It’s six weeks since the debacle began, six weeks since my sister put her devious, leg breaking, plan into action and I am still distraught that I have not matched her cunning. I had naively thought it would be over by now, that I would be up to my usual domineering levels of hijinks, yet here we are. The cast has been removed of course, that happened today, Daddy took me to work with him while Mummy and Hop-Along went to the hospital. I was told I had to be on my best behaviour as Daddy had a meeting. I got to sit with Amanda, she drew funny pictures of women in funky looking skirts, it made me laugh and I found it entirely possible for me to be on my best behaviour as I knew once the cast came off I would, once again, have free reign. After work we went to pick them up. I was quite happily looking out of the window and I must have fallen asleep because then I woke up to find they were in the car. I can hardly bring myself to talk about it. The leg, well the leg has been replaced by this fancy new robotic leg. I suppose the doctors figured out that her old leg was just pants so they chopped it off and now she is like a machine. I want a machine leg. If I had known a simple fall on the trampoline would get me a robot leg I would have done it years ago, but of course I can’t now because SHE got there first, and it wouldn’t be deemed original.

I tried to remain calm, I really tried. I asked nicely what was on her leg. Mum put on that sickly-sweet voice that she uses after we have thrown up all over our bedding, the one where she is trying to be all kind, but we really know she is stressing out. Mummy says the leg needed a bit of extra support, so she is in this leg brace for ANOTHER SIX WEEKS. Well I lost it then. Another six weeks. That is the entire summer holidays. I must be nice and kind for six whole weeks. Well it isn’t blooming happening. I told them, I shouted as loud as I could but then mum bought out this secret stash of dip-dip and carrot sticks so I had to put my screaming on hold for a while as I couldn’t chew AND shout. Better up my game tomorrow.

Saturday

So, the plan. I have had to be nice to her for about as long as I can muster and have had to relinquish my position of ‘being the youngest so I get the most attention’ for far too long, so today was all about bringing the attention back to number one. I woke well before dawn in a panic, just how could I go about this attention seeking business. I must be getting rusty. To my extreme delight however, some of the hard work had been done for me. Mum took me to see the nurse last week and she put some horrible great needle into me, witch, and, hurrah I had what mummy kept referring to as ‘a reaction’. She came in to my room with her strict ‘it’s not getting up time’ routine in place but then she went all sickly sweet again, feeling my forehead and giving me some of that yummy pink medicine. My arm had gone all red and hot. It did hurt but not QUITE as much as I led mummy to believe. She carried me into her bed like I was a baby and stroked my head until SHE fell back to sleep again. I kicked Daddy’s head for a while for fun and when he looked like he was going to go mental mummy murmured ‘leave it she has had a reaction’ score!!! If I had known it would get me some time in the parental’s bed I wouldn’t have called the nurse a big poo-poo head.

We were off to see Gramps today. Unlucky, the medicine kicked in, so mummy stopped giving me quite so much attention and instead SHE got it again. They were padding her leg with cushions and moving chairs to make sure she was comfortable for the journey. I got wedged between the fan (bringing it just in case the leg gets too hot) and a bottle of wine for the oldies. Oh, and in front of the dog so I got to listen to her vomming in her crate halfway down the A34, no one else seemed to notice. After the dog vommed I thought I would try it myself, I told them I felt sick, but mum just handed me a bag for life and told me to get on with it. I wasn’t sick, but it did make me extremely hacked off so thought I had better up the ante.

We got to gramps’ house and I proceeded to think of ways to hurt myself. Their house was far to safe and I was starting to struggle so turned on stealth mode, creeping up behind people when they were carrying dishes from the kitchen to the garden. At last, result! Mummy poked me in the eye! I threw myself to the floor like the world cup players did and it really seemed to have much the same effect. Mummy dropped everything to cradle me and apologise 699 times. Still, a poked eye really didn’t hurt that much and by leaving time it was back helping Hop- Along to the car.

After Gramps we went to see Grandma. Grandma and Gramps used to be married to each other but now they are not, they still live near each other though, so we get loads of ice cream from Gramps and then we drive down the road and get loads of ice cream at Grandma’s too. At Christmas we get more presents than ever! Mum seems to think divorce is something to be sad about, that woman needs to get her priorities in order.

We arrived at Grandma’s and I watched mum haul Hop-Along out of the car and my attempts were getting desperate. I searched the car park for anything that could break a bone and then the perfect solution just sprung from nowhere. With the parentals distracted I took the dog, wrapped her lead around my legs and then dived headlong into a convenient pile of nettles. It was beautiful, my whole body turned bright red, white pustule like lumps forming everywhere. I looked like a disease victim from Horrible Histories, my work completed. Of course, as soon as Grandma and my new Grandad saw me they scooped me up and told me I looked like a wounded soldier. Creams were bought out, blocks of ice. S and that bionic leg were so last year darling. Boom, eat that!!!!

Sunday

Disappointing. The nettle rash was gone when I got up. That was short lived, and the parentals woke up in bad moods. Apparently 5am is not a reasonable time to wake up. It’s not my fault they stayed up too late drinking wine, they will deny it of course, but I can always tell, Mummy’s breath always smells like horse poo the morning after. They all crept around for a while feeding me and the bionic girl waffles and orange juice in the hope it would keep us quiet. I made sure it didn’t work by running around the kitchen table 400 times until I thought I was going to puke on the new carpet. Mummy decided I needed a walk then. It was raining. I had almost forgotten what rain looks like and Mummy wasn’t prepared for it because all she had bought was my sandals. I was obviously still going to puddle jump in them which meant I ended up soaking and could use that as an excuse for daddy to carry me all the way back. I made sure I smeared the back of his head with mud.

Monday

At what age do mummies turn into grandmas? My Mummy is looking so old, she wakes up and has these big ugly bags under her eyes. I have noticed she takes these really long walks every evening, she says it’s because it is too hot to take the dog out during the day so she waits for it to cool down, but I think she does it because by the evening I have managed to say ‘mummy’ 5687355262373839 times in one day and she finds it so moving that I love her so much she needs to go out and have a little cry. She always looks a bit puffy by the time she gets home. The evening walks work to my advantage as I can get daddy to give me snacks on the pretence that I haven’t had any all day and then I can stay up late by pretending to have a tummy ache after too many snacks. He thinks he will get into trouble with Mummy then so sits in my room and reads me extra stories, so I go to sleep before Mummy gets home. Mummy has no idea.

My ‘ways to get the attention off Hop Along’ plan was largely unsuccessful today, although I did score a pretty good reaction when I tried to shove the Harry Potter wand up my bottom. Mummy screamed and removed it. Sadly, it is on the high shelf again now, but I might climb it tomorrow to see if it has the same effect if I do it again. It is the summer holidays, so I am going to get to sleep now so I can wake up even earlier than usual and use all those extra hours out of nursery to work out ways to get attention. Wish me luck!