Cloud Boy
Page 1
Table of Contents
MY FAMILY
HARRY’S FAMILY
MAY: MY FAVOURITE MONTH
JUNE: POSSIBLY MY SECOND-BEST MONTH!
JULY: EXAM AND BAD HARRY MONTH
AUGUST: A WONDERFUL MONTH FOR CUMULUS CLOUDS
SEPTEMBER: A BRAVE MONTH!
OCTOBER: AN EVEN BRAVER MONTH
NOVEMBER: COLD, RAINY AND BLEAK
DECEMBER: CHRISTMAS IS COMING!
JANUARY
ONE LAST THING
ABOUT THIS BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
For Olga – with love and thanks
THIS DIARY BELONGS TO:
ANGELA MOON
32 ORCHARD ROAD,
LONDON, ENGLAND.
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MY FAMILY
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MUM: Gilly Moon
DAD: Mickie Moon
BABY BROTHER: Solo Moon
GRANNY: Joan - always travelling, hardly ever seen.
GRANDMA: Gertrude - really my GREAT-grandma. WARNING: Do not mention the “great”, she likes to ignore her superior age!
PET: Edith the goldfish - almost dead!
MY HOBBIES: Art, art and art!
BEST BOOK: Sketch book
BEST FRIEND: Harry Christmas
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HARRY’S FAMILY
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HARRY’S MUM: Lilly Christmas
HARRY’S DAD: Joe Christmas
SIBLING: Due November, sex unknown
GRANNY: No grandparents, only unmentionable cousins.
PET: Dog pending … (in his dreams!)
HARRY’S HOBBIES: Cloud spotting and cloud talking! Harry has taught me loads about cloud types and their symbols – he’s
a cloud nerd!
BEST BOOK: The Cloud Book
BEST FRIEND: Me, Angie Moon!
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MAY
MY FAVOURITE MONTH
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8TH MAY,
MY BIRTHDAY!
CLOUDS: Not a cloud in the sky – bad luck, Harry, you cloud freak!
Dear Diary,
I may as well tell you straight away that I hate writing! Every year someone gives me a diary for my birthday and every year I give up after a couple of pages. Just because I am another year older doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to turn into a writing sort of person. I will try, but I don’t promise.
Anyway, I did have an awe-inspiring birthday. I always share my party with Harry, my neighbour and best friend. Our mums had us in the same hospital just two days apart, so we are almost-twins. I’m the oldest though, and I won’t let Harry forget it! We used to hold hands whenever we were together but that was when we were little – now we just call each other rude names. They’re the same names we used as little kids. Mine for him is “hedgehog” because he’s always had a prickly nature. His for me is almost too embarrassing to write, but I will – it’s “knickers”. When we were tiny we thought it was a rude word and it sent us into fits of giggles. Somehow it’s just stuck, but I wish it hadn’t. Both names are strictly between us. We think we might get married one day, but we’re not sure about having kids!
For our birthday present Dad and Joe, who is Harry’s dad, are going to build a tree house spanning our two gardens, which will be truly awesome! They are going to put windows in the roof so that Harry can spot the clouds and I can paint them. Harry is a cloud collector, which means you keep a note of every crazy cloud you see, with names, dates, shapes and weather fronts. I’m a cloud artist, which means I do endless pictures of clouds – mostly in animal shapes. Harry wanted a puppy for his birthday as well as the tree house, but his mum is having a baby so that’s not going to happen.
After all our party guests had gone home, Harry and I did a celebration bounce on my bed. Bouncing used to be our best thing. We’ve been doing it since for ever – only we’re definitely too big now and are in danger of breaking the bed. You should have heard the creaks. Unfortunately, Harry had eaten too much birthday cake and was sick – a gross vomiting hedgehog on my best new bedcover!
13TH MAY,
THE GRAND ORCHARD
ROAD BUILD
CLOUDS: Cirrus castellanus
MORNING
Dear Diary,
Are you amazed that I’m still here? I am! This is my second day of writing – I must have turned over a new leaf.
Our dads can be the most annoying people in the whole wide world! Me, Harry and the two dads went to buy wood and stuff for the tree house. Well, that was the plan, but first the dads had to have a coffee and then we had to go and buy nappies for Solo, my puking and pooing baby brother. When we finally got to the wood place it was lunch time and Harry had a hunger headache and my tummy was rumbling, so we had to be really quick. As a result we’ve accidentally bought enough wood for a tower block.
AFTERNOON
Dad and Joe are in the garden building our tree house. Mum says there’s a load more chat than action, but I’m really excited and so is Harry. He says the clouds are very auspicious. They are cirrus castellanus, which are cirrus clouds with turrets and battlements, so we think we might end up with a castle, which would be even better than a tower block! Harry and I tried to help, but the dads shouted at us for getting in the way. We’d like to know whose tree house this is – wouldn’t we Harry?
Yes, we damn well would! – H
Harry and I watched the grand Orchard Road build from my bedroom for a while, but that was boring. Instead we decided to get our own back on the dads for shouting at us. We got our magnifying glasses and hunted for dead insects. We found one spider, two flies, one buggy thing and half a worm. We ground them all into flour and added them to some bun mixture. Then we baked them, iced them and served the buns to the dads with a cup of tea. They ate them with relish! Well, as Mum would say, they were full of protein. We waited for the dads to be sick, but they weren’t – shame. I bet they would have been if we’d told them what they’d eaten, but we didn’t dare.
What Angie means is that she didn’t dare!
Yours, Harry.
19TH MAY,
DOWN WITH HEDGEHOGS!
CLOUDS: Cumulus congestus
Diary,
I am not happy and neither are the clouds. Harry says they often reflect his mood and today they certainly reflect mine. Cumulus congestus clouds can cause short, sharp downpours and I am about to pour down my short, sharp anger!
Harry has not been at school all week and I know he’s just pretending to be ill. He doesn’t want to be in the school play and I can’t blame him. He is always the lead because he’s got cute blond curls and can sing, but he says that having to learn all the lines makes his head ache. Still, that is no reason to leave me struggling with our rubbish teacher, Miss Lemonpops, or the grungy girls in the class who hate me.
I went round to see Harry after school, but his mum said he was in bed. I doubt that. Anyway, she looked as though she’d been crying so I didn’t push it. I told her that I’d call round in the morning to see how Harry is. Mum says pregnant women cry all the time and boys love their beds!
Dad came home early and we worked on the tree house together. It is going to be awesome. Today we built a ladder so that we can access it safely – at least from my side. That Harry Hedgehog person might just have to stay on the ground, looking up at me and wishing.
20TH MAY,
A CREPUSCULAR DAY
CLOUDS: Cumulus humilis – white cotton puffs with flat bases
Hello Diary,
I just want to say that I don’t know why I’m noting the clouds – Harry’s the cloud collector, not me. He has books and books of notes on the things. Really
I just like drawing clouds and looking for animal shapes in them, especially dog and horse shapes. Cumulus clouds make the best animal shapes and if you are very lucky, and the sun is shining behind them, they can be lit up around the edges by “crepuscular rays”. Anyway, it has been a truly monumental, “crepuscular ray” day because the tree house is nearly finished. Talk about dad power! One minute it was all chat and no action, and the next minute there it is … almost. And, wow, it is crazy wonderful!
Harry appears to be better, probably because there is no school, so we are having a sleepover tonight. In fact, right now this minute! Tomorrow we are going to complete the last of the building work and start decorating the tree house. Aren’t we Harry? He’s asleep – the hibernating hedgehog. I’ll have to wake him later for our midnight feast: crisps, jelly babies, iced buns (without bugs), cold sausages and cucumber sticks (Mum’s health-conscious contribution!).
21ST MAY,
ARTCLOUD
CLOUDS: None, but lots of contrails from aeroplanes
I won’t keep drawing attention to this as it might get a bit boring, but do you realise that today is my FIFTH day of writing?! Well, if you’re not impressed now, dear Diary, you will be when you hear my news.
The tree house is finished and – you are not going to believe this – it has lights! There’s a pulley with a basket on the end so we can haul stuff up and down. There are now two ladders so that you can access it from Harry’s garden or mine, a walkway and a little, low door leading into one big room. All the windows are in the roof, but the walls have spyholes in them so we can see out but no one can see in – isn’t that the best idea!
The decorating isn’t finished yet, but the building absolutely is. We all had supper up there, even Solo. It was a bit of a squash, but fantastically brilliant. We put down a rug and sat on cushions so it was like a posh picnic. We had fizzy drinks and a naming ceremony.
“I name this tree house Artcloud, and may all who sway in her keep safe!”
We thought of the name together, art for me and cloud for Harry – cool or what?! When it gets a bit warmer we are going to sleep in Artcloud every night. I think I could live there for ever and ever!
P.S. We are going to paint the walkway blue and white, so it looks as though we have a house floating on a cloud.
P.P.S. Harry was sick this morning. I suspect too many cold sausages. Or maybe it was the cucumber sticks – it never pays to be too healthy!
27TH MAY,
HOORAY FOR HALF TERM!
CLOUDS: Beautiful, beautiful clouds in wild shapes
Dearest and most lovely Diary,
Half term starts here! The sun is shining and we are moving in to Artcloud. Harry and I intend to spend the whole day up here cloud spotting, drawing, nibbling and nesting. We have pooled all our pocket money and bought an old ship’s bell, which Dad is going to help us fix by the door. Then we can call each other whenever we want.
One ring: “I’m here if you want to join me.”
Two rings: “I’m here with food to share!”
Three rings: “Come quick, I need you urgently!”
I would just like to point out that I put in more money than Angie, so only the gong bit is hers and the rest of the bell is mine. Yours, Harry.
Well, Harry Christmas, I’d just like to point out that the message is the same whoever flipping paid for it!
Ignore that, Diary, because I have another piece of important news: tomorrow Grandma Gertie, star name Gertrude Olive Moon, is coming to stay! I can’t tell you why she’s a star right now as I’ve got to help Harry and Dad fix the bell, but all will be revealed tomorrow!
28TH MAY,
INTRODUCING
MY GRANDMA GERTIE
CLOUDS: Altostratus opacus – grey, dull and annoying
Dear Diary,
No Artcloud this morning, instead we are all going to the grand opening of a quilt exhibition. That may sound really, really boring but actually it’s pretty cool and even Harry wants to come. One of the exhibits is a quilt that my Grandma Gertie helped to make when she was a child prisoner during World War Two.
When Grandma was a bit younger than me she lived in Singapore, with her little brother Peter and their dad and mum. Singapore was a British military base and her dad worked there as an engineer, but two years after the outbreak of the war, Singapore was invaded by Japan. Japanese soldiers rounded up all the British and Australian families and imprisoned them, mostly in Changi Prison. I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know that Grandma and some of the other children in the prison made a patchwork quilt for their Girl Guide leader. It must be quite special because Grandma’s been talking about it on the radio and on the telly. Grandma was the youngest child working on the quilt and she is over 80 now, so I think that she might be the only one of them still alive.
LATER
Just back from the exhibition and it turns out that my grandma really is a star – well she kept that very quiet! The Changi quilt was quite small and faded, but everyone at the museum thought it was extremely special. You could still see some of the girls’ initials in the middle of their patchwork rosettes – Grandma’s was the best, of course. Each rosette was made of different scraps of dress cotton; Grandma said she could remember where every bit of fabric had come from and that it brought her memories of Changi flooding back.
Harry wanted to hear all about the jail and what it was like to be a prisoner, but I don’t think Grandma wanted to talk about it – it probably made her too sad. There were photos of the prison beside the quilt and it looked truly terrible – the poor prisoners were stick-thin and almost naked. Grandma said that was because their clothes had rotted away in the sun. I don’t know how those children stayed alive, let alone thought of making someone a beautiful quilt.
I’m so happy Grandma is staying with us, because I wouldn’t want her to go home and be full of sad memories. Since Grandpa Jimmy died, Grandma likes to stay at her house among his things, but as Solo has totally given up sleeping, and Mum is completely exhausted, Grandma said she’d stay to help out for a while. This is an excellent idea as Solo is permanently attached to Mum and she often forgets that I exist. I hope Grandma stays for a loooooooooooooooooooong, looooooooooong time!
I bought this postcard of Grandma Gertie’s quilt for my diary – it’s funny, but I think it looks just like Grandma, even though she only sewed one little rosette (an arrow marks the spot!).
29TH MAY,
PANCAKES FOR BREAKFAST!
CLOUDS: Altocumulus stratiformis – very pretty ripples
Grandma is a pro with Solo. They slept in the same room together and it is now nine o’clock and they are both still asleep! I am sitting at the kitchen table – excuse the grease marks – and Mum is cooking pancakes. This has not happened since the birth of my little, burping brother. Hooray and yum!
Later, Mum and Lilly are going to help me and Harry decorate the inside of Artcloud in “sample-pot stripes”, with one wall in blackboard paint for me to draw on. They are also going to rig up a desk for all my art things and a shelf for Harry’s cloud-spotting notebooks. I can’t wait for it all to be finished.
LATER
Oh dear, you are not going to believe this. Lilly got stuck up in Artcloud – we nearly had to call the fire brigade! Mum and Lilly had finished all the painting, which stinks but looks mega brilliant, and Mum had just reached the bottom of our ladder when Lilly had a meltdown! She said her baby bump was too big and she couldn’t get it off the walkway and onto the ladder. Please note, Lilly is three months pregnant, not nine months pregnant – if she does have a baby bump it is invisible to everyone but her! Maybe she is secretly scared of heights.
Anyway, she sat up there for ages sniffling away, until Joe came home. Then he and Harry managed to ease her down between them. What a fuss! I’m not having kids if they make you that useless even before they are born – please note, Harry!
Don’t involve me in that conversation, Angie. You’re the one who keep
s saying that we’ll get married one day, not me. And I certainly never agreed to having kids – I’m not even a grown-up yet! Over and out, Harry.
Don’t listen to him, Diary, he’s just embarrassed!
30TH MAY,
A CLOUDLESS DAY
There were no clouds today, which was perfect because it gave Harry and me a chance to settle in to Artcloud. When we got hungry we rang our bell for service and Grandma and Solo made a sandwich delivery via the pulley. Harry keeps nagging Grandma to tell us more about Changi Prison – she says she’ll think about it. She has this little box in her bedroom that she brought to show the people at the museum, but she won’t tell us what’s in it and it’s driving Harry mad!
I think it is the skeleton of a Changi rat, with the mangled finger of a prisoner that the rat chewed off one dark and fateful night! –H
Stop rubbishing my diary, Harry.
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JUNE
POSSIBLY MY SECOND-BEST MONTH!
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2ND JUNE,
BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!
CLOUDS: Cirrocumulus – high, little patches of cloud – not good for animal spotting
Dear Diary,
Sorry for the absence, I did warn you that I was a lousy diary keeper. I’ve been busy doing things and I’ve not had a spare millisecond. Anyway, some of the things I have been doing have been boring, like homework, cleaning out the fish tank while Edith plays dead, and helping Mum and Grandma with Solo. But mostly I have been having a brilliant time with Harry in Artcloud. It is our secret world and nobody is allowed to come up unless we say so. No adults, no kids and no stinking babies – so no Solo, phew!