The Kissing Game

Yesterday I bumped into Kelvin Clegg and his mates as I was on my way to Bonesy’s. Kelvin called out, “Whey-hey, it’s Sally Tomato!” and they all sniggered. I know they only do it because of my name being what it is, and because of Kelvin Clegg having the mental age of a retarded flea and thinking he is being amusing. I know this. All the same, I sometimes can’t help wondering if they sense something? These Neanderthal types often do. They’re like dogs, they can sniff things out.

This is a list of the things I feel are abnormal about me:

1. My name. Salvatore d’Amato. Salvatore! I ask you! It’s ridiculous. I don’t even speak Italian! Nobody in the family speaks Italian. It’s like some kind of sick joke. OK if you’re living in Rome or somewhere, but I’m not! I’m living in London, five minutes away from Kelvin Clegg, who calls me Sally Tomato.

When I’m not being called Sally, I’m being called Sal. It must have a psychological effect. Parents can be very cruel to their offspring in their choice of names. Like Mr and Mrs Cart, who christened their baby Orson.

I’d rather be Orson Cart than Sally Tomato!

2. The second thing that is not normal about me: I am not into sports. Only swimming, and that doesn’t count. Not at our school. The only thing that counts at our school is football. Well, and bashing people if you happen to be Kelvin Clegg.

3. The third thing: I read a lot of books. That’s a really nerdy sort of thing to do. My sister hasn’t read a book in years. She’s more interested in boys. Dad says she’s obsessed with boys. She’s almost super-normal!

4. The fourth naff thing about me: I write poetry. That is even more nerdy than reading books. It is so nerdy that I have never told anyone, not even Bones.

5. I am scared of heights.

6. I am scared of getting a brain tumour.

and

7. This is one I have just thought of. A few weeks ago I saw Lassie Come Home on television and I cried. My sister cried, too, but that is all right because she is a girl. Even though she is fourteen, she is allowed to cry. Boys are not supposed to.

What is the matter with me???

If it turns out that I am truly as abnormal as I fear, it will be all my parents’ fault. My parents are seriously weird. But seriously. I mean, Dad! A dentist. Only a warped personality would choose to become a dentist.

And Mum. A housewife! How could I tell anyone that my mum is a housewife? They wouldn’t know what I was talking about. It’s like something out of the Dark Ages! Other people have mums that are marine biologists or bank managers or work in Tesco’s. Why can’t I?

Mum says she hasn’t got time to do any of those things, she’s too busy with her classes. Last year she took classes in car maintenance and reflexology. This year it’s vegan cookery and antiques. She keeps making all these gungy dishes like carrot and oatmeal pudding and stuffed cabbage leaves. When she’s not doing that she’s rushing off to car boot sales to look for genuine antique junk.

I guess it’s no more than you can expect of someone that married a dentist. If she wasn’t weird before, she’s become weird since.

She’s quite nice; so’s Dad. I don’t dislike them or anything. But I do think they are weird! Bones’s dad is a long-distance lorry driver and his mum works at B&Q. That’s what I call normal.

It’s why Bones is normal and gets to kiss girls and I don’t. But I intend to! I have made up my mind. I mean this most sincerely! It is my project for this term.

– to work on getting to know girls better

– if possible, to acquire an actual girlfriend

–if I can’t do that, then at least kiss one, preferably Lucy West, but if I can’t get her then I wouldn’t mind Emma Crick or Carrie Pringle.

– if all else fails I will make do with Nasreen Flynn, though I would rather not kiss one that has already been kissed by Bones.

By the time I reach Z, I might have kissed them all!

A, B, C, D

Here I come!

Swifter than the wind

From a polecat’s bum!

A (#ua2aad586-de12-5a7d-a6ce-55498efe5f09) is for armpit,

Which smells when you’re hot.

Specially great hairy ones.

They smell A LOT.

You can check whether your armpit smells by holding up your arm and burying your nose in it. Your armpit, I mean. I have done this. I could not detect any odour.

It is very important not to have odour if you want to kiss a girl. Girls are into cleanliness in a big way. At least, they are if my sister is anything to go by. She spends for ever in the bathroom. Dad gets really mad at her. Sometimes he yells.

“Have you become a permanent fixture?” he goes. “There are other people in this house besides you, you know!”

The other morning, at breakfast (after Dad had been yelling) I asked her what she did in there. I wasn’t being nosy; it was serious research. I am trying to learn all I can about girls and their habits.

My sister gave me this really poisonous look, like I was some kind of noxious bug, and snarled, “Don’t you start!”

I said that I wasn’t starting. “I just want to know what you do!”

“Do you really need to ask?” said Dad, fanning the air. “I’m surprised they let you into school smothered in that muck.”

“It happens to be perfume,” said Iz.

“Where do you put it?” I said. I like to be clear about these things. “All over? Or just—”

“Oh, go jump in a bucket!” said Iz. “You get on my tits!”

She doesn’t have any tits, so I don’t know how I was supposed to have got on them. An ant couldn’t get on her tits, hardly.

My sister is obviously just as weird as the rest of the family. Yesterday I asked Mum if she thought she was quite normal.

“Your sister?” she said. She sounded surprised. Like, why would I ask such a thing?

“I was just wondering,” I said, “if all girls were like her.”

Mum sighed and said, “Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?” I said.

“Well … it’s a phase they go through,” said Mum.

“All of them?”