Private_Keep Out! by Gwen Grant

Author:Gwen Grant [Grant, Gwen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473561953
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

9

‘Who loves people like Gorilla Face?’

I fell off a cliff yesterday. So, here I am back on the sofa again in the back kitchen. Our Mam says, ‘I might as well tie that sofa to you, you’re on it that much.’ I don’t seem to go to school very much and everybody says I do things on purpose so I can stay away, but I don’t. Mind you, seeing as how they happen anyway, I’m glad I don’t have to go to school. Life wouldn’t be worth living if you got sick and had to go to school as well. That’s enough to make you sick on its own.

We were down at the sand quarry yesterday and there are these big cliffs everybody climbs on. There was this lad there called Micky and he had this sheet in his hands and I thought, ‘He’s never going to jump off the cliff,’ and he starts shouting, ‘I’m going to jump off this cliff,’ and nobody took a bit of notice because nobody thought the daft thing would. Anyway, next thing we heard was this yell, ‘G-e-r-o-n-i-m-o!,’ and he jumped. Went down like a bomb and never stopped. ’Course they had to take him to hospital because he broke a leg and an arm.

‘Why did you do it?’ his Mam was saying when she got there.

‘I saw it on the pictures, Mam,’ he said and then he shut his eyes and he didn’t talk any more.

His Mam was sat there crying and she had to go to hospital with him. They both had to stay in as well and our Mam said to me, ‘Let that be a lesson to you,’ although I don’t know why it should. All I was doing was looking over the edge and I slipped and slid down the cliff and then, near the bottom, I bounced off one of those bits that stick out. It was right near the bottom, though, so I didn’t get hurt.

By the time our Joe got to me, I was standing up and brushing myself down and the first thing he does is rattle me. ‘Oh, feel free,’ I said. ‘I fall down a cliff and get up and what do you do? Nearly knock my head off, that’s all.’ He starts shouting I’m a stupid great girl and I had to go home now, and just wait till you get in, and everything. So I marched home and I’m never going to speak to our Joe again as long as I live because he runs in and shouts at our Mam, ‘I’m never going to look after that stupid thing again.’ Our Mam says, ‘Here, here. What’s all this about?’ She looked at me and said, ‘What have you been doing?’ and I said, ‘Nothing, Mam, honest,’ and then our Joe went and told her I’d thrown myself off the cliff.

‘I never,’ I said. ‘I slipped,’ and our Joe says, ‘If I have to look after you again, I’ll shove you off,’ and I said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, you needn’t look after me.

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