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
Two On this visit to Grandad I am going to concentrate my paranormal investigations in the Rosy Room across from the kitchen We call it the Rosy Room because the walls are covered in faded pink rose wallpaper circa nineteen-forty-something It’s creepy I’m sure I can feel a weird vibe coming off it which is very Potteresque of me I’m quite drawn to vibes I love the word circa it means around about Actually I love all kinds of words According to the Pig Boy I am a nerd and a word-freak WHATEVER I asked Grandad about the wallpaper and he said it was a bit before his time He said the house belonged 15
to Grandma’s family first and then he and Grandma inherited it Our name for Grandma is Nimmy thanks Zinnia NOT I would like to ask her what is up with the creepy room off the kitchen and I also have a lot of other inquiries about stuff But Nimmy does not have the answers anymore She lives in a nursing home three streets away Grandad visits her every day She has a sort of dementia Sometimes she remembers Grandad and on those days he is very happy and sometimes she even pretends to remember me which I think is incredibly kind of her since she got ill when I was around six and she couldn’t possibly connect that gorgeous child with this beautiful preteen Still she tries she tells the nurses This is my granddaughter and because she has three granddaughters I feel it is a pretty good guess which I think means she is still in there somewhere But my dad thinks she is gone I do not like it when he says that I think it is incredibly simplistic Dad is always saying this and quite rude but then she is his mother and he would kind of know that sort of stuff But seriously it does upset 16
