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My garden is green Like paint
My swing is green too And I can fly on it Like a fly
But higher and faster Like a rocket
They see me fly.
*
Denise Almer kissed me on the lips at school. I don’t understand because I didn’t ask her to. I don’t talk to her because she is always busy with her friends doing netball and I don’t like netball or football or cricket or any sport except running a long way and we don’t do that at school. Denise is one of the smallest girls in my class but she is very fast. She said she loved me but I didn’t say anything because it seemed best. I suppose one day we will get married but she will have to know about the wormhole because I don’t think I could keep that secret if we spent every day together. I was surprised by how the kissing felt because the only other person who had kissed me like that was Nan and she licked my tongue as a joke. Denise was not joking because afterwards I heard her telling her friends that I had told her I liked it but I hadn’t told her but I did like it. I told Keith because he has books on everything and he said that she might have a baby and I said if she did it would probably go through the wormhole and come out in Essex or Houston and end up in space on a rocket so that would be ok because I don’t think Mother and Dad would want it and I don’t.
When I grow up I will marry Denise and kiss her on the lips a lot.
*
I told Jean about Denise. Jean said that girls grow up faster than boys and that I had better watch out that I don’t get left behind. I said that that wasn’t a problem because Denise was the smallest girl in my class and she lived in the next village and doesn’t know where I live so if there was a baby she would only see me at school and would not interrupt my homely routines. Jean said that if there was a baby then I would have to get a job and a house. I said that would be ok because I liked going on the train and inventing things and you could get a house for free if you were poor like Keith and his sister so I could live next to them. Jean asked me what the kiss was like and I said it was good and I wanted to do it again. She asked if I would do it to her but I said no because I didn’t love her. She said that was fine because she didn’t love me and that anyway she was a year younger than me so it was better that she waited until we were the same age. Judith said that would never happen and that we were both stupid and that kissing was only for common girls that don’t do any work at school. Jill
scratched her arm as hard as she could and they both went home crying. I was annoyed because I liked talking about Denise even if she was common and small.
When I grow up I won’t get left behind.
*
Shopping by car is better than shopping by bike or by walking, but shopping by train is best because we go to a place where there is a park with a boat pond and we can’t do much shopping because we cannot carry it on the train home. So the shopping part is not important and the boat part is. Mother and Dad go shopping by train together and I have to go with them because I am young. I think they want to make me happy because I look sad when we go to Marks so that’s why we always stop at the boat pond before we get the train back. I don’t mind Marks as much as they think because I like seeing the clothes and thinking about wearing them when I get old. They have lots of ties and striped shirts for business that would look fine on Andrew’s dad but my dad just wears white ones for work with a pocket where he can put his pencils and I think he has enough of these to last until he is dead which is a sad thought so I hope he will also find a wormhole before then. The boat pond is next to the library and usually has some sailboats which just go where the wind blows but sometimes there is a radio-controlled boat that an old man steers all the way round the pond without stopping. He is a bit too old to be playing with a toy boat but Dad says that this is a serious hobby and these are not toys but scale models. I think Dad would like to have one but he only has one leg so if the boat ran out of petrol he would not be able to paddle out and fetch it like the old man does. I feel sad for Dad again and hope that when he goes through the wormhole and doesn’t die he comes back with two whole legs.
When I grow up I will always have two legs and a radio-controlled boat.
*
Most days I go to school. Most of school is not good. It is very bad. The very good things are when it is closed because of snow and when I get there there is just one teacher and she lets us dry our socks on the stove then go home. At home I make a snow robot. Another good thing is I get to hand out the milk with Stephanie. She is a lot like a boy; I think all the best girls apart from Denise are like boys. Her dad has a notice on his house saying he is an accountant and he always wins the grown-up running race at the fête. My dad says he is unnecessary which I don’t understand but Stephanie likes fighting and guns so I think he had better be careful because I bet she loves her dad enough to shoot mine which wouldn’t matter for now because caps are not like bullets but she says she wants to join the army and if she does she will definitely get a real gun. She dropped one of the milk bottles but rather than say anything she kicked the glass under the bins but it left a big pool of milk. I think this is quite reckless because someone could slip in the milk and fall on the glass. So I made a sign that said BEWARE and put it next to it. She said that I would get into trouble because the teachers would know it was me, so I took the sign away. She said to put it back and if I got into trouble she would say it was her. Nobody noticed the milk or the sign which was a shame because Stephanie is brave and strong like her dad. The only other good thing about school is when they polish the floors and when you change for PE you can slide on it in your socks. I don’t slide but I like watching the others and pretending they are the ice skaters that Mother watches on television with the music, the frilly pants and the shiny suits to make you go fast.
When I grow up I will have polished floors that I can slide on whenever I want.
*
Denise is beginning to be a problem. I think about her when I want to think about other things. I have stopped making useful things and begun writing stories. All my stories are about her but she has a different voice in all of them so the only way you know it is the same person is her name is Denise and she looks the same. This is a problem because in real stories people’s voices stay the same but different things happen to them. In my stories the same things happen but the person keeps changing their voice. In today’s story she was at school just like today not in the story where she was also at school, but instead of being quite average, not loud or soft, she was very loud like my auntie Barbara and she said words that I don’t know as if she was speaking German like the twins. I am beginning to think that in my stories she takes bits from all the persons I know and mixes them up like paint for my paintings then makes abstract, like my mother says, with words that become my stories. I have written five so far. They are called Denise 1, Denise 2, Denise 3, Denise 4 and Denise 5. She doesn’t know I write them because that would spoil the surprise if one day you could buy a book of them in WH Smith.
When I grow up I will make a book and it will be in the window in WH Smith.