my bedroom raining 10.00 am

Dad had Uncle Eddie round so naturally they had to come and nose around and see what I was up to. If Uncle Eddie (who is bald as a coot - two coots, in fact) says to me one more time, "Should bald heads be buttered?" I may kill myself. He doesn't seem to realize that I no longer wear romper-suits. I feel like yelling at him, "I am fourteen years old, Uncle Eddie! I am bursting with womanhood, I wear a bra! OK, it's a bit on the loose side and does ride up round my neck I if run for the bus "but the womanly potential is there, you bald coot!"

Talking of breasts, I'm worried that I may end up like the rest of the women in my family, with just the one bust, like a sort of shelf affair. Mum can balance things on hers when her hands are full-at parties, and so on, she can have a sandwich and drink and save a snack for later by putting it on her shelf. It's very unattractive. I would like a proper amount of breastiness but not go too far with it, like Melanie Andrews, for instance. I got the most awful shock in the showers after hockey last term. Her bra looks like two shopping bags. I suspect she is a bit unbalanced hormonally. She certainly is when she tries to run for the ball. I thought she'd run right through the fence with the momentum of her bosoomers' as Jas so amusingly calls them.

still in my room still raining still Sunday

11.30 am

I don't see why I can't have a lock on my bedroom door. I have no privacy; it's like Noel's House Party' in my room. Every time I suggest anything around this place people start shaking their heads and tutting. It's like living in a house full of chickens dressed in frocks and trousers. Or a house full of those nodding dogs, anyway I can't have a lock on my door is the short and short of it.

"Why not?" I asked Mum reasonably (catching her in one of the rare minutes when she's not at Italian evening class or at another party).

"Because you might have an accident and we couldn't get in," she said.

"An accident like what?" I persisted.

"Well you might faint," she said.

Then Dad joined in, "You might set fire to your bed and be overcome with fumes."

What is the matter with people? I know why they don't want me to have a lock on my door, it's because it would be a first sign of my path to adulthood and they can't bear the idea of that because it would mean they might have to get on with their own lives and leave me alone.

still Sunday

11.35 am

There are six things very wrong with my life:

1. I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never come to a head but lurk in a red way for the next two years.

2. It is on my nose.

3. I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere in my room.

4. In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and then it will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberfuhrer Frau Simpson and her bunch of sadistic teachers.

5. I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home.

6. I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive.

11.40 am

OK, that's it. I'm turning over a new leaf. I found an article in Mum's Cosmo about how to be happy if you are very unhappy (which I am). The article is called 'Emotional confidence'. What you have to do is Recall 'Experience' and HEAL. So you think of a painful incident and you remember all the ghastly detail of it ... this is the Recall bit, then you experience the emotions and acknowledge them and then you JUST LET GO.

2.00 pm

Uncle Eddie has gone, thank the Lord. He actually asked me if I'd like to ride in the sidecar on his motorbike. Are all adults from Planet Xenon? What should I have said? "Yes, certainly, Uncle Eddie, I would like to go in your per-war sidecar and with a bit of luck all my friends will see me with some mad, bald bloke and that will be the end of my life. Thank you."

4.00 pm

Jas came round. She said it took her ages to get out of her catsuit after the fancy dress party. I wasn't very interested but I asked her why out of politeness.

She said, "Well, the boy behind the counter in the hire shop was really good-looking."

"Yes, so?"

"Well, so I lied about my size-I got a size ten catsuit instead of twelve."

She showed me the marks around her neck and waist; they are quite deep. I said, "Your head looks a bit swollen up."

"No, that's just Sunday."

I told her about the Cosmo article and so we spent a few hours recalling the fancy dress party (i.e. the painful incident) and experiencing the emotions in order to heal them.

I blame Jas entirely. It may have been my idea to go as a stuffed olive but she didn't stop me like a pal should do. In fact, she encouraged me. We made the stuffed olive costume out of chicken wire and green crepe paper-that was for the 'olive' bit. It had little shoulder straps to keep it up and I wore a green T-shirt and green tights underneath. It was the 'stuffed' bit that Jas helped with mostly.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
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