Chapter 3: Bonnie Chancelor

So they want me to write down why I was so angry with Mum. Well what I said at Friday breakfast was part of it but there’s more.

This is all my own writing. Jen helped me in a few places but mostly she said it was better if it was my own writing. I know I’m not as good at writing as some people but I try really hard and I think I’m getting better. Jen said I still have some things to learn about grammar so maybe I’ll ask Miss Little to teach me more grammar. I feel sorry for the boys who have to go to the Grammar School. Imagine having a whole school just to teach grammar. It makes sense that they would make boys go there and not girls ‘cause girls are smarter and we can learn grammar from our normal school.

Jen started laughing and now she explained that Grammar School wasn’t a school just for teaching grammar so now I’m feeling dumb but she told me to leave that bit in ‘cause it was funny. I typed this all out on my computer. That’s why I can write this here at the start even though I’ve finished the rest of it. She made me fix a few places where I forgot to put capital letters. Mostly I got those right though so she said that was good.

I think Jen was surprised at some things I wrote ‘cause I hadn’t told her about it when it happened. She said Mum was different with her when she was my age. Maybe a little bit the same but not so much so she never guessed what was happening. All she noticed was that I was always arguing with Mum about stuff. Jen never argued so much with Mum when she was my age or when she was any age. Jen isn’t the type to argue about stuff.

I ‘spose I’ve been angry at Mum for the longest time. And lately it’s gotten worse. I never really hated her. I know I said I did a few times but that was only ever ‘cause I was angry and not ‘cause I actually hated her. But I’ve been getting angrier and angrier and I hate being angry but I can’t help it ‘cause it’s not my fault. It’s all because of her.

The thing is I watch Dad and he’s always so nice to people. He always does everything he can to be nice to somebody even if they’re being mean to him. If he can’t be nice to somebody he’d rather leave than be mean.

It’s true. I’ve seen him do it. I’ve seen him walk out of the room and lock himself in his bedroom rather than let himself be angry and say the wrong thing or whatever. It’s probably why he’s never been a boss at his bank even though he’s worked there forever. Someone told me bosses have to be mean sometimes like it’s part of the job and I don’t think Dad can be mean enough to be a boss.

So I watch Dad being nice to people and I know what it feels like when he’s nice to me which is all the time and I know that’s the right way to be with people. But I do kind of wish he’d sometimes stand up for himself. The other thing is that he’s always so calm. I mean he does get angry but only rarely. Almost never. And then he goes and hides in his room until he settles down. The rest of the time he’s calm and relaxed and willing to go along with whatever is happening. And Mum takes advantage of that by bossing him around all the time and telling him what he should do and telling him how he should think about things. And ‘cause he wants to be nice to Mum he goes along with what she tells him to do.

The only thing about Dad is that I figured out that he hates surprises so I always try to plan ahead if I want to bring a friend over to the house or something so that I can ask before I do it. Or if there’s a sleepover with my friends that I want to go to then I tell him about it as soon as I find out even if the details aren’t all worked out so he knows it’s going to happen and doesn’t get surprised. And Aunty Maggie told us he’s been like that since he was a kid because they learned the hard way not to give him surprises like the time they gave him a surprise birthday party and as soon as they yelled SURPRISE he ran away and locked himself in his room until everybody left. For some reason I don’t think Mum’s figured that out about Dad. Either that or she keeps forgetting which is dumb ‘cause she’s not so stupid as to keep forgetting something like that. But hating surprises is the only kind of difficult thing about Dad. Apart from that he’s a good Dad.

Then there’s Mum. Living with Mum is like living on a rollercoaster. Sometimes she gets wild and you never know what she’s going to do. Other times she’s warm and cuddly and caring and mostly what you want from a mother. My biggest problem with Mum is that she treats me like her personal little puppet and keeps pulling my strings left and then right and then up and then down until I don’t know which way I’m facing or what I’m supposed to be doing.

It’s like this and this is just one example I could give you heaps of others. There was one Saturday morning when she wakes me up and pulls my good jeans and a tshirt out of my drawers and tells me to get dressed because we’re going out. So I end up in the car and we drive and I ask why we aren’t going to gymnastics like normal and she says that we’re doing something different for a change. And then she stops at this horse stables place and tells me I’m going to learn how to ride a horse. I tell her I would rather go to gymnastics with my friends from school which is where I’m supposed to be and she tells me that we’re here now and I’m going to have way more fun doing this.

So fifteen minutes later I’m sitting on the back of a horse which is so wide that I have to do the splits with my legs poking out sideways to sit on the thing. The horse’s name is Princess but she’s the fattest princess I’ve ever seen. I have a stupid plastic helmet on my head that’s too small so it’s giving me a headache and Princess is being led around in a circle by some old man who stinks of cigarettes and horse poo or maybe it’s the horse that stinks of cigarettes and horse poo but I can’t tell. And every time Princess takes a step I get rolled around so bad that I start to get sea-sick and my bum is sliding around on the saddle so much that I feel like I’m going to fall off any second so all I can do is hang on to the front of the saddle as tight as I can ‘cause if I fall off it’s a long way down and all there is to land on is a mixture of mud and horse poo and cigarette butts and I know that if I fall off I’ll either die from falling or die from drowning in horse poo or die from cancer ‘cause of inhaling all those cigarette butts so I don’t want to fall. Then it starts pouring with rain and all I’m wearing is this thin tshirt and my jeans so I’m wet and cold and I’m hungry ‘cause Mum dragged me out of the house so quickly that I missed breakfast.

Later I’m sitting in the car and my bum is hurting and my legs are hurting and my good jeans are wet and stink of horse and I’m wet and cold and shivering. And I huddle in front of that tiny little vent in the car which is the heater and I’m slowly recovering from being scared for my life and then Mum says how I had so much fun doing that so she signed me up to do it every Saturday. And when I complain I get told off for being ungrateful and she’s doing all of this for my benefit and so on and so on. And I’m cold and wet and hungry and sore and miserable and my good jeans stink of horse so I yell at her that I fucking hate her. And that’s the first time I ever used the f word in front of either of my parents so when we get home Mum makes Dad give me five smacks on my bare bum. Then Mum makes me stand in the corner of the room like always happens when I’ve been smacked with my red bum on display for the whole family.

I don’t think Dad liked smacking me on the bum but Mum made him do it and he was upset that I’d used the f word at Mum.

So about six or seven weeks later I’ve been going to horse riding every Saturday morning and I’ve gotten a lot better at riding and gotten put on a horse that isn’t so wide that I have to do a sideways splits to sit on the thing and the new horse’s name is Molly and I’ve kind of made friends with Molly. And from going horse riding every Saturday I’ve learned to get up early and have a good breakfast in time because it helps me stay warm and bring a coat in case it rains and wear my old jeans which used to be my good jeans but now they’re my old jeans ‘cause they already stink of horse and I’m having fun with riding Molly. And Mum and I are getting along okay ‘cause she’s been in a good mood and we have some good laughs and cuddles and stuff like that. Then one morning I get in the car in my stinky jeans and my coat and instead of driving me to the stables Mum drives me to this ballet studio. And she says that I was obviously hating riding horses all the time so she thought I’d have more fun doing ballet.

So I’m sad ‘cause I was looking forward to seeing Molly but I don’t say that. I tell Mum that if I’m going to stop doing horse riding then I would rather do gymnastics with my friends like I was supposed to do on a Saturday morning but Mum says I would have much more fun doing ballet so we go in and she signs me up to do ballet. Well jeans are the absolutely worst thing to dance in and eating before you do dance is also kind of a bad idea so I end up in a borrowed leotard that’s too big for me and flops everywhere and you can see my undies underneath ‘cause they’re my purple ones with a yellow smiley face on the front. And I don’t know what to do about this yellow smiley face peeking through my leotard so I try to ignore it and pretend everything is normal. And then one of the straps on the leotard breaks so the top of the leotard keeps sliding down my chest and the other girls are giggling at the smiley face peeking through my leotard and I end up spewing all over the shiny wooden floor because I ate too much breakfast. And when I complain to Mum I get told off for being ungrateful and she is doing all of this for my benefit and blah blah blah. And I tell her that was no fun at all but she tells me don’t be silly ‘cause I had a great time.

So I go to maybe five dance lessons in a row and I have my own leotard that fits me properly and I learn not to wear undies underneath ‘cause all the girls say it looks dorky and I learn to only have a juice in the morning ‘cause otherwise I spew. And I found out some girls from my school do ballet too and I make some new friends and I’m having fun doing ballet each Saturday. And Mum and I are kind of getting along okay. So then one Saturday there I am in my leotard and nothing else and I’m sitting in the car going to ballet when I see that instead of stopping at the ballet studio Mum turns the other way and parks at the shopping strip. I ask Mum what’s going on and she says I was looking bored with dance so she figured she would do me a favour and save me the pain of going through all that. I ask Mum what are we doing at the shops and she says I need some new clothes so I’m dragged up and down the shopping strip and in and out of half a dozen shops wearing only my leotard and absolutely nothing else.

Well it turns out that some of the clothes Mum wants me to try on look stupid with a leotard underneath so I have to take it off each time I go into the changing booth to put some other outfit on and of course I’m not wearing my undies underneath the leotard ‘cause that would look dorky. So every time I get changed I end up stark staring naked in the little changing booth which would be okay if the door stayed closed. But Mum opens the door and hands me clothes or whatever while I’m starkers and whoever is in the shop gets to look at me while I stand there in the nuddy. Like those two teen girls who stand there looking at me and they put their hands in front of their mouths and giggle and whisper to each other and I’m so embarrassed that I want to crawl into a hole and die.