Chapter 5
15 June 1991 Saturday
I feel lousy today. I did all my chores and kept out of everyone's way, but I am really glad the day is over. My stomach hurts. It's probably nothing, but it's really annoying how awful "nothing" can feel.
I was all set to feel sorry for myself this evening, and then I read the news. I'm lucky all I have is a stomach ache and a bit of a sunburn. A volcano erupted in the Phillippines and they know it was bad, but they don't know how bad because there's a typhoon hitting there at the same time. They know it sent a pillar of stuff sixty kilometers into the air, though, and they know hundreds are dead, they just won't be sure how many hundreds for a while. I can't even imagine. It definitely puts my day into perspective.
16 June 1991 Sunday
Ugh. I was sicker than I thought. This morning I lost my breakfast all over the hallway (I was trying to get to the bathroom). I spent the rest of the day here in my cupboard - after cleaning up after myself, of course. I slept most of the day, and I am really really glad I have a couple of fizzy drink bottles full of water stored in the back corner against emergencies. I really needed them today. And I must have looked pretty awful, cos AP let me out to shower while UV and the Dud were off doing something and when I came downstairs, there was some leftover weak tea in a jam jar that AP said I could have if I wanted, and she didn't even look to make sure I tossed out the jam jar afterward, so now I have some more water too.
And now I am going back to sleep. I have got to feel better tomorrow, it's the last week of school.
17 June Monday
Today I was fine, must have been something I ate.
The school has a library. Duh. I looked up some stuff today, GNP (Gross National Product) and Moody's (Investment Services) and FSA (Financial Services Authority) and Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) and Pibor (Paris Interbank etc.) and stuff. It still gives me a headache. Do most grown ups understand all this? Do I need to understand all this to figure out how to support myself after my 18th birthday or I sue for emancipation? Probably not, this is large scale financial, more the sort of thing to explain why I can't find a job. I think I need to look at what industries are expected to grow in the next decade.
Does anybody besides me ever just get tired of being responsible? I don't hang out with the kids in my class, but I do listen. They seem to spend a lot more time worrying about new trainers or the newest video game to come out and I've never once heard them discuss rising or falling unemployment rates.
I've been cooking since I was five, though, so I'm head and shoulders above probably every other ten-year-old in Great Britain, and I'm only going to get more experience over the next few years. I think I'm going to start reading AP's cookbooks and see what I can learn that I haven't yet that might be useful.
OK. So that's sorted. Restaurant or cafeteria or something of that sort. Or landscaping, but that's seasonal. Experience dealing with impossible people might make me a good shop clerk, but I think I'd rather cook.
Everyone's asleep. I'm going to go nick myself a cookbook. And I have that stack of newspapers, I can also see what's in the cooking section.
18 June Tuesday
I screwed up my courage today and actually talked to Aunt Petunia about growing up and moving out and cooking. She says that I need to stick to what I know for breakfast, but over the summer she'll let me experiment with lunch, so long as I make sure some part of lunch is edible. Only on weekdays, though. She doesn't want UV to have to deal with poorly-made food. And she's going to let me take more of a hand in preparing supper and she even complimented my knife skills!
She didn't comment on my assumption that I was out on my ear on my eighteenth birthday, though. Oh well. Not like I was expecting different.
So now I even have permission to take a cookbook or the food section of the paper into my cupboard with me, so long as I'm careful of the cookbooks. It even sort of kind of maybe almost sounded like she might talk to UV about shorter chores lists this summer if I actually take this seriously and put some work into it and do a good job. If she can do that, it will be more than worth it.
19 June Wednesday
More reading of cookbooks. I think I'm going to start with white pudding. It's meat and fat, if I get it even halfway decent, Dud & UV will love it.
20 June Thursday
Tomorrow's the last day of school. I don't want it to be the last day of school. My stomach hurts. I wish I could slow down time.
But then, if I could slow down time, I wouldn't just need to use it to make summer come slower. If I could slow down time enough, I could actually finish one of Uncle Vernon's chore lists in a day. Then he'd be so shocked he'd have a heart attack.
And now I'm trying very hard to convince myself I don't want that to happen really. On the one hand, I'm a nice person, I don't want people to die, on the other hand, he is insured. And if he weren't around eating his head off and playing golf and buying tools he never uses, we wouldn't need as much money anyway.
Hmm, if I'm going to be a terrible person and not mind if people die, maybe I could add Aunt Marge and Piers to the list.
I am not thinking about how to get all three of them in the same place. I'm not. La la la I can't hear you, evil part of my brain.
Thinking about upcoming chores doesn't help. If I were going to be setting out annuals, that would be one thing, but scraping and painting the garage and getting more sunburned is not a good sort of distraction and it doesn't require any sort of planning.
OK, I've got a distraction. When I see Mrs. Figg on Sunday, the kittens' eyes will be open and I'll get to sit and play with them for a while. That will be fun. Maybe we can think up names. I think Toff for the tuxedo, and Marigold for the tricolor tabby, and three names that go together for the three tabbies. Hmm. Doctor, Master, and Ace? Adric, Nyssa, Teegan?
I wonder, if I had been a girl, would my name have been Sarah Jane? Harry Sullivan isn't a bad role model, certainly. He was brave and honorable and decent, and he was not either an imbecile. I can't see myself as becoming a doctor, though. Too expensive.
That would be fun, though. If I ever decide to be eccentric, I shall model myself on Harry Sullivan... Although I'll need elevator shoes and contacts. I think if I ever need to be heroic, I shall look to him, too, with maybe a bit of the last Doctor stirred in so I don't get too noble. It's better to be a live dog than a dead lion, but being a live lion is even better.
I AM HARRY, HEAR ME ROAR!