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.