I cook. And I collect stuff. Things I find here and there.

Like this morning, I found something really cool. It was near The Rock and Sascha was fiddling with some machine he said might stop us having to listen to Mary-Alice. She wasn’t there, of course. He’d have got an earful if she heard that.

Anyway there was a dead bird on the ground and it must have been there for ages, cause it was just bones and bits of, you know, gristle. And when I picked it up the head came right off and I thought, cool, I can bring this in for News! Then Mary-Alice turned up and I had to put the bird’s head in my pocket cause she’d have chucked a fit if she saw it.

On the way to school I thought up a limerick so I wouldn't have to lsten to Mary-Alice:

Mary-Alice lives next to the Hall
In a house that is ugly and tall
And she's trouble and strife
And the bane of my life
And I wish we weren't neighbours at all

I wrote it down in class while Mary-Alice was yabbering on about nothing to Mrs Mayhem, and Mrs Mayhem was waiting for a gap between Mary-Alice’s words so she could tell Mary-Alice to be quiet. Mrs Mayhem forgets that Mary-Alice can breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth at the same time. That girl’s like bagpipes. She can squeak all day.

Sascha says Mary-Alice only breathes in when she’s asleep, never out. She just stores away all that air so she’s got enough to last a whole day’s talking. Then she fills up again at night.

But I think she talks when she’s asleep, too.