Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3⁄4

7 AM . A Chinese nurse stayed in the bathroom to make sure I didn’t drink any water. She kept staring so I had to put a hospital sponge over my thing.

7.30 AM . I am dressed like a lunatic, ready for the operation. I have had an injection, it is supposed to make you sleepy but I’m wide awake listening to a row about a patient’s lost notes.

8 AM . My mouth is completely dry, I shall go mad from thirst, I haven’t had a drink since nine forty-five last night. I feel very floaty, the cracks in the ceiling are very interesting. I have got to find somewhere to hide my diary. I don’t want prying Nosy Parkers reading it.

8.30 AM . My mother is at my bedside! She is going to put my diary in her organizer-handbag. She has promised (on the dog’s life) not to read it.

8.45 AM . My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

9 AM . The operating trolley keeps coming into the ward and dumping unconscious men into beds. The trolley-pushers are wearing green overalls and Wellingtons. There must be loads of blood on the floor of the theatre!

9.15 AM . The trolley is coming in my direction!

Midnight . I am devoid of tonsils. I am in a torrent of pain. It took my mother thirteen minutes to find my diary. She doesn’t know her way round her organizer-handbag yet. It has got seventeen compartments.

I am unable to speak. Even groaning causes agony.

I have been moved to a side ward. My suffering is too much for the other patients to bear. Had a ‘get well’ card from Bert and Sabre.

I was able to sip a little of grandma’s broth today. She brought it in her Thermos flask. My father broughtme a family pack of crisps; he might just as well have brought me razor blades!

Pandora came at visiting time, I had little to whisper to her. Conversation palls when one is hovering between life and death.

Hallowe’en

3 AM . I have been forced to complain about the noise coming from the nurses’ home. I am sick of listening to (and watching) drunken nurses and off-duty policemen cavorting around the grounds dressed as witches and wizards. Nurse Boldry was doing something particularly unpleasant with a pumpkin. I am joining BUPA as soon as they’ll have me.

Twentieth after Trinity

The nurses have been very cold towards me. They say that I am taking up a bed that could be used by an ill person! I have got to eat a bowl of cornflakes before they let me out. So far I have refused: I cannot bear the pain.

Nurse Boldry forced a spoon of cornflakes down my damaged throat, then, before I could digest it, she started stripping my bed. She offered to pay for a taxi, but I told her that I would wait for my father to come and carry me out to the car.

Election Day, USA

I am in my own bed. Pandora is a tower of strength. She and I communicate without words. My voice has been damaged by the operation.

Today I croaked my first words for a week. I said, ‘Dad, phone mum and tell her that I am over the worst’. My father was overcome with relief and emotion. His laughter was close to hysteria.

Moon’s First Quarter

Dr Gray says my malfunctioning voice is ‘only adolescent wobble’. He is always in a bad mood!

He expected me to stagger to his surgery and queue in a germ-filled waiting room! He said I ought to be outside with other lads of my age building a bonfire. I told him that I was too old for such paganistic rituals. He said he was forty-seven and he still enjoyed a good burn-up.

Forty-seven! It explains a lot, he should be pensioned off.

My father is taking me to an organized bonfire party tomorrow (providing I am up to it, of course). It is being held to raise funds for Marriage Guidance Councillors’ expenses.

Pandora’s mother is cooking the food and Pandora’s father is in charge of the fireworks. My father is going to be in charge of lighting the bonfire so I’m going to stand at least a hundred metres away. I have seen him singe his eyebrows many times.

Last night some irresponsible people down our street had bonfire parties in their own back gardens!

Yes!

In spite of being warned of all the dangers by the radio, television, Blue Peter and the media they went selfishly ahead. There were no accidents, but surely this was only luck.

The Marriage Guidance Council bonfire was massive. It was a good community effort. Mr Cherry donated hundreds of copies of a magazine called . Now! He said they had been cluttering up the back room of his shop for over a year.

Pandora burnt her collection of Jackie comics, she said that they ‘don’t bear feminist analysis’ and she ‘wouldn’t like them to get into young girls’ hands’.

Mr Singh and all the little Singhs brought along Indian firecrackers. They are much louder than English ones. I was glad our dog was locked in the coal shed with cotton wool in its ears.

Nobody was seriously burnt, but I think it was a mistake to hand out fireworks at the same time the food was being served.

I burnt the red phone bill that came this morning.

Twenty-first after Trinity. Remembrance Sunday

Our street is full of acrid smoke, I went to see the bonfire, the Now! magazines are still in the hot ashes, they are refusing to burn properly. (Our red phone bill has disappeared, thank God!)

Mr Cherry is going to have to dig a big pit and pourquicklime over the Now! magazines before they choke the whole suburb. Went to see Bert. He was out with Queenie.

Back to school. The dog is at the vet’s having the cotton wool surgically removed.

My nipples have swollen! I am turning into a girl!!!

Veterans’ Day, USA. Remembrance Day, Canada. Full Moon

Dr Gray has struck me off his list! He said nipple-swelling is common in boys. Usually they get it when they are twelve and a half. Dr Gray said I was emotionally and physically immature! How can I be immature? I have had a rejection letter from the BBC! And how could I have walked to the surgery with swollen nipples?

I don’t know why he calls it a surgery anyway; he never does any surgery in it.

Told Mr Jones I couldn’t do PE because of swollen nipples. He was extremely crude in his attitude. I don’t know what they teach them at teacher-training college.

Pandora and I had a frank talk about our relationship tonight. She doesn’t want to marry me in two years’ time!

She wants to have a career instead!

Naturally I am devastated by this blow. I told her I wouldn’t mind her having a little job in a cake shop or something after our wedding, but she said she intended to go to university and that the only time she would enter a cake shop would be to buy a large crusty.

Harsh words were exchanged between us. (Hers were harsher than mine.)

Charred Now! magazines are blowing all over our cul-de-sac. They seem to have special powers of survival. The council have sent a special cleaning squad to try and trap them all.