EASTER

 

5am 

It’s Easter. Jenny and me have woken up extra early because we are so excited.

We’re watching Dad’s Die Hard Two video, eating chocolate and playing a game called Smash An Egg On Your Stupid Head. We take it in turns to put a pan on our head, then drop Easter Eggs from the top of the stairs onto each other so they smash.

11am

Grandad has come round with his new wife Candy. Mum and Dad are still in bed so I tell Grandad and Candy to wait on the sofa. I make them a cup of tea, but have to use the hot tap because the kettles broken.

 Grandad says it’s the worst cuppa he has ever had, and I’d have to learn how to make a decent one if I ever want a husband. Jenny says it’s a good job we don’t ever want to get married, Grandad tells her not to be cheeky.

Grandad gives us a Father Christmas shaped Easter Egg each, Candy says they’re still in date.

11.20am

Mum comes downstairs and I go into the kitchen to help her make another cup of tea for Grandad. I tell her what Grandad said to me about getting a husband. She says ‘if I want a sexist arse of a husband like Grandad, then I should learn to make a good cup of tea, otherwise don’t bother’.

11.30am

Grandad asks Mum if she likes Candy’s new hair, mum says ‘yes it’s very different’. Grandad asks Mum what type of fish Candy’s hair is. Mum says she doesn’t know what he’s on about. Grandad says ‘it’s a Red Mullet’ and laughs on his own for a while.

12pm

The phone rings on the table next to Grandad and I answer it. It’s Nanny Pam. She says she’s coming round in a bit, to give us our Easter eggs. I’m worried because Nanny Pam and Grandad don’t like each other any more.

Grandad asks me 'if that was Pamela?’ I say it was. He says ‘when she comes round, tell her she owes me at least fifty quid for selling all my stuff at the car boot sale. Some of that crap was priceless’.

 Candy says she wants to leave because she has to get home to record Look Who’s Talking off the telly.

 

1pm

Grandad and Candy have left. Nanny Pam has come round with more Easter Eggs. She gives me Easter eggs from her and Colin, and a Cadburys Cream Egg with 50p sellotaped to it off my Aunty Irene. Aunty Irene isn’t my real aunty she’s just one of Nanny Pam’s friends from the fag counter in Tesco’s.

1.30pm

Nanny Pam has a coffee and asks me about Grandad and Candy. She asks if Candy wears nice clothes. I say Candy’s clothes are ok, but that her hair is a type of fish, a Red Mullet, which makes Nanny Pam laugh a lot.

I tell Nanny Pam that she owes Grandad at least fifty quid. She says he owes her the last twenty years of her life back, and the silver service set he nicked when he ran off with bootleg Barbie. 

4pm

Nanny Pam has gone. Me, Jenny and Dad, are sat on the sofa eating our Father Christmas Easter Eggs and watching Father Of The Bride. I tell Dad that I think this has been the best Easter of my life.

ROXY'S HOUSE

3.30pm

Every other Thursday, Nanny Pam can’t pick us up from school, because she has a shift on the fag counter in Tesco’s. This means my friend Roxy’s Nan, Maggie, has to pick us up.

Maggie waits outside of school in her car and beeps the horn until we get in. The car smells like cigarettes, fir tree air freshener and digestive biscuits. She’s playing her Robson and Jerome tape, which I hate, Dad says Robson and Jerome are one of the reasons he’s thinking of leaving the country.

Maggie tells Jenny and me that we didn’t look both ways when we crossed the road to get to her car, and she’ll have to tell Mum, because it’s a safety risk. I’m sat in the front and Maggie makes me hold her cigarette, while she starts the car. I waft the smoke away with my book about the Vikings.   

4pm

We get back to Roxy’s house and go upstairs to her bedroom. Roxy says she lives with her Nan because her mum doesn’t have a settee or anything to sit on and she stays up too late.

We play with Roxy’s toys for a bit. All of Roxy’s Barbies have shaved heads and tattoos that she has drawn on with felt tips. Roxy says she wants to play Blind Date with naked Barbies who are alcoholics.

I go and see her hamsters, Bill and Ted, and she takes them out for me.  When we’re called for tea Roxy shuts the hamsters in a tiny drawer by her bed, because she wants them to have babies.

5pm

I’m worried when I see dinner because it’s a burger with chips and beans. Mum says we can’t eat burgers because of Mad Cow disease. I remind Jenny after she has had a bite, and we both say we’re not eating it. Maggie says we’re ungrateful, and that in the war she had to eat her pet rabbit Floppsy, with two mouldy potatoes and her own tears, and it was the best meal she ever had.

Maggie sits with us and makes us eat some chips, while she has a cigarette and drinks a Slimfast.

5.45pm

I say I’m going to the toilet, but I go to Roxy’s room and put the hamsters back in their cage.

6pm

Mum comes and picks us up. On the way home, I tell her about Maggie trying to kill us. Mum says we were right to not eat the burger, but we should have just chopped it up and hidden it under the beans.

She asks us if we crossed the road properly. I say we did, but Maggie couldn’t see because her car was so full of smoke it was like Stars In Their Eyes. Jenny says ‘Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Skeletor’, because that’s what we call Maggie.

THE TALENT SHOW

11am

I am on holiday in Majorca. Mum and Dad are going to the beach on their own today, and they are leaving Jenny, Josh and me at Squids Club.

Squids Club is a big shed by the swimming pool, where all the kids who are on holiday get left by their parents. I don’t like it, because it is basically the same as wet break at school. You get some weird broken toys out, and the Holiday Reps make you sing songs about finding a peanut or losing a meatball, that last the whole morning.

12pm

The rep, Rachel, lets us go in the pool, because a drunk person was sick in the club shed last night, and Nico, the pool man, is cleaning it up.

Jenny and me are playing a game called: ‘Who Can Look The Most Dead?’ We hold our breath and float face down in the pool. Jenny gets out of the pool and comes back in with her t-shirt on. She says that this will make it look like she fell in and drowned on her way to get an ice-cream. Jenny wins, because Rachel runs over to see if she’s ok, and we get told off for giving her a scare.

1pm

We’re allowed back in the club shed, which stinks of bleach and sick. Rachel tells us that there is going to be a talent show this afternoon, and Nico is going to be the judge.

We are put into groups, Me, Jenny and Josh are with two boys from a place called Liverpool. Jenny thinks we should do a magic show, but I want to do a play about the Tudors. I tell Jenny that everyone will do magic shows and we should do something different.

2pm

We decide to act out a Tudor beheading and have started rehearsing outside. Jenny is worried, because everyone else in the Club Shed is singing Spice Girls songs, or dancing.

I’m Anne Boleyn, the Liverpool boys are the guards and Jenny is the executioner. Josh doesn’t understand acting, so he is going to squirt everyone with a Super-Soaker, when I fake my head being chopped off.

3pm

Rachel comes over to watch our rehearsal. Afterwards, she asks if we’re sure we don’t want to sing a song, and tells us she has ‘Saturday Night’ on tape, which she could teach us the dance to. 

4pm

Mum and Dad are back from the beach and are sat in the audience, outside the Club Shed. It is the hottest day of the holiday, and Mum is using a battery powered mini fan I bought from the beach shop.

After two lots of Wannabe and a magic show, it’s our turn. I give my best performance ever. I’m really loud, and when I put my head in my t-shirt, I walk around like a zombie for a bit then collapse, which I didn’t do in rehearsal, but it worked.

When we finish everyone is quiet for a while, then Nico cheers and some people start clapping.

5pm

We only get third place, but I'm happy because Nico said I should win an Oscar, and Mum says she’s completely speechless. 

Dad buys us a big ice cream with sparklers to celebrate.

MR FRIDAYS

8.30am

I told my mum last night, I’m never eating anything from our local shop ‘Mr. Friday’s’ ever again. Here is my list of reasons:

1.  My cousin Leanne said that Mr. Friday opens all the bags of Walkers crisps to find the blue packets   that have the prizes in, and then closes them back up with Pritt Stick. Leanne knows this, because once Mr. Friday got the crisps mixed up, and she found a roast chicken flavour crisp in her bag of salt and vinegar. He also has a new van; Leanne says he bought with all the fivers he found in the crisps.

 2.   Mr. Friday has magazines with naked women in at the back of the shop, and my sister Jenny says these are against our beliefs.

3.  Natalie from my class told me Mr. Friday is a wanted criminal in Leicester, and he had to cross the border into Coventry, so the police couldn’t get him.

Mum says she respects my decision, but she is not going to stop shopping there, because she can’t get to Tesco when Dad is working away. I hate it when Dad works away; he never goes to Mr. Fridays.

We’re running late for school, because we’ve lost the hairbrush again. We can’t find it, so mum uses one of my little brother’s Stickle Bricks instead.

11am

It's break time, and I’m eating a packet of Bombay Mix that I bought from the tuck shop. My cousin Amy is at the dentist, so there isn’t anyone to hang around with, apart from Mr. Haywood, the caretaker. I ask him if he wants the green bits in my Bombay Mix, but he says, ‘No thanks Holly!’. He finds me a brush and I help him sweep up for a bit.

12.30pm

Mum has sneaked some Bobby’s Spirals into my lunch box. I know they’re from Mr.Fridays, because they have a sticker on saying Mr. Fridays. Luckily, Amy’s back from the dentist, so I swap them with her Tomato Snaps.

3.30pm

Mum picks me up and says she has to get dinner from Mr. Fridays on the way home. She says I can eat the Cornflakes left over from the selection box for my dinner.

 Just when I think things can’t get any worse, we see Tom from my class and his mum walking in front of us with a dog. My mum catches up with them and says, ‘Is that a new dog Tom? What’s its name?’

Tom says ‘Holly’, and mum asks, ‘Did you name it after my Holly?’

Tom says ‘No!’

4pm

I’m waiting outside Mr. Fridays with my brother Josh in his buggy. Mr.Friday waves at us through the window. Josh waves back, but I pretend to check my shoes for dog poo. I feel bad, because Mr.Friday always smiles at me and says ‘Hello’, on my way back from school.

6pm

I’m starving and think I might die. All I had for dinner was a mashed up choc ice with some Cornflakes in, because the milk was from Mr.Fridays. Everyone else had mum’s special pizza toast.

7pm

I start to cry, because I think I can’t survive without any food from Mr.Fridays. Mum gives me a hug and says she’s saved me some pizza toast in the oven, and that Walkers wouldn’t let Mr.Friday get away with gluing crisp packets back together, and Pritt Stick isn’t strong enough anyway.  

I decide to carry on eating stuff from Mr. Fridays until I have a job and a car in ten years time, and can go to the big Tesco.

THE CARBOOT

6am

Nanny Pam and me are loading the car full of stuff for a car boot that we’re doing at The Unicorn Club car park this morning. I ask where all of the stuff came from, and Nanny Pam says, ‘it’s your Grandad’s dodgy old crap’.

8am

The car is so full that I have to sit where people’s feet usually are, and Nanny Pam has to tell me to duck whenever she thinks she sees a policeman.

I’m sat next to a Roses tin full of PG Tip Chimpanzie cards. I tell Nanny Pam they might be worth something one day, and she tells me that I’ve been listening to Grandad too much.

On the way, Nanny Pam asks me if Grandad’s new wife can drive. I tell her that she can, but that she always has pink lipstick on her teeth.

9am

We set up our stall; I put out all of Grandad’s things and wonder if he’d be sad, if he knew that Nanny Pam is selling them. A lady asks me ‘How much for the African Masks’ Nanny Pam says she can have them for free, because they might be cursed.

10am

An old man comes up to our stall and asks Nanny Pam, ‘How much for you, sweetheart?’ Nanny Pam says, ‘I’m priceless love ’. When the man walks off, Nanny Pam tells me that he’s just a ‘harmless perv’. I say, ‘I hate him’. Nanny Pam laughs, but I mean it.

12pm

We have our Pot Noodles and share a Kit Kat for lunch. Nanny Pam gives me £2 to spend while she looks after the stall. I buy a pig, because I’ve started collecting them; this one is a biscuit jar that has a dirty bib on saying, ‘Greedy Fat Pig’. When I come back, I ask Nanny Pam how much she wants for the Chimpanzee cards, and she gives me them for free.

Nanny Pam goes off and comes back with something called a Lazy Susan, and some Tarot Cards.

4pm

We’re having a chippy tea to celebrate all our hard work; we use the Lazy Susan to pass each other the curry sauce. After we’ve put the bags in the bin, I ask Nanny Pam if she can read my tarot cards while we eat our choc ices.

She says I need to ask them a question, so, in my head, I ask if Tom from school fancies me. I pull out a card with a Sun on it. Nanny Pam tells me it means that love is on the horizon, but I have to read lots of books, wait ten years, and make her a coffee before it comes.

8pm

We watch Antiques Road Show. Nanny Pam always tries to guess how much the stuff is. Then when they reveal it, she say’s things like, ‘He’s had his pants pulled down there’. I think that in twenty years time, I’ll go on with my pig collection, which Grandad says should be worth at least £250 by then.