“Go and wait by the gates until my brother comes out and then start giggling!”
I can just hear her. It’s just the sort of thing she’d do. I’m not going to ask her about it; I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. And if she dares ask me, like, “Did you notice my friends when you left school today?” I shall simply say, “Friends? What friends? I didn’t know you had any.” I mean, what were they giggling about?
Now I have gone and upset myself again. I think I shall make a list. Any list! List of my family.
My Family Oliver Jones. My dad.
My dad is very long and thin, with big hands and feet which people tease him about. Recently he has developed a bald patch on the top of his head. He is very sensitive about his bald patch, so that sometimes he combs his hair over it in a vain attempt to stop it showing. Mum says he is being ridiculous. “A man of your age!” Personally I think that is a bit unfair, cos how would she like to go bald?
Dad is a wood sculptor. He works in his shed in the back garden, sculpting wood strange and curious shapes. People pay him for this. When they are not paying him—when there are not enough people who want bits of wood in strange and curious shapes—he makes rustic
furniture for the local garden centre. Once for my birthday, when I was little, he made me a wooden dinosaur. He was really supposed to be making a rocking horse, but he said, “The wood wouldn’t let me”. Often, according to Dad, you just have to make what the wood tells you to make. So I got a rocking dinosaur, instead, and that was what set me off on the whole dinosaur trail. I have Dad to thank for it!
Sara Jones. My mum.
Mum is almost the opposite of Dad, being very short and a bit on the plump side, with a round beaming face. Everyone says that she is pretty, and I guess she is, though it is hard to be sure when it’s your own mum. Certainly, in spite of being plump, she is a really fast mover. She whizzes about all over the place like she is jet-propelled. Dad is for ever telling her to “Just stay still for a minute, woman! You’re making me feel giddy”.
Mum, I think, is a bit eccentric; she is definitely not like other people’s mums. Not the ones that I have met. For instance, she hates cooking, she hates housework, she hates shopping, and most of the time she wears old jeans and sweaters covered in hairs. Animal hairs. Actually, the whole house is covered in animal hairs. Sometimes they even get into the food. It is all very disgusting, but what can you do? I don’t think Mum even notices.
When she was first married, Mum used to be a veterinary nurse. Now she runs a cattery in the back garden (opposite Dad’s shed) where people leave their cats when they go on holiday. There is a big wire enclosure with a row of little huts, each with its own snuggle bag and litter tray. Even its own scratching post and catnip toy. Dad says it is like a five-star hotel.
One of the maddest things about Mum is her passion for Jack Russells.
She started off with one and now she has five. Every time she hears of a Jack Russell that needs a home, she goes racing off to get it. There are Jack Russells all over the place! On the chairs, on the table, on the beds. Last week one even jumped into the bath with me. It’s kind of zany, but you get used to it.
William Jones. My brother.
William is fifteen, and is tall like Dad, but not so thin. I think he is probably quite good looking, or will be when he has grown out of his pimply phase. Will’s pimples cause him much distress. He has special cream to put on them but so far it doesn’t seem to have done much good. His life, just at the moment, is dominated by pimples. I feel very sorry for him and just hope it never happens to me.
Dorian Jones. Myself.
I think I have said enough about me for the moment. Obviously there will be more later on.
Annabel Jones. My sister.
The Microdot takes after Mum, being so short she practically can’t be measured. Like Mum she is always busy; but while Mum scuttles about like a demented hen, all mad and happy, the Microdot hurls herself to and fro in a frantic rage, like a porcupine with its quills stuck up.
I call her the Microdot to pay her back for calling me
Doreen, which is what she does when she wants to annoy me. The Microdot suits her. Annabel is a ridiculous name for someone that’s hardly any taller than a milk carton. She says Dorian is a ridiculous name full stop. “Specially for some geeky nerd that’s into dinosaurs!”
I have a lot of trouble with my sister. I am not going to say any more about her; it will only get me all hot and bothered again. I know she was behind the giggling.
I am not going to think about it.
Grandparents Mum’s mum: Wee Scots Granny.
Wee Scots lives in Glasgow, and as we are down south—“true Sassenachs”, as she calls us—we don’t get to see her all that often. Which I think is a pity, as she is what is known as a character, meaning that she is even madder than Mum. She is also smaller than Mum, and rounder than Mum, but if they ever had a mum-and-granny race I’d back Wee Scots any time. She goes like the wind! She is the origin of my catch phrase, Great galloping grandmothers! I use this phrase all the time. I am famous for it. I have this mental picture of all these ancient old grannies, galloping along. Wheeee! There goes another one.
Wee Scots would beat the lot. She is full of energy! Even though she is sixty years old she still bombs around on a moped. “Fattest woman on a moped in Glasgow!”
If Mum hadn’t put a stop to it she’d probably bomb down here on a moped, as well. As it is, she comes by coach, arriving hot and flushed with too much usquebaugh (pronounced ooskabaw). That is the Gaelic word for whisky, and is what Wee Scots always says when Mum accuses her of having “tippled”.
Dad’s mum and dad: Gran and Granddad.
There is not a lot to say about Granddad as he is a rather quiet sort of person. He is also very old (he is the one that is almost eighty). He likes to play old-fashioned games that he played when he was a boy, such as Ludo and Shove Ha’penny, which he keeps in a cupboard. We always have to play them when we go to visit. I don’t mind, if it makes him happy. I think when you have lived as long as he has, you deserve to be happy.
Gran—Big Nan—is not quite as old as Granddad, but I still can’t think of much to say about her. She is very strict, and is always reminding us to watch our manners. She says that nobody under the age of fifty seems to have any these days. It bothers her quite a lot.
She and Granddad live in Weymouth, which is not very far away so we see them quite often, but fortunately only one day at a time. They don’t come to stay. They came once, for Christmas, a few years ago,
but Gran couldn’t take Jack Russells all over the place. Dad says the Russells are our secret weapon!
It occurs to me that I might not have been quite fair to Gran and Granddad, but it is very difficult, sometimes, when people are old; you can’t tell what they are really like. You can’t imagine them, for instance, ever being young. I have just tried to imagine Gran being in Year 6 and giggling. Or being in Year 7 and sitting herself next to a boy and breathing over him. No way! It is like trying to picture the Queen going to the toilet. The mind bogles. (Or is it boggles?)
I can imagine Wee Scots. I bet she scared all the boys rigid! I wonder if Mum did? I wonder if she used to giggle at Dad? Maybe I’ll ask him and find out. I’d like to know if he had the same trouble I do. I didn’t have it last term! Why has it suddenly started? And how long is it going to go on?
I’m