by Rae Earl
I think it may be a scam.
1.37 p.m.
I can’t revise any more today – my head is full. Plus I need to go round Gran’s and look after her. She could sign up to anything. Protecting the vulnerable is more important than passing exams.
5.12 p.m.
Had a brilliant afternoon. Watched loads of TV, ate Doritos and, most importantly, protected Gran from scammers.
I have a feeling that Gran may end up living with us, which will be the greatest thing ever, as a) she LOVES me wearing make-up, and b) she ALWAYS takes my side.
I might tell Mum she seems a bit confused so she moves in quicker.
SUNDAY 14TH JUNE
1.12 p.m.
Told Mum about Gran. She said Gran could look after herself, and how was my revision going?
If she ever finds out about the Cheat Club I am actually dead.
Maths tomorrow. You can’t revise Maths. You can either do it or not.
MONDAY 15TH JUNE
5.12 p.m.
You CAN revise Maths. I couldn’t remember how to do fractions or percentages.
I am going to write very little here this week. Once I have revised, updated my Facebook status AND tweeted, I actually haven’t got time to write.
TUESDAY 16TH JUNE
7.35 p.m.
History.
No questions about Henry VIII’s snogging!
UNBELIEVABLE.
Failed that.
WEDNESDAY 17TH JUNE
5.35 p.m.
Geography.
I think global warming is the same thing as glaciation – so I wrote about that.
6.12 p.m.
Just checked with Dimple. It’s not.
Failed that.
THURSDAY 18TH JUNE
4.12 p.m.
RS.
MARVELLOUSNESS! Florence – ultimate rebel – wrote “I Love You” on her eyelids and kept opening and shutting her eyes to Mr Hopkins the trainee RS teacher during the exam!
Questions on Hindus!!! YES!!! My best friend is one. I know she doesn’t eat beef. I may have passed that.
FRIDAY 19TH JUNE
5.32 p.m.
English and French oral.
Haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I accidentally told Monsieur Très Gros that I came to school on a horse as I couldn’t remember the word for walking.
And then he asked me what my dad did for a job. I think I said in French, “My dad is lost.”
6.02 p.m.
Checked with Jen – I actually said in French, “My dad is a pear.” No wonder Monsieur Très Gros quickly asked me about my hobbies.
7.23 p.m.
Goose just came round. Apparently Zach is going out with another girl.
Apparently she is not as “full-on” as me. Goose says Zach is an idiot and I deserve better.
WHY CAN’T I JUST BE BORING AND BEAUTIFUL like that pretty woman who reads the news? Then boys would like me!
9.01 p.m.
Just tweeted: I have had the most craptacular week ever.
Out of my 34 followers no one has asked me why.
9.12 p.m.
Someone called “Sportswear Dudes USA” has tweeted that they can give me 25% off a home gym and some protein shakes.
Great!
I only stay on Twitter so I am easy to track down if someone wants to find me.
SATURDAY 20TH JUNE
7.12 p.m.
Went round to see Gran. She has given me another “not fair thing” that she would like me to fix. Due to “bloody shoplifters” her Cathedral City cheese now has a “bloody security tag”. It’s cheese – not gold bullion!
I complained to Gran about how shallow men are, and asked if she thought I needed to be quieter? Gran turned mental:
“REAL men like REAL women with personality, and boys who don’t always have small … egos – and you shouldn’t be going out with them anyway. The best thing a woman has is herself, Hattie. Never pretend to be something you’re not for ANYONE. You’re a lovely-looking girl with a great mind and a lovely figure. If boys don’t appreciate it now, MEN will.”
Which is all very well but it doesn’t help me now, does it? I can’t wait for boys to mature to find love. I NEED LOVE NOW.
SUNDAY 21ST JUNE
8.23 a.m.
What I actually need is a proper dad NOW. BIRTH CERTIFICATE, where are you?
4.12 p.m.
AND a time machine so I can go back and do some revision. Exam results tomorrow.
MONDAY 22ND JUNE
1.23 p.m.
Exam results.
Failed everything except French and RS (thanks Dimple).
I am going to be in such craptacular crap with my mum. I’m not going to tell her till she actually asks, and then I will be telling her it’s completely her fault.
OMG – better ask her for my birth certificate before she finds out.
4.19 p.m.
I should have known.
Just asked Mum for my birth certificate and she said, “I’ll just nip upstairs and get it.”
She brought it down. For father, it says UNKNOWN.
Not even my birth certificate knows who my father is.
I knew it was too good to be true. Like my Dyson grow-some-breasts machine.
Depressed now.
6.12 p.m.
Weird – Mum hasn’t asked about my exams yet. Perhaps she knows I’m gutted about the birth certificate.
6.55 p.m.
Goose just came round. He understands how upset I am about the birth certificate but he thinks I should put it out of my mind. He ALWAYS says stuff like this. I think he thinks he is Dr Phil.
7.12 p.m.
Dimple texted. She agrees with Goose. I think she thinks she is Mrs Dr Phil.
7.32 p.m.
They are both right. Of COURSE my birth certificate wasn’t going to tell me ANYTHING. That would have been far too easy in MY life.
7.52 p.m.
Mum still hasn’t mentioned my exam results. Beginning to think she has forgotten.
8.55 p.m.
STILL no mention – I KNOW she will explode any minute though.
10.12 p.m.
I am officially worried now. It’s like living with a volcano. She seems really worried about something.
TUESDAY 23RD JUNE
5.23 p.m.
I LOVE MY BROTHER – he has saved my life!!!
My brother is considering going in to the army. Rob thinks it’s a great idea but Mum just burst into tears and said, “Doesn’t he ever watch the bloody news?”
Nathan says that there wasn’t a lot else to do for someone like him with average GCSEs and no real other skills, and that he did not want to be serving Mega Cheese Elf Burgers for the rest of his life. Mum said she would rather him be fed-up than maimed for life – or dead.
My exam results are just so not important now.
WEDNESDAY 24TH JUNE
7.13 p.m.
I won’t miss my brother. He used to play hide the baby with me and try and put me in the dishwasher when Mum wasn’t looking. Plus once he pretended he had hypnotized Mum and she played along and he said, “You are under my control…” and Mum said, “Yes…” and he said, “Give the baby away!!! Give the baby away!!!”
Everyone finds this funny except me.
THURSDAY 25TH JUNE
8.46 p.m.
My brother came in tonight. We actually just had a half-decent conversation:
HIM: Hello, Zitty – how’s it going?
ME: Are you really going to join the army?
HIM: Hats, it might be a real opportunity to do something actually amazing with my life.
ME: But you could get killed!
HIM: You could get killed by a bus every morning.
ME: But the difference is that mental suicide bombers aren’t actually aiming the bus towards you.
HIM: I am going to the recruitment centre tomorrow. Wish me luck.
ME: Good luck … and thanks for making Mum forget abo
ut my exam results.
Then he winked at me and left. I think I may like my brother.
FRIDAY 26TH JUNE
4.12 p.m.
My brother can’t go in to the army because he has asthma! LOL!!!
6.21 p.m.
My brother has just asked my mum how I did in my exams.
6.33 p.m.
My mum has gone mental. I didn’t even tell her the actual results. She said she knows they are bad because I haven’t told her. I have to go round Gran’s tomorrow to weed her garden and I am banned from seeing Jen and Dimple outside school for a week. Don’t care. I can Skype! Mum is so last century. Her punishments are RUBBISH.
SATURDAY 27TH JUNE
5.32 p.m.
My back kills. Weeding hurts. My mum is a torture queen.
Then I went to wash my hands and OMG – Gran has got a Paul Smith towel! Gran said it was a free gift with some perfume she bought. But why has she got something designer, when my life is Primark, Primark, Primark?
6.09 p.m.
I must not be shallow. I must not be shallow. There are girls my age fighting wars. I must remember that.
6.16 p.m.
In fact Mum always says that to me, but where exactly do 14-year-old-girls fight wars? Adults have to remember that we have information at our fingertips these days. We cannot be lied to like the old days, when people believed in the tooth fairy until they were 19!!!
6.58 p.m.
I wish I hadn’t googled that. I now officially feel totally depressed. There are children fighting wars everywhere. Especially in parts of Africa.
I am a cow with actually no problems.
SUNDAY 28TH JUNE
7.32 p.m.
Just Skyped Dimple and Jen (Dimple was round Jen’s house).
The NFPG have decided there’s nothing we can really do about child soldiers, but whenever we hear someone moaning about something crap and stupid we are going to say, “At least you’re not a child soldier”. It’s our new phrase. It reminds people that even though life isn’t fair here, it’s even less fair in other places.
MONDAY 29TH JUNE
4.49 p.m.
At school today Bitchface Matfield was moaning at us that we hadn’t done our homework. When I said, “At least you’re not a child soldier,” I got a detention for being cheeky.
I suppose this is what happens when you try to alert people to all the injustices and terrible things that happen in the world. People don’t want to hear it. We at the NFPG know that we will have to suffer to get our point across, and we accept that.
TUESDAY 30TH JUNE
7.46 p.m.
Gran said the queue for her pension at the post office was stupidly long because they don’t even bother with a decent amount of staff these days. I told her at least she wasn’t a child soldier in Africa. Gran said, “Hattie, I bet they look after their bloody old people there!”
That’s not the point, Gran, but never mind!
WEDNESDAY 1ST JULY
7.56 p.m.
CRAPBLOODYTACULAR BALLS!!!
Mum just dropped a TOTAL BOMBSHELL.
I HAVE to go on holiday with her and Rob to STUPID Sicily at the end of this month. My brother is allowed to stay at home, but I’m not. WHY?!
I cannot believe this – I am being forced to go on holiday because I am apparently too young to stay with my brother. I went MENTAL and all Mum could say was: “At least you’re not a child soldier!”
YES, MUM, I know. But she kept smiling. No one EVER said she could use an NFPG slogan!
8.15 p.m.
I’ve checked and Africa is nowhere near Sicily, which is a good thing. I can’t fight a war – anyone with a gun could see the braces on my teeth shining from a mile off. Mum has made me a sitting target by not letting me have the expensive nice ones.
THURSDAY 2ND JULY
8.12 a.m.
Why are we going to Sicily anyway? Why can’t we be like normal families and go to Disneyworld?
9.34 p.m.
OMG OMG OMG.
Goose has just been round and when I told him we were going to Sicily he said, “Hattie, think about it. Sicily? Italians? Italian men? CARLO!!! Your mum could be taking you to meet your real dad.”
O M G !!!
It DOES makes sense because why else would you go to Sicily?
10.12 p.m.
OMG!!!
From now I am counting down till OFFICIAL DAD DAY. D-DAY is on its way.
FRIDAY 3RD JULY
6.37 p.m.
Told Jen today about the Goose Sicily theory. She thinks he’s right – at least I think that’s what she said. She’s had her tongue pierced, and it’s difficult to understand her. Jen says it’s so sore it hurts to say certain words. So she is communicating mainly through nodding and texting. If her mum finds out she’ll go mental.
Then, OMG, Jen said, “What are you wearing to the prom?”
THE PROM!!!
Because of TOTAL heartbreak, child soldiers, revision, helping Gran with Mario Kart, bad exam results and trying to find my ACTUAL REAL DAD I’d forgotten about the prom!
AM I A MENTAL??
I now only have about 10 days to get ready. I know for a FACT MGK had her outfit sorted in March and has been building up a Fake Bake tan since December last year! I AM DEAD.
10.32 p.m.
Been on eBay for 3 hours looking for a dress. Just sniped at last minute to win a prom dress – it’s AMAZING! It’s strapless black with red detail, it’s GORGEOUS and it only cost 27p! The seller is from China but I’m sure it will be fine. Going to use Mum’s PayPal to pay for it. Even she won’t mind 27p!
11.14 p.m.
Just noticed postage is £35. It’s still cheap.
11.46 p.m.
Texted Dimple – she thinks it will be touch-and-go whether it gets here or not. Craptacular Hattie strikes again.
SATURDAY 4TH JULY
11.32 a.m.
Asked the postman today how long things take to get from China to the UK. He laughed and said, “Depends, duck – anything from 7 days to 10 weeks. That’s if they send it at all. Bye!”
Stupid letter-box-loving dork machine. And he wears shorts in winter. Hope the mad chav-mongous dog 3 doors away gets him one day.
PLEASE let it get here.
1.01 p.m.
Spoke to Gran about the prom dress disaster. She said, “No problem, Hats – I can run you up something on my Singer.” Then she took me to the spare room and showed me this ANCIENT sewing machine that would probably be worth a bomb. Turns out Gran is basically Versace and used to make her own clothes ALL the time. Apparently Mum LOVED her dresses and people begged her to make stuff for them.
ATTENTION, WORLD – I AM GOING TO BE ALL GORGEOUSNESS! YES, MGK – some of us ARE BASICALLY COUTURE. My real Sicilian dad will LOVE that – the Italians TOTALLY invented style.
2.34 p.m
OMG what if my real dad is Roberto Cavalli the designer?! Victoria Beckham stays on his yacht. She could be my BFF!
Except for Dimple and Weirdo Jen. But they could come too.
3.55 p.m.
Just told Mum about Gran’s offer. She went white with this mad stare and said, “Hattie, I’ve got something to show you. You must never talk of it to anyone or EVER mention it to your gran or it could kill her.”
She went upstairs and came down with a photo. It took me a while to realize who it was. It was Mum when she was about 15 in the MOST craptacular dress you have EVER seen. It was navy blue and white striped with gold wonky anchors stitched all over it. Plus it was long at the front and back but short at the sides. She stared at me and said, “Your gran made this for the most important school disco of my life. I’d been chasing Andy Crouch for 3 terms. She thought it was ‘trendy’ and ‘experimental’. People laughed at me from the night I wore it till I left school. Everywhere I went people sang ‘What shall we do with the drunken tailor?’. Under no circumstances, Hattie, let Gran make you any clothes. EVER.”
She then just walk
ed off. She actually looked like she was about to cry.
4.12 p.m.
Texted Gran and told her not to worry as Dimple was lending me something. Gran rang me IMMEDIATELY and said, “Are you sure, Hats? I’ve got some lovely print with mini pansies.” I said I was sure.