Wow, we had a real big snowfall overnight and have we ever got gobs of snow. All over the place, all the trees are full of snow and just everything is covered. Daddy says we’re all going to get skis so we can take full advantage of all the snow that falls here in the winter. I said, isn’t it going to cost a mint, and he said, sure, but we’ll get them second-hand.
On the way to school I saw two black squirrels chasing each other up in the trees. I almost held my breath because they were so careless, it looked like they were going to fall out of the branches, but they caught hold and the branches swung like crazy, but the squirrels didn’t fall, they just kept chasing each other all over the place. I thought now that winter’s here, they’d hibernate like bears, but Brian said they only semi-hibernate and they still come around the house for peanut hand-outs.
I go to school now with Jane and Brenda Parker. They live just down the street, and we usually meet halfway through the park. They’re nice. Jane is my age, and their parents know my parents.
Last Saturday night Mom and Dad had a wine and cheese party for some of the neighbours and the Parkers came along, with some other people who’re nice too. Mom let me help serve, and I listened to all the conversations. It was kind of nice. The Parkers have a Springer Spaniel they call Cheeky and he’s really cute. He’s just a puppy yet and he jumps all over you for excitement. He pees too, when he’s excited and you’ve got to watch he doesn’t do it on you.
As soon as the ice rink outside the elementary school close to us freezes over, me and Jane are going to go skating together. They’ve got hamster pets too, and I showed both of them my pigs and they think they’re cute. Brenda and Debra spend a lot of time together now, so I’m glad I introduced them to each other, although maybe they would have met anyway. Sometimes I see Linda next door over with them too; they’re all the same age and they get along together.
Today I got the results of a project I did on the Northwest Territories. I did some really good maps and illustrations and I’ve found a real neat way of printing. Me and Jennifer T have done some experimenting and we do it kind of slanting and blocked, like what Mom calls banker’s script or something, and it’s real neat. Mr. Henderson gave me an A-minus and it was one of the best marks in the whole class, and he hung my project up along with two others on the bulletin board for everyone to see. Not that I care, really.
Boy, that Sally! Is she ever green with envy. Well, all it takes is a little dedication to hard work, as Larry says. Sometimes he does say something worth repeating. But he’s so fussy about things, he won’t ever let me borrow any of his books, if he’s read something interesting and I’d like to read it, too. He can’t stand it when people fold back the corners of pages to keep their place. And he says I’m too casual about my books, and I don’t take proper care of them. I think I do, actually. It’s not fair; he’s not interested in the kinds of girls’ books I read, but I’m interested in some of the adventure books for boys that he’s read. He read them ages ago, he’s outgrown them, but he won’t even let Brian read them because, he says, he hasn’t a proper respect for books too. Anyway, that’s Larry.
Back to Sally though: she didn’t feel like working on her project that she did on the Canadian Inuit and it was only three pages long and messy with no illustrations or anything, not even anything cut out of magazines, so what did she expect, anyway?
“Hey, sucky-Jenny”, she said. “Aren’t you a good little girul. Got a lovely A, and your project all stuck up on the board so everyone can see what a little suck you are”. Did I ever see red!
“Go suck your thumb”, I told her. “I do good work for my own satisfaction, that’s all. I enjoyed doing that project and I thought if I was going to do it I might as well do it well. That’s not sucking up!”
“Oh year, sure”, she said, and she snickered at me. “Tell us another story.”
Well, there was Laura standing over beside Sally where she used to stand beside me, not saying anything as usual, but I didn’t expect her to. And there was Jennifer T standing beside me and I could tell she didn’t like what Sally was saying, and the rest of our little group, Diane and Donna were kind of standing between us. I guess they weren’t sure where they stood, ha-ha. The writing’s on the wall, I guess. Laura isn’t my best friend any more. But she’s still my friend. I mean, you don’t just dump a friend because she’s friends with someone else, even if that someone else is someone you don’t like, can’t even stand.
When we went into Industrial Arts, me and Jennifer, she told me not to feel bad about Sally, just to ignore her because she was jealous because of my good mark, and she got just a C-minus. Boy, she didn’t even deserve that, her project was such a mess. I guess Mr. Henderson is very sensitive and doesn’t like to hurt peoples’ feelings, even someone like her who has no feelings, it seems like.
Mr. Bronson, our Industrial Arts teacher; he’s always got on this long white cotton coat over his clothes, and he’s always cracking jokes; he’s working with us on our cutting boards and it’s fun. First he showed us how all the tools work and he said we’ve got to be careful. He told us some awful stories about kids who were careless and got their fingertips lopped off. Ugh, really! I usually tell Mom a lot of what goes on at school, but I guess I won’t tell her that. She’d probably get all nervous and tell me to transfer to Home Ec.
We’re not supposed to use the table saw, but Mr. Bronson said we can use the scroll saw and the band saw. We’re all supposed to clean up after ourselves, and we’ve elected monitors to remind everyone. One of the guys in our class, Kerry Blake (he’s hyper-kinetic, he gets pills at the office all the time to slow him down), well, all the teachers give him special assignments to make him feel good. He’s an awful trouble-maker, but he can’t help it, he’s always so nervous. Anyway, at Industrial Arts he’s supposed to see that everyone’s careful using the saws. We all had to take turns passing a use-test and Kerry was allowed to pass us. He gets kind of bossy, but he’s proud that he’s got the job and so he’s good at it.
Once, when Kerry was away, Mr. Henderson told us all that Kerry’s got special problems and we’re supposed to be patient with him and not get him angry, because when he gets angry, he gets real mad and starts to fight. I mean really fight, like with his fists, and he gets really mean. He’s an all-right kid, I guess, not stuck-up, just confused. He’s kind of smart, too. There’s a special lady that comes in a couple times a week and he goes off privately with her so she can work with him. He likes her and calls her his special teacher. He likes to be treated special. Mom says it’s because he craves attention, like he was ignored or something maybe, when he was young and now he does things for attention or approval, or something like that.
Sometimes when he gets mad though, you’ve got to look out. Once he threw a book at a bunch of kids and it hit Tom Parker on the forehead and cut him. Another time the boys told some of the girls that Kerry started to fight, really fight, with Mr. Farraday, the Physical Education teacher. Boy, that must’ve been something. I’m glad I wasn’t there, I would’ve been scared.
Sometimes Mr. Henderson, when he kind of thinks Kerry is getting burned up about something, he tells him to get his coat on and have a run around the block or something and be sure and come back. Kerry does and he comes back and he doesn’t seem so bad any more.
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