Don't Even Think About It Read Online Free Page A

because Marjorie Maloney put lots of herbs and stuff in, trying to impress Dad.
    Honestly, the way she plays with her hair and giggles when Dad says anything makes me want to throw up in her face. As if he’d look at Marjorie Maloney in a million years, with her tight dresses that stretch across her behind and show the line of her knickers, which everyone knows is a fashion disaster.
    Her hair is dyed too – it has to be. No way is anyone’s hair that black. And the perfume she wears is strong enough to knock out an elephant, and nowhere near as sexy as White Musk.
    Oh, and I got a parcel.
    It arrived a day early, which I suppose is OK seeing as how it came all the way from San Francisco. There was nobody here when the Post Office van delivered it, so Mrs Wallace from next door took it in, and her son Damien came around with it when I got home from school.
    I haven’t opened it yet. It’s sitting on my desk in front of me, and it’s about twice the size of a shoebox andfairly heavy. It cost $14.25 to post, and on the back Mam has written her name and address. She lives in a part of San Francisco called The Mission, which she says is a good place to live as she can walk to the downtown area where she works.
    It’s the first time she’s ever written to me.
    It’s the first time she hasn’t been here for my birthday.
    I’m wondering why it’s so hard to open the box.
    She’s sharing an apartment with a couple called Enda and George. She still tells me she misses me every time she phones, and she hopes I’m eating properly. I don’t mention the pizzas, or the Coke. She asks me about school, and Bumble, and how my painting is coming along, and she never, ever mentions Dad.
    It’s easier now, talking to her on the phone, even if she’s still the one doing most of the talking. Dad always gets out of the way, which is nice of him. It still makes me sad that she’s so far away, of course, and I hate the time right after I hang up. I usually make straight for the freezer. I’m getting through a tub and a half of Ben & Jerry’s every week.
    And now it’s getting near time to go out to dinner, and I heard Dad coming home a while ago, and I’m sitting in my room looking at the box on my desk, trying to pluck up the courage to open it.
    You’d swear there was a bomb inside it.
    I couldn’t think about anything else all day. For once, Santa didn’t have to give out to me for anything. And at break, Bumble asked me why I was so quiet. He’d just given me the White Musk, and I’d dabbed it on mywrists, and I could see him breathing through his mouth to stop himself from throwing up.
    And for once, I couldn’t tell him. Even though he’s the only person I told about Mam walking out on us, I just couldn’t mention the box. I muttered something about missing Mam, and he nodded, and spent the rest of the break trying to cheer me up with his awful jokes, and I smiled to keep him happy.
    And now I can’t put it off any more, so here goes.
Half past seven
    Dad was brilliant. He didn’t say anything, which was exactly what I wanted, just put down the newspaper and held out his arms when I came into the sitting room, and held me until I was totally out of tears. And that took a while, believe me.
    When I finally dried up, Dad said, ‘What about doing the Chinese meal tomorrow night instead?’ and when I nodded, he went into the kitchen and came back with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk that was only half-empty, and two spoons. And while we ate it, he told me that he knew how hard it was for me without Mam being here, and that he thought I was coping brilliantly, and that he was really proud of me.
    It was the first time he talked to me as if I was a grown-up, which was what I’d been waiting for forever.
    And guess what? All I wanted was to be five years old again, so I didn’t have to face all this horrible grown-up stuff.
    I asked him why Mam had left, why they couldn’t have sorted it out,