Every time while and after I am reading a good book I think that I am going to write one too. I take on the authors way with words in my head and I concoct long detailed paragraphs which I then promptly forget and never write down. Sometimes (often) I wish that I had a computer built into my brain so that I could record all these stupid little stories and they wouldn't just fly away the way they do. Sometimes I wish a lot of things.



I was about six when I wrote my first 'book'. I made up a story about a cat and drew pictures to go with it. I stapled it all together and showed my sister and told her that I was going to send it to a publisher. She laughed at me and told me it was stupid and so was I so I took the book into the kitchen and opened the firebox and stuffed it in on top of the glowing coals. I sat on the red and white checked linoleum floor and watched all my dreams burn away and disappear up the chimney. I hated my sister.



At school I decided that I must be retarded and that it was a secret that everybody knew except for me. I thought maybe I was a 'spastic' like a boy who was a son of one of my mother's friends. I felt sorry for him because I knew that the other kids laughed at him. When he came to my house I tried to play with him but he had trouble controlling his arms and legs and I was frightened he was going to hurt himself and it would be my fault. I was pretty clumsy too and I could never do all the things that the other kids could do. It never occured to me that this was because I was four years younger than my sister, it just confirmed to me that there was something seriously wrong with me. I snuck back into the schoolroom at lunch time one day and looked all through the teacher's desk because I was sure there would be papers in there about how to teach a retarded child like me. I never found anything but I wasn't convinced. I decided that if I could make myself smart I wouldn't be retarded anymore, so I started trying to speed read because I had heard about it somewhere. I could read an entire page in 1 minute. I proudly told the teacher so he sent me outside onto the verandah with a page of text and timed me. I read it no problem but then he quizzed me as to what it had been about. I had been so excited about my amazing reading talent that I had forgotten to remember anything that I had read. The teacher called me a liar and smacked me infront of the entire school. There were only seven kids in the school but that just made it even more embarrassing.



Every day at school I got a smack. I think the teacher just started smacking me before school began because he knew I would be naughty later anyway. It was usually because I hadn't done my homework or had got my spelling wrong. Even though I was always getting hit I was still completely terrified of it but it seemed the more I tried to avoid it the more nervous I would get and the more mistakes I would make and therefore get more smacks. I wanted the teacher to like me so much I was still always nice to him and got really excited when my family would have him over for tea. My grandmother always cooked crumbed brains when he came to eat. I am sure they made him gag but my siblings and I would always insist we had them as we were sure that eating them would make us smart and impress the teacher.



There was a school reunion a few years ago and apparently that teacher was there. I didn't go and although I wish I had seen my classmates, I am not at all sad that I didn't see him. He was my teacher for four years. I started school when I was only four years old. Then I thought it was because I was so advanced for my age. I could spell 'blue' and I was sure this was something that the teacher wanted to hear repeatedly all day, every day. In truth they let me start school early because there was another boy due to start grade one that year and it would be easier for the teacher to teach us both at once. I also think my Grandmother was relieved to be getting rid of me. My mother wasn't really interested in children so my Grandmother was my full-time carer. I completely and utterly adored her. I think I almost smothered her with my desperate need for her love.



My Grandmother's birthday was last week. She would have been 106. She died when she was 97. I still miss her every single day.



In the afternoons after school Grandma would nearly always be baking. She had a 32 volt mixmaster and we had to switch the generator on so that she could use it. I was always fighting with my sister over who would get to lick the bowl. I would stay in the kitchen the whole time and 'help' Grandma, getting the things from the cupboards and drawers and licking everything as soon as she finished with it. Meanwhile my sister would do something annoying like throw a tennis ball against the wall outside or draw pictures of cats. She could always do everything so much better than I could, it drove me insane with jealousy. It didn't seem really that fair to me that although I had been the one 'helping' my sister still got to lick the bowl half the time. I realise now that my sister was more jealous of me because I got so much of Grandma's attention. One time she told me that I was stupid loving Grandma so much because soon she would die and I would be all alone. I believed her. I hated my sister.



My sister told me that the powdered milk that we mixed up for the poddy calves was poisonous. I was sure I was going to die because I had been eating a little bit of it. I started washing my hands every few minutes and spitting constantly so that I couldn't be poisoned. I stopped eating and spat almost everything out when no-one was looking. One afternoon the mailman arrived for his regular cup of tea as we were the last on his day long 300 mile mail-run and as I walked out to the front door to welcome him in, my knees gave way and I slumped to the floor. Everything was in slow motion and next thing I knew I was sitting in a chair being given a cup of milo. The mailman said I looked malnourished so a few days later my mother took me to the doctor in town sixty miles away and he said that I was anaemic. I had to take a teaspoon of horribly bitter black medicine twice a day. My sister told my Grandmother that I hadn't been eating and I got in trouble. I decided I would rather be poisoned than have to take any more of the horrible black medicine but even though I got better really quickly my grandmother still made me take two entire bottles of the stuff. I will never forget that horrible taste.



After that my sister told me that there were aliens in the sky in spaceships that looked like big silver 44 gallon drums. We had 44 gallons drums everywhere so I got really frightened and was sure they had landed and were coming to get me. My sister said that they grabbed little kids and took them away and chopped them up and did experiments on them. Of course, I believed her. I spent the next few years hiding in the cupboard if I was home alone and refusing to be left by myself, ever. I hated my sister then but now I just feel sorry for her.