Artichoke Hearts Read Free

for me. All my days are the same,’ grumbles Ben.
    Pat completely ignores him, picks up her bag and starts to pack her things away. That’s it! Ben’s been dismissed.
    ‘Mira, would you help me gather up these papers?’
    Actually there’s hardly anything to clear up, but teachers always do that when they want a private word with you.
    Everyone leaves. They know the score.
    ‘I thought what you said about the present tense was fascinating. That passage you read . . . first time round I wrote the whole thing as a memory . . . I got to the end and it just
didn’t work. It took me ages to find out what was wrong, but it wouldn’t come alive until I rewrote it in the present tense.’
    ‘I find it easier to paint than write,’ I tell her.
    ‘Mira, we can’t all be talkers. Think of writing this diary as painting a portrait in words. Make a start in the present tense, if it’s easier for you, but you can be sure that
before long the past will creep its way in there somewhere. Even at your age, there’s plenty of past. Right then! See you next week.’ She waves me off without looking up.
    As she walks out of school, she leaves a trail of dry mud behind her.

 

    It’s a weird thing, a diary, isn’t it? I mean who do you talk to? Yourself? I suppose . . . but that just doesn’t feel right. The only way I can think of to
do this diary thing is to imagine that I’m talking to someone else. But what kind of someone could I let in to the mixed-up mind-maze that is me, Mira Levenson? I’ll have to imagine
that I’m writing to a friend, a best friend like Millie. The strange thing is though that I used to be able to tell her anything, but recently – I don’t really know why – I’ve
started to keep some things to myself . . . secrets. Perhaps the thing is not to think too much about anything, but just start writing and see where it takes me.
    OK, here goes. Facts are the easiest . . . start with the facts. I’m twelve years old today. Twelve years and four hours old. I was born at seven o’clock in the morning. So, to be
exact, twelve years, four hours and twenty-two minutes old. My twelve-year-old self is neither tall nor small, neither skinny nor ‘plumpy’, as Krish calls Laila. My twelve-year-old self
has long, dead-straight black hair, and dark brown eyes that my dad says sometimes turn black with emotion. My skin’s brown, but not dark enough to hide my blushes. Looking in the mirror,
which I do quite a lot recently, I would say I don’t love myself (my teeth have come down a bit wonky), but I don’t really mind how I look. My nana calls me a ‘beauty’, but
she would, wouldn’t she?
    Like I said, facts are easiest, but none of this really says very much, does it? Maybe words just aren’t my thing. Give me a paintbrush any day. My school reports always say stuff like
‘Mira now needs to work on building her confidence and contributing to class discussions’. Now that is something I really hate to do. The main thing about me is whenever I go to
say anything in class I blush up bright red so that before I’ve even opened my mouth, everyone knows how embarrassed I am, and after that I just clam up and lose the will to live. The mad
thing is I actually can’t stop thinking. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things like . . . how I’m going to get through a lunch hour if Millie’s not around . .
. and, well, I suppose I can say it here, can’t I? Since Pat Print’s writing class I have mostly been waking up thinking about Jidé Jackson’s smile.
    I’m a doodler and a daydreamer and a night dreamer. The last few weeks it’s been nightmares mostly, really bizarre stuff that freaks me out. Actually, I’ve
been feeling a bit strange lately – it’s hard to say exactly how, but it feels like I’m walking a tightrope. I’m not sure what it is I’m going to fall off, but it definitely
feels like I’m about to find out.
    I am sitting in my Nana Josie’s flat