The Tutti-frutti Collection

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Skinny Melon and Me first published in Great Britain by Collins 1996 Becky Bananas: This is Your Life first published in Great Britain by Collins 1997 Fruit and Nutcase first published in Great Britain by Collins 1998

First published in this three-in-one edition by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2005

Text © Jean Ure 1996, 1997, 1998

Skinny Melon and Me Illustrations © Peter Bailey 1996, Chris Fisher 1996 Becky Bananas Illustrations © Mick Brownfield and Stephen Player 1997 Fruit and Nutcase Illustrations © Mick Brownfield 1998

The author and illustrators assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrators of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007198627

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007388707 Version: 2017-01-12

Skinny Melon and me have decided: we are going to keep diaries.

Skinny is going to start hers on Saturday when she has bought a special book to do it in. She says it is no use doing it in an ordinary pocket diary with spaces for each day as there will be times when we feel like writing a great deal and other times when we may not want to write anything at all, except perhaps what we had to eat for dinner. I agree with her but feel inspired to start immediately and so cannot wait to buy a special book but am using an old writing block with wide lines (I can’t stand narrow ones).

I think when a person is writing a diary they ought to introduce themselves in case it is unearthed in a hundred years’ time and nobody would know who has written it, so I will say straight away that this is the diary of me, Cherry Louise Waterton, aged eleven years and two months, and I am writing for posterity, in other words the future.

To begin with I suppose I must put down some facts, such as, for instance, that I am medium tall and neither fat nor thin but somewhere in between, have short brown hair and a fringe, and a face which is chubbyish (I think I have to be honest) and also round.

I know that it is round because I saw these charts in a magazine at the dentist showing all different shapes of faces, including heart-shaped, egg-shaped, diamond-shaped, turnip-shaped, square-shaped and round.

Mine is definitely round. Unfortunately. Round-faced people tend to have blobby noses, which is what I have got.

The school I go to is Ruskin Manor. It is not the school I would have chosen if I had had any choice. If I had had any choice I would have chosen a boarding school because I think a boarding school would be fun and also it would take me away from Slimey. Anything that took me away from Slimey would have to be a good thing. I did ask Mum if I could go to one but she just said, “Over my dead body”. She was really pleased when I got to Ruskin because it’s the one she wanted for me. She says all the others are rough.

Ruskin is OK, I suppose, though we have simply stacks of homework, which Mum needless to say approves of. On the other hand, I have only been there for three weeks so there is no telling how I might feel by the end of term. Anything could happen. Our class teacher, Mr Sherwood, who at the moment seems quite nice, could for instance suddenly grow fangs, or the Head Teacher turn out to be a werewolf.

I mean, you just never know. (The Head Teacher is called Mrs Hoad. What kind of name is Hoad? It sounds rather sinister to me.)

My best friend Melanie also goes to Ruskin. Her surname is Skinner and she is very tall and thin so I call her Skinny Melon, or Skinbag, or sometimes just Skin. John Lloyd, who is a boy in our class, said last week that we were the Long and the Short of it, but that is only because Skinny Melon is so tall, not because I am short.

Skin’s face shape wasn’t shown in the magazine. It’s long and thin, the same as the rest of her. Sausage-shaped, I suppose you would call it. Like a Frankfurter.