special but she could be authentically special I really love Kate Wills George and baby Charlotte They are sooooo lovely and I just know George is going to be an awesome big brother unlike the Pig Boy that resides in our house There are only two of us loved-up kids living at home at the moment so sadly we look like a really typical family Typical this is a terrible concept I hate typical It is the exact opposite of interesting and unusual I live at home naturally as I am only eleven years old My brother Linden AKA Pig Boy is fourteen He hates me and he lives at home And then there is my twenty-two-year-old sister Fern She is an Arts student who kind of lives at home when she is not cat-sitting I find it disappointing that she has never looked after a black cat now that could be interesting as it might be a familiar which is a witch’s magical lifelong pet But no they are all silvery blue or ginger typically shudder they are a very boring stripe Fern is not in residence at the mo YAY She always hogs Mum with her stupid love-life problems 9
My eldest sister Zinnia is aged twenty-four Zinnia has moved to Spain to be with her Spanish fiancé Manuel They are both working on a big engineering project This is very exciting except Zinnia is not excited about it because she is so boring Mum has to send her Vegemite bulk Cherry Ripes and Smith’s Crisps in a large box every month When she skypes Zinnia always ends up crying I feel like saying YOU ARE SO LUCKY TO BE IN A DARK AND MYSTERIOUS PLACE Go and explore a Gothic basilica and eat some tapas and stop crying for heaven’s sake But I don’t I am mature that way I am being packed off to my grandfather’s down south for two weeks because my parents are going away to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary They go away every year at this time and they think it is funny to say they pretend they do not have four children for two weeks of the year Hilarious NOT Fern has to come home with the three cats she is minding to mind Linden Mum says it is to keep Linden company as her strapping lad certainly 10
doesn’t need taking care of but then I overheard Dad say that he does not trust Linden to not burn the house down as he is easily stimulated and easily led Mum replied that Linden is going through a difficult stage This stage is fourteen years long with no end in sight Then I heard Mum say that she can’t believe people trust Fern with their cats and there is no way she would leave Fern in charge of me AND Linden while he is journeying through his special challenges which is like being the best BULLY he can be It’s not that Mum doesn’t adore Fern they are like besties with all their sickening girlie chat It’s more that Fern forgets stuff like food and hygiene and is not very observant of the Pig Boy bully going for Olympic gold She is not ordinary and is what Mum calls a free spirit You would think this would make me like her more It doesn’t She is sooo self-involved Bleurghhh So back to me I overheard Dad say a break from Linden would do me the world of good and that next term they should seriously think about enrolling me in a fun young people’s dance class like funked-up jazz hip-hop so I can meet new people 11
NOT HAPPENING IN THIS LIFETIME FATHER DEAREST So it’s Grandad and me for a fortnight He is so ordinary it makes me want to sigh He makes jam and has a jam collection JAM Thirty different combinations with fig it’s not even something sexy like strawberries It’s a yawnfest But he is a dear sweet thing and I do love him a lot And I love his house And he is big on food and hygiene He makes a cake every day a lot of times the cake contains fig which is vomitous but every few days he pulls out a hazelnut and chocolate cake with GANACHE and it more than makes up for nibbling politely on figgy loaf Mum and I once tried to make the chocolate cake at home but it was a disaster and this made Mum cry Back to the house Grandad’s house is the oldest in the street by a long way It has pretty stained-glass patterns around the front door and roses that are older than Dad So they are ANCIENT Their branches are like gnarled and as thick as sausages When I was little I thought they were magical and spent a lot of time crawling in and between them I was looking for 12
