Planet Janet in Orbit (12 page)

Still no letters for Aunt K! What am I going to do if she doesn’t get any?!! I haven’t bothered writing anything else for the mag because I thought solving everybody’s problems would be enough to start with. The last thing I need is Catriona pretending to feel sorry for me because I missed out on the
FIRST
issue. Flynn said I could always do an interview if I really have nothing to submit. I said
AN INTERVIEW
? With
WHOM
? It’s not like our school is filled with Fascinating Characters or Hollywood Stars. Flynn said how about Mr Tulliver the caretaker? I said and what would I interview
him
about? The best way to get old socks out of a toilet? Flynn said Mr Tulliver used to be in the SAS and has lots of interesting stories about killing people and living on grubs and tree bark, etc. And to think that most journalists want to interview the likes of Spielberg or Madonna – they don’t know what they’re missing!!!

Have to get ready for bowling. More anon.

It’s been
GO
!
GO
!
GO
! all weekend. Siranee, Alice and Sara all wanted to know where Disha was on Friday night. I said Disha was in the
Arms of Love
– which seems to be a lot like being in solitary confinement. Siranee was v surprised by this news. So was Alice. Alice said Disha’s the last person she’d have expected to behave like that because she’s got a boyfriend – it’s something she’d expect more from
ME
! (Can you believe that?!! I was too
GOBSMACKED
even to defend myself!!!) Sara, however, wasn’t at all surprised. Sara watches a lot of daytime telly and says the talk shows are absolutely chock-a-block with women who totally turn themselves inside out for men: have their breasts enlarged, dye their hair, become weightlifters, move to islands off the coast of Africa, etc!!! And it’s not just the unattractive, desperate women either! Like AIDS, it can happen to
anyone
!!! [Note to self: Ask Sappho if this could possibly be genetic.] On the brighter side, the bowling was a hoot and a half! Marcus, David and Flynn were good, of course – they have well-developed hand muscles from playing so many video games – but it was Siranee who hit so many strikes that the man in the next lane asked her if she wanted to join his bowling team. After that, everyone came back to mine to watch a film. Ended up getting two videos because we couldn’t agree (the males, of course, wanted something violent and not too intellectually taxing, and the females wanted something with character and plot). We couldn’t agree on which one to watch first, either, so we played charades instead. The MC and Buskin’ Bob came in just as we were starting and wanted to join in. I was still recovering from this shock when I realized that the others were moving round to make room for them! I said pardon me, but fraternizing between my family and my friends is something I tried to discourage (and have done since primary school when the MC first began embarrassing me in public). The Mad Cow and Robert acted like I was making a joke. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. There was plenty of hysterical laughter all round. (No one could decide which was funnier – Flynn miming
lap dancer
or Buskin’ Bob miming
Bridget Jones’s Diary
!!!) Marcus, David, Flynn, Siranee, Sara, Alice and I had such a good time that we decided to hang out again last night and watch the videos. Alice said I should ask Disha to come. I said, “You ask her.” (Alice did ask her and Disha said she was busy – for a change!)

Buskin’ Bob wanted to know which of the lads was my boyfriend. I asked which one did he think? He said he couldn’t decide whether it was Marcus or Flynn. (This is a problem I have myself, which is one of the reasons why neither of them
is
my boyfriend!) I said what about David? He said he had the impression that David was keen on Siranee (checked this with Alice and
IT’S TRUE
!!!). I said Marcus and Flynn are both just good friends. He said, “Really?” I said, “Yes, really.” But later I started thinking about it. Has Buskin’ Bob noticed some spark between me and Marcus? (He got David and Siranee right, after all, and he’d only just met them!) Or maybe he noticed something between me and Flynn? Is there something going on that even
I
don’t know about? Why am I always the last one to be told things?

Looked after Jupiter the child and Mars the dog for Willow yesterday afternoon. Made them both go out in the garden so I didn’t have to worry about Jupiter setting fire to the flat while I made my phone calls. Mars chased a squirrel up a tree and couldn’t get back down. Rang 999 but, contrary to what you see on telly, the fire service doesn’t include rescuing dachshunds from trees in its job description. Next, rang Marcus in something of a panic as both Jupiter and Mars were
AUDIBLY
upset. Marcus got Mars down with no trouble. Marcus said he hoped I was paying attention to how handy he is to have around. I said I rang him, didn’t I?

Rang Sappho to ask her if she thinks letting a boyfriend take over your life could be genetic. She said only if you think that the inability to put down a toilet seat is also genetic.

Aunt K finally got two letters today!!! Not that it was exactly worth the wait. I know beggars can’t be choosers, but these girls would
never
be selected to go on
Jerry Springer
! Their letters practically redefine
dull and boring
. I swear they could put a starving tiger to sleep. Told Flynn how
DISAPPOINTED
I am. I said I want exciting problems – abusive uncles, incestuous relationships with brothers and cousins, tortured teens worrying about their sexuality, children driven to the edge by parents who make them scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush every morning before school… But what do I get? I get
fat thighs
and
I had a fight with my mum
. Flynn said maybe Life is more about imperfect bodies and domestic rows than you’d think from watching telly. [Note to self: If television isn’t a reflection of reality, what is it?] At least the letters were easy to answer. (
Half the people in the world have fat thighs – it’s not a handicap unless you want to be a catwalk model
, and
EVERYBODY
fights with their mother.
) I can only hope the next batch is better!

Discussed the
shallowness and drabness
of most people’s lives again with Flynn. He said maybe I should jazz up the letters a bit to make them more exciting. It’s tempting, but I don’t think it’d work. I mean, the person who wrote the letter will know that it isn’t what (s)he said and then Aunt K will lose her credibility. Flynn said anyway, it’s still early days yet. Something juicy might be just a letter away. Not today it wasn’t.

Sappho and her
BUMP
(otherwise known as Mount Everest!) came over for supper. Sappho says she isn’t sure she and Mags are doing the right thing having a child when the World Situation is so bad. I said things have always been this bad (there are a lot of history programmes on the telly, so I know what I’m talking about!) and I didn’t see what the problem was. I said it was all right in the past if you were rich or a lord, or something, but everybody else got hanged or shipped to Australia if they so much as nicked a crust of bread. (I found myself thinking that hanging was a better idea so at least their descendants couldn’t come back and brainwash your
Best Friend
!) Sappho agreed that life on Earth has never been a picnic for most people, but she said this is the closest we’d ever come to actually destroying the planet. I said well, that’s progress, isn’t it?

As you know, I don’t usually hang out with Disha after school any more because she’s always off to meet Ethan before he goes to work, but today he had something else to do, so I went over to hers. Mrs Paski said it seems like she never sees me any more. I said that’s because she doesn’t. D and I hung out in her room. It’s amazing how she can get Ethan into conversations that have
ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING
to do with him. If we talk about school, she says, “Ethan says when he was in school blah blah blah.” If we talk about clothes, she says, “Ethan says that clothes blah blah blah.” If we talk about parents, she says, “Ethan says that his parents blah blah blah.” Mentioned in passing that it must be possible to get through just one whole sentence without bringing Ethan into it – she used to, didn’t she? – and she got all snotty. She wanted to know if I was still cheesed off that he asked her out and not me. I said I was
BORED
not jealous.

Two more deadly dull letters for Aunt K. The first was from someone who wanted to know if it was true you can’t get pregnant the first time (
Answer: No, it isn’t true. Aside from the Virgin Mary, who got pregnant
WITHOUT
a first time, women have been known to get pregnant without even realizing they had sex!
). The second was from He Loves Me So Much, whose boyfriend is
v possessive and jealous
(
Answer: Jealousy is not a sign of affection, it’s a sign of insanity
!). Ms Staples said I should try to remember that though I think the problems I’m sent are dull and humdrum, to the people writing they’re dire and
HUGELY
important. I said it just proves that subjective reality is really unreliable, doesn’t it? Then she reminded me that my copy’s due in next week. The
SOONER
the
BETTER
. She said if I was having trouble getting my material together she could always give me a hand. I thanked her, but said that I’m here to
GIVE
help, not take it!

At last! Just when I was beginning to think I was living in a cereal commercial, a
REALLY INTERESTING
letter came for Aunt K today. It’s from someone who’s worried that her best friend might be seeing one of her teachers!!! Worried Mate’s friend told her she met this bloke at the gym she goes to. She said he was one of the trainers and his name was Fred. Worried Mate wanted to get a look at this bloke, of course, so she decided to surprise her friend at the gym one afternoon and get a glimpse. Her friend wasn’t there. The person on the desk said her friend hadn’t been in for weeks. And
THERE AREN’T ANY TRAINERS NAMED FRED
!!! Worried Mate asked her friend what was going on and her friend told her to
MIND HER OWN BUSINESS
!!! Now she won’t talk about Fred
AT ALL
. Worried Mate says they’ve
NEVER
had any secrets from each other before, so she knows this has to be something really
MAJOR
, like a teacher or a married man. This is the sort of problem that makes an Agony Aunt’s day!

Nan came over for supper tonight. It’s almost a shame that Buskin’ Bob isn’t her son; they get on so well. The two of them banged on about the inhumanity of man towards man (and towards every other thing on the planet as far as I can tell) through the whole meal. Apparently Nan’s new Jesus group doesn’t just sit around reading the Bible all the time; they believe in
DOING
as much as
PRAYING
. So Nan’s becoming a Christian activist!!! (The Prime Minister worries a lot about hardcore anarchists – just wait till he has to deal with
HARDCORE GRANS
!!!) Nan said that since she had
PERSONAL
experience of the
horror
that is war she’s even joined a Christian peace group. They believe that the
Thou Shalt Not Kill
commandment should be taken literally – as in you shouldn’t kill anyone. She says she reckons that she knows exactly what Jesus would do if He were here now – and it wouldn’t be to bomb innocent people who have already suffered enough.

Helped Flynn sort through the fiction submissions for the magazine today because he was a bit overwhelmed (maybe in the rest of Britain the teenagers are all couch potatoes, but at our school at least half of them are writing stories either about
Falling in Love
or saving the world from an alien invasion). To thank me, Flynn took me to lunch at that conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in the West End. It’s v hi-tech and
très
trendy. The sushi wasn’t bad, but I didn’t get much to eat because it’s v difficult to hold a conversation and keep up with the dishes drifting past at the same time – it was all right for Flynn because he mainly listens. I told Flynn about Worried Mate’s letter. I said if only I had more like that, my first column would be
ABSOLUTE DYNAMITE
. Flynn said it’s too bad I can’t write to myself, what with all the problems I’ve had/have in my life. If he hadn’t had a mouthful of raw tuna at the time, I think I would’ve kissed him!!! I told him he was a genius. Why didn’t I think of that before? All I have to do is write letters myself. The first one’s going to be about how I’m feeling about
Disha in Love
. (She’ll never recognize herself – she’s much too self-absorbed). I don’t consider this dishonest, because if I wasn’t Aunt K I probably would write to her about this situation (God knows, there’s nobody else I can talk to about it without sounding
JEALOUS
– which after much soul-searching I absolutely know that I’m not!). I
CAN’T WAIT
to hear what I say!!!

Thinking about abandoning both art and literature to pursue a brilliant career in psychotherapy instead. I
DEFINITELY
have a talent for it (must have got more from Sigmund than just small ear lobes!). It’s taken me
ALL DAY
, but I’ve written an excruciatingly interesting letter
and
the reply. Here’s what I said to Last Year’s Christmas Present (that’s
ME
!):