mine. I forgot all about him until he suddenly shouted, ‘For Christ’s sake, do you have to keep snip-snip-snipping?’
I jumped so violently I nearly snipped straight through my finger. I cut out my paper ladies in my bedroom after that, even when I was alone in the flat . I spread each lady out on my carpet. I cut out girls too, especially the ones with long hair, though plaits were an exceptionally fiddly job. I seldom paired them up as mothers and daughters. They were simply big girls and little girls, living in orphanages or hostels or my own kind of invented commune. There would be a couple of men too, but they were usually rather silly-looking specimens in striped pyjamas. No one sewed men’s suits from scratch, not even my grandma, so you only got nightclothes and the occasional comical underwear. I certainly didn’t want any grinning goofy fools in white underpants down to their knees and socks with suspenders hanging round
my
ladies.
I didn’t bother with the boys either, though there were more of them in short trousers. I did have a soft spot for the babies though, and cut out the prettiest. Then I could spend hours at a time whispering my games. My favourite of all my paper girls was a bold, long-haired lady called Carola, in a lacy black bra and a half-slip. She was a naughty girl and got up to all sorts of adventures. I’d carry her everywhere with me, tucking her carefully inside my book.
----
Which of my characters has paper girls with special flower names?
----
It’s April in
Dustbin Baby
.
I carefully cut out long lanky models with skinny arms and legs, my tongue sticking out as I rounded each spiky wrist and bony ankle, occasionally performing unwitting amputations as I went.
Sylvia found me an old exercise book and a stick of Pritt but I didn’t want to make a scrapbook. I wanted to keep my paper girls free. They weren’t called Naomi and Kate and Elle and Natasha. They were my girls now, so I called them Rose and Violet and Daffodil and Bluebell.
I seem overly fond of the name Bluebell. It’s also the name of Tracy Beaker’s doll and Dixie’s toy budgerigar. Sorry I keep repeating myself!
16
Mandy
I WAS TAKEN to the cinema regularly. I didn’t go to the children’s Saturday morning pictures – Biddy thought that was too rowdy. I watched proper adult films, though the very first time I went I disgraced myself. This was at the Odeon in Surbiton, when I was three and still living at Fassett Road. All five of us – Biddy, Harry, Ga, Gongon and me – went to see some slapstick comedy. I didn’t do a lot of laughing.
I thought it was all really happening before my very eyes (remember, we didn’t have television in those days). I found it very worrying that these silly men were sometimes so big that their whole heads filled the screen. I couldn’t work out where the rest of their bodies were. I knew I didn’t want these giants coming anywhere near me. Then they shrank back small again. They were running away, pursued by even scarier men with hatchets. They dodged in and out of traffic in a demented fashion, then ran into a tall block of flats, going up and down lifts, charging along corridors, through rooms to the windows. They climbed right outside, wobbling on the edge. The camera switched so you saw things from their point of view, looking down down down, the cars below like little ants. The audience
laughed
. I screamed.
I had to be carted out of the cinema by Biddy and Harry, still screaming. They were cross because they’d wasted two one-and-ninepenny tickets.
‘Why did you have to make such a fuss?’ said Biddy.
‘The man was going to fall!’ I wailed.
‘It wasn’t
real
,’ said Harry.
It took me a while to grasp this, which was odd seeing as I lived in my own imaginary world so much. However, I grew to love going to the cinema, though I never liked slapstick comedy, and I still hate it whenever there’s a mad chase in any film.
We
I jumped so violently I nearly snipped straight through my finger. I cut out my paper ladies in my bedroom after that, even when I was alone in the flat . I spread each lady out on my carpet. I cut out girls too, especially the ones with long hair, though plaits were an exceptionally fiddly job. I seldom paired them up as mothers and daughters. They were simply big girls and little girls, living in orphanages or hostels or my own kind of invented commune. There would be a couple of men too, but they were usually rather silly-looking specimens in striped pyjamas. No one sewed men’s suits from scratch, not even my grandma, so you only got nightclothes and the occasional comical underwear. I certainly didn’t want any grinning goofy fools in white underpants down to their knees and socks with suspenders hanging round
my
ladies.
I didn’t bother with the boys either, though there were more of them in short trousers. I did have a soft spot for the babies though, and cut out the prettiest. Then I could spend hours at a time whispering my games. My favourite of all my paper girls was a bold, long-haired lady called Carola, in a lacy black bra and a half-slip. She was a naughty girl and got up to all sorts of adventures. I’d carry her everywhere with me, tucking her carefully inside my book.
----
Which of my characters has paper girls with special flower names?
----
It’s April in
Dustbin Baby
.
I carefully cut out long lanky models with skinny arms and legs, my tongue sticking out as I rounded each spiky wrist and bony ankle, occasionally performing unwitting amputations as I went.
Sylvia found me an old exercise book and a stick of Pritt but I didn’t want to make a scrapbook. I wanted to keep my paper girls free. They weren’t called Naomi and Kate and Elle and Natasha. They were my girls now, so I called them Rose and Violet and Daffodil and Bluebell.
I seem overly fond of the name Bluebell. It’s also the name of Tracy Beaker’s doll and Dixie’s toy budgerigar. Sorry I keep repeating myself!
16
Mandy
I WAS TAKEN to the cinema regularly. I didn’t go to the children’s Saturday morning pictures – Biddy thought that was too rowdy. I watched proper adult films, though the very first time I went I disgraced myself. This was at the Odeon in Surbiton, when I was three and still living at Fassett Road. All five of us – Biddy, Harry, Ga, Gongon and me – went to see some slapstick comedy. I didn’t do a lot of laughing.
I thought it was all really happening before my very eyes (remember, we didn’t have television in those days). I found it very worrying that these silly men were sometimes so big that their whole heads filled the screen. I couldn’t work out where the rest of their bodies were. I knew I didn’t want these giants coming anywhere near me. Then they shrank back small again. They were running away, pursued by even scarier men with hatchets. They dodged in and out of traffic in a demented fashion, then ran into a tall block of flats, going up and down lifts, charging along corridors, through rooms to the windows. They climbed right outside, wobbling on the edge. The camera switched so you saw things from their point of view, looking down down down, the cars below like little ants. The audience
laughed
. I screamed.
I had to be carted out of the cinema by Biddy and Harry, still screaming. They were cross because they’d wasted two one-and-ninepenny tickets.
‘Why did you have to make such a fuss?’ said Biddy.
‘The man was going to fall!’ I wailed.
‘It wasn’t
real
,’ said Harry.
It took me a while to grasp this, which was odd seeing as I lived in my own imaginary world so much. However, I grew to love going to the cinema, though I never liked slapstick comedy, and I still hate it whenever there’s a mad chase in any film.
We
Similar Books
