little ball.
4. THE MOST EMBARRASSING DREAM: I’m walking to the bus stop with lots of Anderson boys around me and they’re all sniggering and when I look down I see that my skirt has ridden up to my waist and I’m showing all of my knickers.
5. THE STRANGEST DREAM: I’m flying, but only just, skimming up and down the staircase, not quite clearing the steps so that I keep scuffing my shoes.
6. THE MOST TERRIFYING DREAM: There are robbers and they’re in the house and they’re going to kill me and I can hear them coming, and then just as they get to me I wake up and I run into Dad and Anna’s room but I haven’t REALLY woken up and the robbers are in Dad’s bed and they leap out at me.
7. THE MOST BABYISH DREAM: I’m in a cot and someone is rocking me and it’s lovely but the cot’s very small so my head is pressing hard against the top and my legs are poking right through the slats and hanging in midair.
8. THE DAMPEST DREAM: I’m in a ship sailing up and down and the water is sparkling so I dive off the side and start swimming and the water is so warm and so wet. (I used to have this dream when I was about Eggs’s age. Sometimes with disastrous consequences.)
9. THE MOST FREQUENTLY RECURRING DREAM: I’m very late for school and I can’t find my uniform and I can’t get my bag packed properly and I miss the bus and I’m in serious trouble when I eventually get to school. This happens enough in real life, so it feels very unfair that I have to dream it too!
five alive
(but only just, and all dying of embarrassment and boredom!)
T here’s no way I can ever tell the truth now. So I’m stuck. Treading in treacle, Super Glued into silence.
I write back to Dan. Mostly because I need him to write back to me again so I can show off his letter to Nadine and Magda. Which is so mean.
He writes back. And I write back. And he writes back. And so it goes on. They’re just silly letters. He goes on about school and stuff and things he’s reading and he tells a lot of corny old jokes. He puts “Love from Dan” at the end each time, but they’re not
love
letters.
Dad says we’re like Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and sniggers. They are dead poets. I mutter something ultraunpoetical along the lines that I wish Dad was dead too. Dad hears and gets narked and says I’ve completely lost my sense of humor. Anna surprisingly takes my side. She says Dad’s crass and insensitive and she’s sick of it, so goodness knows how Ellie feels. Both Dad and I blink at her a bit. She doesn’t usually rush to my defense. I think maybe she and Dad have had a row. I heard a lot of angry whispers last night after Anna got back from her evening class. I don’t know what’s going on with them. I don’t know what’s going on with
me
.
I haven’t even seen the dream Dan again. I caught the bus for a bit because Mrs. Henderson was giving me so many detentions it was getting like I’d be stuck at school for a full twenty-four hours. But I chance walking today. I even hang around a second on the street where we met. Longer than a second, actually. More like fifteen minutes. And I still don’t get to see him.
And
I get another detention.
It’s quite companionable, actually, because Nadine is doing a detention too. It’s just the two of us. Mrs. Henderson makes us write out
lines,
would you believe? I had to write out: I MUST PULL MYSELF TOGETHER AND TRY TO BE ON TIME.
I write it one hundred times. I don’t feel pulled together. I feel as if I’m flying apart. And I tried to be on time to see Dream Dan. I couldn’t try any harder if I wrote it out one million times.
Nadine’s line is shorter than mine so even though she writes in an elaborate twirly way she still gets finished first. One hundred times: I MUST NOT BE INSOLANT .
She came to school with this amazing love bite on her neck, a big blotch that looked impressively purple on her white skin.
“For God’s sake, your Liam must have a mouth like a
4. THE MOST EMBARRASSING DREAM: I’m walking to the bus stop with lots of Anderson boys around me and they’re all sniggering and when I look down I see that my skirt has ridden up to my waist and I’m showing all of my knickers.
5. THE STRANGEST DREAM: I’m flying, but only just, skimming up and down the staircase, not quite clearing the steps so that I keep scuffing my shoes.
6. THE MOST TERRIFYING DREAM: There are robbers and they’re in the house and they’re going to kill me and I can hear them coming, and then just as they get to me I wake up and I run into Dad and Anna’s room but I haven’t REALLY woken up and the robbers are in Dad’s bed and they leap out at me.
7. THE MOST BABYISH DREAM: I’m in a cot and someone is rocking me and it’s lovely but the cot’s very small so my head is pressing hard against the top and my legs are poking right through the slats and hanging in midair.
8. THE DAMPEST DREAM: I’m in a ship sailing up and down and the water is sparkling so I dive off the side and start swimming and the water is so warm and so wet. (I used to have this dream when I was about Eggs’s age. Sometimes with disastrous consequences.)
9. THE MOST FREQUENTLY RECURRING DREAM: I’m very late for school and I can’t find my uniform and I can’t get my bag packed properly and I miss the bus and I’m in serious trouble when I eventually get to school. This happens enough in real life, so it feels very unfair that I have to dream it too!
five alive
(but only just, and all dying of embarrassment and boredom!)
T here’s no way I can ever tell the truth now. So I’m stuck. Treading in treacle, Super Glued into silence.
I write back to Dan. Mostly because I need him to write back to me again so I can show off his letter to Nadine and Magda. Which is so mean.
He writes back. And I write back. And he writes back. And so it goes on. They’re just silly letters. He goes on about school and stuff and things he’s reading and he tells a lot of corny old jokes. He puts “Love from Dan” at the end each time, but they’re not
love
letters.
Dad says we’re like Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and sniggers. They are dead poets. I mutter something ultraunpoetical along the lines that I wish Dad was dead too. Dad hears and gets narked and says I’ve completely lost my sense of humor. Anna surprisingly takes my side. She says Dad’s crass and insensitive and she’s sick of it, so goodness knows how Ellie feels. Both Dad and I blink at her a bit. She doesn’t usually rush to my defense. I think maybe she and Dad have had a row. I heard a lot of angry whispers last night after Anna got back from her evening class. I don’t know what’s going on with them. I don’t know what’s going on with
me
.
I haven’t even seen the dream Dan again. I caught the bus for a bit because Mrs. Henderson was giving me so many detentions it was getting like I’d be stuck at school for a full twenty-four hours. But I chance walking today. I even hang around a second on the street where we met. Longer than a second, actually. More like fifteen minutes. And I still don’t get to see him.
And
I get another detention.
It’s quite companionable, actually, because Nadine is doing a detention too. It’s just the two of us. Mrs. Henderson makes us write out
lines,
would you believe? I had to write out: I MUST PULL MYSELF TOGETHER AND TRY TO BE ON TIME.
I write it one hundred times. I don’t feel pulled together. I feel as if I’m flying apart. And I tried to be on time to see Dream Dan. I couldn’t try any harder if I wrote it out one million times.
Nadine’s line is shorter than mine so even though she writes in an elaborate twirly way she still gets finished first. One hundred times: I MUST NOT BE INSOLANT .
She came to school with this amazing love bite on her neck, a big blotch that looked impressively purple on her white skin.
“For God’s sake, your Liam must have a mouth like a
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