Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Melanie said that Omar said that Anthony said he had a crush on me. But Anthony never talks to me, so I don’t think it’s true. But then Melanie said that that’s what boys do when they like you. Not talk to you. Is that true? Melanie is four months older than I am and she says it makes a difference, but I don’t think so. But then she says stuff that sounds so wise, so maybe it does make a difference.

Dear Diary,

Richard dared Kevin to eat a worm during recess. Kevin said he’d do it if Richard did it so they both did. And then later on in class they threw up. I don’t care how many people double dog dared me, I would never eat a worm. In other news, Anthony still hasn’t talked to me but everyone says he likes me. I tried to look at him in class to see if he was looking at me, but Mr. Silvio caught me and gave me standards. I had to write I Will Always Pay Attention twenty times for homework. I told Mr. Silvio that it was impossible to Always pay attention. That everyone daydreamed sometimes. And he said that wasn’t true. That we should always pay attention. But that’s not true. And I told my dad and he said that I shouldn’t have told Mr. Silvio that even if it was true. That sometimes things need to be kept to ourselves. But I told my dad isn’t that the same thing as lying? My dad said it’s not a lie if you just don’t say it. If you just stay quiet. But I feel like it’s still a lie. I don’t know. Goodnight.

Dear Diary,

Melanie told me that when we grow up we have to get married. I told her that she and I should get married and she said no. That we have to marry boys. But I don’t know if I want to marry boys. The boys in my class are fine, but Melanie is my friend and I like that we both like cherry lollypops and she shares her lucas with me and we both like X-Men even though everyone says it’s a boy show and we both want to be Rogue when we grow up, but Melanie said we can’t Really be Rogue when we grow up. That we have to get married. And get a house. So. Maybe I’ll marry Anthony? Although, I don’t know how Anthony and I would get married if he never talks to me. But Melanie said that her parents don’t really talk to each other so maybe that’s just being married. I don’t think I want to be married if I can’t marry Melanie.

Dear Diary,

Dad said that I don’t get have to get married which is good. He said only if I want to. I asked him if he ever talked to mom when she was around and he said, What? And I said that Melanie said that her parents don’t talk to each other and was that what being married was like and he said, No. That mom and him talked all the time. Every day. And then he got really sad, so I was sorry that I asked but he said it was ok, that I could always ask about mom if I wanted to. Sometimes I want to. But sometimes it’s hard to miss a person I never met.

Dear Diary,

Kevin told me he likes me today. He said he had something to tell me and then I said, What, and then he said that he liked me and would I be his girlfriend. I said What does being a girlfriend mean? and he said that we would eat lunch together and hold hands sometimes. I asked him if I could think about it and he said yes. Melanie thinks I should do it to make Anthony jealous but Kevin is really nice, so I don’t want to say yes just to make Anthony jealous. That seems mean. But I also don’t know if I want to be Kevin’s girlfriend because he ate a worm and that’s gross. Maybe I’ll tell him he can’t eat worms while I’m his girlfriend. In other news, dad told me that my mom’s favorite color was green which is my favorite color. So, I am wearing my green shirt and green pants to school tomorrow. And maybe green nail polish if dad lets me.

Dear Diary,

Kevin said he wouldn’t eat worms anymore that he didn’t really want to that one time but that Richard dared him but because they both threw up, neither of them want to eat worms anymore, so that’s good. So, now I’m his girlfriend. We ate lunch together but I didn’t really have fun because Melanie wasn’t there. She ate lunch with Tanya which I didn’t like because Melanie is my friend not Tanya’s friend. And I like eating lunch with Melanie more than Kevin. But Kevin did give me his chocolate cookie which was really nice. I shared with him because I’m really nice too. After school, Anthony said bye to me. Maybe he is jealous? Also, everyone loved my green shirt and my green pants. It made me really happy.

Dear Diary,

Today is Sunday. So, I was playing outside in our backyard with Lumpy, that’s our dog. I named her Lumpy because her fur looks lumpy. So, we were playing with my frisbee and it flew over to the side of the yard that has a lot of dads boxes. He told me the boxes are work stuff. But I went to go get the frisbee and it landed in one of the boxes and in it were pictures of my mom and clothes and scarves and all kinds of things. And I asked my dad and he said that yes they were my moms. I asked him why everything was in the box and he said it was because it made him sad. But that we could put them up in the house if I wanted. I said yes, I did want that. So, we started putting up the pictures and sorting through her clothes and dad started telling me stories. He said that he met my mom working at a Baskin Robbins when he was a teenager. That’s a place where you can get really good ice cream. He said that he was working there and that my mom would come in to buy ice cream. She would always get mint chocolate chip which got me really excited because, yes, that’s my favorite too. So, one day, my dad is on a break outside the Baskin Robbins and my mom comes up to him and asks if she can buy him an ice cream. But my dad doesn’t really like ice cream, which I don’t understand. Maybe if you work at a place that has ice cream, you don’t like ice cream? But not liking ice cream is crazy. Anyway, but because he liked my mom he said ok so he let her buy him a vanilla ice cream. And they sat and talked and my mom was really good at talking my dad said. That she could talk for hours about anything. And she talked to him about unicorns. That unicorns might be real and that people had seen them in Ireland. My dad listened to her talk and wasn’t really eating his ice cream because he doesn’t like ice cream and it started to melt but he didn’t really notice because he liked watching my mom talk. But, after my mom was done talking she noticed that his ice cream had melted all over his shirt. She asked him why he didn’t eat it and he said that he didn’t like ice cream, so she asked him why he had let her buy it for him in the first place, and he said because he liked her. They started being boyfriend and girlfriend after that. Holding hands and eating lunch together. I asked him if mom ever went to Ireland to look for unicorns and he said no. That unicorns weren’t real. But what if they are? Mom thought they were real. He said that mom grew up and realized that unicorns are make believe. But in one of the boxes there’s a lot of unicorn art. Unicorn paintings. Unicorn stickers. A unicorn sweater that I want and dad said I can have and I’m wearing it now. And I asked dad if we could go to Ireland and he said maybe for my 18th birthday which is a really really really long way away, but that’s ok because at least it will happen someday, right? Someday I will go to Ireland and maybe (hopefully) find a unicorn.

Dear Diary,

I wore my unicorn sweater to school today. Anthony said he liked it and asked where I got it and I told him it was my moms and he said that’s really cool and would I be his girlfriend? I told him no that I was already Kevins girlfriend and he said ok, that I was really nice. But really, I don’t think I want to be Kevins girlfriend either. I want to be Mealnies girlfriend. We share everything and she smells nice. Better than Kevin or Anthony. We’ll see. I’m going to ask her later and see what she says.

Dear Diary,

Melanie says we can’t be girlfriends but that we can be friends. I told her I don’t want to be anyones girlfriend if I can’t be hers and she thought that was funny. So, now I’m just Melanie’s friend. No one’s girlfriend. Kevin was sad at first but said it was ok so that’s good. I had a dream last night that my mom and I were in Ireland and Lumpy was there too. Which was nice. We were walking and eating mint chocolate ice cream and we saw a green unicorn walk out from behind the trees. It told us to get on its back so we did and we flew over a rainbow and landed in Oz. Oz was full of unicorns and fairies and gnomes. The whole time I kept smelling oranges. When I woke up I was sad because it was nice to be with mom and I told my dad about the dream and I told him about the oranges and he said that my mom had a perfume that smelled like oranges. It’s moms birthday today and it’s mine too. Dad and me and Lumpy are going to go to the cemetery to put flowers on moms grave and then we’re going to get mint chocolate chip ice cream. Dad is going to have a slice of cake. I am wearing my unicorn sweater. It is the third day in a row that I’m wearing it. Dad says I should wash it soon. Soon, maybe. But not today. It still sorta smells like oranges.