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brain! What can I say that would get my geeky brother to date my best mate ? The answer to which is: nothing! Absolutely nothing! I’d have to be desperate before I went out with anyone the Microdot was friends with.
Tuesday
    Something very horrific happened at school today: I got shut in the gym cupboard with Janine Edwards. I still can’t work out how the door came to close on us. Or what Janine was doing there in the first place, considering she was supposed to be in the sports hall with the rest of the girls. And how come the light wentout? I guess she must have panicked and knocked against the switch cos suddenly we were in darkness and she started screaming. Next minute she’s hurling herself at me with such force I’m staggering backwards into a bunch of string bags containing netballs, and before I know it I’m down on the floor, struggling to get up, being smothered by string bags and this great lumping girl. Not meaning to be sexist or anything, but Janine Edwards is big . I honestly thought she’d gone mad and was trying to strangle me. You hear of these things.
    It was Mr Hoskiss that wrenched the door open. He is not as a rule my favourite person, being this hideous sports fanatic that makes us all run mindlessly round muddy fields in pouring rain and force ten gales, but for once I was quite relieved to see his big beefy figure towering there. Another minute squashed beneath Janine Edwards and I might not have been alive to tell the tale. Unfortunately, as well as Mr Hoskiss, half of 7S were there. The male half. All standing gawping. They seemed to find it very amusing, me being trapped in a cupboard with a girl on top of me. Aaron and the others, later, made some quite uncalled-for remarks which I do not intend to record as I am doing my best to forget them.
    Arrived home this afternoon to find that the Microdot had brought the Linzi person back with her. She is a little pink podgy thing like a beachball. Mum and Wee Scots can’t stop cooing over her; they say she’s “a real wee cutie”. The Microdot looks at me, very hard, as she introduces us.
    â€œLinzi, this is my brother, Dory . Dory, this is my friend Linzi .”
    Linzi goes bright purple and so do I. I can’t think of anything to say to her. She obviously can’t think of anything to say to me, either. We sit in silence, at the teatable. I can feel her eyes on me, but every time I risk a glance she quickly swivels them away in the opposite direction, while the Microdot, for some reason best known to herself, keeps kicking at me and sticking her elbow in my ribs.
    I escape as soon as I can, down to the hole to do some digging. The Herb arrives half an hour later, but Aaron, who is supposed to be joining us, fails to turn up. He is becoming very unreliable. Me and the Herb dig for a while in silence. The Herb seems preoccupied, and I’m still brooding over the incident in the gym cupboard. It’s very unnerving, having a great hefty girl walloping about on top of you, squeezing all the breath out of you. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it gives me post traumatic stress disorder.
    I’m just wondering if I should unburden myself and tell the Herb about it, when quite suddenly, out of the blue, she says, “You know Sheri Stringer?”
    For a minute I don’t think I do, and then I remember. “Girl in your class? One with all the hair?”
    The Herb says, “Yes. The one with all the hair.”
    â€œWhat about her?”
    â€œDo you think she’s pretty?”
    Do I think Sheri Stringer is pretty? I say that I don’t know. “Why?”
    â€œCos I’m asking you! And don’t say you don’t know . You’ve got to have an opinion one way or the other.”
    I say that I can’t have an opinion as I haven’t ever thought about it.
    The Herb says, “So think!”
    â€œOK.” I give it a few seconds, to show that I’m