Red Dirt Diary 3 by Katrina Nannestad

to love is never easy’.
    â€˜Ben ruined my romance again !’ Mat cried. ‘Edmund was meant to tell Elizabeth that the sight of her face makes his heart soar on angels’wings, not that the sight of her face makes him want to vomit.’
    Mat cried so hard that snot was streaming out both her nostrils, and the sight of her face made me want to vomit!
    But a friend is a friend, so I gave her a hug and told her that nobody would even notice. And besides, it was quite impressive that Elizabeth was still able to tumble away merrily down the street after Edmund had been so mean. I thought that showed great strength of character on Elizabeth’s part.
    Mat gave me a withering stare, burst into tears again, and said the tumbling, rolling, somersaulting, spinning part was the WORST OF ALL.
    â€˜Imagine how her long skirt and petticoats and legs would have flown up in the air!’ cried Mat.
    â€˜She would have flashed her bloomers all over the place!’ she sobbed.
    â€˜It would have been the most humiliating moment of Elizabeth’s life!’ she shrieked.
    Mat threw herself on her bed and cried and cried and cried.
    We ran out of tissues.
    By the time I went home at four o’clock, I was exhausted and I hadn’t played a single game of tennis. Phew! What an afternoon.
    It was a relief to come home and have some tumbling races with Wes, Fez and Flipper. Flipper won six races, I won three, and Fez tumbled down the old pit trap for the foxes. Wes staggered around laughing so much at Fez that he tripped over and fell down the pit on top of Fez.
    Sunday, 3 June
    We let Flipper out of the chicken coop today and he tumbled backwards across the grass until he collided with Mrs Whittington. She was sweeping the dirt off the driveway, even though the whole thing is made of dirt.
    Flipper got cross and started pecking Mrs Whittington on the ankles. Mrs W swung the broom back like a hockey stick and belted Flipper so hard that he tumbled backwards all the way to the veranda. Poor thing.
    Will post the next edition of The Bake Tribulation to Miss McKenzie tomorrow. I’ll also send one of Flipper’s feathers and our school photo from last year. Just so she knows what she’s missing out on.
    Monday, 4 June
    Everyone was talking about ‘Heart’s Triumph’ on the bus this morning. Tom and Jack were discussing why Edmund wanted to vomit when he looked at Elizabeth’s face. Tom said she must be really ugly. Jack said eyes like blue poo would look gross, and they’d stink!
    Ned said it was totally cool the way Elizabeth went tumbling away at the end of the story. He thought she might turn out to be a Birmingham Roller, like in those stories where people turn out to be spiders or tigers, take over the earth and eat all the people for vitamins. Nick said Elizabeth would probably peck Edmund and Barry the butcher to death before the serial ended — like a science-fiction blood-and-guts action story. Now everyone is really excited about what will happen in the next episode.
    You’d think Mat would be pleased to have written such a popular serial, but she’s not. She sat up the front of the bus, blowing her nose and pretending not to hear. Then, when we got to school, she punched Ben in the nose for ruining her romance story, her real-life romance with Warren from Warren AND HER WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE. It was a darned shame becauseGabby was away sick and she would have loved dealing with all that blood and bruising.
    Worms spent the day carrying Feathers around inside his jumper in case he got cold. Everyone thought he was silly, but it turned out to be lucky. When the Colonel opened the door to the pigeon coop today, all the pigeons flew out and headed off towards Wagga Wagga. Only Feathers stayed behind because he was asleep, snuggled up against Worms’s chest.
    I was about to give a loud laugh, full of scorn and ridicule, but the Colonel looked devastated.
    â€˜Never