Chapter 2

Jenny

Dear Diary,
My life is officially a mess! Mum has just told me that we are going to France for a holiday this summer. It’s a really obscure little village in the middle of nowhere but it’s sounds great. I’m the only one in my class at school that hasn’t been abroad before, I’m soooo looking forward to it. 

So why is my life a mess? Because Mum has just informed that we will be going with Charles the Letch. Charles was my Mum’s boyfriend, but now he is officially her Fiancé, because apparently last night he got down on bended knee and asked her to marry him. AND SHE SAID YES!

I can’t believe it. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. He is a slimy lecherous little creep. I hate the way that he leers at me if I wear a strappy top. What am I going to wear in France? I can’t go sunbathing on the beach in a polo neck jumper can I? Why do we have to go with him? Why can’t it be just us? I hope I don’t have to spend too much time with him.

I don’t really think that Mum wants to marry him. I think that just because they have been going out with each other for eleven years she thinks that they should really get married. Sometimes I catch my mum looking at an old photo that she doesn’t know I know about. She keeps it in the bottom of the drawers by her side of the bed, under piles of old socks. The photo is of me, Mum, my Dad and my twin Emma, it was taken at the London Zoo. We all seem really happy and Dad is gazing at Mum in a way that I’ve never seen Charles do. 

Emma and me are holding hands and smiling, we must be about five years old in the photo, and it can’t be long after that was taken that Mum left Dad. I wonder if he knew that Mum was going to run off with ‘good old Charlie’ from the paper shop? I feel so sorry for him. I bet he cried for days.

All I know of the story is that Mum left and took me with her. The only reason she took me instead of Emma is that I was sitting quietly in our bedroom whilst Emma was throwing a tantrum at the time. Just like that, She chose between us just like that. I wonder what it would have been like if I was the one that was crying at that fateful moment? I bet Emma wouldn’t have stood for Charles’ leeching over her. I bet she would have got rid of him by now. Why oh why am I the quiet one, why can’t I tell Mum that I hate Charles? I’ll bet goody-two-shoes Emma would have been so much better than me. My life is such a mess.

Oh well, I had better try and pack things that let me get a suntan with actually exposing any flesh before Mum gets upset and sends Charles comes up to ‘help’ me pack. Eeugh!