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

10. I will learn a new word and use it every day.

Bank Holiday in Scotland (a day may be given in lieu )

How interesting it is that Aabec should be an Australian bark used for making sweat.

Second after Christmas. Moon’s First Quarter

I wouldn’t mind going to Africa and hunting an Aardvark.

Whilst in Africa I would go south and look out for an Aardwolf.

And I would avoid tangling with an Aasvogel.

Epiphany

I keep having nightmares about the bomb. I hope it isn’t dropped before I get my GCE results in August 1983.1 wouldn’t like to die an unqualified virgin.

Nigel came round to look at my racing bike. He said that it was mass produced, unlike his bike that was ‘made by a craftsman in Nottingham’. I have gone off Nigel, and I have also gone off my bike a bit.

Got a wedding invitation from Bert and Queenie, they are getting married on January 16th at Pocklington Street Register Office.

In my opinion it is a waste of time. Bert is nearly ninety and Queenie is nearly eighty. I will leave it until the last minute before I buy a wedding present.

It has started snowing again. I asked my mother to buy me some green Wellingtons like the Queen’s but she came back with dead common black ones. I only need them to walk Pandora to our gate. I am staying in until the snow melts. Unlike most youths of my age, I dislike frolicking in the snow.

Full Moon

Nigel said the end of the world is coming tonight. He said the moon is having a total collapse. (Nigel should read Reader’s Digest and increase his word power.) True enough it did go dark, I held my breath and feared the worst but then the moon recovered and life went on as usual, except in York where fate has flooded the town centre.

First after Epiphany

I can’t understand why my father looks so old at forty-one compared to President Reagan at seventy. My father has got no work or worries yet he looks dead haggard. Poor President Reagan has to carry the world’s safety on his shoulders yet he is always smiling and looking cheerful. It doesn’t make sense.

I’ve been looking through last year’s diary and have been reminded that Malcolm Muggeridge never did reply to my letter about what to do if you are an intellectual. That is a first-class stamp wasted! I should have written to the British Museum, that’s where all the intellectuals hang out.

Pandora and I went to the youth club tonight. It was quite good. Rick Lemon led a discussion on sex. Nobody said anything, but he showed some interesting slides of wombs cut in half.

Pandora’s parents have had a massive row. They are sleeping in separate bedrooms. Pandora’s mother has joined the SDP and Pandora’s father is staying loyal to the Labour Party.

Pandora is a Liberal, so she gets on all right with them both.

Pandora’s father has come out of the closet and admitted that he is a Bennite. Pandora is staying loyal to him, but if the Co-op Dairy find out he will be finished.

Thank God the snow is melting! At last I can walk the streets in safety, secure in the knowledge that no one is going to ram a snowball down the back of my anorak.

Moon’s Last Quarter

Bert got married today.

The Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home hired a coach and took the old ladies to form a guard of honour with their walking-frames.

Bert looked dead good. He cashed his life insurance in and spent the money on a new suit. Queenie was wearing a hat made of flowers and fruit. She had a lot of orange make-up on her face to try and cover the wrinkles. Even Sabre had a red bow round his neck. I think it was kind of the RSPCA to let Sabre out for his master’s wedding. My father and Pandora’s father carried Bert’s wheelchair up the steps with Bert a single man and then down again with Bert a married man. The old ladies threw rice and confetti and my mother and Pandora’s mother gave Queenie a kiss and a lucky horseshoe.

A newspaper reporter and photographer made everyone pose for photographs. I was asked my name, but I said I didn’t want publicity for my acts of charity to Bert.

The reception took place back at the home. Matron made a cake with ‘B’ and ‘Q’ written in Jellytots.

Bert and Queenie are moving into a bungalow on Monday, after they have had their honeymoon in the home.

Honeymoon! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Second after Epiphany

Last night I dreamed about a boy like me collecting pebbles in the rain. It was a dead strange dream.

I am reading The Black Prince , by Iris Murdoch. I can only understand one word in ten. It is now my ambition to actually enjoy one of her books. Then I will know I am above the common herd.

School. First day of term. Loads of GCE homework. I will never cope. I am an intellectual but at the same time I am not very clever.

Brought four hundred and eighty-three copies of The Voice of Youth home in my satchel and Adidas bag. Mr Jones needs the games cupboard.

Two-and-a-half hours of homework! I will crack under the strain.

My brain is hurting. I have just had two pages of Macbeth to translate into English.

I am destined to become a manual worker. I can’t keep working under this pressure. Miss Elf said my work is perfectly satisfactory, but that isn’t good enough when Pandora keeps getting ‘Excellent’ in red pen on everything she does.

Stayed in bed until five-thirty to make sure I missed Salisbury’s. Listened to Radio Four play about domestic unhappiness. Phoned Pandora. Did Geography homework. Teased dog. Went to sleep. Woke up. Worried for ten minutes. Got up. Made cocoa. I am a nervous wreck.

Third after Epiphany

My mother blames my bad nerves on Iris Murdoch.

She says painful adolescence shouldn’t be read about when one is studying for O levels.

New Moon

Couldn’t do my Maths homework. Phoned the Samaritans. The nice man on the end of the phone told me the answer was nine-eighths. He was dead kind to someone in despair.

The stupid Samaritan got the answer wrong! It’s only seven-fifths. I only got six out of twenty. Pandora got them all right. In fact she got a hundred per cent.

My mother is holding her women’s rights meetings in our lounge. I can’t concentrate on my homework properly with women laughing and shouting and stamping up the stairs. They are not a bit ladylike.

Got fifteen out of twenty for History. Pandora got twenty-one out of twenty. She got an extra mark for knowing Hitler’s father’s name.

Came home from school early with a severe migraine (missed the Comparative Religion test). Found my father watching Play School and pretending to be an acorn growing into an oak. Went to bed too shocked to speak.