6:30

My clock says 6. There are thirty minutes to go. Thirty minutes is half an hour because it is half of sixty. There are sixty minutes in an hour. So there is half an hour before I can go to mummy and daddy’s room. I want to go now. I don't like being alone. But it is a rule. They made that rule when I was little because they don’t like waking up early. Before 7 is early. I wanted 6 and they wanted 7, but I couldn't wait until 7. So, we made a deal. 6:30.

Oh. Now my clock says 6:01. 29 minutes to go.

I hate waiting. Mummy always tells me I should read.

‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’

That doesn’t mean a clock with wings like I thought it did. It means it feels like time is going fast when you’re busy.

‘A watched pot never boils.’

That means the time will go slower if I spend it watching my clock.

I read. I only sometimes check my clock. It takes a whole half of Dog Man and then my clock says 6:29.

‘Morning,’ my daddy says. I snuggle under the covers. Daddy and mummy are different in the morning than how they are after breakfast. Daddy’s voice growls like the dog next door. They both smell funny. Not good funny. And they don’t speak very much.

Grownups need coffee to make them less grumpy. Every morning. Children cannot drink coffee. But they will not die from coffee. I checked.

‘It’s just not good for you.’ That’s what daddy said when I wanted to try his coffee. Coffee smells really nice. Mummy says it tastes different to the smell.

It is not the weekend. It is Tuesday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Four sleeps until the weekend. Two sleeps until PE. PE is my favourite lesson. I am super fast. I am the second fastest in my class after Harry B. Harry B is not my friend. He is naughty and I don't like him even one percent.

Today I have school. Proper school. Not home school. I liked home school. Mummy and daddy stopped teaching at lunch time so they could do their proper work. Work to get money. If we didn’t have money we wouldn’t have a house or a Nintendo Switch and we wouldn’t have food so we would have a fifty percent chance of dying. Not one hundred percent because mummy promises, ‘The government wouldn’t let us starve and especially not you. They look after children.’

The government is in charge. They make the law. If you don’t follow the law, you go to jail. Mummy and daddy would go to prison if I didn’t go to school. We are lucky because our government is good. Some other countries have government that are not good. They would let children die from being hungry.

Children are always more important than grownups. Only babies are more important than children. And our cat, Kibbles.

The table is clean. I eat my Weetabix. I only get Cocoa Pops on the weekend.

My brother is very noisy. Always. Even his walking is noisy.

My brother is sometimes good and sometimes bad. His name is Jackson and he is ten years old. I am nine years old. He is very good at Minecraft Dungeons. Better than me. But I am a chess champion. He is rubbish at chess. I’m not allowed to say that people are rubbish or trash at things because it makes them sad. I don't want to make people sad. Except when I am angry. But I try not to be angry.

Right now Jackson is bad. He is singing. I don’t like him singing. He doesn’t like my hand next to his face. So I do that.

‘Stop it,’ he says. He pushes my hand. It hurts. He hurt me.

I hate him. I will never like him again and I won't speak to him. I am one out of ten angry.

I lost a star from my star chart. This makes me medium sad. Like four out of ten sad. Three out of ten angry. Mummy took it because I hurt Jackson. Which is not fair because Jackson hurt me first.

‘You were teasing him by putting your hand in his face. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He wanted to push your hand away.’

No. No mummy is wrong. He started it.

‘He was singing.’

‘He’s allowed to sing. You sing all the time.’

No I don’t.

Now I am five out of ten angry and it is mummy and Jackson’s fault. If I get to ten out of ten I do bad angry. That is when I hit and kick. I am better at stopping bad angry than I used to be. But not one hundred percent. I hope that one day I will stop. That I will be good all the time. Jackson never does bad angry.

I am allowed to do good angry. Which is when I do not hurt anyone. But bad angry is never allowed.

In the car, mummy drives twenty-nine miles per hour. This is okay because she is allowed thirty. She promises she has enough petrol. We will not get stuck.

We talk about Minecraft Dungeons. Jackson knows more things than me because he is older. Jackson says if we get ten stars on our star chart, we can buy a new Minecraft Dungeons pack. Packs are so so so so so fun. They make the game more exciting. I really want a new pack so much. This is bad because I lost a star this morning, but I know won’t lose any more. I definitely won't.

School is boring. They make me do work. But school is good because I see my friends. My best friend is Rishi. Rishi is funny and he likes Minecraft and football and chess. He is one hundred percent my friend. But the first person I see in the playground is Emma. Emma is a girl. I don’t hate girls. But I don’t play with them. Ben runs to me. I like Ben fifty percent. He is good at chess, but he doesn’t play football.

We line up and nobody pushes in not even Harry B and we go into the classroom, I sit in my seat which is okay. I am not with Rishi, but at least I am not with Harry B who I don’t like even one percent. I am with Ben.

I have a helper teacher. She is called Mrs Finch. She is nice and she never smells bad and she helps me and some of the other children. She is called Mrs because she is married.

Mrs Finch tells me something bad. She says there is something unexpected. Mrs Finch knows I don’t like things that are unexpected. That means surprises.

‘‘Mrs Gold isn’t here today. So just for today we’re having someone called Mr Duncan.’

I am six out of ten worried. Mrs Gold is my teacher. Mrs Gold and Mrs Finch. Oh and Mr Hayward the PE teacher and Mr Sorn for music. But Mrs Gold is my proper teacher. She doesn't shout. Some teachers shout. And talk too fast. This teacher might do that.

I ask why Mrs Gold is not here. Can we get her to come?

‘She’s not well.’ That’s what Mrs Finch says.

She must be very ill to not come to do teaching. That is her job for money.

‘Will she die?’

‘No.’

No means one hundred percent. She will not die. This is good. If Mrs Gold died I would be ten out of ten sad.

The teacher arrives at 8:55. He is a man like daddy. Men are like the opposite of women. He is not smiley like Mrs Gold. His voice is very loud and listening to it makes me very tired. I get upset when the man teacher uses a stern voice. Three out of ten angry. But Mrs Finch gives me a cuddle.

I wish Mrs Gold was here. Mrs Gold looks at my work and tells me it’s good. The man teacher doesn’t walk around. He stands at the front of the class. My happiness is three out of ten.

I am medium happy at lunch. Six out of ten happy. That is not the best but still good. There is spaghetti and meatballs. My favourite. I sit next to Rishi. Rishi thinks the man teacher is nice but not as nice as Mrs Gold. I decide he is right because Rishi and I always agree. And Rishi says it’s not the man’s fault he is loud. That is what mummy says about Jackson. We play football and I score one goal. Seven out of ten happy.

Emma is sad in literacy because her work got wet. When people are sad I help. I help her dry it and Mrs Finch tells me I am nice.

Mummy wants to know what my favourite thing about today was, but I can’t remember. I am bad at remembering things. Jackson says he scored a goal in football at break time.

‘So did I!’

Mummy is proud of both of us. Jackson makes a funny joke. He is the funniest child I know. I tell him that.

'Not as funny as daddy though.'

'Nobody is as funny as daddy.'

I am allowed to watch TV after school. TV is super relaxing. My favourite show is Spiderman. He is a superhero and very famous. More famous than SpongeBob SquarePants, but not as famous as The Beatles. They are the most famous.

I almost do bad angry, Jackson took the remote. I had it and put it down. But I still had it. I need it. He is older. So I am more important.

I shouted and snatched it. I really really really wanted to hit. I had anger everywhere popping out of me.

'Remember the Minecraft pack.' Mummy said it wrong.

'It's a Minecraft Dungeons pack,' Jackson says. He got it right. He knows a lot.

'Whatever it is you need stars to get it. You will lose stars if you do bad angry.'

Sometimes I cannot stop bad angry. Today I did. This is super good.

Bedtime is at 8. I hate bedtime. I used to be afraid of the dark, but I’m not now because I am big and strong and eight years olds are not scared. But I hate bed because it is so boring. And it takes forever. Ten hours and thirty minutes. That’s how long it is until I am allowed to go to mummy and daddy’s room. 6:30.