Diary of a Chav

by Grace Dent

  8:05 PM — Actually this Lambrella stuff is not that bad. If you sip it quickly, it just tastes a bit like Summer Fruits liquid detergent. There are fifteen people in Uma’s garden, smoking, shouting, and LAUGHING. I am really annoyed now. Don’t worry, Mother — I’ll just watch the highlights tomorrow on everyone’s MySpace slideshows, YOU OLD WITCH.

  9 PM — Chantalle has just texted to say Uma’s laundry room is full of Year Eleven boys from Stratford Hill Academy drinking bottles of lager and where are me and Carrie?

  9:10 PM — WHERE AM I?? I am stuck in the living-room with my mum and dad who are a bit pissed and dancing to their Best of Level 42 album! My mother dances like a football mascot. Her arms and feet go at different speeds.

  9:47 PM — Oh God. My mum and dad are slow-dancing to a song called “Careless Whisper.” I have got dead bad hiccups and am going to sneak another glass of Lambrella to my room and phone some people.

  10:30 PM — Why is Carrie not picking up her phone?!!!! Why?! Why has Chantalle or no one even rang again from Uma’s to see where I am? NO ONE CARES ABOUT ME. NO ONE. I WISH I WAS DEAD. I feel a bit sick now. Mum has just been into my bedroom and STOLEN my glass of Peach Lambrella back off me and says I should lie down and drink water as my face looks green.

  10:47 PM — Dear Diary, I amm stilll notapppy aboout not beeein aloowed to Uma’s party ’cos. ’COS . . . I am not a kid. And now I have been put to bed like a bloody kid!!!! WHY DOES EVRYONE TREET ME LIKE A BLOOODY KID AND I AM NOT ONE!! What is wrong with me and why are the bunk beds feeling like they are moving. Oh god I feel totally crap. Oh. Oh god. Oh no

  JANUARY

  TUESDAY 1ST JANUARY — NEW YEAR’S DAY

  Nobody in the Wood household is speaking to me. NOBODY. Not Mum. Not Dad (no change there). Not Murphy. (Don’t care about him, he can go spin on one.) Not Cava-Sue (especially not Cava-Sue as I vommed all over her bunk bed last night). Even the dog is pretending to be deaf and refusing to play Fetch the Squeaky Bart Simpson Doll.

  “Ugggghhhh, Shiraz!” screamed Cava-Sue, when she got back indoors at 2 AM. “This room stinks of chopped carrots now! Oh bleeding hell, I hate living here! Why do you have to be such a selfish little git? Mum says you only had one and a half glasses of fake wine too??!”

  The only clean duvet cover Cava-Sue could find was her old Barbie one. That annoyed her even more ’cos she thinks she’s like a total woman since she started at that bloody college.

  3 PM — I have a blob of Wite-Out on my forehead and it won’t come off. After I spewed I think I tried to Wite-Out some stuff out of the diary and then fell asleep and got my face stuck to the page. I have scrubbed and scrubbed but it will not budge.

  Murphy laughed so much when he saw, I thought he was going to poo himself.

  4 PM — Carrie just called to wish us all Happy New Year. I told her that I’d had “a chilled one” with my mum and dad. Carrie sounded like she had a brilliant time at Luciano’s. Carrie drank a glass of real champagne called Pikey Hidesick and there was a Robbie Williams tribute singer and everything.

  Carrie said the singer was EXACTLY like Robbie but he was called Keith and he had a double chin and was shorter and couldn’t really do the high notes in “Angels” but he was dead good anyway. It was £50 per person and you got your food and the Pikey Hidesick for that too.

  8 PM — I told Mum about the restaurant and the singer. Mum is still officially not speaking to me but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Fifty quid?” she said. “Fifty QUID? Ha! I remember when Carrie’s mother used to earn FIFTY PENCE an hour at Goodmayes Working Men’s Club, pouring pints!” Mum shook her head and chucked the dog another Sweet Chilli Pringle. “She used to turn up in runny tights! Runny tights!”

  What a weird thing to remember.

  THURSDAY 3RD JANUARY

  Went to Ilford Mall with Mum ’cos Nan had bought her a foot spa from Boots which she didn’t want. “When do I get the chance to bleedin’ sit down?!” Mum tutted.

  I felt like saying “Every bleedin’ night!” but I didn’t, ’cos she’s just started speaking to me again and it’s stuff like this that gets me called “a gob on a stick.”

  Mum wanted the foot spa money refunded to spend on “Back To School” clothes for Murphy. Apparently Murphy needs new school trousers and a sweatshirt as he’s grown almost six inches since last summer. Mum is dead proud of Murphy growing. I dunno why. He is turning into a giant. I reckon we should sell him to China and he could be in one of those traveling freak shows that I saw on the Discovery Channel. Mum keeps telling everyone we meet how big Murphy is and making him stand back to back with her to prove it.

  Mum said Murphy didn’t have to come shopping. Mum said Murphy was allowed to stay at home ’cos “shopping isn’t men’s work.” Murphy cackled when Mum said this and texted Tariq to bring over his Xbox. We left them in the living-room playing Star Wars Battle Front and making fart noises under their arms with their hands.

  We saw Collette Brown, Cava-Sue’s ex-best friend, coming out of Cheeky’s Vertical Tanning Salon and Nail Emporium on the high street. Collette looked totally beautiful, like a footballer’s girlfriend or something. Collette’s skin was really tanned and her hair was all straight and dyed white-blonde. She had long black boots on and a little fur jacket, and big thick gold hoops that actually looked like proper gold (not like the ones my mum got me for Christmas that are turning the backs of my ears green).

  I felt like a right hound standing beside her in my white Umbro trackie top and Niko trainers. I kept playing with my bangs so my hand covered the Wite-Out blob.

  “Happy New Year, Mrs. Wood! All right little Shiz!” Collette said. She was talking into a cell phone and smoking a ciggie at the same time. Collette’s cool like that.

  “All right Collette, lovey!” said my mum, her face lighting up.

  Collette chucked her cell into her white handbag that had a big D&G on the side.

  “Cava-Sue all right, Mrs. W?!” Collette asked.

  “Yeah, well not so bad,” said my mum. “Still studying.”

  “Ooh rather her than me!” said Collette. “’Ere, I just had these done, what you reckon?”

  Collette showed us her nails. They were dead long and painted pink with white tips.

  “Oooh, very posh!” said my mum. I didn’t say anything. I can never think of anything to say when Collette is about.

  “Freebie, ’cos I work there! I got a full set of French acrylic tips! Meant to be forty-eight pound fifty!” said Collette.

  Just then a black BMW pulled up and tooted its horn. There was a big bloke with a shaved head in the front.

  “’Ere, this is my lift, best go, tell Cava-Sue to call me!” shouted Collette.

  “Will do, lovey. Take care of yourself!” said my mum.

  Collette jumped in and they drove off, playing dead loud R&B.

  “Cava-Sue won’t ring her,” I said to Mum. “Cava-Sue never rings her any more.”

  “I know,” said my mother, then she looked quite sad.

  We brought home Murphy two sweatshirts in two different sizes. Murphy tried them both on and he liked the bigger one better.

  Mum said, “I’m taking the one that doesn’t fit back to Top Man tomorrow.”

  SATURDAY 5TH JANUARY

  4 AM — Woke up in the night proper worried about going back to Mayflower. I totally KNOW Mr. Bamblebury will not have forgotten about the Mayflower Academy Winter Festival incident thingy. Kezia texted me today and said that there is a video getting put up on everyone’s MySpace that proves I was the one that caused all the trouble. Our crap PC has got a virus and won’t play Flash so I’ve not seen it yet. I believe her though.

  Why, when I try really really hard not to get involved in stuff do I always end up as “A RINGLEADER”?

  10 AM — Carrie rang, she just saw the movie. Carrie said that it TOTALLY TOTALLY looks like it was me who started all the trouble. Carrie said that you can totally hear me singing the dead rude v
ersion of the Christmas carol that Miss Bunt with the moustache had taught us, called “Jesus Was A Very Special Boy.”

  I AM SO GUTTED. I totally never made up those words. Luther did!

  Carrie said that on the movie all the Year Nines, Tens, and Elevens are in the school hall, and the parents are all there (well mine aren’t — Mum couldn’t take time off from the bookie) and we’re singing the chorus part which goes: “Oh how the bells begin to chime! La la la la, it’s Christmastime! Oh how our hearts all soar with joy! Jesus was a very special boy! Jesus was a very special boy!”

  But me and Uma and Luther and all the back row weren’t singing the right words ’cos Luther made up other rude words weeks ago that made us wet ourselves.

  So Carrie said that everyone’s singing dead loud and then Sonia Cathcart’s dad who is a Seventh Day Adventist stands up and starts waving his arms like a nutter at Miss Bunt. Carrie said that Uma, Chantalle, her, Luther and everyone else just shuts up singing then and it’s only me singing, and I’m going: “Oh how the bells begin to chime! La la la la, it’s Christmastime! Oh how our hearts all soar with joy! Jesus was a batty batty boy! Jesus was a batty batty booooooooy!”

  So apparently Sonia Cathcart’s dad hears me and his face goes dead purple and he starts shouting at Miss Bunt that these kids “HAVE SATAN WITHIN THEM.” Then he shouts that he KNOWS that his Sonia is going to heaven but we’ll all be left to roam the earth on Judgment Day with THE BEAST. So then Luther’s dad, who used to be a kickboxer, stands up and tells Sonia Cathcart’s dad to shut his bloody mush and stop “being a God-botherer” and one of them “religious funnymentalists.” So Sonia’s dad calls Luther’s dad a “filthy heathen” so Luther’s dad gives him a backhand and Sonia’s dad starts doing some weird martial arts moves and Mr. Bamblebury, our headmaster, has to split them up.

  Then Miss Bunt shouts at Nabila Chaalan’s dad to stop filming the fight with his digital camera and Uma Brunton-Fletcher’s mother shouts at him, “Yeah, Abdul, stop filming, you bleedin’ sicko, you’re always here filming! What do you want a film of this for?!”

  Then everyone starts really arguing with everyone else and Mr. Bamblebury gets dead angry and shouts that the Mayflower 2006 Winter Festival is now CANCELED. Then the Bean twins from Year Nine’s mother starts crying ’cos she’d spent all night making kitchen towels into shepherds’ outfits and now “her kiddies won’t even get to behold the baby Jesus or anyfin’!!!!” And at some point the police got called and that’s how we ended up on the front of the Ilford Bugle getting called “Superchav Academy” AGAIN.

  3 PM — Of course, at the end of the day, I do feel partly responsible for all of this.

  SUNDAY 6TH JANUARY

  4 PM — Carrie and Carrie’s mum have just bumped into Miss Bunt with the moustache, our English teacher, in the pizza section of Asda. Carrie said that Miss Bunt says that she is no longer our English teacher. Carrie said Miss Bunt is going back to Adelaide in Australia to retrain as a florist. Carrie asked Miss Bunt if it was the Winter Festival that had done it. Miss Bunt said it was that and the constant nicknames she had to put up with from “some of the kids.” I feel terrible now. I was the one who started off “Hairy Bunt.”

  11 PM — I’m a bit worried about school. I can’t sleep. It is not helping that Cava-Sue has been getting mushy phonecalls and texts all night. I asked her who they’re from and she said, “Mind your big nose, beakgirl.” I know they’re from Lewis, ’cos I’ve been pretending to be asleep but I am not.

  11:15 PM — Cava-Sue needs to start being nicer to me or when I meet this “Lewis” I will totally grass her up about the panty-pad boobs she wore on New Year’s Eve. Cava-Sue is flatter than me. Cava-Sue’s baps make mine look like cantaloupe melons.

  MONDAY 7TH JANUARY

  BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!

  Mr. Bamblebury gathered all of the Year Nines and Tens into the assembly room today and moaned at us about behavior. Mr. Bamblebury said the whole point of Marlowe Comprehensive School’s name being officially changed to the Mayflower Academy last September and being given all that money by the Prime Minister to become a center of excellence was that WE WERE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF!!

  Mr. Bamblebury really really shouted when he said “new leaf” and stared at me and Luther and Chantalle and Carrie.

  Mr. Bamblebury said that he was tired of the blatant disregard for rules, non-attendance, and general tomfoolery. (Tomfoolery! I love that word!! Why are some words so good?) Mr. Bamblebury said he was not standing for ANY MORE OF OUR DISRESPECT. Then he said that a number of measures were in place and we’d certainly be noticing them over the coming weeks. I don’t know what that meant.

  Mr. Bamblebury said to begin with he wanted to see Uma Brunton-Fletcher in his office at 10 AM to talk about the FILTHY language and accusations about him and his pet cat on her My Space page. Kezia Marshall shouted out that he’d have a job doing that as Uma’s mother always takes her out of school during the first two weeks of January to go to the Dominican Republic.

  Mr. Bamblebury’s eyes bulged out of his head then and he made us spend the next fifteen minutes singing gay songs about robins and rainbows from the Come and Praise songbook, while he stared out the window mumbling things that sounded like bad swear words.

  Miss Bunt has definitely gone for good. Me and Carrie went to English today and Miss Bunt wasn’t there. We had a substitute teacher from Poland instead who had a small face and a long neck and looked a lot like Jar Jar Binks.

  I didn’t learn her name as she won’t be here very long anyhow, so we all called her Jar Jar, not to her face though, just behind her back (although I have got quite a loud voice so she might have heard).

  TUESDAY 8TH JANUARY

  CARRIE DRAPER IS IN LOVE! With someone she doesn’t even know. She told me in math. This isn’t totally shocking news as Carrie is always falling in love. She was in love with Keith the Robbie Williams tribute bloke last week, but he hasn’t returned any emails to her and this is after him personally telling her to check out his MySpace and everything.

  Anyway, now Carrie likes some lad that lives down Dawson Drive. Carrie said she sees him fixing his Vauxhall Nova with his mate when she is out walking Alexis, her mum’s Chihuahua. (Walking! Ha — that stupid fluffy thing just gets carried everywhere.)

  Carrie said I must remember him as we saw him when we went on our walk at Christmas. So I said to Carrie was it that guy with the strawberry nose who shouted at us and Carrie said no, don’t be sick, that was the park-keeper and he was like forty. Carrie said that the lad she is in love with is totally gorgeous and tall and he’s about eighteen and has a silver car with alloy wheels and silver wheel arches. I don’t remember him at all but Carrie says she’s seen him a few times now about Goodmayes and in Burger King once and he is lush.

  Nothing exciting happened at school today. That Jar Jar Binks woman tried to make us look at our GCSE set text, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The book is about a munter teacher who lives in a castle or something. She tried to make us study a page then answer a question about why we thought the woman was so sad. What is the point? I’m not going to pass GCSE English, no chance.

  “Are there any queries?” Jar Jar said after we read through a page together.

  “Yeah miss, Sean Burton!” I shouted and pointed at Sean in our English class who dyes his hair blond and has a pink MySpace page and always goes on about his Kylie Minogue Showgirls DVD and wears concealer. Everyone laughed for ages and we got nothing done.

  Jar Jar Binks pulled a sad face. I think she’s done well to last two days.

  THURSDAY 10TH JANUARY

  Carrie dragged me and Alexis for a walk down Dawson Drive to see if we could spot “The Most Gorgeous Boy In The World Ever” and his mate. They weren’t there. Carrie was dead hacked off as she says TMGBITWE is always there poking his Nova with a spanner most nights and yesterday he even looked up and noticed her!

  Carrie said this was just her luck as Alexis the
dog had just done a poo five minutes beforehand and Carrie was still carrying the poo in a little plastic bag looking for a trash bin to dump it in. This is why Carrie totally wanted to see TMGBITWE again tonight I think. Carrie is paranoid that TMGBITWE thinks she always carries about a small plastic bag of dog poo.

  Anyway, he wasn’t there and neither was his mate or the Vauxhall Nova. I hope something happens soon as I am sick of freezing my arse off on Dawson Drive carrying a dog that looks like something my nan once got me for my birthday to keep my pajamas in.

  SATURDAY 12TH JANUARY

  No school today, thank God. Me and Carrie went to Ilford Mall ’cos Carrie needed to take back the too-small Calvin Klein bra. All the usual Year Ten faces were down the mall. Chantalle, Luther, Kezia and like twenty other randoms were all on the third floor hanging about the food court stressing out the security guards by wearing their hoodies up and laughing too loudly and asking the staff at Magic Spuds for beakers of free tap water.

  So we were all laughing our heads off ’cos Luther had just tried to run down the up escalator, when the big scary Chinese security guard arrived and said we were taking up the tables where the real people could be sitting so we all had to go. So Kezia started getting all up in his face like a rudegirl going, “Like what am I bro? NOT A REAL PERSON?” And the security guard just laughed at her ’cos he was like two hundred fifty pounds and six feet tall and looked like he could kill her with one flick.

  Then Kezia said, “I got like civil liberties, y’know bredren!”

  And the security guard laughed and said, “You go have your civil liberties outside McDonald’s, not in my mall then.” Then he chucked us all out.

  Then me and Carrie left everyone and went to Superdrug to look at the nail polish. We were coming out of Superdrug and Carrie saw this dead fit lad with tiny cornrow dreads and wide shoulders called Lee Coatchford, who everyone calls Cotch, who used to work for Carrie’s dad as an apprentice at Draper Hydration after he got asked to leave Mayflower last year. But then Cotch left Draper Hydration ’cos he said he was going to go in the marines, but then he didn’t do that either so it seems.