As a child, I never stopped thinking
By Tara Blake
I don’t think we have the right words in English. No, sorry. Let me start over. Personally, I don’t think we have the right words in English. That’s better. Mum says that I should practise using words like personally because it’s all just a bit more diplomatic that way; I’m owning my opinion, she says, so if someone disagrees, I am setting myself up to argue for what I believe in. What I personally believe in. Not that I should argue – Mum says I need to argue a lot less. And stop talking back. And sit up straight. And stop biting my nails. And organise my thoughts into little boxes in my brain. Mum replaces the word argue with the word debate. She says that’s also more diplomatic. I think Mum likes the word diplomatic.
Personally, I don’t think we have the right words in English. And when Jessica Dyer tells me that’s stupid, and that she would know because she’s read the dictionary, not the ‘My First one,’ but the real one, the big one, the O-X-F-O-R-D one, I tell her to shut up. I tell Jessica Dyer to shut up a lot. Jessica Dyer tells everyone she’s smart, like really smart, really, really smart, like smarter than you, and you, and definitely smarter than you, Mandy. So, I tell her to shut up, because she’s not smarter than me, because Mum tells me I am a creative intellectual, because I like to invent new words. But Mum wouldn’t like me telling Jessica Dyer to shut up. Mum is friends with Jessica Dyer’s mum. I wish she wasn’t, because Jessica Dyer’s mum likes to tell everyone she’s richer than them. Much, much richer.
BOXES!
I put Jessica Dyer inside a box in my brain.
Personally, I don’t think we have the right words in English. My favourite word is yesternight, but that’s not really a correct word, and because of that, I don’t think we have the right words in English. I think it’s unfair to the night-time that we have the word yesterday, but we don’t have a word for the night of the day before. I like the word yesternight today especially, because back then I wasn’t sat in a stuffy classroom with my hands under my bum to keep from fidgeting, and Jessica Dyer wasn’t stood up at the front of the class with her favourite set of markers for show and tell, and the nametag on my desk still read Mandy, and wasn’t covered in scribblings from Jessica Dyer’s favourite set of markers.
Yesternight, I told Mum that I like the word yesternight and have planned to start using it from now on.
“Yesternight…” Mum looked like she was tasting the word on her lips. “That’s a word Shakespeare liked, too”.
I don’t know who Shakespeare is, but he sounds like he would be good. I told Mum that.
“Mum, I don’t know who Shakespeare is, but he sounds like he would be good”.
Mum laughed, then sighed, a laugh-sigh thing she does a lot, which she saves especially for me.
“Go brush your teeth, Mandy. And stop biting your nails”.