Read Online The Bad Karma Diaries by Bridget Hourican - Free Book Online Page B

she says, the blog isn’t a notice board. I agree!
    But I said, ‘Tommy knows …’
    She said it was okay for Tommy to know. He wouldn’t tell. Tommy is her favourite person in her family. Probably her favourite person in the world. Well, no, it is a toss-up between him and Charlie, I guess, but Charlie is only two, so he can’t really be a favourite person . He is more like a puppy-dog.
    Still haven’t thought what to do to Jayne O’Keeffe yet.
M ONDAY O CTOBER 19 TH
    Went to Anna’s after school to work with Declan on our blog. Not in the kitchen, of course. In Tommy’s bedroom. Declan and Tommy actually laughed at what we’d put up! Me and Anna exchanged glances and squirmed with excitement because they are our first audience, and they found it funny.
    Tommy said, ‘Very funny.’
    I said, ‘Yeah, well, we were copying the other blogs.’
    Declan said, ‘That’s obvious. You’ve been copying blogs bypeople who can’t speak English.’ He laughed.
    I looked at Anna, a bit embarrassed. Now we knew why they all wrote like eight-year-olds exclaiming! Maybe this wasn’t cool? But Tommy said, ‘It’s cool. Look, it’s better than coming across all earnest.’
    ‘Oh yeah,’ said Declan ‘it’s hysterical.’ But then he looked at the photos of the party, ‘I’m not sure you can show these,’ he said ‘not without permission. I’m pretty sure you can’t just put photos of other people’s kids on the web.’
    We were disappointed about this. But Declan had a look at some of the photos and said he’d photoshop them. He’s gonna blur out the kids’ faces and blow up the birthday cake, cause apparently you’re allowed to show other people’s kids’ birthday cakes on the web. But he said next time to take photos without kids, or just with bits of kids, a leg would be okay, or a little hand reaching for cake, because all kids’ legs and hands look the same.
    Then Declan started playing round with the design – changing the background colour and moving round the photos and asking did we like the letters this size? Or like this? Or this? To be honest I couldn’t see much difference, they seemed small unimportant changes, and his questions were giving me a headache.
    We went back down to the kitchen and Anna’s mum asked if I wanted to stay to dinner. Which was great! So I phoned Mum to ask and she said no! I couldn’t believe it.
    I said, ‘But Mum …’ and she said, ‘No, Denise, we want you home for dinner.’ And I couldn’t start arguing over the phone in Anna’s house, so I had to just say ‘okay’ and hang up, and then explain in as normal voice as I could that I wasn’t allowed. I don’t know how normal my voice was though, because I was raging.
    But Anna’s mum said, ‘Well, it’s a school night, I do see your mother’s point.’ She has a very soothing voice. Maybe this is because of her job. She has to talk to mad people. Probably they need soothing.
    When I got home I said, ‘How come I couldn’t stay for dinner?’ in a quite reasonable voice, I thought, but Mum said, ‘I’m not starting a fight over this, Denise. You spend quite enough time in Anna’s. I’m not having them feed you as well.’
    I thought that was crazy. ‘They don’t mind,’ I said.
    ‘Well, I mind,’ she said.
    I had a good answer to that. I was gonna say, ‘It’s not about you ,’ because it wasn’t, but before I could get this out Dad said, ‘That’s enough now, lay the table,’ in a warning voice and I decided to swallow my words instead of having a big old row and being sent to my room and not getting fed.
    They are definitely stifling my freedom of speech and I am letting them.
    I decided the only way to get back at them without getting into trouble was to sulk and not speak through dinner. I wanted to point out that we were just eating boring old chicken whileat Anna’s they were having an exciting pink soup called boar-shsh or something like that, but I managed not to comment on