Artichoke Hearts

Extract

My May Day Diary

Saturday 30 April

OK, here goes. Facts are the easiest . . . start with the facts. I’m twelve years old today. Twelve years and four hours old. I was born at seven o’clock in the morning. So, to be exact, twelve years, four hours and twenty-two minutes old. My twelve-year-old self is neither tall nor small, neither skinny nor ‘plumpy,’ as Krish calls Laila. My twelve-year-old self has long, dead straight black hair, and dark brown eyes that my dad says sometimes turn black with emotion. My skin’s brown, but not brown enough to hide my blushes. Looking in the mirror, which I do quite a lot recently, I would say I don’t love myself (my teeth have come down a bit wonky), but I don’t really mind how I look. My Nana calls me a ‘beauty’, but she would, wouldn’t she?

Like I said, facts are easiest, but none of this really says very much, does it? Maybe words just aren’t my thing. Give me a paintbrush any day. My school reports always say stuff like ‘Mira now needs to work on building her confidence and contributing to class discussions’. Now that is something I really hate to do. The main thing about me is whenever I open my mouth to say anything in class I blush up bright red so that before I’ve even opened my mouth, everyone knows how embarrassed I am, and after that I just clam up and lose the will to live. The mad thing is I actually can’t stop thinking. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things like . . . how I’m going to get through a lunch hour if Millie’s not around . . . and well, I suppose I can say it here can’t I? Since Pat Print’s writing class I have mostly been waking up thinking about Jidé Jackson’s smile.

I’m a doodler and a daydreamer and a night dreamer. The last few weeks it’s been, nightmares mostly, really bizarre stuff that freaks me out. Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit strange lately, it’s hard to say exactly how, but it feels like I’m walking a tightrope. I’m not sure what it is I’m going to fall off, but it definitely feels like I’m about to find out.

I am sitting in my Nana Josie’s flat, with the rest of my family gathered for the usual birthday tea. I would rather not be here. Mum and Dad have given me a mobile phone, a watch and a diary. The mobile is a sea-green pebble, and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. The watch has a black leather strap, glass face, silver edging and a number for each hour. It’s definitely my first grown-up watch and that somehow seems like a sign. I’m into signs, omens, superstitions . . . whatever you want to call them . . . mostly I call them ‘Notsurewho, Notsurewhat’. This watch makes me think that something is about to happen to time. Today feels like the end of something, and the countdown to the beginning, of this, my red leather diary with golden edging at the corners of each page.

‘Where are the dates?’ I ask Mum as I flick through the pages of the diary.

‘I thought you’d prefer to fill them in yourself. That way you can write as much or as little as you want and, knowing you, I expect you’ll want to add the odd artwork. When I used to keep a diary, some days I had nothing much to write about and other days I’d write pages. It’s more of a journal really . . . for your writing class.’

So I start writing, just like I would for any other piece of homework, because Pat Print’s told us to, only now I’ve found something to keep all my secrets wrapped up in I can’t stop, because no matter what’s happened to me before today, or what’s going to happen in the future, something is happening to me right now. Present tense.
 
Nana is inspecting my new mobile phone.

‘It’s quite pretty, I suppose, but I just don’t understand what the point of having a mobile phone is at your age . . . and I’m sure I read somewhere that the rays can cause tumours. Uma, have you checked that out?’ Nana calls out to Mum, in the next room. I don’t think Mum even hears, she’s too busy trying to get Laila to stay still while she changes her cacky nappy.

‘I mean who are you going to call? You’re always with your Mum and Dad or me anyway.’

Jidé Jackson . . . he’s the person I would most like to call, but I’ll never have the guts to actually do it.

‘Well?’ nudges Nana.

‘You, Mum and Dad, Millie, Aunt Abi, Nana Kath and Grandad Bimal,’ I list.

‘That’s five numbers. I rest my case.’

Nana Josie is quite hard to argue against, even if you really disagree with her, which I do, about the phone, but of course I don’t say anything. She has her feet up, resting on my knees. I smooth my hands over the skin of her cracked brown leather soles. On the sides of each foot, she has hard bony knobbly bits, bulging, where mine are smooth. Her feet are icy cold, like she’s just stepped out of the North Sea, but it isn’t cold. In fact, it’s a sunny day, the cherry blossom trees are out in the garden, like they are every year on my birthday . . . but Nana feels cold, because she’s so thin. She feels cold all the time these days.