Chapter Text
Thursday January 1st
New Year's Day. Bank Holiday in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales
These are my New Year's Resolutions:
1. I will write in my diary every day
2. I will keep my pens and pencils tidy
3. I will do exercises to jazz every night to stay fit
4. I will help the elderly, the blind, pregnant women, and other helpless people
5. I will become the greatest slap-bass jazz guitarist in the world
6. I will take the dog for its walk every night without being asked
7. I will make at least one friend who is interested in jazz
8. I will learn to talk to girls without my palms getting sweaty and my voice going funny
Friday January 2nd
Bank Holiday in Scotland
I started organising my pens and pencils. Once I had them in separate wooden pencil and pen holders all in a row, it struck me that they looked just like houses in a village street, so I got out my paints and painted them to look like houses, each one different to the others. The street looked bare, so I made little Sellotape trees to line it – the stickier the Sellotape, the higher the branches.
Only the second day of January, and I've already completed a New Year's Resolution! Took the dog for its walk.
Saturday January 3rd
I think I am turning into an intellectual. I listened to Jazz Record Requests on Radio Three as usual, to see if he played my request for more Weather Report. No such luck, bloody typical. Instead of switching off, I kept listening to Critic's Forum, where they talk about books and plays, and I understood nearly every word.
It all adds up. Feeling lonely and isolated all the time. Not understanding girls. Liking jazz. Wearing corduroy. I asked Mum what you should do if you are an intellectual, and she said "Join the library, I suppose. Look, have you seen today's newspaper?" I think I shall join, and see what happens.
Sunday January 4th
Second after Christmas
We went to see Nana and Grandpa in Wakefield. Nana made a brilliant roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Dad kept saying nobody else could make Yorkshire pudding like his mum. This put my mother in a bad mood. Nana said her secret is that she makes her own lard, while Mum just buys her lard from Budgens. Mum said Budgens sell perfectly good lard, and Nana got a superior little smile on her face.
Nana's Yorkshire pudding is the best in the world, but I can't tell her that, or Mum will be hurt. I said they both make very nice Yorkshire pudding. For some reason, this didn't please either of them. I saved some of my roast beef to give to the dog.
Monday January 5th
Leroy came round today. His parents took him to Spain for their Christmas holidays, so he is all brown. I think the heat has weakened his system, he will probably catch an illness now he is back in England. The cold will come as too much of a shock. I think it was wrong to take him abroad.
After Leroy left, I made Blu-Tak gardens for all the houses in Stationery Village. I've had to set up a separate table for it.
Tuesday January 6th
Epiphany. New Moon.
I have written my first poem. It only took me two minutes.
Jazz, a poem by Howard Moon
Are you aware of jazz, of the movement known as jazz
Come up through the Louisiana swamps
Cool and slow, and hard to master?
Do you hate jazz, do you fear jazz?
Do you fear the lack of rules, the lack of boundaries?
It's a fence – no, it's soft!
What's happening? The shapes, the chaos!
Jooby-doo bop, voo-voo-voo, bap-bow-wow, scooby-scat, yeah!
I wrote to Critic's Forum to tell them I'd become an intellectual jazz poet after listening to their program and asked them what I should do about it. I hope they write back soon, because I'm getting fed up with being a jazz poet living and working in intellectual isolation. I need to communicate with others of my kind.
I read my poem to Dad, but he argued that jazz didn't come up through the Louisiana swamps and I'd used part of a song by The Doors. I think my father is being too literal and has failed to understand my use of the homage. I heard that word on Critic's Forum, and then looked it up in the dictionary I got for Christmas. It wasn't where I thought it would be.
Wednesday January 7th
Leroy came round again. He rode his new racing bike that he got for Christmas. It is wasted on Leroy, all he does on it is ride to the shops. If I had a racing bike I would travel all the highways and byways, having adventures, and become King of the Road.
I asked Dad how come I didn't get a new bike for Christmas, and he said I got an eight-track stereo and an electric bass guitar. Typical! If my parents noticed anything about me, they would have seen I've grown at least two inches in the past year, and my current bike is too small for me now.
Leroy let me have a ride of his bike and the dog ran after me the whole way.
Thursday January 8th
I joined the library today. I could feel the last remnants of my childhood falling away from me as I received my own laminated library card.
I got out Poetry in the Making, The True History of the Elephant Man, and a book called Pride and Prejudice by a woman called Jane Austen that my mum keeps going on about. I could tell the librarian was impressed. Perhaps she too is an intellectual. She looks intellectual. She wears glasses, has her hair in a bun, and her name tag says she is called Mrs Gideon.
Friday January 9th
Finished Pride and Prejudice. It's about a grumpy bastard called Mr Darcy but girls all still love him because he's rich and handsome. Typical! Then an ordinary girl makes him act nice to her so he falls in love with her. Yeah, right. I thought the book might help me talk to girls, but if I talked to girls like Mr Darcy does, they'd kick me in the goolies.
Mum kept going on about Mr Darcy in this excited sort of way that made me worry she really wants to be married to a handsome wealthy landowner from Derbyshire, and not a scruffy Geography teacher from Leeds like my father. If we ever go on holiday to the Peak District I shall be sure to keep a close eye on her.
Saturday January 10th
The True History of the Elephant Man was dead sad. He got treated like a weird freak just because he was hideously deformed. Like me, he was forced to live a life of lonely isolation, but in my case it's because I'm an intellectual jazz poet, not because I've got a massive head I have to keep in a sack.
Poetry in the Making is good, with lots of exercises on writing poems. The author managed to be an intellectual and a poet even though he was from West Yorkshire, so I feel that there must be hope for me.
Leroy came around tonight, and brought all his favourite records with him. He had Generation X, Stiff Little Fingers, The Exploited, X, Iggy Pop, Black Flag, The Ramones, Dead Kennedys and The Teardrop Explodes. Leroy said he has decided to be a punk because he doesn't fit into society and is filled with a boundless inner rage.
What a load of crap! Leroy gets along well with everyone and he's always in a good mood. It's me who doesn't fit into society and I'm much angrier than Leroy. I just prefer to keep it inside rather to shout it from the rooftops. Not being into punk must be another sign I'm an intellectual jazz poet.
The dog doesn't like punk music either – it whined when we put the records on.
Sunday January 11th
First after Epiphany
Nana and Grandpa came for tea. I showed Nana my room, and she gave me €0.50 for keeping it neat and tidy. I showed her Stationery Village and she said she had never seen anything like it before. She said it was just like a display in a shop, and asked if I had ever considered getting a job as a window dresser when I am grown up? I informed her I am fully committed to becoming the greatest jazz musician in history.
Monday January 12th
At tea, Mum and Dad said we were having a visitor tomorrow. It's a kid that is transferring to our school this term, and when I said lots of kids transfer to our school, Mum said this one is a bit of a special case. I thought that meant he might be like the Elephant Man, but it just means he's coming from India, and he's never been to school before.
Dad is the only teacher with a kid at our school, so Mum asked if I could take him under my wing, as he's sure to find everything a bit strange. Just my luck to get stuck with the class freak! He probably doesn't even speak English. He's lucky one of my New Year's Resolutions is to help the helpless.
I probably didn't look exactly thrilled by this news, so Dad said, in his best stern teacher voice, "Howard, I hope you make an effort to welcome this boy to our home, our school, and our country. His life has been pulled upside-down, and he will be in need of both friendship and guidance".
Bloody hell, talk about melodramatic! At least this kid won't be in any of my classes. They'll put him in the Dumbo Class if he's half as backward as Mum and Dad make out.
Tuesday January 13th
First Quarter.
Dad went to pick the kid up while I helped Mum with the tea. She went all out – home made sausage rolls, cream buns, a big chocolate layer cake. It took Dad so long to return that Mum said she'd better put the sausage rolls back in the oven to keep warm.
Eventually the front door opened, and Dad came in with a small, skinny boy, saying his name was Vince Noir. That sounds French, so why was he in India? I was expecting him to have brown skin like Indian people, or at least a tan like Leroy, but his skin is dead white, and he has blond hair that looks like fairy floss. It sticks up rather than falls down. I've never seen anyone who looks like him before, but not in an Elephant Man sort of way.
Someone must have bought him some clothes, because he had quite a posh coat on, but when he took it off he only had a blue nylon tracksuit underneath. He speaks English. He said "Hello", and "Thank you Mrs Moon", and stuff. He made a face drinking tea, so Mum made him tea like I had when I was about five and learning to drink it – weak and milky, with a lot of sugar.
Vince said he grew up in a jungle in India with his foster-father, Bryan, and doesn't know what happened to his parents. Then last summer, some missionaries came around, and told Bryan they would take Vince back to England, and welcome him into their family, and give him all the opportunities other kids have. Only when they got to England, they dumped Vince in an orphanage in East London, and buggered off on another mission.
They must have treated Vince badly there, because he ran away and lived on the streets. He lived at a boxing gym a lot of the time, he said it was warm but smelly. Eventually a social worker found him sleeping under a bridge with a bunch of other people, all lumped together against the cold. And the social worker tried to find him a foster home, but as it was Christmas and everything, all she could get him was a place in Leeds, with a really old lady named Mrs Pelham.
Dad had a look on his face like he wanted to punch someone and didn't know where to start, and Mum got the same expression she gets when there's a story on the news about a kitten that some yobs have been cruel to. I don't know what I looked like. I mean, it was a sad story, but Vince was so cheerful about everything that I kept thinking how tough he must be. It was sort of a cool story too.
Vince looked at the food in a weird way, like he didn't know what it was, or whether he was allowed to eat it. So I picked up a bit of sausage roll and held it out to him, like he was a stray dog, and he ate a bit from my hand. And then I got him to eat some cake, and he was licking cream and icing off my fingers like he'd never eaten food before. I felt like a scientist who was training a feral child to grow into a normal person, and had had a major breakthrough. When I grow up, maybe I can help freak kids learn to do normal stuff, like eat and drink.
Vince said, "Amazing tea, Mrs Moon", and Mum said, "Why don't you take Vince up to your room, Howard?". So we started walking upstairs, and he actually held onto my hand! Not like he was scared or anything, as if he just felt like holding my hand. I pretended that I was helping him up the stairs, and kept saying things like, "Look out for this step here, it's a bit wonky", but Mum and Dad didn't seem fooled.
When we got to my room, the dog had been asleep on my bed, but it jumped up when it saw Vince and went mental. The dog never looks that happy seeing us. It was actually smiling. Vince kept hugging it and saying good boy. He talked to the dog, and I swear it looked like it understood every word. This is a dog that has so far failed to understand sit and stay. Vince's hair is a bit like the dog's, all fluffy, and a jumble of blond and brown hair mixed together.
I put some Coltrane on, but Vince said it made him feel sick, so I put on Led Zepp and he was okay with that. Vince started messing about with Stationery Village, and I told him to leave it alone. I'd just built Paper Clip Castle, and I didn't want him getting it out of order. Vince said I had a lot of books, and I was just going to tell him that I'd recently become an intellectual jazz poet when he grabbed my Kevin Keegan scrapbook from when I was about seven.
I didn't think he'd know who that was, but he said, "Keegan – Southampton, yeah?", and I said, "Yeah, transferred from Germany last year. He was huge at Liverpool when I was a little kid". It turned out Vince knew a fair amount about football, so we talked about that for a while, and then Vince told me these incredible stories about living in the jungle. They sounded like lies, but the way Vince told them, you somehow knew they were true.
When Dad came up to take Vince home, he found us sitting on the bed, still talking, and he smiled, and later on said, "Well done Howard, for keeping Vince entertained".
Wednesday January 14th
I walked Vince to school for his first day. He was late getting here, so we had to practically run all the way. When we got to school, I introduced Vince to Leroy, who immediately said, "Wow, India. That's cool". Pretty soon Vince was telling stories about his jungle childhood to about a million kids. Everyone ignored me, and after a while I just went to morning assembly without anyone noticing I'd even left. Mum and Dad were completely wrong about Vince needing my friendship and guidance. He's absolutely fine without me.
None of the teachers at school have noticed I am an intellectual now, including my own father. Vince is in my Geography class, and Dad made us sit together. Vince gave me a huge smile like he was really happy we were sitting together, but he looks happy all the time anyway. He just about burst with excitement because we saw an old Coke can on the pavement on the way to school, and we kicked it to each other a few times. Yep, that's a big thrill in Vince Noir world. Us intellectuals aren't so easily impressed.
Vince has huge eyes, very bright blue, with long eyelashes that he sort of looks at me from under, and then he looks away again while chewing his thumb. If Vince was a girl, he would be pretty, but too skinny.
Thursday January 15th
We played football in Games yesterday, and Vince is really good. He got a superb kick into goal, and everyone cheered. His shorts are a bit baggy, so when he kicked, you could see all the way up to the top of his legs. His legs are still a bit brown from India, and he might be skinny, but he has muscular thighs, much whiter on the inside than the rest. I felt a bit weird for looking at Vince's legs.
I've done my jazz exercises, and even though it's still early, I think I'll just go to bed and think about … things.
Friday January 16th
I got a lift to school with Dad this morning, and he said we could pick Vince up on the way. Vince wasn't quite ready, and Dad muttered, "Is that boy ever on time?". Dad made me stay in the car on the other side of the road, and he went in and fetched Vince. Vince didn't have shoes on, but he put them on in the car.
It was Geography today, so I sat next to Vince for an hour. Vince has all his pens and pencils in a gold tin covered in stickers, but he doesn't have the right kind of blue pencil for drawing in the sea on maps, so I let him use mine. Maybe he'll learn there are benefits to taking stationery seriously.
I pointed out to Vince he has hair just like our dog's. He said, "What breed of dog do you call that, anyway?". I told him it is a mongrel.
Saturday January 17th
Vince came round this morning, and we were watching the cartoons on TV when Leroy came round and asked if we wanted to go to the pictures, so we said yeah alright. We took the bus into town, I paid for Vince as I don't think he gets any pocket money. I've still got Christmas money left over. When we got to the Odeon, I wanted to see The Jazz Singer, but Vince looked so horrified we saw Flash Gordon instead. Leroy and I went halves buying Vince's ticket.
I bought Vince some sweets, he asked for Raspberry Bootlaces, so we shared them between us three, and Vince shared my drink. The film was quite good, and some parts of it were quite sexy. Princess Aura had quite a revealing costume, for example, but I don't like seeing girls being whipped. They are too soft and delicate. Vince liked the music.
Vince held my hand again while we were watching the film. He grabbed it during an exciting part, and then he just kept holding it. Maybe in India it's normal for boys to hold hands, but I'm going to have to tell him it's not on in England.
When we got back to my house, we started messing around acting out the film. Vince wanted to be Princess Aura being whipped, so he took off his tracksuit top and lifted his tee shirt and lay down on the bed, and then Leroy and I took turns whipping him. We didn't have actual whips, we just used the sash off my dressing gown. Vince said I was the best at whipping because I'm stronger than Leroy. After a while I felt a bit weird, so I said we should probably stop in case Mum came in.
Sunday January 18th
Second after Epiphany. Oxford Hilary Term Starts.
We went to Wakefield to see Nana and Grandpa this afternoon. Nana made parkin for tea, and I asked for two pieces to give to Vince. Mum and Dad explained about Vince, and Mum said, "He and Howard are terrific friends". Grandpa said it was nice to hear I was making more friends, as he had always thought I was too shy. Then Grandpa asked if I had a girlfriend yet, and Mum quickly said, "Oh, there's plenty of time for that". I wish they wouldn't talk about me while I am in the room with them, I can still hear!
Vince came over this evening, and started looking through my books. I thought we might be able to have an intellectual discussion about literature, but he grabbed one of my old Rupert Bear annuals instead. Vince said he was cold and got into bed, so I got into bed too. I ended up reading the story of Rupert and the Winkybickies to Vince.
Dad came in and said it was time for Vince to go home. He didn't say anything about us being in bed together. We were only reading, anyway. I gave Vince his parkin to take home with him.
Monday January 19th
I have joined a group at school called the Good Samaritans. We go out into the community helping and stuff like that. We miss Maths on Monday afternoons.
Today we had a talk on the sort of things we will be doing. I have been put in the old age pensioner's group. Leroy ticked the box that said he liked working with children and young people, so he is going to be tutoring Vince every week. He seemed dead happy about it.
I sat with Vince for school dinner, and asked him if he wanted to be in the Good Samaritans and help people, but he said he already has to take care of Mrs Pelham a fair bit. I said she's meant to be taking care of you, but he said if they find out Mrs Pelham is too old, they will put Vince in an orphanage again, or move him to another city. I tried to say something encouraging, but I started choking on a piece of gristle. Just my luck!
Mum has been visiting the library as well, but not for anything intellectual. She is reading a book called What Colour is Your Parachute?. I hope she isn't intending to take up skydiving at her age.
Tuesday January 20th
Full Moon
My mother is looking for a job! If she is at work all day, who is going to take care of the house? And who is going to feed me and Dad? We both have to go to school, we can't be expected to make our own meals as well.
I rang my grandparents to tell them, and got Nana on the phone. Nana said, "Well, she's not really the domestic type, is she love? She doesn't even make her own lard". Nana is just glad that now she will be the best cook of everything forever. She said if I get too neglected, she and Grandpa will help out, so to stop worrying.
The Samaritans met today during break. The old people were shared out. I got an old blind man named Lester Corncrake. He is eighty-nine, so I don't suppose I'll have him for long. I'm going round to see him tomorrow.
Wednesday January 21st
Mr and Mrs Lucas who live in the house opposite are getting divorced. They are the first down our road. Mum and Dad don't seem very surprised. Dad says Mr Lucas is a slimy little git who has been getting his end away, and Mum says Mrs Lucas prefers women to men (note: all my mother's friends are women too, so what is her point?). My parents seem to know a surprising amount about the people living opposite. I hope they are not turning into gossips.
Dad cooked tea tonight, he made chicken curry and rice. It wasn't bad, actually. Dad said that we will all have to chip in when Mum gets a job. That sounds ominous.
I went to see old Mr Corncrake after tea. Dad dropped me off on his way to play squash. Mr Corncrake's house is hard to see from the road. It has got a massive overgrown privet hedge all round. When I knocked on the door, I heard a fierce-sounding dog barking and growling and jumping up at the letterbox, so I ran off. I hope I got the wrong number.
I saw Leroy on the way home. He said tutoring Vince is no joke, he is practically illiterate. I didn't tell Leroy that Vince needed a lot of help to read Rupert Bear, and that's mostly pictures.
Thursday January 22nd
Vince said he will come after Leroy like a Cockney bitch if he keeps telling people how thick he is. Leroy said that thanks to the breakdown of language and society, soon nobody will be able to read and write, so Vince is already ahead of the game. Vince looked quite pleased, but I do not think that is the right thing for a tutor to tell their student.
I suggested to Dad that Leroy isn't the right tutor for Vince, but he said, "Leroy is doing a perfectly satisfactory job, and Vince needs all the friends and allies he can get. Please don't spoil things for Vince because you're jealous". Huh, yeah. As if I'd be jealous of Leroy, or want Vince all to myself.
Leroy has asked me to go to a disco at the youth club tonight, it is being held to raise funds for a new pack of ping-pong balls. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but then he said Vince was coming, so I said, oh all right then.
My mother has an interview for a job. It feels like the beginning of the end.
Friday January 23rd
That is the last time I go to a disco. The disco was meant to start at 8 pm, so I arrived at what I thought was a polite 7.45 pm. There was nobody else there except Bob Fossil, the youth leader. He is a weird little American man who always wears a powder blue safari suit that doesn't quite fit. He feels up his own nipples when he thinks nobody is watching, but they always are. Watching, I mean.
I helped Bob Fossil set things up for the disco. He passed comments on my physical appearance that made me feel uncomfortable, such as, "Oh, you've grown a lot, Howard. You're getting to be a big boy, aren't you?". And when I fell off the stepladder while putting up streamers, he offered to massage my buttocks until the pain went away. I refused this offer, mostly because the pain was actually in my ankle. I twisted it a bit when I came off the stepladder.
Once people began arriving, it was obvious that everyone there was a punk, apart from me and Bob Fossil. All the music was punk music. Vince didn't get there until after 9 pm, and he arrived with Leroy. Leroy must have loaned Vince some of his clothes, because Vince was dressed as a punk, too. I couldn't help staring, because he looked really different. Probably because I'm used to seeing him in his school uniform or his tracksuit.
He had tight black jeans and a white bondage tee-shirt written all over in smeared red writing. His tee shirt didn't come all the way down, so you could see a strip of Vince's lower stomach. It's covered in surprisingly dark hair for someone who is blond. Vince was wearing a black leather jacket, black leather boots, and a black leather studded wristband. He'd done something to his hair, so it was still sticking up, but looked as if it was meant to be like that, and it had blue streaks in it.
Vince had a lot of black makeup around his eyes. It makes his eyes look even more blue. He was wearing his school tie all loose, and I pointed out that it is against school rules to wear your school tie except with a regulation school uniform, but Vince told me to get stuffed.
Leroy and Vince danced with each other, and then they danced with a couple of punk girls, and then with some punk boys, and back to dancing together again. I didn't dance. I just watched. But Bob Fossil said, "Come on Howard, get up and dance with the other kids", in a whiny voice. Just to get rid of him, I started dancing by myself, but Bob Fossil still hung around, saying things like, "Oh yeah, that is a such a sexy dance. Dance, monkey boy, dance!".
Vince and Leroy were laughing at me, and Vince called out, "Yeah, you are a sexy dancer, Howard!". I told him to shut up and not to make fun of me. Vince said, "I wasn't …", but I walked away. I couldn't take him lying to me on top of everything else.
Leroy and Vince showed off all night while I ignored them, and then they both stuck safety pins through their ears so they would have matching earrings. I had to go home and get Dad so he could drive them to hospital, where they ended up in matching beds due to a bit of blood poisoning. Dad gave them both a bollocking for being so stupid, but said he would explain it to Leroy's parents and Mrs Pelham. I waited for him to say something about Vince's misuse of a school tie, but he never did. Typical! If it was me, I would have been told to remove the tie immediately. Leroy and Vince weren't in school today.
The people at Critic's Forum haven't written back to me yet, not even Hermione Lee. Maybe she is in a bad mood. Intellectuals like her and me often have bad moods. Ordinary people don't understand and say we are sulking, but we're not.
I must go to sleep now, even though I have had a headache all day thanks to that stupid punk disco, but I'm not complaining. I've got to go and see Lester Corncrake tomorrow at his house. It was the right number, WORSE LUCK!!!!!!!
Saturday January 24th
Today was terrible. Mum got a job at an insurance office in the city and starts on Monday. She will be getting lifts with Mr Lucas from across the road. Dad didn't like that, so Mum said could she have the car, then? But Dad said he needs the car to carry home essays and assignments, classroom equipment, and other papers.
Lester Corncrake has a huge Alsatian dog named Sabre. Sabre was locked in the kitchen while I was cutting the massive hedge, but he didn't stop growling once. I asked Mr Corncrake if he was sure that Sabre was a proper seeing eye dog, and he said, "Why, what did they give me?". He seemed to think that was very funny.
But even worse than that, I've had a huge row with Vince and Leroy. They came round this evening, and complained about me being a wet blanket at the punk disco, and getting Dad involved after they put safety pins through their ears. I pointed out they could have both died, and Leroy said, "Exactly, that would have been so punk. There's no street cred involved in being on antibiotics". Vince said, "Yeah, we wanted to be crawling in filthy diseases, just like Sid Vicious".
I lost my temper, and asked Vince why he was a punk anyway. He said because he didn't fit into society and was filled with a bounding inner rage. I asked him to name one thing he's angry about. He thought for a moment, and said, "Government". I asked him to name the political party currently in power in the UK, and he couldn't do it. I asked him who the prime minister is, and he didn't know.
I asked what exactly about government got him angry, and he said, "Not that kind of government. You know, poverty and stuff". I asked what he'd like the government to do about poverty, and Vince said, "Get stuffed, you tosser. You think you're cleverer than us, but you're not. Come on Leroy, let's get out of here".
I said next time they got blood poisoning being prats, they could sort themselves out. Then I yelled after them they were a pair of stupid little tits. Once they left, I thought of about a hundred really clever and cutting things I could have said to them, but it was too late then. The truth is, I don't really wish I said clever and cuttings things. I wish I'd stopped the row ever happening in the first place.
Sunday January 25th
Burns Night (Scotland). Third after Epiphany
10 am: I am ill with worry, too weak to write much. My parents didn't notice I haven't eaten any breakfast. They have left for Wakefield to see Nana and Grandpa. I said I wasn't feeling well enough to accompany them.
2 pm: Had two junior aspirins at midday and rallied a little. Perhaps when I am famous and my diary is discovered, people will understand the torment of being a thirteen-and-two-thirds undiscovered intellectual.
6 pm: I really wish I hadn't said those things to Vince. I hope he realises that whatever may have occurred, he is still free to avail himself of my blue pencil in Geography class.
8 pm: I thought I was lonely and isolated before as an intellectual jazz poet. Now I know it is even worse being a friendless intellectual jazz poet.
10 pm: How did everything go so wrong?
Midnight: Finally felt able to eat. Ate a crab paste sandwich and a satsuma. Feel a little better. I blame punk for everything.
Monday January 26th
I had to leave my sick bed to visit Lester Corncrake before school. It took me ages to get there, what with feeling weak and needing to rest every now and again, but with the help of an old lady who was passing, I managed to make it to the front door. Sabre was locked in the bathroom. He was growling, and sounded as if he was ripping up towels or something.
Lester Corncrake said, "Here's a dime, kid. Go down to the newsstand, and get me a copy of the Washington Post, in Braille". Sabre usually fetches the newspaper, but he is being kept indoors as a punishment for chewing the sink.
The man at the newsagent's said they don't sell the Washington Post, or any publications in Braille, and they don't accept American coins as payment. I bought Lester a Daily Telegraph with my own money, and told him I would read him selected articles from it when I have some free time. I will keep the American ten cent piece, it looks interesting.
I was late for school, so I had to go to the school secretary's office and have my name put in the late book. That's the reward I get for being a Good Samaritan! I didn't miss Maths either!
Saw Vince and Leroy having their school dinners together, but chose to ignore them and sat by myself.
When I got home, I just wanted to be left alone so I could forget about what a horrible few days it has been. Mum said, "You could stop sulking and ask me how my first day at work went, Howard. You know, you never congratulated me, or wished me luck this morning". Typical. It's all about their lives with my parents!
Midnight. I miss you, Vince. Even though we are not speaking, I will wish you goodnight in the pages of my diary, at least.
Tuesday January 27th
Art was dead good today. I painted a lonely boy standing on a bridge. He had just lost his two best friends. The two friends were struggling in the torrential river below. The boy sadly watched his two former friends drown. The boy on the bridge looked a bit like me. The two drowning friends looked a bit like Leroy and Vince.
Ms Fossington-Gore said the picture "had depth". So did the river. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Wednesday January 28th
Last Quarter
I woke up with a bit of a cold, so I asked Mum for a note to excuse me from Games. She said she wasn't going to namby-pamby me a day longer! I would love to know when this namby-pambying took place. Anyway, she is sorry now. We had rugger, and my PE kit is so full of mud it has blocked the washing machine.
Vince didn't speak to me in Geography. I left my blue pencil for him on the desk, but he didn't touch it. We didn't do any maps with sea anyway.
Thursday January 29th
Took the dog for an especially long walk while I thought about things. The dog complained that its feet hurt towards the end, so I carried it the last bit.
Friday January 30th
That old git Lester Corncrake phoned the school to complain that I left the hedge-clippers out in the rain! He claims they have gone all rusty, and wants compensation.
I told Mr Bainbridge, the headmaster, that they were already rusty, but I could tell he didn't believe me. He gave me a lecture on how hard it is for old people to make ends meet. He has ordered me to go to Lester Corncrake's, and clean and sharpen the hedge-clippers.
I wanted to tell the headmaster all about Lester Corncrake and his dangerous dog, but there is something about Mr Bainbridge that makes my mind goes blank. I think it's the way his cheeks go bright red and sort of wobble when he's in a temper.
I went to Lester Corncrake's, but he didn't answer the door. Perhaps he is dead.
Vince is still not speaking to me.
Saturday January 31st
It is nearly February, and I have nobody to send a Valentine's Day card to.