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it really doesn’t matter.
    Anyhow, we then had tea and I said, “Oh, by the way, Gemma Parker has invited me to her sleep-over tomorrow. Is that OK?” and Mum tightened her lips and said, “Well, no, as a matter of fact I’m afraid I don’t think it is. I think I’d rather that you stayed away from Gemma Parker.”
    I knew she’d say that. She has taken it into her head that Gemma is a bad influence all because last term she heard her say a four-letter word that she doesn’t even know the meaning of. Gemma, that is. It was just something she’d heard her brother say. All the boys say it; all the older ones. Even Skinny’s brother, who Mum thinks is such a “nice young man”. They go roundshouting it at each other. It doesn’t mean anything. They think it makes them sound butch and grown-up.
    I said to Mum, “Everybody else is going. I’ll feel left out.” She said, “Not everybody can be. There wouldn’t be room for them.” “Well, everyone who is anyone,” I said. “The Melon, for instance. Her mum doesn’t mind.”
    Mum likes the Melon. I thought it would sway her, but it didn’t. After about ten minutes of arguing she said, “Look, I’m sorry. Cherry, but that is that. I do not want you going to the sleep-over.” I shrieked “Why not? When the Melon is allowed to?” Mum said, “You don’t have to shout at me. What Melanie’s mother allows her to do is neither here nor there. She probably doesn’t know that family as I do. I just don’t trust them.”
    The only reason she says this is because Gemma’s mum smokes cigarettes and she and Slimey think that anyone who smokes cigarettes is some kind of criminal and ought to be locked up, and also because Gemma’s dad happens to work in a place called Franco’s that once got raided by the police, which is hardly Gemma’s dad’s fault. He can’t help where he works. What Mum doesn’t understand is that Gemma is totally naive. She’s like a six year old. Her mum won’t even let her watch television without supervision in case she sees something she shouldn’t.
    I tried explaining this to Mum but she plainly didn’t believe me. She said. “If you ask me, Gemma’s mother is rather flighty.”
    What does she mean, flighty? Does she think she’s a witch, or something?

    Mum told me not to sulk. She said that to make up for not letting me go to the sleep-over, we’d all have a meal in the pizza place tomorrow night and then we’d go to the video shop and I could choose whatever video I wanted. That cheered me up a bit as I thought that I would get something really gross that they normally wouldn’t let me have. But honestly, what does she think we do at sleep-overs? We don’t do anything! Just sit and talk and try on each other’s clothes and then tell scary stories in the dark. Gemma’s such a baby she usually falls asleep.
    I am going to get a really
gross
DVD.

Saturday
    I am seriously annoyed. They wouldn’t let me have any of the videos I wanted. Mum said I was just picking them to be awkward, because of her not letting me go to the sleep-over. She said if I couldn’t choose something sensible, then she would have to choose for me. When I pointed out that she had promised me, she said, “Oh, now, Cherry, act your age! You know perfectly well there are limits.”
    She never said anything about limits. She said I could choose whatever I wanted.
    “Anything sensible,” she said.
    They cheat all the time, grown-ups do.
    So while I’m mooching about looking for something sensible, and doing my best to find one they’d loathe, she and Slimey are wandering over to the kids’ section and mooning about amongst the Walt Disneys. Suddenly I hear Slimey cry, “Oh, look, Butterpat!” (I nearly died. The girl behind the counter had to put her hand over her mouth to stop from sniggering.) “Look, Butterpat! Look at this … Snow White!”
    And Mum squeaks, “Ohh! Snow White!” in a silly little girly voice, and claps her hands.