Planet Janet

by Dyan Sheldon

  WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH

  Disha got her period last night and didn’t feel like coming to school today (HER mother is v sympathetic about these things, unlike some). I was on my way to see her this afternoon when I bumped into Flynn. He said he was going to Camden to get his mother something for her birthday, and I said if he wanted some feminine help I’d be glad to tag along. He was excruciatingly grateful (even when it isn’t Christmas, boys hate shopping!!!). Now that I finally had him alone I didn’t know how to start about Catriona. Valentine’s Day seems a long time ago. So we talked about the film we saw on Sunday (which he didn’t seem to remember much), and school and stuff like that, and then I said he seemed to be hanging out a lot with Catriona Hendley lately – dead casual like. He said, “Really?” He said he’s always hung out with her; he’s known her since they were six (she seems to have known every attractive male in London since they were little – if she wasn’t so stupid you’d assume she must’ve planned it). Then (v tellingly if you ask me) he quickly tried to change the subject to how chummy Marcus and I seem to be lately. Since I definitely don’t want Flynn thinking I’m interested in Marcus (in case he says something to Catriona, who says something to Elvin) I said we weren’t any chummier than usual, and I explained about the glitter. As I expected, he laughed v loudly, which I took as an admission that he’d had the wrong impression. It put him in such a good mood that he treated me to a coffee. Naturally, the first thing I did when I finally reached the House of Horror was ring D. I said I reckoned we should set up in the matchmaking business, since Flynn and Catriona are obviously on their way to being an ITEM. I mean, Flynn denied it so much he might as well have admitted it. Disha, however, disagrees. She says I have no corroborating evidence. I think she’s been watching too many police dramas. Disha says Lila hasn’t said anything about it, and we all know what a BIG MOUTH Lila has; there’s no way she wouldn’t at least drop a hint if things were hotting up between Catriona and Flynn. And also Lila did say that they’d always hung out together, like Flynn said. But I’m the child of a psychotherapist, and I believe in psychological evidence. Psychological evidence isn’t based on what people say, but on what they might be saying.

  THURSDAY 15 MARCH

  I’m so desperate for money that I looked after Jupiter for a couple of hours this afternoon, even though it’s my night with the Toxic Twins. Jupiter peed under the kitchen table because I was talking to Disha on the phone. I was so traumatized by this that I forgot to take precautions (like wear a shield – I usually use Willow’s Corona beer tray) and when I stooped down to coax him out he made a full frontal assault! It’s just as well he doesn’t know the twins – he’d be a really bad influence. Who would have children, I ask you?

  FRIDAY 16 MARCH

  Bethsheba rings at least twice every day, but tonight she rang FIVE TIMES! I was the one who had to answer the phone, because I was the only one home except Nan. I didn’t want her to answer in case it was Elvin about tomorrow. I don’t want him exposed to the darker side of my family life until we know each other better, say in a year or two. (You can bet your last Rolo that Catriona Hendley’s grandmother isn’t any more embarrassing than the rest of Catriona’s incredibly perfect family. Catriona’s grandmother isn’t a Jesus freak; she’s a baroness.) Anyway, even though I told Bethsheba that Justin wasn’t in and that I’d give him a message, she kept right on ringing. I finally unplugged the phone and went to take a bath. As per usual, the Mad Cow yelled at ME when she got home and realized the phone was disconnected. What if she’d been trying to get through? What if there’d been an emergency? I said what if she bought me a new mobe so she’d know that she could always get me if she had to, and she said what if I started ironing my own clothes and the moon turned blue?

  You can see why people seeking enlightenment usually live in caves by themselves. (If it weren’t for the lack of electricity and the snakes and scorpions I might consider it myself.) I really find coping with my family v draining. I hope I can survive long enough to get my own place. It’s not easy to pursue a life that is intellectually stimulating as well as spiritually fulfilling in a house where everybody else is submerged in the trivial and the mundane. Mobile phones … the menopause … a little dye in the washing machine – what are these things compared to the great books, the great music, the great ideas? NOTHING, that’s what. But how can I concentrate on Higher Things when I’m constantly being brought down to below ground level by the Bandrys?

  SATURDAY 17 MARCH

  MEGA DISAPPOINTMENT! Elvin rang this morning to say he can’t fix my bike today after all. He said he was REALLY SORRY but he had to do something with his father that he couldn’t get out of. I told him that, having unreasonable parents of my own, I understood. So I won’t find out if we’re destined to Fall in Love until next weekend.

  To cheer myself up, I went over to Disha’s. The other Paskis were all out. Since I’ve got a WHOLE WEEK before I see Elvin again I decided to use it constructively and asked Disha to cut my hair – after all, the DP is a time for experimentation. It took EONS because at first she was so terrified of taking too much off that she hardly cut it at all. Since Mr and Mrs Paski were out we then moved into their room, where there are two MAJOR mirrors, so I could monitor both front and back the whole time. That worked pretty well until Disha got so obsessed with making it TOTALLY even that she nearly exposed my EARS (one of them is slightly imperfect). We called it quits after that. I think it’s too short, but Disha says it’s v trendy and immediate. (What else is she going to say? That I look like my head’s been mown?) We might’ve had a fight, but then Disha remembered the dope we liberated from Calum’s desk. I pointed out that we didn’t have any tobacco, but Disha said she had a few fags stashed away. I asked Disha when she started smoking and she said she didn’t really smoke, she just liked to have one now and then when she felt stressed, and she could stop any time she wanted. I said did she mean like Sigmund (who stops at least twice a year) and we both laughed. We got some snacks and put a film on, and then we got the hash out from under the carpet. We weren’t sure how much to use, so we used the lot. I was trying v hard to follow the film, so I didn’t notice when Disha fell asleep. I didn’t even notice that I ATE ALL THE SNACKS (a family bag of crisps, a family bag of tortilla chips and an entire packet of custard creams) either. We both decided that this is not our drug. I definitely can’t afford something that turns me into a human Hoover. I walked all the way home (the REALLY LONG WAY) because I reckoned I needed the exercise. Stopped off at the shops and bought some hair dye (Purple Passion).

  SUNDAY 18 MARCH

  Privacy being as rare as film stars in our house, I was v excited tonight to more or less have the entire flat to myself. Sigmund was out solving other people’s problems, the Mad Cow was with Sappho, Justin had a date with Bethsheba (I know that’s where he went because when I asked him where he was off to he told me to mind my own ****ing business. I wonder if I should tell this poor deluded – and possibly blind – girl that Justin wet the bed till he was ten before she gets too involved), and Nan was passed out in front of the telly (just for a change). I’ve had a couple of things I’ve been wanting to do that demand solitude. The first was to finally move my diary to a really secure location. Every day I put it somewhere different in my room, and I always stick a hair or a piece of thread between the pages so I’ll know if someone’s been reading it, but even though there’s been no sign of tampering it makes me v nervous. I had such a premonition that the MC was trawling through my room on Friday, wanting to see what I’d written about her, that Ms Staples asked me something twice before I realized she was talking to me. After class she pulled me aside to ask me if everything was all right because I seemed distracted lately. I told her it was because I was working on a story with a v good but complicated plot. She said she’d love to read it when it’s finished. (I hope she forgets about it, or I may actually have to write something, which I’m MUCH too busy to do at the moment. No wonder Catriona sti
cks to poems. How long do they take?) So anyway, I finally came up with the perfect hiding place. The garden! It’s easily accessible, and since it’s always raining no one ever really goes there. Even Sigmund’s once-a-year barbecue extravaganza has been permanently postponed because last year he was so determined that the burgers were going to be totally cooked on the barbecue and not finished off in the kitchen as per usual that he set one of the deckchairs on fire. The other thing I wanted to do was DYE MY HAIR purple. I did the hair first because you have to leave it on for twenty minutes, so I could hide my diary while I waited. I went to the kitchen and got an empty flowerpot and a smaller pot with a plant in it. Then I wrapped my diary in a lot of plastic, put it in the empty flowerpot and put the pot with the plant on top. Brilliant or what?!! It was raining, of course, so I stuck a carrier bag over my head so the dye wouldn’t drip all over then I nipped out and hid it in the shrubs. The wind banged the door shut behind me, but I didn’t think anything of it. Not until I tried to get back in. That’s when I remembered that it locks automatically. (What’d I tell you about being born under a curse? Of all the billions of families in the world, I had to be born to the one that puts a Yale lock on the garden door. It can’t be an accident! There HAS to be a God. The only thing I don’t understand is why He has it in for ME!) I couldn’t exactly haul myself over the wall and go next door since all I was wearing was one of Sigmund’s shirts and a carrier bag over my head, so I banged on the kitchen window and shouted. Sometimes I think if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all. The storm was making more noise than I was, and there was no way Nan would’ve heard me even if she’d been awake, not with the telly blaring away (not unless I was whispering something I didn’t want her to hear). I felt like a ghost looking in at her old life, unseen and unheard. As the seconds turned to minutes, I saw my whole life shimmer before me in the steam from the kettle. Well, maybe not all of it, but A LOT. Mainly they were happy memories. I saw me and Disha walking in the rain in our frog wellies when we were little, and the beach that summer we went to Greece and the MC got sunburn poisoning (you should’ve seen her feet – they looked like she’d nicked them from a purple elephant). And also I saw all my friends’ faces floating over the stove, smiling. And Elvin! I hadn’t even tasted his sweet lips yet and now it would never be. But I thought to myself, well, if I have to die so tragically – before I even reach my prime – at least my last sight is a happy one! Miraculously Nan shuffled into the kitchen before I died of exposure and drowning. Of course, then I had to sneak back out again to retrieve my diary since I had so much to tell. The MC wasn’t the tiniest bit sympathetic or worried that I might have got pneumonia. All she was concerned about was what I was doing in the garden in the dark. I can see I’ll have to keep my diary indoors after all. I can’t keep popping in and out. Not when my mother has such a suspicious nature.

  MONDAY 19 MARCH

  The curse continues to work! When I woke up this morning I SCREAMED OUT LOUD when I saw myself in the mirror. I couldn’t’ve been more SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED if I’d grown a second head. (Which is probably the only thing that could be worse than what has happened.) My hair has turned an EXTREMELY vivid magenta. I’m sure it’s because of the hours I spent in the garden. There must’ve been a chemical reaction with something they’re putting in the rain. The MC said it was lucky I cut it so short or I might have blinded half of London. I tried not to let her negativity discourage me. I decided to make myself a Dramatic Statement. I dressed totally in black and wore my biggest silver earrings (perfect for the DP or what?!!). It’s a shame my new boots fell apart like that, because they would’ve been the killer touch. Disha said I still looked v striking. Flynn said he never realized I wore earrings before. Marcus said I reminded him of the girl in The Matrix, except that her hair wouldn’t stop traffic.

  The MC ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to believe that the Abominable Brother has a girlfriend. She reckons he would’ve told her if he really was going out with Bethsheba. (I don’t see why; he doesn’t tell her anything else.) I said then why is she always ringing up like he’s the talking clock and she doesn’t own a watch? She said maybe Bethsheba hasn’t realized that Justin isn’t interested in her in that way. It’s truly amazing that I haven’t been permanently struck DUMB, living with these people. Like the girl’s pursuing Justin? The MC really is losing touch with reality in a v frightening way.

  TUESDAY 20 MARCH

  Willow asked how the vegetarianism was going and I told her it was going well except I seemed to be gaining weight, not losing it like you’d expect. How can you put on weight when you’re eating soya burgers, soya rashers and chicken nuggets instead of hamburgers, bacon and pork chops? It doesn’t make sense. Willow said, “McDonald’s chicken nuggets?” She said there’s twice as much fat per ounce in McNuggets as in a hamburger. I was shocked. I mean, it’s chicken! How can you have fat in chicken? Willow says it’s chicken the way the Matterhorn at Disneyland is part of the Alps. She says that in America McDonald’s chips had beef additives. She read all about it in some book. Willow says you can’t be too careful. Obviously not. It’s incredible the things people don’t tell you. They don’t tell you there are Great Women Artists and they don’t tell you there’s all that fat in chicken. What else aren’t they telling us? If you ask me, life should come with a book of instructions. D agrees. She says if you think about it, adults are INCREDIBLY irresponsible, not to mention they lie a lot – even to each other. We can’t decide whether adults never had any principles, or if they lost them when they sold their souls for their mortgages and crap like that.

  WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH

  Disha wanted to know why I didn’t go to the gallery with the guys last weekend. I asked her what gallery and what guys. She said some photographic gallery in the West End and Elvin and Justin. She overheard Calum and Elvin talking about it. I said she got it wrong. Justin went to some photographic exhibition on Saturday, but Elvin couldn’t have gone because he had to do something with his father. Disha gave me her oh yeah? look. It’s one of her more irritating habits. Like Elvin would dump me to go out with Justin, right? What does she think? That they’re GAY? And why would Elvin lie to me? It’s not like we’re even going out together yet, is it? I mean, Sigmund’s always telling the MC untruths (e.g. last Sunday when he said he was doing something with his dependencies group he wasn’t because one of them rang up to find out if it’d been changed to Tuesday or Wednesday!!!), but they’re married. You expect that sort of thing from people who have lived together long enough to feel suffocated.

  THURSDAY 22 MARCH

  Went for pizza with the usual suspects after school, except for Disha. I thought Disha’d given up on tennis, but she said she had a lesson tonight and wanted to go home and do her homework first. So it was up to me to watch for psychological SIGNS between Flynn and the Hendley. And they were there! Flynn and Catriona made sure they didn’t stand next to each other or anything (in a v pointed, let’s-act-like-we-hardly-know-each-other way!). At first the conversation was monopolized by Nick and David in PlayStation mode, and then Flynn started banging on about the pizza he makes at home. (I hadn’t realized he’s a new man. Justin, the Neanderthal, can barely microwave a croissant.) Marcus didn’t find it too thrilling either. He started talking to me about some little art gallery near his that he thought I should see. I wasn’t TOTALLY listening because I was keeping watch to see if Flynn and Catriona made eye contact. We had a v good time. Marcus did an impersonation of Bart Simpson accepting an Oscar that cracked us up so much we all had tears in our eyes.

  I can’t believe it! Turns out that the lesson Disha went to wasn’t tennis – it was yoga. She said she’d heard me and Ms Staples banging on about it so much that she got interested. And also she saw something on telly. I said if she was going to join a class why hadn’t she asked me to go too, and she said she had. She said I said I wasn’t interested in a class because I had my book and it was cheaper. I don’t remember this conversation AT ALL!!!
Disha said, “And to think you’re like this and you’ve only taken drugs the once. I thought you had to do it for a while before you lost your memory.” I still think she’s making it up.

  FRIDAY 23 MARCH

  Another day, another learning experience!!! I was coming home this afternoon, minding my own business, when these boys started following me. I didn’t pay any attention at first. I thought they were just muttering to themselves about football or computer games or something equally fascinating when I realized they were talking about me! To be more specific, they were making rude comments about my bum and my tits. It was disgusting. I felt like I was on a card stuck in a phone box or a picture in a magazine. But it was also really creepy. I charged into the first shop I came to and spent EONS choosing something to buy even though my options were limited (I knew all along it was going to be sugarless gum; there doesn’t seem to be much else I can eat, not after what Willow told me). They were still there when I came out, so I told them what I thought of them. I said didn’t they have mothers or sisters? I said was this the way they treated THEM? And then I told them to **** off and leave me alone. That scared them, of course. They were trembling so much they had trouble laughing. I tried ignoring them, but they kept following me, slurping and grunting and saying every disgusting thing they could think of (they must all have cable, because they said A LOT!). It was like walking down the high street starkers. (I don’t know how anyone could be a stripper!!! At least if you’re a whore you get to shut the door.) And then I had this brilliant idea. I crossed the street, backtracked a bit, and went down the road the police station’s on. The policeman is your friend. I marched inside. (Surprise! Surprise! They didn’t follow me in there!) There must’ve been a crime lull in our neighbourhood just then because there wasn’t a queue of bleeding and/or hysterical people in front of me like you see on TV. I went straight to the desk and I told the policeman what had happened. And you know what he did? HE LAUGHED!!! Obviously he doesn’t have any female friends or relatives either. I was mortified! But I’m beginning to see where Sappho gets her attitude from.