Diary of a Teenager

I’m frazzled, and my brain’s fried.

How do they expect us to study in this abysmal heat? It’s not as if everyone can afford a summer cottage – or even air conditioning.

All this fan is doing is regurgitating the heat, and I cannot open the window because the mozzies will attack.

I flunked my maths test… again. How am I going to explain this to my mum? She with the doctorate in Applied Mathematics – she who thinks that I should be able to multiply a three-digit number by another three-digit number, in my mind, like my sisters do?

Oh, drat, she will have a good and proper hissy fit. She’s going to take away my Tablet - said she would. She'll kill me - she said so herself! Such joy having a University Don for a parent – one who would rather walk through fire than let any kid of her show her up.

I wish I’d swotted, but now it’s too late for regrets. How I wish I’d never attended the Zoom Party on the eve of the test. It didn’t even occur to me to put water in the vodka bottle. 

It’s hot. I’d take another shower, but I can’t be bothered to.

Oh, good heavens, what do I do now? I could say nothing… but she has to virtually sign the report sheet. Oh, the irony of home-schooling that I so wanted, before it became an enforced reality…

And whereas I could falsify her signature in real life, I can’t forge her e-mail in virtual reality… And Sourdough is her Facebook friend, so there’s always the possibility that she might send Mum a private message about how I’m slacking. Or maybe mum might ask her whether I’m improving any.

Oh, double drat, I’ve well and truly caught it now. All I can hope for is that she won’t be in a foul mood when she gets home! I hope she’s not in one of her foul moods. The heat does not marry well with her menopausal hot flushes.

What’s today? Oh, goody, Thursday. After visiting granny at the Home she goes to Justin for the fruits and vegetables that she makes me eat with my chicken nuggets, “for balance”, as she says.

It’s so hot – and these period cramps aren’t helping my stress!

I will keep out of her way; I’ll heat a pizza in the microwave and so if she calls me down to eat, I’ll say I’m not hungry. Oh silly, silly me. Why did I give in to Jacqui and join the Zoom Party?

I knew I would not feel like even one quick once-over once it finished and we all “went home”.

Who needs maths, anyway? These days, even the kitchen scales are digitally calibrated, and you just add ingredients one by one… and the monitor displays the total weight and the added weight.

Writing – now that’s another kettle of fish. Writing is important. Press, media, literature, entertainment… there’s a world of words out there, ready to be devoured.

It really really hurts that Mum thinks my writing is rubbish, that it’s a waste of time. I’ll show her. Writing is so much more interesting than maths, than everything else really. I know that this is not something I can say out loud in front of her and Jeff, but hey, I have to find a job that somehow involves writing or I’ll die trying.

Journalist? Nah. Poets, like sort of Keats… they don’t earn much nowadays, do they, not unless they are what’s it they are called, the ones who may be dunces but who get their work splashed all over the show because they are the, erm, Poet Laureate, I think, yes, that’s it, because they used to put crowns of laurels on their heads, like champions of the Olympics.

I have a million stories in my head. I just need the time and motivation to write them down. Heaven knows my people-watching, and my friends, provide me with material nonstop.

Friends. Sheila, for starters…

I am so worried about her. I think she’s pregnant, I really do, but she’s not even looking in my direction these days, during Class Facetime, let alone trying to catch my eye and wink, as she used to. So how can I just up and ask her? I’ve seen her go green about the gills sometimes, and sort of retch and go off camera... I hope I’m wrong, but I have been watching her. I wish she would confide in me, but after the French homework business, she doesn’t seem too keen on connecting with me one-to-one, because she knows she should apologise first. I have made my overtures of friendship, but she’s too proud to accept them.

Jennifer. What’s wrong with her? Since her parents divorced, she seems to be spending more and more time making TikTok videos. She can cook, all right… but why does she wear so much make-up when she never does, at other times?

Marina. All this talk about moving in with her boyfriend is perturbing. She’s only met him online a couple of months ago, and I don’t like the way she talks about how possessive he is, as if it’s something good.

Sarah. The cancer has returned. Not good. And with this Covid-19, it’s already scary enough as it is, going to hospital for emergency treatment if you break your leg…

Oh, it’s hot. I’m too fed up to even think of getting off this chair to change my t-shirt.

Dulcie. Why has she shaved off her hair? Did she really think that we - or at least I - wouldn’t notice that she’s wearing a wig? If she did it in solidarity with Sarah, it’s all to the good. But, then, why the subterfuge?

These days I seem to spend more and more time worrying about anything and everything that happens to my friends.

I know that’s a symptom of depression; yes, I have been reading up on it… perhaps more than I ought to.

Probably that’s why I took it so badly that I failed the test – that, and because I know perfectly well that it’s my fault I failed. My mind keeps going round and round in circles.

It’s so hot in here. I’m suddenly not hungry enough to bother going downstairs to get the pizza.

Life sucks. I think I’ll end it all. I'll save Mum the trouble - and the prison sentence.