friends keep asking her really stupid questions about putting them in the microwave.

7pm

After everyone fills out plastic box order forms, we go into the kitchen. Nanny Pam has put on a buffet. All the food is brown, apart from the ham, which is grey.

Cheesy Lisa asks what the triangle things on the silver platter are. Nanny Pam tells her that they are ‘SAM MO SA’S’. Lisa nibbles one and starts fanning her mouth. She says, ‘I’m sorry, Pam, but they’re way too spicy for me. I’m not a lover of Chinese food’.

Maeve makes a joke about the little wrinkly sausages and her husband. Everyone laughs. I look at Jenny and she’s laughing too. I know she’s faking though, because she’s going really over the top and pretending to wipe tears away from her eyes.

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7.30pm

The doorbell rings, and Nanny Pam leaves the kitchen to answer it. When she comes back she says, ‘Ladies, say hello to Mystic Mickey!’

Mystic Mickey is wearing a baggy suit with a big collar and has weird hair that is white and spiky.

He says, ‘Now then, ladies, who’s ready to talk to the other side? When I say are you ready to let the spirits enter, you all need to say, ‘Yes, Mickey.’ So, are you ready to let the spirits enter?’

We all say, ‘Yes, Mickey’

7.40pm

Nanny pam dims the light, and Jenny and me sit really close to each other on the puff.

Mickey starts by asking his spirit guide, Gary, to help him. He says that Gary lives on the other side and can go and fetch people we want to speak to.  

 ‘Are you there Gary, Gary are you there?’

I hold Jenny’s hand when Mickey starts speaking in a weird high voice, ‘I’m here Mickey, and I have someone with me. He wants to say that he’s having a cuppa and he’s happy now.’

 Nanny Pam’s neighbour Maureen, says it sounds like her husband, Ron.

Mickey says in his normal voice, ‘Gary, do we have Ron with us?’

Then, he says in his weird voice, ‘It is Ron and he wants to say that he’s ok and he’s remembering a holiday that they had somewhere hot. Was it Spain…Portugal…Greece?…’

Maureen starts crying and says, ‘Wales… he’s talking about our holiday in Wales.’

Mickey says, ‘Yes, that’s right Wales! Anyway, Ron wants you to know the dinners are alright up here, but they’re not as nice as yours. He’s got to go now, though. His favourite program is about to start on the telly.’

Maureen says, ‘But he only really liked the snooker, and that’s not on for another month…’

Mystic Mickey replies, ‘Ron says the schedules are different up here.’

8pm

After Cheesy Lisa has spoken to her Great Aunty on the other side and Maeve has spoken to her dead budgie, Mystic Mickey starts going on about  Gary being tired and needing to pack it in for the evening.

Everyone goes back into the kitchen for a drink. Me and Jenny watch Mystic Mickey sniff a samosa and eat six vol-au-vents, while Maureen asks him all about Ron and whether he’s met another woman on the other side.

9pm

When everyone’s gone, me, Jenny and Nanny Pam snuggle up on the sofa. I ask Nanny Pam if she was sad that she didn’t get to speak to anyone. Nanny Pam says she’s not arsed, because everything Mickey said was a load of crap... it’s never hot in Wales.

Nanny Pam promises that when she dies she’ll come back and haunt us herself, so we don’t have to waste forty quid on Mystic Mickey.

THE CHRISTMAS DISCO

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5pm

Mum is helping me get ready for the Christmas disco. I’m wearing a black velvet skirt with an orange velvet crop top and Mum has crimped my hair and sprayed it with glitter.

I’ve borrowed some of Mum’s perfume called Sunflowers. I’m not sure if I smell nice or not, because Jenny says that I smell like Toilet Duck. I think Jenny’s just jealous though. She has to stay in and look at the new Next catalogue with Mum and Nanny Pam all night, because she’s too old to come to the disco.

5.30pm

I have to get a lift with Grandad, because Dad’s car broke down outside Londis last week.

Grandad is late! His car is full of all his usual junk from carboot sales, but this time there’s a load of Christmas stuff too. I have to sit with a Father Christmas doll on my lap that dances and plays Another Rock N’ Roll Christmas when you press it’s belly.

Grandad makes me hold the seat belt in the socket the whole way, because he says it’s buggered, and he keeps singing the same line from a really annoying song about driving home for Christmas.

 ‘Driving home for Christmas...in me car... driving home for Christmas'

When we pull up to the school, I can see Tom from my class standing outside the gate. I hide behind the Father Christmas Doll, which starts singing and dancing again. Tom looks really good. He’s had his haircut; it’s all shaved apart from a fringe, which he’s gelled into points.

Grandad asks me what I’m hiding for, then looks at Tom and say’s, ‘There’s something you should know about boys, sweetheart, we’re only after one thing. You don’t want to end up getting knocked up like your mother did. Now, we like you love, but you and your sister were massive, massive mistakes.

Ok, have fun. I might be able to pick you up later’.

6.00pm

I walk into school. It feels funny seeing it in the dark. In the corridor outside the school hall some of the teachers are selling orange juice and sweets. The teachers are dressed in their normal teacher clothes except they have jeans on. The only grown up who’s made an effort is Mr. Haywood, the Caretaker. He’s wearing a sequin waistcoat, a piano tie and a light up Father Christmas hat.

While I wait for my cousin, Amy, to come and meet me, I have an orange juice to calm my nerves. Amy hates school as much as I do and I had to beg her to come to the disco. I told her how much I wanted Tom to see me in my velvet outfit and that we could practice our dancing.

When Amy gets here I have another orange juice with her and we go into the hall together. The DJ is rubbish. He keeps saying stupid things on his microphone, like: ‘I can’t hear you guys having F F F Fun’. I’m not even sure he’s a real DJ, I think he's Natalie’s dad. The lights look really cool though, and me and Amy try and stamp on the same light as it moves around the room.

The DJ says, ‘Here’s your first slowy of the night L L L Lovebirds’ and starts playing the song from Robin Hood. Me and Amy start singing along really loudly in a cheesy way, but everyone else starts to walk around slowly and boys and girls start dancing with each other. I look around for Tom and he’s dancing with Lisa from our class. My eyes start to sting a bit, so I ask Amy if she wants another drink.

The song lasts ages, I manage to have three orange juices before it’s even finished. When I get home, I’m writing ‘Robin Hood Song’ on the list of things I hate in the back of my diary, it can go under Cheese Strings and Liars.

6.30pm

We drink one more orange juice before we go back into the hall to dance.

After YMCA and Wig Wam Bam, the DJ plays Saturday Night by Whigfield,  everyone gets into lines and starts doing the dance. I start to feel a bit weird but I keep dancing. Half way through my tummy feels horrible, I do the bit where you jump and clap, then I start being sick all over the place. A lot of people don’t see and carry on dancing, then they start slipping in the orange juice sick until it gets everywhere and someone tells a teacher, who evacuates the hall.

7pm

I’m sat on a bench in the hall with Amy, my teacher, Mrs Woods, and a bucket. Everyone else is in the corridor apart from Mr. Haywood, who is cleaning up the sick with a mop; he’s taken his sequin waistcoat off and is whistling along to Last Christmas.  I feel really sad watching Mr. Haywood and start to cry a bit.

7.30pm

Most people have gone home, but I’m still stood outside the school gate waiting for Grandad to pick me up. Tom is waiting by the gate for his mum. I’m not in the mood to try and show off to him, so I just concentrate on smoothing out the velvet on my skirt where the sick was.

Tom asks me why I was sick. I tell him I had too much to drink, which makes it sound like I was drunk, which I think sounds better.

Tom says that it looked really funny when everyone was skidding in the sick. I tell him I saw Mrs. Woods fall over in it (even though I didn’t). Tom laughs and says it was the best bit of the disco. 

7.45pm

Grandad pulls up and shouts out of his car window, ‘She’s not interested in lads who can only afford half a haircut and can’t even give her a lift home.' I get in the car. Tom waves at me and I wave back. I think that Tom can't fancy Lisa that much if he likes me being sick more than dancing with her.

Grandad starts singing again, but I don’t even care. I think that this might be the best night of my life. 

HALLOWEEN

 5.00pm

Me and Jenny are going Trick or Treating, and Mum is helping me to get ready. I want to be a Vampire Witch Cat, so I’m wearing a black bin bag, fangs and fake blood from Londis, and Mum’s drawing my whiskers on with her eyeliner. Nanny Pam’s lent me some cat ears, from a dressing up box in her bedroom. Jenny’s upstairs making her own outfit, because she said she didn’t need any help.

This is the first time I’ve ever been allowed to go Trick or Treating, but I know what it’s like because I’ve seen it on T.V. loads.

5.30pm

Jenny comes downstairs with a big cheesy grin on her face. She is wearing the bridesmaid dress she wore to Aunty Mandy’s wedding, which she has covered in fake blood and green felt tip. She says she’s going as a dead bridesmaid who drowned on the way to a wedding. Mum says she thinks Jenny looks fantastic, but I think she looks a bit O.T.T, which means over the top.

6.00pm

We knock on our neighbour Irene’s door. Her husband Alan answers and we say, ‘Trick or Treat!’. He says, ‘What’s all this about then?’

 Jenny tells him that he has to give us something like sweets or money. He digs around in his pocket and pulls out a packet of Extra Strong Mints and gives us one each. Then he tells us to beggar off, because Irene’s watching her programmes, and she doesn’t like being disturbed.

6.10pm

We carry on around our block, knocking on all the houses. We get an After Eight, 20p and half a packet of digestive biscuits. Nobody is having a cool party like they do on T.V. There are no pumpkins or cauldrons full of sweets. I don’t really think people in Eastern Green get Trick or Treating.

6.20pm

I step in a dog poo and tell Jenny I want to go home, but she makes us go to the next block, even though we’re not allowed to.

Jenny says that a witch lives in one of the houses on this block, but she can’t remember which one. We knock on a house that has a cactus on a shelf in the porch; Jenny says that’s the sign of a witch.

An old lady opens the door, and we say, ‘Trick or treat!’ she tells us to wait in her living room while she gets the biscuit tin from the kitchen. I forget to take my shoes off, because I’m scared, and get dog poo on her carpet, but she doesn’t notice.

While the old lady is in the kitchen, I ask Jenny if she thinks the she's a witch. Jenny says she’s not sure witch’s watch Home and Away and have a pink curtains.

When the old lady comes back she tells us that it’s nice having some visitors, because she hasn’t seen anyone apart from her carer in three weeks. She gives us a shortbread biscuit each and asks us if we’d like a cup of tea. I tell her we need to go, because we are only aloud out for half an hour.

6.40pm

When we get back to our house, Jenny and me aren’t speaking to each other, because we’ve been arguing about who gets to keep the After Eight. Nanny Pam answers the door and says we both have a face like a slapped arse. I tell her that I hate Eastern Green, I hate Jenny, and I hate Extra Strong Mints!

Nanny Pam swaps our After Eight for 50p and two squashed Cadbury’s Mini Rolls from her handbag. We eat all the stuff we got trick or treating on the sofa and tell ghost stories. Nanny Pam tells us one about the time she thought she saw a ghost in her neighbour Sue’s house, but it was just the Kev, the window cleaner.

AMERICA

9.30am

I'm having a day off school, because my class are on a school trip to Coventry Football Stadium and Mum said that I’d get a better education staying at home today.

Nanny Pam has come round to look after me and we are on the sofa watching Super Market Sweep. Nanny Pam shouts at the lady on the T.V. 'Quiches are in the chiller you daft cow!’

9.35am

We can hear a man coughing up a greeney outside the front door. It’s Grandad. 

Grandad has been away in America for a few weeks after he split up with Candy. Mum said Candy was sick of living in Grandad’s static caravan full of his useless old crap.

I'm worried because Nanny Pam and Grandad always argue when they see each other and it makes me feel funny.

Grandad’s wearing cowboy boots, shorts and a shirt with nudey women holding guitars on it.

Nanny Pam laughs her head off when she sees him. He says 'Pammy, I'm a new man. I think you're going to start regretting kicking this cowboy out!'

Nanny Pam laughs even more and says ‘I’m going into the kitchen to make a coffee, when I come back in I want to watch This Morning in peace, without you here’.

9.50am

Grandad sits down, lights a big brown cigarette and starts watching Supermarket Sweep, he shouts at the lady, ‘Go for the electricals, you daft cow!’ 

The cigarette smells horrible, so I put my mouth and nose into my Count Dukula T-shirt.

10.00am

When Supermarket Sweep finishes, Grandad tells me he's not used to such crap telly, or small couches, or tiny houses like this. He says the bog in his hotel was bigger than our living room. Then he gives me a present. It’s a lighter that says: ‘I GOT LUCKY IN LAS VEGAS’ on it.

I ask him lots of questions like:

 Did he go to a Prom? Is the McDonalds the same? Did he have a corn dog? Did he have a telly on the plane?

Grandad says all I need to know is that America is bigger, brighter and better than this shit hole. 

10.05am

Nanny Pam comes back in with a cup of coffee and a Mint Choc Options for me. 

This Morning comes on and Nanny Pam says, ‘Times up Skint Eastwood. Judy’s waxing Richard’s leg in a minute, and I don’t want you ruining it by talking silly bollocks about America’. 

Grandad says, ‘We were like Richard and Judy once’

Nanny Pam says, ‘If you mean I was the long suffering wife of an arrogant arse hole then I suppose we were.’ 

10.30am

I go to my room while Nanny Pam and Grandad argue. I wrap the lighter in half a loo roll and put it in my special shoebox next to my pig ornaments. 

I spy on our next-door neighbour Carol doing her gardening for a bit and think about America.