Another excerpt from my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund"
Tuesday 12th April 1977
It was my 18th birthday two days ago.
I think an 18th birthday is quite
important. Ashley’s, for example, in December, was quite a highlight.
Ashley’s parents gave her a car. It is a tiny Fiat,
and it looks a bit like a hamster. It is really small and fat. It is so small
that her mother had it tied up in a pink ribbon! Ashley’s mother also gave her
driving lessons in their Daimler, so that Ashley just had to take a test and
then passed it straight away. So her driving classes cost almost no money
at all. Sometimes I was even in the Daimler when she was taking lessons and
I can tell you I also learned a lot. Ashley’s mother shouted at her all the
time, enough for me to learn everything as well, in the back seat.
This car benefits me too of course. We drive
everywhere in it. I think I’m in it almost as much as she is. For example,
Ashley picks me up in it to go to school and she brings me home in it; I just
have to give her half the petrol money. We feel really independent and
exclusive in this car. We just come out of school and everyone else has to go
and wait for the bus and there we are, our car. It’s right there.
