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
fairies blush but all I got was scratched rewrite severely hacked to pieces and Grandad would chase me around with some homeopathic ointment that probably contained stewed figs So food and hygiene covered I am taking this journal of course I am enjoying writing with my new pacer but I am on the lookout for a quill or a fountain pen I am also taking my laptop because it has all my novels and stuff on it Grandad doesn’t have an internet connection so I won’t be able to google new words to learn which is my all-time favourite hobby in the world Grandad says his eyes are too weak now for a computer but when he stays with us in Perth he always manages to enjoy searching for designer cake recipes or the value of coins in his coin collection I won’t write any more until we get to GG’s This is what we call Grandad thanks to Zinnia Zinnia Fern and Linden their names are woody weird and embarrassing We are all named after plants I guess Dad is into gardening and Mum is into babies They must have imagined Linden would 13
grow into a wise talking tree Wrong And then there is me I am Lily so glad I didn’t get stuck with Fern which is the same first name as Harry Potter’s mother and my surname is Griffin which is pretty close to Gryffindor so I think this is a good omen that I could be a chosen one in some sort of way EXCITEMENT 14
