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Found on the shores of The West Midlands. The Coventry Conch tells the tale of a young girl's experience growing up in Coventry in the 1990's.

Sunday 22 February 2015

THE TALENT SHOW





11am
I am on holiday in Majorca. Mum and Dad are going to the beach on their own today, and they are leaving Jenny, Josh and me at Squids Club.

Squids Club is a big shed by the swimming pool, where all the kids who are on holiday get left by their parents. I don’t like it, because it is basically the same as wet break at school. You get some weird broken toys out, and the Holiday Reps make you sing songs about finding a peanut or losing a meatball, that last the whole morning.

12pm
The rep, Rachel, lets us go in the pool, because a drunk person was sick in the club shed last night, and Nico, the pool man, is cleaning it up.

Jenny and me are playing a game called: ‘Who Can Look The Most Dead?’ We hold our breath and float face down in the pool. Jenny gets out of the pool and comes back in with her t-shirt on. She says that this will make it look like she fell in and drowned on her way to get an ice-cream. Jenny wins, because Rachel runs over to see if she’s ok, and we get told off for giving her a scare.

1pm
We’re allowed back in the club shed, which stinks of bleach and sick. Rachel tells us that there is going to be a talent show this afternoon, and Nico is going to be the judge.

We are put into groups, Me, Jenny and Josh are with two boys from a place called Liverpool. Jenny thinks we should do a magic show, but I want to do a play about the Tudors. I tell Jenny that everyone will do magic shows and we should do something different.

2pm
We decide to act out a Tudor beheading and have started rehearsing outside. Jenny is worried, because everyone else in the Club Shed is singing Spice Girls songs, or dancing.

I’m Anne Boleyn, the Liverpool boys are the guards and Jenny is the executioner. Josh doesn’t understand acting, so he is going to squirt everyone with a Super-Soaker, when I fake my head being chopped off.

3pm
Rachel comes over to watch our rehearsal. Afterwards, she asks if we’re sure we don’t want to sing a song, and tells us she has ‘Saturday Night’ on tape, which she could teach us the dance to. 

4pm
Mum and Dad are back from the beach and are sat in the audience, outside the Club Shed. It is the hottest day of the holiday, and Mum is using a battery powered mini fan I bought from the beach shop.

After two lots of Wannabe and a magic show, it’s our turn. I give my best performance ever. I’m really loud, and when I put my head in my t-shirt, I walk around like a zombie for a bit then collapse, which I didn’t do in rehearsal, but it worked.

When we finish everyone is quiet for a while, then Nico cheers and some people start clapping.

5pm
We only get third place, but I'm happy because Nico said I should win an Oscar, and Mum says she’s completely speechless. 

Dad buys us a big ice cream with sparklers to celebrate.




Sunday 8 February 2015

MR FRIDAYS





8.30am
I told my mum last night, I’m never eating anything from our local shop ‘Mr. Friday’s’ ever again. Here is my list of reasons:

1.  My cousin Leanne said that Mr. Friday opens all the bags of Walkers crisps to find the blue packets   that have the prizes in, and then closes them back up with Pritt Stick. Leanne knows this, because once Mr. Friday got the crisps mixed up, and she found a roast chicken flavour crisp in her bag of salt and vinegar. He also has a new van; Leanne says he bought with all the fivers he found in the crisps.

 2.   Mr. Friday has magazines with naked women in at the back of the shop, and my sister Jenny says these are against our beliefs.

3.  Natalie from my class told me Mr. Friday is a wanted criminal in Leicester, and he had to cross the border into Coventry, so the police couldn’t get him.

Mum says she respects my decision, but she is not going to stop shopping there, because she can’t get to Tesco when Dad is working away. I hate it when Dad works away; he never goes to Mr. Fridays.

We’re running late for school, because we’ve lost the hairbrush again. We can’t find it, so mum uses one of my little brother’s Stickle Bricks instead.

11am
It's break time, and I’m eating a packet of Bombay Mix that I bought from the tuck shop. My cousin Amy is at the dentist, so there isn’t anyone to hang around with, apart from Mr. Haywood, the caretaker. I ask him if he wants the green bits in my Bombay Mix, but he says, ‘No thanks Holly!’. He finds me a brush and I help him sweep up for a bit.

12.30pm
Mum has sneaked some Bobby’s Spirals into my lunch box. I know they’re from Mr.Fridays, because they have a sticker on saying Mr. Fridays. Luckily, Amy’s back from the dentist, so I swap them with her Tomato Snaps.

3.30pm
Mum picks me up and says she has to get dinner from Mr. Fridays on the way home. She says I can eat the Cornflakes left over from the selection box for my dinner.

 Just when I think things can’t get any worse, we see Tom from my class and his mum walking in front of us with a dog. My mum catches up with them and says, ‘Is that a new dog Tom? What’s its name?’

Tom says ‘Holly’, and mum asks, ‘Did you name it after my Holly?’

Tom says ‘No!’

4pm
I’m waiting outside Mr. Fridays with my brother Josh in his buggy. Mr.Friday waves at us through the window. Josh waves back, but I pretend to check my shoes for dog poo. I feel bad, because Mr.Friday always smiles at me and says ‘Hello’, on my way back from school.

6pm
I’m starving and think I might die. All I had for dinner was a mashed up choc ice with some Cornflakes in, because the milk was from Mr.Fridays. Everyone else had mum’s special pizza toast.

7pm
I start to cry, because I think I can’t survive without any food from Mr.Fridays. Mum gives me a hug and says she’s saved me some pizza toast in the oven, and that Walkers wouldn’t let Mr.Friday get away with gluing crisp packets back together, and Pritt Stick isn’t strong enough anyway.  

I decide to carry on eating stuff from Mr. Fridays until I have a job and a car in ten years time, and can go to the big Tesco.