SPORTS DAY

7.30am

I wake up, open my eyes, remember it’s sports day, and shut them again. Sports day is the worst day of the year and I’m not even allowed to skive because Mum got a letter home last week about me having too much time off school.

I sit up in bed, look at my Hi-Tec trainers in the corner of the room and think fuck this! I’ve been swearing quite a bit in my head lately, I think it’s because I’ve been hanging around with Tasha more. The other day I accidently swore out loud in front of Mum and she made me say sorry to God.

Eventually I get out of bed and put my kit on. My cousin Leanne's old puma shorts, the fake England shirt Grandad gave me and my rubbish trainers.

When I get downstairs Jenny and Josh are already having breakfast. All they’ve left me from the selection box is Cornflakes! They’re having a mega mix of honey Nut Loops and Coco Pops. I tell them that I need the extra energy today, and try to shove my spoon in their bowls, but Jenny puts her hand over hers, and Josh spits in his.

In the kitchen, Mum lets me smash a Kit Kat up in my Cornflakes to make them taste a bit better. While I eat them, she strokes my hair and says, ‘Nanny Pam will be there cheering you on today Hol! You can only do your best. Just remember it’s not in your genetics to be good at sport. I couldn’t even do a forward roll until I was twenty-five, and that was by accident one night in The Pink Parrot!’

8.15am

I walk round to Amy’s before school. Amy hates Sports Day just as much as I do, but at least we have a plan this year. We both got picked to do the 200m race and so neither of us come last on our own, we’re going to run at the same time as each other, crossing the finish line last, together.

When I get to Amy’s, Aunty Karen answers the door.

‘Hi Love. Look at you all ready for sports day. Poor Amy can’t come because she’s got a nasty tummy bug!’

I can feel myself getting really hot and angry, but say to Aunty Karen dead nicely, ‘Really she was absolutely fine at school yesterday can I go up and see her?’

‘Yeah go on then, you might cheer her up a bit, poor thing’

 I open Amy’s door really quietly and watch her for a bit, she’s sat up in bed watching The Big breakfast and eating Frosted Shreddies. When she notices me she starts coughing and says in a croaky voice ‘Hi Hol’.

‘Thought you had a tummy bug not a cough.’

‘I’ve got both!’

I think about which way to do this and decide to start by begging and if that doesn’t work use force.

‘Amy please come, I need you, please, please, please! I’m going to come last and look like a right loser in front of Tom, please…’

‘I would Hol, I actually really wanted to come, but I’m really ill!’

‘Yeah right, chinny chin chin!’

I go up to Amy’s bed and pull the duvet off her.

‘You have to come, we promised! Get up!’

‘Muuuuuuuuummm!’

I let go of the duvet and Amy grabs it back. Then I say something really lame that I heard on Saved By The Bell.

‘This Friendship is void!’

I kick the door open and monster stomp down the stairs. Aunty Karen asks me if I’m ok as I walk out of the front door, I tell her Amy’s nearly finished her Shreddies and seems to be A LOT better!

9.00am

When I get to school, Sammy and some other girls from my class are stood in the playground doing stretches to show off in front of Tom and the boys. Sammy’s got new Nike Air Max’s and Addidas Poppers on.

10.00am

Nanny Pam and Maeve have come to watch me and I'm allowed to sit with them on the field until I'm called up. Maeve starts telling one of her daft stories about how she used to run for the County until her boobs got too big and she couldn’t afford to keep buying gaffa tape.

It’s the boys 100m race first, Sammy screams her head off for Tom to win. I pretend not to watch and try to concentrate on Maeve talking about her boobs instead.

 ‘Of course, my Graham loves it, he buries his head in them for hours some nights. But when I saw that Sally Gunnel opening the new Tesco the other day, I thought it could have been me cutting that ribbon...’

I look over at the start line. Mr. Haywood says ‘On your marks, get set, go!’ Kevin and Tom get out in front straight away. I turn back to Maeve.

‘I can just about squeeze into a H cup now, but it’s a two man job…’

I look back over at the race. Kevin’s in the lead with Mark second, I look for Tom but he’s way back at the start line, lying on the grass with his head in his hands and his Mum’s stood next to him.  Sammy’s started screaming for Kevin to win.

Mr. Haywood announces Kevin as the winner then tells us all to check our shoelaces are tied properly because he doesn’t want any more accidents like Tom’s!

I feel really sorry for Tom, but when I bend down to check my shoelaces I think it doesn’t matter if I come last now because Tom did too!

11.00am

From the start line, I watch Maeve being told to put her fag out by Mrs. Woods, Tom arguing with his Mum about his laces and Nanny Pam giving me a big fat double thumbs up!

Mr. Haywood says, ‘On your marks, get set, go’ and I go for it.

I come second from last, but Nanny Pam and Maeve run up to me screaming like I’ve won gold at the Olympics! Nanny Pam gives me a big fat hug and I look over her shoulder at Tom who is still sulking next to his Mum. I think that I fancy him a little bit less today.

3.30pm

On my way back from school, I call in at Amy’s.

I open Amy’s bedroom door really quietly, she’s sat on her bed watching Round The Twist and is eating Golden Drummers with chips and beans.

I say, ‘Hi’

‘Hi’

‘Are you my friend?’

‘Yeah!’

Then she lets me sit on her bed and have a Golden drummer dipped in bean juice, while I tell her all about how I totally smashed sports day.

AUNTY MANDY

4pm

Aunty Mandy has come to stay with us for a few days. She’s fallen out with Uncle Simon again!

Aunty Mandy has been sleeping at ours a lot over the last few months. I secretly love it when she rings up crying her eyes out asking if she can stay again. She’s really fun and I’ve been learning loads about her that I didn’t know before like:

1.     Aunty Mandy loves reading. By her bed she has loads of books like Love on Death Row, Sexy Psychopaths and Married to a Monster.

2.     Apart from Nanny Pam, Aunty Mandy is the only person I know who watches Channel Five. Sometimes I sneak into her room when everyone’s gone to bed and we watch documentaries. Last night we watched one about dead pets that come back and haunt their owners.

3.     Aunty Mandy never puts the big light on. She sleeps in Josh’s room when she comes to stay and lights loads of candles. She says its better Fung Shay, but I think it’s because she doesn’t like the Power Rangers on Josh’s duvet.

Mum’s in the kitchen washing up, I’m sat on the side eating a packet of Jaffa Cakes. I bite the disgusting jelly bits off first, hold my nose, and swallow them whole so I can enjoy the rest of them.

I ask mum, ‘Why’s Aunty Mandy fallen out with Uncle Simon again?’

'Oh I don’t know Hol, and don’t go asking her, she needs some space so just leave her alone tonight, yeah?;

4.10pm

I’m sat at the end of Aunty Mandy’s bed finishing off the Jaffa Cakes. I think about what to say for a bit, but I don’t want there to be a big fat elephant in the room so I just ask her.

‘Why did you fall out with Uncle Simon this time?’

‘We didn’t really fall out Hol. Si doesn’t know how to fall out. Whenever I try and have a row with him he just shuts himself in the spare room with his model cruise ships and whistles the Big Break theme tune until I stop shouting. He’s just really REALLY boring and I’m really REALLY bored!’

5pm

Aunty Mandy’s teaching me how to make your face look really tanned with loads of make-up, when the doorbell goes. It’s Uncle Simon.

We can hear Uncle Simon in the porch talking to mum. ‘It’s got warm again. I didn’t know whether to wear my jacket today because it was a bit nippy this morning, so I wore it anyway and just took it off when it got a bit warmer.’

Aunty Mandy gets into bed and puts her head under the Power Rangers duvet.

I ask her if she’s ok and she muffles, ‘Tell him to fuck off. No, wait tell him I’m really ill with a tummy bug, yeah tell him that, he hates tummy bugs!’

5.30pm

Uncle Simon’s in the garden having a cup of tea with Dad. Dad thinks Uncle Simon is really boring too and usually when Uncle Simon comes round Dad says he’s got to fix something in the garage. There are no tools to fix anything in the garage, just a thousand bikes, a manky old tent and everything that has ever broken in our house. Last time I went to look for Dad when Uncle Simon was round and he was sat on a broken exercise bike reading his Viz magazine.

I walk up to Uncle Simon and tell him that Aunty Mandy has a tummy bug and can’t be more than a meter away from the bog, which means she can’t see him.

Uncle Simon says, ‘Oh dear, yeah I’ll steer clear of that one. I hate tummy bugs last time I got one I had to move back in with my mother because she’s got a more powerful cistern. You have to wait for ours to refill, which is a nightmare if you need a double flush.’

Dad asks me if I’ve been painting a fence because my face is covered in Ron Seal, I tell him ‘Its Desert Island Mystique Bronzer by Avon actually!!’

I think Dad must feel sorry for Uncle Simon today because he hasn’t gone to the garage yet and he even asks Uncle Simon about football, which he hates!

‘Did you see the football?’

‘Which Game?’

‘I don’t know.’

Then we sit in silence for a bit

6.15pm

After a while Uncle Simon starts telling Dad about how he’s decided that he still doesn’t like tomatoes because he had a BLT at the Beefeater on Tuesday night and it had a tomato in and he didn’t like it.

Dad says that he’s got to fix something in the garage.

6.20pm

Mum comes out to the garden with another cup of tea for Uncle Simon and one of the dodgy boxes of chocolates Grandad gave us for Christmas. There are no menu cards and when me and Jenny ate a box only two were nice, the rest of them taste like dog chocolate. There are still twenty-six boxes under Mum’s bed, so anytime someone comes round she tries to get rid of a few.

Mum holds the box while Uncle Simon chooses. He points at one and says, ‘What’s this one?’

‘I don’t know Si.

‘This one?’

‘I don’t know Si.’

‘And this one?’

‘I don’t know Si there’s no menu card so you just have to guess.’

‘Does this one have nuts in?’

‘Listen Si I think Mandy needs to rest up, so maybe come back tomorrow yeah, you can take the whole box with you if you like.’

Uncle Simon gets up to go,  ‘hhhhmm jacket on or off.’

Mum says ‘fuckin’ ell’ really quietly to herself.

7pm

I go up to Josh’s room with a box of Grandad’s chocolates. Aunty Mandy’s in bed with all her candles on, half watching a documentary on Channel Five about naked neighbors and half reading a book called I Killed For The One… Again. We try and find the nice chocolates by biting a bit of each one, and I talk about the time I thought I saw Carol next door gardening naked but she was just wearing beige trousers. 

GIRL POWER

4pm

I’ve got an hour to find a fancy dress outfit in Nanny Pam’s wardrobe!

Sammy from my class is having a fancy dress party tonight in the church hall. At break time today she asked if I wanted to go because Rachael’s got diarrhea and can’t go anymore and her mum said she had to ask someone else.

I only said yes because Tom’s going to be there and Amy’s going too. Amy got invited ages ago because her mum works with Sammy’s mum at the doctors surgery. She didn’t want to go but her mum’s made her and even bought her a proper Baby Spice outfit for it.

I go for tea round Nanny Pam’s on Thursday nights because mum’s at college. Usually we just sit around eating choc ices and watch all the soaps but I won’t even get to watch Neighbours tonight, because I need to sort my costume out!

Maeve’s round Nanny Pam’s. Usually I like seeing Maeve, she tells funny stories. Once she said she saw Chris Akabusi in Marks and Spencer’s buying his underpants, and another time she said she won a conservatory in The Daily Mail, but they wouldn’t give it to her because she lives in a top floor flat. I don’t have time to listen to her tonight though and luckily she’s too busy reading a story called ‘I HAD SEX WITH A GHOST!’ in one of Nanny Pam’s Take A Break magazines.

I start panicking about the party and my costume to Nanny Pam, while she takes some fish fingers out from under the grill. She says ‘Look love, if you could go as anyone who would it be?’

I think for a bit. I’d like to go as Jet from Gladiators but I’m not wearing Nanny Pam’s swimming costume and I think that all the other girls will be going as Spice Girls, so I probably should as well.

‘A Spice Girl’

4.30pm

I eat my fish finger sandwich faster than ever, and go upstairs with Nanny Pam to find an outfit.

Nanny Pam says, ‘Right well, my joggers are in the wash after bums and tums so I can’t do you a sporty spice, I sold my blonde wig at a boot sale last week so that rules out Baby, I don’t like that miserable Posh one, and I’m not getting a bollocking for dressing you up as that slapper Ginger. What about Scary Spice? I’ve got a leopard print blouse in here somewhere...’

4.40pm

Nanny Pam finds me some black leggings and I put them on with her silky leopard print blouse. All of Nanny Pam’s shoes are too small for me so I put my school shoes back on.

Nanny Pam starts crimping my hair and Maeve comes upstairs to help with my make-up, I look up at the orange lipstick on Maeve’s teeth and the sparkly blue circles around her eyes and start worrying again.

When they’re both finished I stand up on Nanny Pam’s bed and look in the big mirror on her dressing table. I look like Nanny Pam Spice.

5.30pm

I’m late for the party because we had to drop Maeve off on the way. When Nanny Pam say’s goodbye to someone it usually means it will be another hour before they actually leave, especially if it’s Maeve! Just as she was getting out the car she started telling Nanny Pam a massive story about the time her friend found a dead mouse in a Crunchie, and that she always chops them up before she eats them now.

I walk into the church hall and through all the Spice Girls I can see Tom in the Corner with Matt, apart from Sammy’s dad (who’s dressed in a really tight Elvis costume) they’re the only boys at the party. Tom’s dressed as Liam Gallagher. He’s drawn sideburns on his face with black felt-tip and has a long green parka on. My tummy flips and I go to find Amy.

Amy’s sat down on her own by the buffet putting Hula Hoops on her fingers. I grab a handful of skips and sit down next to her. We watch all the other Spice Girls for a bit. Sammy’s dressed as Posh and Lisa’s dressed as Ginger. They keep running up to the boys and saying stuff then running back to the rest of the girls to giggle.

5.40pm

Sammy comes over to me and Amy, and we shuffle up to let her sit down. The other girls are acting really daft across the room, whispering and giggling. Sammy says to me ‘Tom wants to know if you’ll go out with him.’

I feel really shaky and hot. I look at Amy, she smiles and bites a Hula Hoop off her finger.

Sammy stands up and pulls me up with her then pushes me towards Tom.

5.45pm

I wipe my Skip fingers on Nanny Pam’s leggings and smooth my hair, which has gone really frizzy from all the crimping.

I walk up to Tom and say hi, he nods at me and then carries on talking to Matt. I stand next to him and Matt for a bit without saying anything. I look across the room. Amy’s still sat on her own watching me and looking nervous, Sammy’s dad’s at the buffet pulling his Elvis trousers out of his bum crack and eating sausage rolls, and all the other Spice Girls are laughing their heads off in the corner near the door.

Tom shouts to the girls, ‘What are youse lot laughing at?’

Sammy shouts back, ‘Holly thinks you’re going out with her!’

Tom looks at me and I look at my school shoes. Then he say’s ‘Eugh, yeah right’.

5.50pm

I run out of the hall crying my head off with Baby Amy Spice following me.

Outside I cry so much I sound like my brother when he was a baby. Amy asks if we should go back in the hall and ring her mum to pick us up early. I tell her that there’s no way we’re going back in there, and that we’ll just have to wait in the car park until her mum comes at seven.

6pm

I finally stop crying a bit, and me and Amy decide to walk to Londis down the road and come back at seven so we don’t have to see anyone or hear the stupid music coming from the hall.

6.10pm

Tasha the goth is smoking outside Londis with all her gothy mates. I tell Amy that we’re going to have to go back to the car park because the last thing I need is Tasha taking the piss as well.

We turn around and start walking back to the Church Hall, but it’s too late. Tasha  shouts, ‘HOLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE’.

Tasha’s drunk, she runs up to me, gives me a big fat hug and tells me that she loves me. Her coat smells like a hamster’s wee corner and fags. When she eventually lets go she looks at me and asks, ‘Have you been crying? Why are you dressed like a twat?’

Baby Amy Spice tells Tasha everything and I start crying again.

6.20pm

We hang out with Tasha and her mates for a bit, they drink cider and smoke loads of fags, and me and Amy share a Bounty.

6.45pm

Tasha and her mates walk us back to the car park. Everyone from the party is stood outside waiting for their parents to pick them up. Sammy’s with them saying goodbye, when she sees me she starts laughing again with the other girls.

Tasha looks over at them and shouts ‘Shut the fuck up you tragic little slags!!’ All of Tasha’s mates start shouting too, one even say’s the C word!  All the Spice girls stop laughing, and Sammy starts crying. Sammy’s dad comes out and tells the Goths to piss off but they just start laughing and Tasha say’s something about seeing Elvis’s ball sack.

6.50pm

Amy’s Mum pulls up and we jump in the car. Through the back window I watch the Goths shouting at Elvis and the Spice Girls. Then I notice Liam Gallagher looking straight at me and I stick my middle finger up at him.