The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

by Jennifer Lynch

  ___THE___

  SECRET

  DIARY

  ___OF___

  LAURA

  PALMER

  As seen by Jennifer Lynch

  Based upon characters created by

  David Lynch and Mark Frost

  for the Television series, 'Twin Peaks'

  July 22, 1984

  Dear Diary,

  My name is Laura Palmer, and as of just three short minutes ago, I officially turned twelve years old! It is July 22, 1984, and I have had such a good day! You were the last gift I opened and I could hardly wait to come upstairs and start to tell you all about myself and my family. You shall be the one I confide in the most. I promise to tell you everything that happens, everything I feel, everything I desire. And, every single thing I think. There are some things I can't tell anyone. I promise to tell these things to you.

  Anyway, when I came down for breakfast this morning, I saw that Mom had hung streamers all through the house, and even Dad put on a party hat and tooted away on a kazoo for a while. I didn't think Donna and I would ever stop laughing!

  Oh, Donna is my very best friend in the whole world. Her last name is Hayward, and her father, Dr. Hayward, delivered me twelve years ago today! I can't believe I finally made it. Mom cried at the table because she said before I know it I'll be a grown-up woman. Yeah, sure. It's going to take years for me to even get my period, I just know it. She's crazy if she thinks I'll be grown-up in no time, especially if she keeps giving me stuffed animals for my birthday!

  Today was just the way I wanted it to be, with only Donna and Mom and Dad there. And Jupiter, my cat, of course. For breakfast we had apple pancakes, which are my favorite, with lots of maple syrup and sourdough toast.

  Donna gave me the blouse I saw in the window at Horne's Department Store, and I know she bought it with her allowances because she was saving all of them for a long time and wouldn't tell me why. It's the most beautiful blouse you've ever seen! It is white and silky and has tiny embroidered roses all over it, but not so many that it looks bad. It's just perfect. On Donna's birthday, I'm going to get her something extra special too.

  My cousin Madeline, Maddy for short, is visiting tomorrow for a whole week. She and Donna and I are going to build a fort in the woods and camp out if Mom will let us. I know Dad will. He likes the woods as much as I do. One night I had a dream that Dad moved us to a house deep in the woods and my bedroom had a big tree outside the window with two songbirds nesting there. I'll be back in a minute, Diary, Dad is calling to me from downstairs. He says he has a surprise! I'll tell you everything when I get back!

  Love, Laura

  July 22, 1984, later

  Dear Diary,

  You will never ever believe what just happened! I went downstairs and Dad told Mom and I to get in the car and not to ask any questions until we got to where we were going. Of course, Mom asked questions the whole way. I didn't mind because I thought maybe something would slip out of Dad's mouth, but it didn't. I just kept quiet so that I wouldn't lose my surprise. When we pulled up to The Broken Circle Stables, I knew! Daddy bought me a pony! Diary, he is so beautiful, much more beautiful than I could ever have dreamed. His colors are cinnamon red and deep brown, and his eyes are big and sweet. Mom couldn't believe it when she saw it and she started asking Dad how he managed to do it without anyone knowing. Dad said it would ruin the surprise if she knew, and he's right.

  Mom nearly had a heart attack when she saw me underneath the pony's legs to find out if it was a boy or a girl. I barely had to look to find out that it was a boy. Like I've never seen one of those before. Mom doesn't know her little girl the way she thinks she does, hmmm?

  Back to my pony. I decided his name should be Troy, like the pony in Mrs. Larkin's photo book. Zippy, who works at the stables, said he would make a nameplate for me that says TROY in big letters, and he'll hang it right in front so that everyone will know his name when they see him. Troy is still too young to ride, but in two months I'll be able to get on and just race through the fields! Today I walked him and fed him carrots (Dad brought them with us in the trunk) and a cube of sugar that Zippy gave me. Troy loved all of it. Before I left him, I whispered in his warm, soft ear that I would see him tomorrow and that I would write all about him, here, in my diary. I can't wait to show him to Donna! I almost forgot, Maddy will see him too!

  On the way home from the stables Dad said that Troy and I have the same birthday, because when a pony is given as a gift to someone who will love him, they share everything. So happy birthday to Troy too!

  I'm glad I don't know where he came from, because this way, it is almost as if Heaven sent him down just for me.

  Anyway, Diary, tomorrow is a big day and tonight I will sleep very well, dreaming of Troy and all of the time we shall spend together. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

  Love, Laura

  P.S. I hope BOB doesn't come tonight.

  July 23, 1984

  Dear Diary,

  It is very late at night and I can't sleep. I have had nightmare after nightmare and have finally chosen to avoid sleeping altogether. I figure Maddy will be tired from her ride out here and will want to take a nap tomorrow anyway, so I can sleep then. Maybe if the sky is light when I sleep, my dreams won't be so dark.

  One of them was just awful. I woke up crying, and I was afraid Mom would come in if she heard me, and I just want to be alone right now, and she wouldn't understand that. She always comes in and sings "Waltzing Matilda" to me when I can't sleep, or like tonight when I have bad dreams. It's not that I don't want her to sing to me, it is just that there was this strange man in my dream singing just that song in Mom's voice, and it frightened me so much I could hardly move.

  In the dream I was walking through the woods out by the Pearl Lakes, and there was this very strong wind, but only around me. It was hot. The wind. And about twenty feet away from me there was this man with long hair and very large, callused hands. They were very rough and he held them out to me as he sang. His beard didn't blow in the wind because the wind was only around me. The tips of his thumbs were black like coal and he wiggled them around in circles as his hands got closer to me. I kept walking toward him, even though I didn't want to at all because he frightened me so much.

  He said, "I have your cat," and Jupiter ran behind him and off into the woods like a little white speck on a piece of black paper. He just kept singing and I tried to tell him I wanted to go home and I wanted Jupiter to come with me, but I couldn't talk. Then he lifted his hands up in the air very, very high, like he was growing bigger and taller every minute, and as his hands went up, I felt the wind around me stop and everything went silent. I thought that he was letting me go because he could read my mind, at least it felt that way. And so when he stopped the wind with his hands like that, I thought he was letting me free, letting me go home.

  Then I had to look down because there was this heat between my legs, not nice warm, but hot. It burned me and so I had to spread my legs open so they would cool. So that they would stop burning, so so hot. And they started spreading by themselves like they were going to snap off of my body, and I thought, I'm going to die this way, and how will anyone understand that I tried to keep my legs closed, but they burned and I couldn't. And then the man looked at me and smiled this awful smile, and in Mom's voice he sang, "You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me..." And I tried to talk again but I couldn't, and I tried to move but I couldn't do that either, and he said, "Laura, you are home." And I woke up.

  Sometimes when I'm dreaming I feel trapped there and so frightened. But now when I look at what I just wrote, it doesn't seem so scary. Maybe I'll write down all of my dreams from now on so that
I won't have to be afraid of them.

  One night last year I had such an awful dream that the whole next day in school, I couldn't work. Donna thought I was going nuts because every time she said my name or touched my shoulder in class to pass a note, I jumped. I wasn't going nuts, like Nadine Hurley or anything, but I was still feeling like I was in a dream. I don't really remember it, but all I know was in the dream I was in a lot of trouble because I hadn't passed this weird test where you have to help a certain number of people across this river in a boat, and I couldn't do it, because I just wanted to swim or something, and so they sent someone after me, to touch me in bad, mean ways. I don't remember any more, and I guess it's no loss.

  I'm so tired of waiting to grow up. Someday it will happen and I'll be the only person who can make me feel bad or good about anything I do.

  I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'm getting pretty tired.

  Laura

  July 23, 1984

  Dear Diary,

  Cousin Maddy will be here any minute. Dad went to pick her up at the station by himself because Mom wouldn't let him wake me. I slept until just fifteen minutes ago. No dreams at all, except Mom says she heard me calling out to her and then I hooted like an owl! I'm so embarrassed. She said she came into my room and I was half asleep but I... hooted again, and then she says I giggled and rolled over and went back to sleep. I hope she doesn't tell anyone about this. She always tells people things like that when we have dinner parties with the Haywards or something. It always starts with, "Laura did the sweetest, most odd thing..." And I know it's coming.

  Like one night she said, right in front of everyone, that I had sleptwalked into the kitchen one night just before she was going to bed. I took off all my clothes, stuffed them in the stove, and went back to bed. Now every time I go to the stove at the Haywards' when Donna and I help with dinner, Mrs. Hayward makes a joke about whether or not I realize that the stove is a stove and not a washing machine.

  Mom had been drinking the night she told that, so I forgave her. But if she tells anyone I hooted, I'll just die. I don't suppose there is ever a time that parents stop being a source of constant embarrassment to their children. Mine are no exception.

  Maybe if I could stop doing stupid things in my sleep, she wouldn't have anything to tell people.

  More later.

  Laura

  (hoot, hoot)

  July 27, 1984

  Dear Diary,

  I have so much to tell you. These words come to you from the inside of a fort that Donna and Maddy and I built. Dad and Mom said it was okay as long as we stayed just out back. We used wood that Ed Hurley gave us, and Dad hammered everything together. Donna says that if a storm came up, it would all be over for us, but I have a feeling it would stand, no matter what happened.

  Maddy is so pretty now. She's sixteen years old and I'm so jealous of her life! I wish I were sixteen! She has a boyfriend at home that she already misses, and he called her at the house earlier just to make sure she got here all right. Dad teased her about how cutesy she was on the phone, but Maddy didn't mind. Donna thinks that when she has a steady boyfriend, she'll probably be forty years old and going deaf, I told her she was crazy because boys already like both of us, we're just too smart to go out with them. I wonder what it will be like when someone besides my parents loves me, and if he will call when I travel to make sure that I'm all right.

  Anyway, earlier we all went to see Troy at the stables and brushed and fed him. Both Donna and Maddy said they'd never seen such a beautiful pony in their lives. I wonder what I did to deserve him. Donna has been wishing for a pony for years too, and her father never bought her one. I wonder how long Troy will live and if I will cry forever when he dies.

  Donna just saw what I wrote about Troy's dying, and she says I think too many sad thoughts, and that if I keep it up, who knows what will happen. Donna doesn't know everything I know. I can't help but think sad thoughts sometimes. Sometimes they are the closest things to my mind.

  Mom packed us sandwiches and two thermoses. One filled with milk, ice-cold. The other with hot chocolate. Maddy won't drink more than one cup of the hot chocolate 'cause she says it gives her zits. I don't see a zit on her face anywhere. She started her period three years ago and says it's just a nightmare. It gives you acne and cramps and you're tired and angry all the time you have it. Great. Something else to look forward to. Mom got her period when she was my age, and I only hope that doesn't mean I'll get mine this year too. Now that Maddy has described it to me, I'm not at all interested.

  All of us are eating sandwiches and drinking milk, and writing in our diaries. Maddy's is so big and full! Donna's is more full than mine, but I'm going to make you bigger than Maddy's is. I like the idea of keeping my thoughts all in one place, like a brain you can look into. We hung a flashlight from the top of the fort so that the light comes down and we can all see. A little bit of light came from the house windows, but we covered it up because we all agreed that it ruined the feeling of being out in the woods alone. All of the blankets and food already make us feel like we're exactly where we are. In the backyard! Maddy says she brought a pack of cigarettes with her and that later, after Mom and Dad are asleep, if we want to, we can try one. She says they're stale because she's had them for months but hasn't touched them because she's afraid her parents will find out. Maybe I'll try one. Donna says she doesn't want to, and Maddy and I said we wouldn't pressure her because real friends don't do that. But I'll bet you I can make Donna smoke one just by giving her the right look. I just bet you.

  More later.

  I'm back.

  We've been laughing so hard all of our stomachs ache from it. Maddy was describing how she kisses her boyfriend with her tongue, and it made Donna and me crazy. Donna made a face and said she didn't like the idea of tongue-kissing, and I pretended to think the same... but honestly, Diary, when I heard how you do it, I got a very strange funny feeling in my stomach. Different from... never mind. I got the feeling that I might like tonguekissing and I'm going to try it with a boy I like as soon as I can. Maddy said she was afraid at first, but she's been doing it for a year now and she loves it. I told both of them about last month when I had a fever and went into my parents' bedroom and saw them naked with Dad on top. I just left the room and Mom came to see me a few minutes later with some aspirin and 7-Up. She never said a word about it. Donna says they were definitely having sex, and I already knew that, but they didn't seem to like it. They just seemed to be moving very slowly and not even really looking at each other.

  Maddy thinks it was probably "just a quickie." Ugghh. My parents having sex. What a gross thing. I know that's where I came from, but I don't care if I never see that again. I'm promising right now that if and when I ever have sex, it will be a lot more fun than that.

  Well, Mom and Dad just came to say good-night to us, and to tell Donna that her parents called and said she didn't have to go to church tomorrow so that she can sleep in with us. We were all glad to hear that.

  Dad made us all close our eyes and open our hands, and he stuck a candy bar in each of them and told us not to tell Mom. Then Mom came in and handed me a little bag and said don't tell your father. There were three more candy bars in the bag! Maddy just looked at her candy and sighed. "Zits1 was all she could say. But she tore both of them open and we all forced both candy bars into our mouths and tried to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" while our mouths were full. Donna said the chewed candy looked like something Troy would leave for us, and we all had to spit it out.

  Maddy told a pretty good story, a scary one, about a family that goes away for the night and comes home to find people hiding in their house waiting to kill them all. There was more to it than that, but I'm not so sure how much I want to remember about it later on. I don't want to feed my dreams. Donna got out of the fort to pee, and Maddy told me that she had been having some bad dreams too. She said she didn't want to talk about them in front of Donna because maybe she wouldn't understand. She says she
's been having dreams of me in the woods. Donna came back and Maddy wouldn't say any more. I wonder if Maddy has seen the long-haired man? Or the wind? Maddy writes poems in her diary because she says that they are sometimes more fun to write than just the old boring stuff, and just in case anyone ever saw your diary, they might not understand everything if it was in poems. I'll try that tomorrow.

  More later.

  Aha! I told you I could get Donna to try a cigarette. Maddy brought them out and lit one of them, then she passed it to me to try. I like blowing smoke out of my mouth. Sort of like a spirit coming out of me, a dancing, flowing, wispy spirit. Like I was a grown-up woman with people all around me, just staring like they wanted to be me. Even Donna said I looked like a mature person when I smoked. I didn't even inhale so I wonder what it would be like if I did.

  Donna was next, and before she could say no, I just said, "I'm glad I tried it, and I don't ever have to do it again if I don't want to." So she took it and made a few puffs of smoke in the fort. She looked good smoking too, but she got kind of scared and sucked some smoke in and started coughing really loud, so we put out the cigarette and aired out the fort real quick in case Mom and Dad woke up. I think I'll buy a pack of cigarettes someday and just keep them like Maddy does. I'm not going to get hooked or anything. I'm too careful.

  Well, we're going to bed now and all of us are signing off to our diaries. Good night to you. I think you and I shall be wonderful companions.

  Love, Laura

  July 29, 1984

  Dear Diary,

  Here is a poem.