Alice By Accident. Lynne Banks Reid

       SCHOOL NOTEBOOK MY LIFE by Alice Williamson-Stone

      I am nine years and six months old and my name is Alice Elizabeth Williamson-Stone. I am medium tall with very long brown curly hair that I wear in a pigtail and dark brown eyes. I was born in Brighton and I lived there till a year ago. It’s a lovely town with the Lanes and the pavilion which we visited twice with our school and the sea and the peer with a funfair on it and my favourite restaurant Pinocchio’s and the marina where you can tickle flatfish and I wish we were back there, I don’t like London as much (in some ways).

      My mum is a professional single parent. I liked it better when she was on benefit cos she was always at home but Mum says she likes to work and at least she’s got a good job and makes some money. Not that we feel any richer, we still never seem to have any to spare. Mum’s always saying “You have to make hard choices if you’re a single parent.

      This is embarasing but I’m going to write it. When I was little I asked Mum where I came from (!!) and she said I came by accident. Then for quite a long time I used to say when I met people, “Hello I’m Alice, I came by accident.” They used to give me very funny looks and Mum told me perhaps I shouldn’t say that and I said why, isn’t it true? Mum never tells lies to me. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know what came by accident ment then. I think I thought an accident was some kind of car or train or something that brought me!!!

      Then I noticed that when people said accident it was usually something bad. Like a girl in my nursery class peed in her pants and the teacher said she’d had an accident. When I was staying with Gene (my grandma) once I knocked over a glass of orange juice that went on the table and dripped cold all over my legs and I was scared she’d be furious but she said, never mind it was an accident.

      Then one day me and my mum saw a crowd in the street and she said don’t look, there’s been an accident. I asked what she ment and she said someone’s been knocked down by a car. I started crying and she said what’s wrong, and I wouldn’t say for ages but then she made me, and I said, accidents are bad I don’t want to be an accident, and she hugged me hard and said there are different kinds and you’re the good kind. “You’re a happy accident.”

      Later when I knew more, I figgered out that accidents are what happen when you’re not expecting them and I said to Mum didn’t you expect me? And she said, well I certainly knew you were coming. And I said, so how was I an accident? She said, “because I didn’t plan you. I said didn’t you want me? Then I got scared of what she’d say. And she said no I didn’t, not at first. But when you were born and I held you I wanted you more than anything. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I said, you mean the best accident and she hugged me and larfed and said yes.

      After that I didn’t mind being an accident but I stopped telling people I was because Mum said it was private and now I go really red when I think I told people that.

      But lately I’ve found out it’s not so good to be any kind of an accident whatever my mum says. It’s mixed up with me being an accident that we lost Gene. That’s my grandma who liked me to call her by her first name because she said grandma made her feel old. At least that was part of it.

      I can’t hand this in. I’ll have to tear the pages out and that means pages drop out of the back. I wish Brandy (Miss Brand, our teacher) had asked us to write a made-up story because I love making up stories almost as much as I love drawing.

      It’s just so stupid, asking us to write our lives for homework. It’s not even a weekend!!! I remember enough things in my life to keep me writing for about a million hours. I don’t write fast because my grandma muddled me up about writing, trying to teach me cursive. Just telling about that would take half an hour.

      When I moaned about the homework, Brandy said she hadn’t ment we should write our whole life story. She just ment the main things, like what we look like and where we were born and about our homes and families and pets and stuff. I said all my pets died and I don’t know my family exept my mum. Miss Brand said what about that famous grandma of yours and I felt a pain inside as if I was going to cry and I said “I don’t have her any more.” Miss Brand said what Alice don’t tell me she died too, and I didn’t say anything but I wanted to say no she’s not dead, only to us. But I couldn’t write about that because it’s private. Mum says I should never write about private things for school and she thinks nearly everything that happens out of school is private.

      But I like the idea of writing about myself. This that I’ve written so far is for myself. When I’ve torn it out I’ll selotape it into an old notebook from my old school. I’m going to watch The Simpsons now and then start my homework again in my proper book.

      Later. The Simpsons was brilliant. I love Bart but my favourite is Lisa. I love her being so clever when Bart is so stupid (but he isn’t really, for example he saved his aunt from being murdered) and I love the long words she uses. Lisa I mean. I could write for hours about The Simpsons. Describing every single episode. It’s not just for kids. Mum keeps larfing and won’t tell me what the joke is especially when Homer and Marge are in bed.

      I