Chapter 2

Monday– way too early Mam burst into my room at seven o'clock this morning. I was appalled! Doesn't she know that growing kids need twenty-three hours of sleep a night in order to develop into well-adjusted adults? (Unlike her!) I read that in a magazine last month. (It was someone else's magazine, and I was two bus seats behind them, so there could be a chance I got that wrong.)

Mam said she was cleaning. The woman is POSSESSED! Actually the real reason for Mam's erratic behaviour was because the childminding inspectors were coming and the house needed to be immaculate. I reminded her they weren't due till after the Easter holidays, which was ages away. She ignored me, drew the curtains back and snapped,

'What are your pants doing on the windowsill?!' 'They need airing,' I mumbled, from under the pillow that I had placed over my head to drown out the noise of dusting. Really, I'd had to find somewhere to put the Easter eggs me and Dev bought yesterday. So I'd emptied a clothes drawer and put them in there. 'The neighbours don't want to see your disgusting undies,' said Mam. 'They'll think we're a bunch of scruffs!'

Well if they were 'disgusting' then I blamed it on the knackered old washer (not Mam, the washing machine). I got up to clear them away and spotted the rusty cement mixer and bashed-up scooter that Dad couldn't fit into his shed sprawled over the lawn. I pointed them out to Mam. 'Now that's what I call a pile of pants!' 'Don't worry, I've already had words with Dad about that eyesore!' said Mam. Oli woke up and started whinging about the noise, which ironically just added to the existing noise. (I have decided that when I get my own room I will have a huge party and invite everyone... except Oli). I opened my drawer and stared blankly into it. I was having a dilemma about how to fit my

drawers into my drawers! HA! HA! Then the doorbell rang. 'Who's got the nerve to go bothering people at this ungodly hour?' said my mother, who came into my room at seven in the morning to polish the radiator pipes with a cotton bud! 'Go and see who that idiot is and tell them to do one!' she said. I went downstairs and answered the door. It was Mrs Tatlock dropping the EVIL TWINS off early for childminding. 'Oh, hello, Mrs Tatlock, I forgot you were coming early today!' Mam puffed, racing down the stairs.

She was doing one of her weird toothy smiles. The Tatlocks are the best employers Mam's ever had, so she becomes uncharacteristically nice whenever they are round. The twins are also oddly well-behaved, right up until the very second their parents leave, then they turn our house into the Chester Zoo chimp enclosure. As soon as Mrs Tatlock had left and Mam had disappeared into the kitchen to make breakfast, EVIL TWINS were straight onto me. 'Gim-me choc-let!' snarled Ted.