June 7, 1962
This is my own secret diary and it belongs to me and no one can read it or I won’t love them anymore.

Dear Diary,

I am mad at my Mom, but I can’t tell anyone cause they get mad at me. When I talk to my Dad he just shakes his head and tells me everything will be all right, but when I talk to God I don’t get any answer like that. I can’t talk to my Grandma cause tears get in her eyes and I’m afraid she’s going to cry and if she cries then I will cry too. My grandpa won’t listen cause he says he can’t hear me when I ask questions, but he can hear baseball games on the radio, so why can’t he hear me? No one will talk to me about my Mom.

That’s not all true. No one will talk to me about my Mom except my Grandma Prudie. She says in 85 years of living she’s seen and heard everything, so if I want to talk about my Mom she’ll listen. Even if I cry. Even if I scream. Even if I go sulk under the Bridal Wreath Bush for three days. She’ll be there when I want to talk again. She listens to every word I say and never tells me go away or I’m busy. Maybe when you’re that old, you don’t have anything to be busy with.

Now, Diary. You know my problem cause I’ve written about it before. Sometimes it helps to write and grind my pencil into my paper and let tears slide down my face and onto the lines so they get all blurry. And here’s I write again, and about the same old thing. My Mom is sick.

She’s been sick since the middle of third grade when she went into the hospital and now it’s June and she hasn’t come home yet. Sometimes I think she died and no one tells me cause I would be more sad and I would cry more than I do. Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t, but a kid my age ought to know what’s going on.

Grandma Prudie says it might not be so bad. That there just might be a happy ending. But when I ask her what the happy ending is, my Grandma shakes her head and says she can’t tell me. She promised my Dad. And even though Prudie thinks I’m old enough to know she says my Dad should be the one to tell me and not her.

But my Dad won’t. Even if I ask and beg and lock myself in the bathroom.

So that’s why I’m mad at my Mom and my Dad and everybody else, even Prudie because she knows and she won’t tell.

This is my secret diary and it belongs to Bo and no one can read it but me.

July 1, 1962
Dear Diary,

I am the happiest girl in the world. My Grandma and Grandpa and Prudie and I all sat in the living room like my Dad told us. He said he’s be home early. He was visiting my Mom in the hospital.

Then Dad came home and he was smiling big and he had something behind his back, but he wouldn’t let me see it. He said I have a nice surprise for you. Mom is feeling better and she sent me a Polaroid especially for you. And Dad gave me a brown envelope and told me to open it. Inside was a picture of my Mom and her hair was curly like she’d gone to the beauty shop and she had a gigantic smile and lipstick, too.

And then I looked at her nightgown to see if it was the pink one I had picked out for her when I went shopping with Dad. And she had on my nightgown, but something looked wrong. Her belly was all fat and I was afraid she had some sickness in there. Then my Dad said do you see that, Bo? Do you see Mom’s big belly? She’s growing a baby in there. She’s having a baby sister or brother for you. Isn’t that great? That’s exactly what he said.

But then I felt mad again and said they should have told me. Dad said that Mom and the baby had to rest and the baby had to get big and strong before she could be born. They didn’t tell me in case there was another problem cause she nearly died, but now every thing’s okay now. I want a sister. I hope Mom and Dad let me name her. I’ll name her Elizabeth Rose. Elizabeth because I could call her Betsy like my Betsy McCall paper doll and we’d be sisters named Bo and Betsy and then I’ll put in Rose because Mom’s favorite flower is a Rose.

I’m so happy I could jump up and down on the bed and sing and dance. I am a tiny bit sad because Mom has to wait for the baby to be born before she comes home and that might take awhile yet.

A baby sister. I can’t believe it. Elizabeth Rose.

This is my diary and if you want to read this story you can because it is a very happy story. It will make you happy.

Bo

ps. Dad read my diary tonight and he says I have to be happy with a brother even though I want a sister. But I get to name him. Dad said so for sure. I just might name him Bowser or maybe Buster. Ha! Ha!

I’m Manda and I write stories about my wacky family. Sometimes they are stories I read to my whole family after dinner. Sometimes, they’re secret stories and I lock them in my diary and hide them in a shoe box under my bed.

So here’s my family.  There are four generations and we live in an apartment in the city.  The street we live on is so busy, the traffic noise never stops.  It’s not so bad though.  You hear the same noise all the time, pretty soon you don’t hear that noise at all.  It’s plenty busy on our corner and I never cross 12th Street without hangin’ tight onto an adult’s hand even though I’ve been crossing streets back in Bowler since I walked to kindergarten.

Used to be it was only my Grandmas and Grandpa living here in the city apartment.  My family – me and Jeff and Ma and Dad – lived on the other side of Illinois in the best town.  Not any longer.  We had to move to the city, so we came to live with Ma’s family for awhile.

It’s plenty busy in my neighborhood. We are surrounded by a gas station, a car wash, a restaurant, a church, a drug store, a dairy and a paint store. Plenty of places for me to walk. I can buy an ice cream cone, a movie magazine, a bottle of soda pop, candy bars galore, a Chicago style hot dog, or six newspapers from all over the world, just by jumping off the stoop of our building’s front landing and walking a bit.

Grandpa says we are dang lucky because we have a yard in back. Big enough to have room for  flowers by the building for Grandma, and a little vegetable patch for Grandpa and a maple tree for me. There’s a shaggy lawn that always needs cutting, too. Mr. Stuckey, our landlord, he hates garden stuff, so Grandpa cuts the grass.  They got some sorts of a ‘rangement.

Now that I’ve told you where I live, I’ll tell you about my family.  Remember I called them wacky? Only because they are. Each and every one of them.

My great-grandma Prudie is really, really old and Dad calls her the matriarch of the family. (I call her Big Mama.) She says she likes being a matriarch, but I’m not sure exactly what the word means.  Something about being old and in charge because she’s a woman, but women aren’t hardly ever in charge.  Maybe in some women’s club.  Prudie is my best friend. My very best friend.

My grandpa is Smulling Reese Howard . (Smulling was his mother’s last name before she got married, when she was still a maid at the King’s Regency hotel.) I think Smulling is a pretty odd first name, but Grandpa would whoop me if I told him what I thought. Everyone who doesn’t pretty well know Grandpa calls him Howard Smulling or Howard Reese. Boy, does that send steam shooting out the bulges in his brain and I can see smoke whoosh straight outta his ears.

He had his eightieth birthday a couple weeks ago, and there was a real ruckus that day.

My grandma is Pearl Lee Howard and she’s married to my Grandpa Smulling. Obviously. They had  their golden wedding anniversary last summer, and it was some big deal.  We came in from Bowler and partied all day long and all night, too.

Pearl is Prudie’s only kid. When Prudie tells family stories about my Grandma being a little girl, she always ends by saying in a kind of singing-songing voice, “and one was enough!” Ha!
My family calls Grandma “Grandma,” even Dad.  Grandpa calls her Pearl or Wife, and Prudie calls her Pearlie (Pearl Lee, get it?) My grandma is sixty-eight. Dad says she got married young and that’s why she’s so young, and Grandpa got married kind of old and that’s why he’s so old.

My dad’s name is Dale Joe Johnstone. And he’ll come straight out and tell you, “My name is Dale Joe, there ain’t never been a Dale Joseph, and if there is one, I hopes I’ll never come face-to-face with the mate.” My dad and my grandpa are pretty particular about their names.

Dad works two jobs so he isn’t around much. Hospitals are really expensive, Jeff says. When Dad is home, we’re good buddies. My dad doesn’t want me to say how old he is, so I won’t. But Dad’s got four younger brothers and my youngest uncle is 36 and they were all born once a year, so you can figure pretty close if you want.

Mom’s name is Jeannie Lee. She was born a Howard, but she married a Johnstone. She’s been married to my dad just about forever. She’s been sick forever, too,  and she stays at the hospital sometimes, but I’m not supposed to worry.

That’s the reason we moved.  So we’d be close to her hospital.  I kinda miss her lots, but my grandparents take good care of me, so I’m s’posed to act grateful.

My big brother is Jeffrey Andrew Johnstone and he’s near 14.  He hates the city and he hates the apartment.  Last night he kicked the bedroom door and screamed, “I hate my whole life.” Boy, I thought he gone and done it, but he didn’t.  My dad stood up slow like his bones were all creaky, and he said, “Come along, Son.  Let’s go for a walk.”

Boy.  Then I wished I’d a kicked the wall and screamed first.  I feel like kicking and screaming, too.  If I’d gone and gotten mad,  I’d been the one out walking with Dad,

Finally I’m at me.  My name is Manda.

My full, entire name is Amanda Suzanne Johnstone, but no one calls me that except for my school teachers. I’m ten years old and I finished fifth grade last week. I got all A’s and Grandpa gave me a half dollar.

That’s all I’m gonna tell you about my family for now.  Jeff and I, we’re gonna walk to the park and feed the ducks. I named the biggest one Peabody. He’s like my pet, ’cause there aren’t any pets in my apartment.  All my grandparents, they all claim they’re allergic. I’ve got my own take on that allergic stuff, but that’s not the sort of think I say out loud. After all, I’m just a kid and I live with 5 adults.