Becky Bananas by Jean Ure Read Free Book Online Page B

friend.
    But just because love cannot last for ever, I don’t see that is any reason why people shouldn’t go on living together. Lots of people live together that aren’t in love. And then there wouldn’t be all this horribleness that happens, with stories in the newspapers and people like Elinor Hodges telling you your mum is immoral.
    I don’t think Mum is immoral. I think that is a horrid thing to say. I think it is just that she is not very good at being married.
    Elinor Hodges says lots of things are immoral. Music. Videos. Dancing. Kissing your boyfriend (if you have one). Sarah is right and I shouldn’t take any notice of her.
    I am not going to think about people like Elinor Hodges. I am trying to remember about the past.
    And, of course, plan for the future!

9. My Cat Kitty

    When your mum got married again, you left
Bethnal Green and moved to a different part
of London.

W hen Mum got married to Alan, we came to live in Kensington. “Out West,” Uncle Eddy calls it. It is nice out West and Alan was a nice dad (just for a short time). The house that we live in is a nice house. The garden is a nice garden. Everything is nice.
    The house is very tall and thin, with attics that are real rooms that you can sleep in and a basement where there is a kitchen.

    It has a garden with a wall round it, with spoke things stuck in the top so that the cats can’t get out into the road and be run over.
    There isn’t any grass because it is not that sort of garden. Instead there are paving stones and lots of little trees, and plants growing in tubs.
    I asked Mum if we could have Gran’s toadstools when Gran died but Mum said there wasn’t room for them. What she really meant was that she didn’t like them. She never liked Gran’s toadstools. She said they were as bad as garden gnomes.
    I don’t know what the matter is with garden gnomes! I think they are fun. I would like to have a pond with fish in it and gnomes sitting all around, smoking their little pipes and sitting in garden chairs underneath the toadstools. When I suggested this to Mum, she shuddered. She said, “Darling, don’t be so vulgar!”

    What is vulgar about it, I would like to know?
    Mum says that Uncle Eddy is vulgar when he talks about needing a gypsy’s or going to the bog. But Uncle Eddy just grins and makes a gesture with two of his fingers which is
really
vulgar. I know this for a fact because Sarah once did it to Elinor Hodges and Mrs Rowe saw her and nearly had a fit. I don’t think Sarah realised that it is as terribly rude as it is.
    It is funny how many things are rude that you don’t know are rude until someone tells you off about them. Like once when I was little I saw this word written on a wall and I said it to Mum and she flew into the most furious rage and said that if ever she heard me say it again she would box my ears. She said that that was what came of having to live in Bethnal Green and let me mix with people like Stacey Kitchin.

    That was ever so unfair. It wasn’t Stacey’s fault. She couldn’t have said the word because she didn’t even know how to read properly. She was still on her first reader when I was into real books. I wonder what has happened to Stacey?
    She could be one of my guests!
    I think nowadays that we have quite a lot of money. Mum has been in
Ask Auntie
for six years!!! It is shown in loads of other countries, including America, and when it is shown in other countries Mum gets a cheque. A
big
cheque if it’s for America. When she gets a big cheque we go out and celebrate.
    Last time she had one she took us to tea in a specially posh hotel in Piccadilly and I ate squishy cakes and buns with pink icing. Danny made a mess of everything as usual, dropping crumbs all over the floor. He is really too young to go to posh hotels. He doesn’t know how to behave.
    Mum said if he didn’t learn better manners he wouldn’t be able to come again.
    It is nice having lots of money as it means we can buy