Planet Janet in Orbit (14 page)

A few more letters are trickling in to Aunt K but none of them are any more riveting than the first lot.
Dear Aunt K, My parents won’t let me have a nose job… (Answer: Save the plastic surgery for when you’re over forty and really need it.) Dear Aunt K, There’s a boy I like who seems to like me but he hasn’t asked me out, so I’m not really sure how he feels. What should I do? (Answer: Ask him out. You’ll know from his reaction exactly how he feels.) Dear Aunt K, I’ve tried every diet there is but I’m still a size fourteen. Should I have my lips sewn together? (Answer: I can tell you from personal experience that dieting makes you fat, so the first thing you should do is stop doing that. And if you sew your lips closed and get a cold, you’ll die because you can’t breathe. Being a size fourteen is a lot better than being dead.)
Both Flynn and Ms Staples say not to worry about the meagre (in every sense of the word!) letters, as once the first issue hits the stands I’ll be deluged. I said I hoped so. At the moment I’m being dampened to death.

I swear to God Nan spends more time at ours now that her son’s in Kilburn than she did when he lived here! She rolled up tonight with a sign that says
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD WAR
and her overnight bag. Turns out she’s spending the night at ours because she’s going on some demo tomorrow. I said wasn’t she going to feel a bit out of place among all the squatters, hardcore anarchists and travellers who usually show up for these things? Nan said why should she? I said because she’s
OLD
. Nan said even old people have a right to their opinion. That’s what democracy is all about. I said I didn’t really see the point in taking to the streets, then. The government was elected to do its job and that’s what it’s doing. I said that’s what democracy is all about too!!! Nan says it can’t do the job
SHE
elected it to do if it doesn’t know what she thinks.

Even though I haven’t exactly got back into the Dark Phase, I’m happy to be able to say that my personal growth and development continue at a rapid pace. Had a completely
NEW
experience today (and for once it wasn’t all bad!). Without consulting
ME
, the MC decided that we should
ALL
go on the demo with Nan. I said I had a lot of homework and really couldn’t waste time being arrested. The MC said she didn’t see any problem since I never do it till Sunday night anyway and we’d be released by then. She said wasn’t I meant to be a writer for the school magazine? She reckoned an article on an anti-war protest would be more interesting than writing about what the cafeteria was serving for lunch. I had to admit that she had a point. Especially if I
DID
get arrested. And since Disha and the Wizard are back together, I wasn’t going to be hanging out with her. Rang Marcus to see if he wanted to come (he did). Then rang Flynn to see if he wanted to come too. Flynn wanted to know if I’d already asked Marcus. Then he said he’d wait for the next demo. I asked how he knew there’d be one? He said because this one wasn’t going to do any good. I haven’t seen so many policemen in one place since I watched that documentary on the Miners’ Strike. (God knows where they all are when you really want one – there certainly weren’t any about the time Mr Burl’s scooter was nicked!) I was
ASTONISHED
at how many old people were there (and some of them were even older than Nan!). I was expecting riot police with shields and horses and clubs, etc. like they put on for May Day, but it was all pretty civilized. No incidents of violence – unless you count the balloon filled with tomato sauce Nan threw at a police van (she missed). Nan was cautioned by a copper who was shocked that a woman who had been through the war would behave like that. Nan said she was behaving like that
because
she’d been through the war. Marcus thanked me for asking him along. He thinks the MC, Buskin’ Bob and Nan are all brilliant (another first!). He said he wished his family would show more interest in politics instead of just watching telly and destroying the house with DIY projects.

Had a brainwave (I really should do the Mensa test – I have to be at least
NEAR
genius!). I don’t reckon the parents are ever going to patch things up if they’re never together, and they’re never together because either she’s out or Robert’s sitting in the kitchen strumming his guitar. But next weekend Robert will be in a tent somewhere with the Deadly Duo, so I rang Sigmund and invited him to the party. He was
THRILLED
. He kept saying, “You really want me to be there?” I said of course I did: the MC would need some company.

Since Disha was
OTHERWISE ENGAGED
, got Marcus to come to the goth shoe shops of Camden with me to look for just the right combination of leather and metal. Marcus said he hoped I appreciated that this is something he would only do for
ME
, since boot shopping is just below torture on the list of activities he tries to avoid. He was pretty good for the first hour, but by the time we hit the third shop he was starting to grumble. He said he didn’t know why I had to try on every pair of boots I saw – especially since they were all basically the same. I explained that they were only the same to the untrained eye. Finally found the
PERFECT
pair (in the last shop, of course!). They’re v futuristic. Marcus couldn’t believe how much they cost. He thought I was mad to spend that much on a pair of boots I’m never going to wear again. I said that was the beauty of it. Since I’m not wearing them out in the street, I can return them after the party and get my money back. Marcus says he admires my mind even though it scares him a bit.

Flynn wanted to know why I didn’t ask
HIM
to go shopping with me. I said because he hates shopping. He said so does Marcus. Also,
The Matrix
is one of his all-time favourite films, which qualifies him to choose the right boots. Marcus is a Jackie Chan fan, which
obviously
disqualifies him. I said if he wants, he can come with me after school next Friday to get in the supplies for the party. He said he wants.

Mr Belakis managed to wheedle some of the lottery loot out of Old Woolly Jumper so the A level art classes can have a real exhibition in the spring and invite guests besides our parents. I saw that artist Tracey Emin on telly once and apparently she got a load of money for her bed – which, if you ask me, just looked like it hadn’t been made in a while. I reckoned I could get even more for my bed and really
SHAKE UP
the Art World (not only hasn’t my bed been made in a while but the headboard’s been set on fire at least three times – and it has the name of every boy I fancied in primary school scratched into it). But Mr Belakis says he prefers Inspiration to Installation. He’s given us all a project to form the focus for the exhibition, which is something about our families. Marcus is doing a ginormous canvas depicting the history of his family from their beginnings in Africa to winding up in England. My family’s history isn’t nearly as interesting as Marcus’s (no slave trade, no Jamaican rebels, no poor immigrants with all their possessions in a cardboard box and a picture of the Queen), so I’m doing a family portrait. I was going to do just my immediate family (the Mad Cow, Sigmund, me and possibly Geek Boy – if I can find a photo of him where he doesn’t look like a throwback to our primal past), but Mr Belakis said that including my un-immediate family would be a good challenge for someone of my talent and potential. Think I’ll do Sappho now, since pregnant is easier to do than an infant.

All I can say is, we
DEFINITELY
live in stressful times! (It’s a wonder the whole planet isn’t on drugs, if you ask me!) Marcus and I stayed after school again to work on our art projects. Mr Belakis rushed off afterwards, but before Marcus and I left to get the bus, I went to the ladies’ while he took the art-room key to Mr Tulliver. (I didn’t really have to go, but I knew that by the time I got home – public transport being what it is – I’d be desperate!) I was repairing the damage the ravages of the afternoon had done to my face – Marcus and I had been laughing so much that my eyes had run – when I knocked my mascara off the counter and it rolled under the sink. I bent down to pick it up and
GASPED OUT LOUD
!!! Right in front of my eyes, stuffed behind one of the pipes, was a
SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE
! (You really never think it’s going to happen to
YOU
, do you?) It was small and in a brown bag. I didn’t panic, of course, but I was
CAUTIOUS
(there’s been a lot on the telly about just this sort of thing!). I put all my make-up back in my case and raced out to get Marcus. Marcus, of course, is an artist not a fighter, but he didn’t hesitate for a nanosecond – he went straight in! (It was a side of him I’d never seen before and I was v impressed!) Marcus thought it was too small to be a bomb. I said if you can put a bomb in the heel of a
SHOE
(which apparently you can), the package could probably hold
TWO
bombs. Marcus was all for removing it and seeing what it was (is that
FEARLESS
or what?), but I reminded him that that’s
EXACTLY
what you’re not meant to do. The office was shut by then, but the news is always on at ours (so Buskin’ Bob can keep up with the injustices each new day brings), so I knew exactly what to do. I rang 999 on my mobe. I said I had reason to believe that there was an explosive device in the ladies’ of the main building at the Bere Road Secondary School. The police said to wait outside and they’d be
RIGHT WITH US
. All I can say is, I don’t know how the police reckon time but it’s not the way the rest of us do.
HOURS PASSED
. Marcus kept looking at his watch and telling me how many more minutes had passed. Five … ten … twelve-and-a-half … fourteen … twenty… I was just about to ring the coppers back when Mr Tulliver rolled up. He wanted to know what we were doing, standing there like we were waiting for a bus. I told him about the suspicious package. Mr Tulliver is fat and bald and doesn’t look like he was ever in the SAS (unless it was as a cook), but like Marcus he didn’t hesitate. He said this was just the sort of thing he’d been trained for and vanished inside. When another
EON
had passed, Marcus decided to go after him. I said I was certain we would’ve heard the bomb go off if Mr Tulliver’s training had let him down, but Marcus said maybe it wasn’t an explosive; maybe it just leaked a lethal gas and poor Mr Tulliver was passed out on the floor of the ladies’. I said we weren’t in an episode of
Batman
but Marcus wouldn’t listen. He didn’t come back either. By the time the police finally turned up (no lights or siren – you can only wonder what they consider an emergency!), I was feeling
V ANXIOUS
but I remained calm and explained about the suspicious package and the two brave men who had gone to investigate (and who, for all I knew, were
BOTH
passed out on the floor of the ladies’!). The first cop wanted to know why I thought it was a bomb. I said well, what else would I think it was, stuffed behind the sink like that? The second cop wanted to know if the rest of us could hear laughing. I’d never heard Mr Tulliver’s laugh before. (Well, I wouldn’t, would I? He’s usually fixing something or fishing something out of the biology pond in a professional manner.) But I recognized Marcus’s. I said maybe it wasn’t laughter; maybe it was hysteria. It was laughter. Mr Tulliver and Marcus came striding towards us. Mr Tulliver was holding up the paper bag and both of them were laughing so much there were tears in their eyes. Marcus said I should’ve seen Mr Tulliver in SAS mode. It was so much like a film that Marcus hadn’t even been frightened, he’d just stood by the door watching him sneak up on the bomb – ready to run. Only it wasn’t a bomb … it was a packet of cigarettes. The coppers said that if they had a quid for every bomb scare they’d investigated in the last few weeks they could take early retirement. Marcus wanted to know how many bombs they
had
found, and the coppers said that so far the cigarettes were the only things they’d discovered that would actually light.

Marcus thinks I should include the Hotspurs in my family portrait. I said that though it’s true you can’t get much more un-immediate than Buskin’ Bob, Marcella and Lucrezia, I have my doubts about them still being in the family by the time of the exhibition. Marcus wanted to know what made me say that. He thought they all seemed pretty well embedded in the family. I said he shouldn’t always go by appearances.

Spent the
WHOLE
day sorting out my costume for the party. I’m going to look so cool, people who come near me are going to need a jumper! Got a cheap black wig in the market as I’m not risking dyeing my hair after what happened last time.

The first issue of
Speak Out!
hit the stands today!!! It looks
FANTASTIC
!!! Ms Staples said we should all be proud of ourselves (something you
DON’T
have to tell Catriona Hendley twice!). It was sold out by lunchtime. I heard quite a few people talking about
MY
column! Everybody thinks the teacher in Worried Mate’s letter must be Mr Plaget. They all want to know who Aunt K is, of course. Even Disha was nagging me. A few short months ago I might have weakened and told her, since I’ve never had any secrets from D, but now that she’s keeping me at a distance I found it easy to lie. I said I had
NO IDEA
. I said it was something Ms Staples cooked up and
NO ONE
on the magazine knows who it is but her. Then, very casual like, I asked her what she thought of the letter from Last Year’s Christmas Present. She said she hadn’t read it. She said she’d read the one from He Loves Me So Much and didn’t think much of the advice, so she’d stopped after that. She said it didn’t seem to her that Aunt K knew v much about
Love
. I said that didn’t mean she didn’t know a lot about insanity.