Rose's Blog
15th July 2008
Oh, the end of term is very, very near now. We have had Last Sports Day and Last Healthy Dinner Day and Last Swimming and Last Summer Fair. We are getting old. The whole school is getting old. Even those squidgy little infants in Class 1 are looking too big for the sandpit, and at lunchtime they can get the lids off their yoghurt pots no trouble at all. Before they know it they will be in Class 2 where there is no Wendy house. They will have to survive the Class 2 playground where the footballs are not made of sponge and no painted jungle animals brighten the walls. There will be a new lot of little squidgy ones in their place but I will not be there to see them.
I will be at Big School.
I am scared of going to Big School.
Change the subject.
"What shall we buy Mr Spencer for a leaving present?" asks Molly. "We have collected £19.60 so it can be really good. I thought a David Attenborough DVD (£11.99), a goldfish from the garden centre to go into that empty goldfish tank (£1.20), some weed for the goldfish (49p), goldfish food (£1.65) and a genuine artificial silk tie. They have got some on the market that play Nellie the Elephant. She packed her bags and said goodbye to the circus, so I think it would be appropriate. They are £2.50 or two for £4 but he wouldn't want two. That leaves £1.77 for Pic'n'Mix or 57p if we buy two goldfish which might be kinder. Why are you crying, Rose?"
I am crying because of Nellie the Elephant.
It is a very sad song.
23rd June 2008
News From the Casson Family
Indigo and Saffron are no fun at all. All they talk about is exams. Sarah is just as bad, only instead of exams she talks about cars. She is getting her own car for her 18th birthday, she says. She has the Sat Nav for it already, and she is always checking out exotic locations. ‘Hammerfest, North Norway,’ she announces. ‘Only 44.09 hours non stop, not avoiding toll roads. Their coat of arms is a polar bear and there are reindeer in the streets. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t go there. Who’s coming with me?’
So we all agree to come and start googling ‘Permafrost’ and the next day she has discovered some place that she read about when she was 10 years old actually exists in real life. And is only 22.34 hours away, including crossing the Channel and the Alps.
‘Admit that’s quick,’ says Sarah. “Rose, stop sulking. We can always do Norway on the way home.”
Caddy and Michael and Buttercup are still living in the Zoo Flat. They are perfectly happy but rather squashed.
Daddy’s antique shop is very, very popular. This is mostly because of the large wicker basket outside the door into which he dumps what he supposes is junk. So far he has accidentally sold for nearly nothing a small Saxon cross, a first edition of Peter Rabbit and a very nasty Victorian pendant made of human hair. And diamonds.
Mummy is very supportive though, and says, ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,’ (although she is far from an omelette expert).
School. Amazing. I told Mr Spencer how unhappy I was about SATS and Big School and not being with Kiran and Molly because of being so unclever. And Mr Spencer said, ‘Hmmm, hmmm, stop worrying, Rose. I’ll see what I can do!!!!!!’’
Kiran is doing a sponsored silence. Five days now. Very peaceful.
Molly has decided on her future career. She is going to be a Green Peacer and save the planet. (Thank goodness for that). She already knows the Japanese for ‘Please leave that whale alone.’
So,
End of the news.
12th May 2008
SATS WEEK
The only good thing about SATS week is that the revision classes have stopped.
I have been going to them all by myself because Molly and Kiran very kindly refused to take part, saying they were already so far ahead of me that I would never catch them up it they carried on learning.
It is Science today. All weekend Saffron and Sarah have been trying to explain eclipses and forces and how the sun manages to burn without any oxygen and why gravity only pulls things down to ground level and no further, and why, if you did manage to dig an impossible hole all the way through to the other side of the world, you could not afterwards jump down it and pop up a minute or two later among the kangaroos.
How I wish I had been born in the sensible olden days, when science had not been invented and the world was run by ancient gods and primitive powers and magic.
"It must have been lovely," agreed Mummy, when I mentioned this, and she gave me a largish blue stone with a hole in it threaded on to a silk thong to wear round my neck in the exams.
"It came from a sacred mountain on the borders of Pakistan," she said. "And it has been dipped into every holy well that you pass on a bike between North Wales and the Hindu Kush. I know because I dipped it. It will avert the evil eye..."
(Just what I need)
"...and free your soul from error and fear."
Oh good.
28th April 2008
As a change from SATS panicking (don't imagine it has stopped though) I will write about Daddy's new shop which he calls Studio Two.
Hmm.
It is one of those very long narrow buildings in the market square. There is a studio at the top where he is supposed to live/paint/cook the books, an art gallery underneath that, an antique shop on the ground floor and coffee in the basement. Victims Customers are encouraged to roam freely between floors, lingering and admiring, and hopefully parting with vast quantities of cash. The staff are supplied by Mummy, who has access to unlimited numbers of starving students and charming but reformed young offenders. Often Saffron and Sarah work there as well, serving astonishingly priced teas and coffees, joining the SSs and YOs in their lunchtime feasts of out-of-date bagels, and keeping an eye on Daddy.
"We often have to quell the DFCs," says Saffron, grinning.
DFCs are Drooling Female Customers, because Daddy is still (alas) charming.
Sarah has a particularly good way of quelling DFCs. Whenever she is asked any version of the usual question ('Can you tell me about that absolutely gorgeous man with the smile/paint palette/vast crowd of admirers/' she says very firmly and sweetly,
"He's gay."
12th April 2008
Panicking
SATS panicking.
I asked Mr Spencer (our class teacher)(not someone you would call a friendly person) “What is the use of these exams?”
And he resisted the temptation to say, ‘They are to prove I am a Good Teacher and this is a Good School (and therefore deserves extra pupils and MORE MONEY).’
Nor did he say (as he would have done in the very bad old days before my friend Kiran partially tamed him) ‘Life is tough. Get used to it.’
He said, ‘Big school will use the results to decide which classes to put you all in.”
WHAT?
“So those of you who do well will go into top sets,” continued Mr Spencer, "and those of you who do less well.... won’t."
That was the first time I realised that in September, when we go to Big School, we will be split up for ever. There will be no more Class 6.
I have know these people since I was five. I have spent more time with them than I have with my brother and sisters. We know each other’s habits and jackets and fears and school bags. We have quarrelled and been kind and helped each other out. Where would I be without my best friends Kiran and Molly who are ten times clever than me?
Yes, where will I be?
Not with them.
My SATS results will make sure of that.
What can I do?
Join all the after school exam classes?
Yes.
Cheat?
If I can think of a way.
Panic?
Yes. I am doing that already.
Panicking.
10th April 2008
Panic!Panic!Panic!
I am panicking because I am eleven years old, and in Year 6 at school. If you live in England and are that age and go to the sort of school I go to (which is the sort of school nearly every one goes to) then you will very soon be facing a week of exams called SATS.
At school they say 'Oh we do not worry our students about these little exams.' 'Oh, we take the whole experience very calmly. In fact, the children hardly know anything unusual is happening.' 'Oh, actually, isn't it amazing, the classes find being examined for hours and hours, day after day,(just when the weather has got lovely at last) GREAT FUN!'
(Oh yes?)
So I will politely not mention the letters that go home to parents saying, 'Don't dare let your children be ill in SATS week. Don't even think of going on holiday. Please put off all out of school events to a more convenient time.
And for goodness sake make sure they eat a good breakfast before they come to school, and go to bed early and bring bottles of water and brain stimulating snacks and lucky mascots (Not more than three).
We don't want any fainting or nodding off or panic attacks.
And in the terrible weeks leading up to SATS week, make sure homework is done, and revision sheets gone through, and spellings and tables are recited at every available opportunity.
And don't forget the extra SATS classes we are running after school.
And, by the way
NO PRESSURE!'
All this is bad enough.
But I have a worse problem.
And that is why I am panicking.
I will write it down tomorrow.
Today I am just explaining how I feel about SATS.
I wonder if the Prime Minister would be interested.
16th March 2008
I wrote so much about Caddy's wedding-that-didn't-happen that I think I should say very little about the one that took place yesterday.
Except that during the part of the service when the vicar asks if anyone has any reason why this marriage should not go ahead the whole church burst out laughing.
And I said, "No, no! Do it now! Get married quick!"
So they did.
21st February 2008
The Good News is No School this week because it is half term. Molly has gone to Winter Guide Camp. Molly’s mum, who is helping to run it, said Kiran and I could go too, if we liked, to help make up numbers.
Because they are short of actual Guides.
‘Please come, please come, please come,’ begged Molly.
‘What?’ we said. ‘Camp? This weather? In a tent? Are you mad, Mollipop?’
And we went on about slugs and snails and spiders, and the probable horrors of winter camp hygiene, and coldness and dampness.
‘Don’t do it, Mol!’ we said. 'Come and stay with one of us instead. You know you will only get frozen/mildewed/attacked by wildlife/ lost in the dark.’
But Molly went.
And ever since, she has been texting us about campfires and teepees and star watching and circus skills and how everyone was given a choice between a free harmonica or bongo drums or multicoloured recorder the moment they arrived. And about the weather, which has been fantastic, blue skies every day.
Kiran and I have been ounging about.
Ounging.
That's what Kiran’s mother called it.
Ounging means hanging about, making sure everyone knows how bored you are in a slightly sad, slightly complaining, very annoying kind of way.
When Kiran and I ounge at my house nobody takes any notice, so we mostly do it at Kiran’s. It drives her mother mad, and so she finds us jobs to keep us from under her feet. We are so bored we do them with only minimal moaning.
So today it was shopping. All the bits Kiran’s mother cannot do in the supermarket. Eggs from the organic egg stall. Watch battery from the jeweller's (who said come back in 15 minutes)( and what are we supposed to do for 15 minutes?). Worst of all, lamb chops from the three fingered butcher.
‘I am not going in there,’ said Kiran. ‘It is terrible watching him with his axe.’
So I had to go on my own, and Kiran was right, it was terrible. I am not surprised he has only got three fingers. Amazing that he has any at all, if you ask me.
Then we got another text from Molly saying she was sitting in the sun cooling off from a very hot shower. Theatre tomorrow, said Molly, then Pizza Hut for supper and then back to the campsite by narrow boat.
We stamped back to Kiran’s house saying, ‘Boiling hot shower? Theatre? Narrow boat?’
And other things too.
‘Now what are you going to do?’ asked Kiran’s mother. ‘What about vacuuming the inside of my car?’
So I locked myself into the bathroom and sent a private text, and now I am waiting for the reply.
Is it too late?
Is it too late?
Is it too late?
NO!
Crash out the bathroom, run down the stairs, hug Kiran, rush about packing. Worry for two seconds about who will take us? Hundreds of volunteers! Our families are only too glad to get rid of us.
Tonight we will be sleeping in goose down sleeping bags in a tent. For supper it is veggie spag bol and choc bananas. Molly says they are getting it ready now. They are putting in extra for Kiran and me.
Interesting Fact
The average yawn takes six seconds from start to finish.
‘Whoever discovered that,’ said Kiran, when I told her. ‘Really needs to get a life.’
*********************************************
21 January 2008
Just Believe It
This year my friend Kiran gave me a diary for Christmas. It has roses on the cover and an INTERESTING FACT for every day.
"Oh," said Kiran greedily. "I didn't know that! I didn't look inside. Lend it back to me, Rose!"
No. I won't. She would read the whole 365 INTERESTING FACTS in one go. I shall save them and give them out one by one, for prizes when people are wonderful.
Kiran knows me quite well, so I do not think she will mind if I do not fill in my diary every day. I have decided only to record the very special days.
Like today.
Last night, while I was asleep, it snowed. When I looked out of my bedroom window our shabby January street had been transformed. It did not look like real life. It looked like a painting. All the muddled clutter of the everyday world had vanished. Only the lines that mattered were left, and the best shapes, and the grey-blue shadows.
And it was Saturday, and still very early.
So I got my friends Molly and Kiran out of bed and we rushed about saying, "Look at that roof! Look at those footprints! Look how it's drifted against the windows!"
But the best place of all was the park. Especially the corner where the trees grow close together. They looked like magic trees painted on shadowy, sparkly paper.
"They are perfect," I said.
Kiran said, "As long as no one walks on the snow underneath."
Oh dear.
It was still quite early in the day, but already the snow in the playground and on the paths round the pond was ruined and kicked and stained with footprints.
"It might not snow like this again for years and years," said Molly. "Not with global warming. We might be grown up!"
Then Kiran had a very good idea.
We made six notices on Molly's computer that she got for Christmas:
PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON THE SNOW UNDER THE TREES
And in case people wondered why, we added:
It might not snow like this again for years and years
Not with global warming.
We might be grown up!
We pinned our notices onto the bandstand and the gate to the playground and the wall of the little hut where you buy ice creams in summer and hot drinks in winter.
All that day there were people in the park. Throwing snowballs and running down the paths with sledges. Reading our notices, chattering and calling, warming their hands round cups of coffee. Someone built a snowman in the middle of the bandstand. Kiran and Molly and I helped make a huge mountain at the bottom of the slide for the squealing toddlers to land in when they slid down.
And you may not believe this, but it is true:
NOBODY WALKED ON THE SNOW UNDER THE TREES!!!
It stayed quite perfect, shadowy and glimmering, without a single footprint.
All day.
Thanks to Kiran and Molly's brilliant notices.
So I rewarded them both with an INTERESTING FACT and it is driving them mad.
They find it impossible to believe. Molly is buried behind a pile of Natural History books. Kiran is Googling the night away.
This is the INTERESTING FACT:
All polar bears are left handed!
(Just believe it).
