by Sue Townsend
Mr Singh has had to return to India to look after his aged parents, so Bert has been told that he will have to move back into his dirty old house! Mr Singh says that he cannot trust his womenfolk to be alone in the house with Bert. How stupid can you get? Bert doesn’t mind too much; he said that it is ‘quite a compliment’.
Pandora and I are going to clean Bert’s house and help him move back. He owes the council two hundred and ninety-four pounds in rent arrears. He has got to pay the arrears off at fifty pence a week, so it is a certainty that Bert will die in debt.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND
Pandora and I went to look at Bert’s house today. It is a truly awesome sight. If Bert took all his empty beer bottles back to the off-licence he might get enough money on the empties to pay off his rent arrears.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD
My father helped us to move all of the furniture out of the ground floor of Bert’s house, the woodworms came out to sunbathe. When we lifted the carpets we discovered that Bert had been walking about on a layer of dirt, old newspapers, hairpins, marbles and decomposed mice for years. We hung the carpets on the washing line and beat them all afternoon, but the dust billowed out non-stop. Pandora got excited at about 5 p.m., she claimed she could see a pattern emerging on one carpet, but closer examination showed it to be squashed fairy cake. We are going back tomorrow with Pandora’s mother’s carpet-shampooer. Pandora said it has been tested by Which?, but I bet it has never had to clean a filthy hovel like Bert Baxter’s before.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4TH
I have just witnessed a miracle! This morning Bert’s carpets were dark grey in colour. Now one is a red Axminster and the other is a blue Wilton. The carpets are hanging on the clothes line to dry. We have scraped all the floors clean and washed the furniture down with a fungicide disinfectant. Pandora took the curtains down but they fell to pieces before she could get them to the sink. Bert has been sitting in a deckchair criticizing and complaining. He can’t see what’s wrong with living in a dirty house.
What is wrong with living in a dirty house?
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5TH
My father took Bert’s bottles to the off-licence this morning. The boot, back seat and floor of the car were filled with them. The car stank of brown ale. He ran out of petrol on the way and called the AA. The AA man was most uncivil, he said it wasn’t the Automobile Association my father needed, it was Alcoholics Anonymous!
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH
Twelfth after Trinity. Moon’s First Quarter
Bert’s house looks great. Everything is dead clean and shiny. We have moved his bed into the lounge so that he can watch television in bed. Pandora’s mother has done very artistic arrangements with flowers, and Pandora’s father has made an alsatian flap in the back door so that Bert doesn’t keep having to get up to answer the door to Sabre.
Bert is moving back tomorrow.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH
Labor Day, USA and Canada
An airmail letter from Hamish Mancini.
Hi Aid!
Howya doin’? I hope the situation Pandora-wise is ongoing! She sounds kinda zappy! Scotland blew my mind! It was so far out as to be nuked! You’re a great human being, Aid. I guess I was kinda traumatized when we rapped but Dr Eagelburger (my shrink) is doing great things with my libido. Mom’s really wiped out right now, turns out number four is a TV and has a better collection of Calvin Kleins than she do! Don’t you think the fall is a drag? Son-of-a-bitch leaves everywhere!
See you, Buddy!!!
Hamish
I showed it to Pandora, my father and Bert but nobody understands it. Bert doesn’t like Americans because it took them too long to come into the war or something.
Bert now in his clean house. He hasn’t said thank-you, but he seems happy.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 8TH
Lousy stinking school on Thursday. I tried my old uniform on but I have outgrown it so badly that my father is being forced to buy me a new one tomorrow.
He is going up the wall but I can’t help it if my body is in a growth period can I? I am only five centimetres shorter than Pandora now. My thing remains static at twelve centimetres.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH
Grandma phoned, she has found out about Doreen and Maxwell going to Skegness. She is never speaking to my father again.
Here is my shopping list:
Blazer
£29.99
2 pairs grey trousers
£23.98
2 white shirts
£11.98
2 grey pullovers
£7.98
3 pairs black socks
£2.37
1 pair PE shorts
£4.99
1 PE vest
£3.99
1 track suit
£11.99
1 pair training shoes
£7.99
1 pair football boots and studs
£11.99
1 pair football socks
£2.99
Football shorts
£4.99
Football shirt
£7.99
Adidas sports bag
£4.99
1 pair black shoes
£15.99
1 calculator
£6.99
Pen and pencil set
£3.99
Geometry set
£2.99
My father can easily spare a hundred pounds. His redundancy payment must have been huge, so why he is lying on his bed moaning I don’t know. He is just a mean skinflint! He hasn’t paid with real money anyway! He used his American Express card.
Pandora admired me in my new uniform. She says she thinks I stand a good chance of being made a prefect.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH
A proud start to the new term. I am a prefect! My first duty is as late duty prefect. I have to wait by the gap in the railings and take the name of anyone sneaking late into school. Pandora is also a prefect. She is in charge of silence in the dinner queue.
My new timetable was given to me today by my new form tutor, Mr Dock. It includes my O level and CSE lessons, and it is compulsory to do Maths, English, PE and Comparative Religion. But they do give you a choice of Cultural and Creative subjects. So I have chosen Media Studies (dead easy, just reading newspapers and watching telly) and Parentcraft (just learning about sex, I hope). Mr Dock also teaches English Literature, so we are bound to get on, by now I am surely the best-read kid in the school. I will be able to help him out if he gets stuck.
Asked my father for five pounds fifty for school trip to the British Museum. He went berserk and said, ‘What happened to free education?’ I told him that I didn’t know.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH
Had a long talk with Mr Dock. I explained that I was a one-parent-family child with an unemployed, bad-tempered father. Mr Dock said he wouldn’t care if I was the offspring of a black, lesbian, one-legged mother and an Arab, leprous, hump-backed-dwarf father so long as my essays were lucid, intelligent and unpretentious. So much for pastoral care!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12TH
Wrote lucid, intelligent and unpretentious essay about Scottish wildlife in the morning. In afternoon did shopping in Sainsbury’s with my father. Saw Rick Lemon dithering at the fruit counter; he said selecting fruit was an ‘overtly political act’. He rejected South African apples, French golden delicious apples, Israeli oranges, Tunisian dates and American grapefruits. In the end he selected English rhubarb, ‘Although,’ he said, ‘the shape is phallic, possibly sexist.’ His girlfriend, Tit (short for Titia), was cramming the trolley with pulses and rice. She had a long skirt on but now and again I caught a glimpse of her hairy ankles. My father said he preferred a nice shaven leg any day. My father likes stockings, suspenders, mini-skirts and low necklines! He is dead old-fashioned.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH
Thirteenth after Trinity
Went to see Blossom. Pandora doesn’t ride her now because her feet drag on the gr
ound. Pandora is having a proper horse delivered next week. It is called Ian Smith. The people who are selling it used to live in Africa, in Zimbabwe.
Tomorrow is my mother‘s birthday. She is thirty-seven.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH
Full Moon
Phoned my mother before school. There was no answer. I expect she was lying in bed with that stinking rat Lucas.
School dinners are complete crap now. Gravy seems to have been phased out along with custard and hot puddings. A typical menu is: hamburger, baked beans, chips, carton of yoghurt, or a doughnut. It’s not enough to build healthy bone and sinew. I am considering making a protest to Mrs Thatcher. It won’t be our fault if we grow up apathetic and lacking in moral fibre. Perhaps Mrs Thatcher wants us to be too weak to demonstrate in years to come.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 15TH
Barry Kent has been late three times in one week. So it is my unfortunate duty to report him to Mr Scruton.
Unpunctuality is the sign of a disordered brain. So he cannot go unpunished.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH
Our form is going to the British Museum on Friday. Pandora and I are going to sit together on the coach. She is bringing her Guardian from home so that we can have some privacy.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17TH
Had a lecture on the British Museum from Ms Fossington-Gore. She said it was a ‘fascinating treasure house of personkind’s achievements’. Nobody listened to the lecture. Everyone was watching the way she felt her left breast whenever she got excited.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 18TH
2 a.m. Just got back from London. Coach driver suffered from motorway madness on the motorway. I am too shaken by the experience to be able to give a lucid or intelligent account of the day.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH
The school may well want a clear account by an unprejudiced observer of what happened on the way to, during and coming back from our trip to London. I am the only person qualified. Pandora, for all her qualities, does not possess my nerves of steel.
Class Four-D’s Trip to the British Museum
7 a.m.
Boarded coach.
7.05
Ate packed lunch, drank low-calorie drink.
7.10
Coach stopped for Barry Kent to be sick.
7.20
Coach stopped for Claire Neilson to go to the Ladies.
7.30
Coach left school drive.
7.35
Coach returned to school for Ms Fossington-Gore’s handbag.
7.40
Coach driver observed to be behaving oddly.
7.45
Coach stopped for Barry Kent to be sick again.
7.55
Approached motorway.
8.00
Coach driver stopped coach and asked everyone to stop giving ‘V’ signs to lorry drivers.
8.10
Coach driver loses temper, refuses to drive on motorway until ‘bloody teachers control kids’.
8.20
Ms Fossington-Gore gets everyone sitting down.
8.25
Drive on to motorway.
8.30
Everyone singing ‘Ten Green Bottles’.
8.35
Everyone singing ‘Ten Green Snotrags’.
8.45
Coach driver stops singing by shouting very loudly.
9.15
Coach driver pulls in at service station and is observed to drink heavily from hip-flask.
9.30
Barry Kent hands round bars of chocolate stolen from self-service shop at service station. Ms Fossington-Gore chooses Bounty bar.
9.40
Barry Kent sick in coach.
9.50
Two girls sitting near Barry Kent are sick.
9.51
Coach driver refuses to stop on motorway.
9.55
Ms Fossington-Gore covers sick in sand.
9.56
Ms Fossington-Gore sick as a dog.
10.30
Coach crawls along on hard shoulder, all other lanes closed for repairs.
11.30
Fight breaks out on back seat as coach approaches end of motorway.
11.45
Fight ends. Ms Fossington-Gore finds first-aid kit and sees to wounds. Barry Kent is punished by sitting next to driver.
11.50
Coach breaks down at Swiss Cottage.
11.55
Coach driver breaks down in front of AA man.
12.30
Class Four-D catch London bus to St Pancras.
1 p.m.
Class Four-D walk from St Pancras through Bloomsbury.
1.15
Ms Fossington-Gore knocks on door of Tavistock House, asks if Dr Laing will give Barry Kent a quick going-over. Dr Laing in America on lecture tour.
1.30
Enter British Museum. Adrian Mole and Pandora Braithwaite awestruck by evidence of heritage of World Culture. Rest of class Four-D run berserk, laughing at nude statues and dodging curators.
2.15
Ms Fossington-Gore in state of collapse. Adrian Mole makes reverse-charge phone call to headmaster. Headmaster in dinner lady strike-meeting, can’t be disturbed.
3 p.m.
Curators round up class Four-D and make them sit on steps of museum.
3.05
American tourists photograph Adrian Mole saying he is a ‘cute English schoolboy’.
3.15
Ms Fossington-Gore recovers and leads class Four-D on sightseeing tour of London.
4 p.m.
Barry Kent jumps in fountain at Trafalgar Square, as predicted by Adrian Mole.
4.30
Barry Kent disappears, last seen heading towards Soho.
4.35
Police arrive, take Four-D to mobile police unit, arrange coach back. Phone parents about new arrival time. Phone headmaster at home. Claire Neilson has hysterical fit. Pandora Braithwaite tells Ms Fossington-Gore she is a disgrace to teaching profession. Ms Fossington-Gore agrees to resign.
6 p.m.
Barry Kent found in sex shop. Charged with theft of ‘grow-it-big’ cream and two ‘ticklers’.
7 p.m.
Coach leaves police station with police escort.
7.30
Police escort waves goodbye.
7.35
Coach driver begs Pandora Braithwaite to keep order.
7.36
Pandora Braithwaite keeps order.
8 p.m.
Ms Fossington-Gore drafts resignation.
8.30
Coach driver afflicted by motorway madness.
8.40
Arrive back. Tyres burning. Class Four-D struck dumb with terror. Ms Fossington-Gore led off by Mr Scruton. Parents up in arms. Coach driver charged by police.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 20TH
Fourteenth after Trinity. Moon’s Last Quarter
Keep having anxiety attacks every time I think about London, culture or the M1. Pandora’s parents are lodging an official complaint to everyone they can think of.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 21ST
Mr Scruton complimented Pandora and I on our leadership qualities. Ms Fossington-Gore is on sick leave. All future school trips have been cancelled.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22ND
The police have dropped charges against coach driver because there is ‘evidence of severe provocation’. The sex shop are not pressing charges either because officially Barry Kent is a child. A child! Barry Kent has never been a child.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 23RD
Mr Scruton has now read my report on the trip to London. He gave me two merit marks for it!
It was on the news today that the British Museum is thinking of banning school parties.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH
Pandora and I are enjoying the last of the autumn together by walking through leaves and sniffing bonfires. This is the first year I have been able to pass a horse-chestnut tree without throwing a stick at it.
Pandora says I am maturing very quickly.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25TH
Went out conkering with Nigel tonight. I found five big beauties and smashed Nigel’s into pulp. Ha! Ha! Ha!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 26TH
Took Blossom to see Bert. He can’t walk far these days.
Blossom is being sold to a rich family, a girl called Camilla is going to learn to ride on her. Pandora says Camilla is so posh as to be unintelligible. Bert was dead sad, he said, ‘You and me will both end up in the knacker’s yard, gel.’
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH
Fifteenth after Trinity
Blossom went off at 10.30 a.m. I gave her a sixteen-pence apple to take her mind off the heartbreak. Pandora ran after the little horse-box shouting, ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ but it carried on.