Asperger Diaries: Jamie's New School by H.B. Lawson Read Free Book Online Page B

go with them. Lesley went to her friend’s house. Mum
said I should telephone Cliff to see if he wanted to come over. I
didn’t call him because I wasn’t sure what he would be doing. I
haven’t spoken to him since I started at Armthorpe. I see him on
the bus most mornings, but he always walks straight to the back. We
don’t have classes together because he is in the bottom set. I have
seen him a few times in the school yard, but he is always with a
crowd of boys. He is usually playing football.
    I started to
build the London Transport ‘Cissie’ tram that I brought back from
holiday. I built it on my bedroom floor because I knew mum would
moan if I used her dining room table. I’m getting better at making
models. When I first started to build models, I used to get glue
everywhere. My hand shakes sometimes when I try to apply it to the
smaller, fiddly parts. The last two model trams which I have made
had hardly any excess glue on them.
    Mum gets on my
nerves. She is always trying to make me phone my friends They could
telephone me if they wanted to. Mum kept asking me questions about
school. I don’t want to talk about school at the weekend. I want to
forget all about it.
     
    *****
    Angela's
Diary
    Leslie is in a
foul mood. She's annoyed because Jamie upset Orange yesterday. She
went over to Courtney's. Knowing Lesley, it will probably all blow
over within a few days. The three of them always seem to be falling
out, but it never lasts for long.
    It drives me
crazy when Jamie refuses to telephone his friends. I am sure Rocky
would have come over today if Jamie had called him. Jamie always
has an excuse for not telephoning someone. It has always been the
same. When he was at Westlake, I would pester him to give Rocky or
David a call. I would end up calling the other kid’s parents
myself. It would look a bit strange if I did it now. He is going to
lose contact with David if he isn’t careful. I keep telling him he
doesn’t want to lose such a good friend. I am not sure it even
registers with Jamie. I’ve seen him lose touch with good friends
before. It doesn’t seem to bother him.
    All Jamie
wanted to think about today was his model tram. He spent most of
the morning on it. I was glad to see he didn’t use my dining room
table. He was full of it when we got back from town. He insisted I
examined the model for traces of excess glue. I didn’t spot any –
he is getting better at model making.
    Andrew’s mother
is coming over tomorrow. Joy of joys.
     
     
    11th September
(Sunday)
     
    Jamie's
Diary
    I got up at six
o’ clock this morning to finish my history homework. When I had
finished I asked dad to read it. He said he thought it was very
thorough. I’m never sure what I should include, and what I can
leave out.
    Dad took me
swimming this morning while mum made Sunday lunch. I asked him to
show me how to do front crawl. He told me to stand on the side of
the pool, and to watch while he did a few widths. I watched him,
but I still couldn’t do it. I asked him to tell me what to do, step
by step. We stayed at the pool for about an hour. By the time we
came away, I still couldn’t do front crawl properly, but I had
improved. Dad said my technique was much better. He said we could
go to the swimming pool again in a fortnight. I saw one of the boys
from my form in the changing rooms. I don’t know his name. I don’t
think he recognised me because he didn’t speak.
    Nana Edith came
over for lunch. She comes over most Sundays since Granddad Tom died
last year. I don’t think she likes me because she hardly ever
speaks to me. One day she told mum she thought there was something
wrong with me because I hadn’t cried when Granddad died. I liked
Granddad much more than I like Nana, and I was sad when he died,
but I didn’t feel like crying. Nana Edith is my dad’s mum. I think
he is scared of her because he never argues with her. Mum is always
arguing with Nana. Lesley does too. I stay out of Nana’s way