The Bit with the Astronaut who is not Buzz Aldrin

Ok, so I am going to stay with Dexter for a week. I still have to go to school but I will be too busy with Dexter and all his toys to post anything until 25th September. So I will just tell you the last bit of the school trip story...the bit with the astronaut who is not Buzz Aldrin.


It is quiet, like everyone is holding their breath and they have stopped looking at the rocket and are now staring at Mrs Trundle. You could cook raw meat on Mrs Trundle's face. I mean she is RED and her mouth is a straight line and her good eye is bulging. She is nearly running across the hall, closely followed by Mr Chuckle and the cleaner. The cleaner is odd and she is now dressed in some sort of white boiler suit but I have no time to think abput this before Mrs Trundle is on me. Oh flip.
'YOU!!' she says.
I nod. 'Wilf,' I prompt.
'I KNOW YOUR NAME!'
Oops. Mr Chuckle is pointing upwards and the cleaner is grinning. I am glad she is happy.
'Perhaps it would be better if we moved...Mrs er, Trundle?'
She continues to explode. 'WHEN WE GET HOME YOU ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE...'
'Mrs Trundle...'
'SERIOUS TROUBLE...'
It is at that moment, the rocket comes back to earth, or rather to Mrs Trundle's head. The bottle bounces briefly on her hairdo and water trickles down her face.
The silence in the hall is horrible. I hear Mr Chuckle gulp. This is it, I think. I am going to die. Dexter knows it too. For once he sticks by me but the rest move away, waiting for the killer blow.
'Brilliant!!' says the cleaner, clapping her hands and laughing. She hands Mrs Trundle a hanky.
'You think so?' asks Mrs Trundle weakly as she daubs at her face.
'A clear winner!' she says.
I take a good look at the cleaner. She is someone I have seen before, on the TV, in the papers...and I realise - she is not wearing a boiler suit, it is a spacesuit!
'Well Helen, ' says Mr Chuckle, 'I think you're right. Would you like to do the honours?'
'Gather round, Wilf and his crew, come on!'
So Miranda, the Bug Club and Dexter and me shuffle together in front of Helen Sharman, the actual British astronaut and I can hardly take it in because I thought she was the cleaner. I blush.
'This prize goes to Wilf and his team, for great inventiveness under difficult conditions!'
She hands me a replica of the Apollo 10 command module. And then all of us grab an edge and hold it up for everyone to see.
'See you in space, Wilf,' says Helen and she winks at me.
And the hall erupts with noise.

Water Rocket Man

This bloke is a bonkers about water rockets and I thought afew folk might like to see just how far you can go with one. Follow the link if you want to take off.

'Wilf is Building a Rocket!'

This rocket is what the baby-children in the rest of the class were doing. They were screaming and jumping and throwing cardboard tubes in the air and generally not making a proper rocket. NO-ONE can see that propulsion is the key, like the cleaner said. If you get enough pressure you can WHOOSH yourself over the surface of the moon! What a dream!

Mr Chuckle has NOT come back and it is nearly the time to meet the astronaut. I AM NOT MISSING HIM. I decide no-one will notice me if I sneak back and don't touch any buttons or savage any insects and I make my way back to the basement. And there they all are, shouting and screaming in little groups dotted round a big white hall. Dexter is nearest to me and has been forced to make his rocket with Miranda and her Bug Club buddies. They are in a huddle on the floor, prodding at rocket bits; all except for Dexter who is pretending to read a book.
'Ten minutes to go!' yells Mrs Trundle from the far end. Good, she is busy with the Stupid Group. I remain undetected.
'Hello,' I say and bob down.
Dexter takes an interest again and picks up the plastic rocket bottle.
'You need to use this bicycle pump,' I say, picking it up.
'I knew that,' says Miranda and The Bug Club nods.
'Then you can put on this tube...'
'Yeah, that's right,' says Miranda.
'...And stick it to your bottle...'
Miranda opens his mouth. 'Shut up, Miranda,' says Dexter, 'Wilf is building the rocket!'
The Bug Club gapes. I wait for her to use her BIG voice but then she does not.
Instead she says. 'So, you escaped,' and she grins.
The Bug Club grin as well. I decide I have nothing to lose and I give grinning a go too. Soon we are all grinning like lunatics. I decide grinning is all very well but it will not win the rocket competition. I start pumping and the pressure inside the bottle is building up.
'Two minutes!' cries The Trundle.
'Stand clear!' I shout and the rocket flies, zooms, powers upwards.
And the rest of the class goes quiet and the only sound you can hear is the whoosh of the air and the pop of the plastic bottle hitting the ceiling.
'I could have done that,' says Miranda.
Yeah right.
Buzztastic.

'Streuth! What's Out There?!'

I know what my new club will be, 'The Aliens'.
It will be for believers only and I will be the leader.

'If the cleaner comes in here,' says Mr Chuckle. 'please ask her to go to the basement area, we'll need to clear away the rest of your insects.' I nod because that way my toungue stays in my mouth. 'I'll collect you later,' he says and closes the door, leaving me alone. Foolish mortal.
Mr Chuckle's office walls have lots of NASA photos of the moon and astronauts and I wonder which astronaut will be presenting the flight-competition prize to my class while I am stuck in here. I felt big coming in, like a hero but now I am just cheesed off. I look around for something interesting to do; there is all the usual officy stuff - shelves stuffed with boring-looking files, a computer and actually some nifty little fiddle toys for the desk. I pick up the nearest one, it is a spongy alien spaceship, with the words 'Streuth! What's out there?' printed on it; three tiny alien heads are pressed up against a window and they look a bit sick at what they are seeing, especially when you squeeze them. Then I fiddle with the pumpy-type rocket next which is a bad move as I pump it so hard it jumps off its stand and into the opening door. The rocket falls to earth with a nasty crack. A woman with spiky hair and large glasses comes in. She is carrying an odd looking vacuum cleaner - it is a box with tubes wibbling out of it.
'Have you seen Mr Chuckle... oh, is that your rocket?' she asks, 'I'm so sorry.' She bends down and hands it to me, grinning. 'Here, you'll have to work on its propulsion, I'm afraid. '
'I like your vacuum cleaner,' I say, taking the rocket remains. She says nothing just laughs as though I have made a big joke. I hate myself for noticing she has really white teeth. 'You have really white teeth,' I say. Bother, I said it out loud. 'And, it's not my rocket, I broke it.'
'Ah,' she says and looks at her watch. 'Well, I'm meant to be somewhere else...'
'Oh yes Mr Chuckle wants you to suck up some insects,' I am pleased I remember that.
She purses her lips. 'Does he? How bizarre...well, maybe I could help you, just for a minute or two.' She puts down her box. 'Why are you here anyway?'
So I tell her about Miranda and the insects and the rocket competition I am missing. And because her teeth are so white I somehow let her know how much I want to meet Buzz Aldrin. and before I know it we have mended the fiddle toy in a clever way. And she winks and says.
See you later, maybe.'
I hope so. Even the cleaners are brilliant at The Science Museum.



'

Bug Killer

Who can honestly love a fly?
Mum gets very upset if I kill bugs. She does not like to hurt any living thing, even flies. I am not mad, I do not sit and take wings and legs off like Sad Joshua Johnston but I will squash them if they bother me. Dad once bought a can of fly spray and Mum turned purple because not only was he destroying lives but he was also destroying the ozone layer.

'KILLER!!' yells someone and I have a fair idea of who is doing the yelling because she is scraping at my head with the plastic lid from the bug-prison box. 'You've let them all go, they won't survive here - you stupid, stupid bug KILLER!'
'Get off me!' I am not sure who I am shouting at, the bugs or Miranda. I do know it is very uncomfortable in the t-shirt area.
'Stop scratching, you'll squash them!' And she starts lifting my t-shirt. Everyone says, 'ooh!'.
Enough is enough.
I push her away and she falls back onto the ground. I notice Dexter has retreated to a safe distance and is busy doing nothing with his clipboard. The crowd steps back. Mrs Trundle steps forward. I swear the veins in her good eye are bulging.
'I do NOT believe this! You again! Can't I trust you for ONE SINGLE MOMENT?' and she definitely says that last bit in capitals. 'Did you bring these insects?'
I scratch at my arm. I look at Miranda. I am going to dob her in now and it feels sweet.
'I've squashed my centipede,' says Miranda and she is actually crying as she scrapes the insect remains off her skirt. 'He was my favourite.'
Or maybe it does not feel so sweet. I think about what Buzz would do in this situation. The crowd is holding its breath and I say.
'I brought them in, Mrs Trundle. I did not want them to be lonely without me.'
I am not even sure why I said this but there is a gasp from everyone and I suddenly feel very tall.
'Well now it is you who will be lonely, Wilfred. You are to go to Mr Chuckle's office and wait there until we go home.'
I stand. Miranda's mouth droops open. Dexter salutes me and I feel the eyes of the class on me as I march off with an unsmiling Mr Chuckle.

Miranda is Really for it Now

Mrs Trundle is not a pirate but she does have two things in common with the evil villain on the right. She has an eyepatch and she has a moustache. OK, her moustache is not a ginormous batlike thing but it is there and sort of wafts a bit when she moves her mouth alot (which is alot). Also her eyepatch is quite superior and has pretend diamonds on it. You may want to know how she came to have an eyepatch but at this moment you just need to know it had nothing much to do with me.

Miranda is really for it now. We are just waiting for the right moment. And this could be difficult because after the utter and complete disaster of the button pressing incident, Mr Chuckle and Mrs Trundle went into a huddle and Dexter and me are now under museum arrest (it is like house arrest but in a museum). Mrs Trundle is making it her total duty to make mine and Dexter's life a button free MISERY.
'Just look at the triangular window the astronauts looked through, Wilfred,' she says, pushing me and Dexter into the nearly real space capsule.
I make the mistake of not instantly looking at the window. I am too excited by the acres of sparkling silver foil.
'Look at it, then!' she says. Dexter goes to touch it. 'DON'T TOUCH IT!' she roars. 'Just mark it off on your worksheet, Wilfred and you Dexter! Now why was the capsule this shape?'
I move out to get a better look.
'Come back here!'
And it goes on and on like this so that one interesting thing after another is ticked off but not touched. It gets to the point when I don't know who I hate more, Mrs Trundle or Miranda and her smug bug club buddies. They are allowed to go wherever they like and touch whatever they want.
And then it is lunchtime and Mrs Trundle is forced to swivel her bulging eye (did I mention the eyepatch?) over other victims. We are force-marched down to a big space, near some toilets, where we cannot make any mess and everyone grabs a table and takes out what is left of their lunch.
And I spot our chance for revenge. Miranda has gone to the toilet with a swarm of girls. On the next table her pink fluffy backpack is open. Her precious lunchbox is there.
'I think she needs a few extras in it,' I say. I reach in and grab the little plastic box.
'Give it here,' says Dexter and he has a handful of earth from a ginormous potplant. 'Look at this,' he prods the dirt, ' there are ants here! big-uns!'
'Yeah,' I say, 'and they look hungry...tell me if she comes,' and I pull at the corner of the lunchbox.
It peels back a millimetre and gets stuck.
'Hurry up!' says Dexter.
I pull some more. The lid gives a little, I tug harder and it flies off and the box sort of jumps and 4 trillion creepy crawlies land on my face. Someone screams. I think it is me.

It Goes Round and Round and Round...

Fascinating Invention No. 6 - The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland

Strictly speaking (which is how The Parents speak ALL the time) The Falkirk Wheel is actually a big, huge piece of engineering but then someone had to sit down and invent it. Or stand up. Or maybe they were on one of those whirly teacup fairground rides and thought it would be fun to make lots of people go round and round in a boat. It was probably therefore invented by someone my age and his mum or dad just snatched away the doodle-drawing, saying,
'Oh that's a terrible idea! Nobody would want to spin round and round in a BOAT! How childish! Ha-ha-ha!'

And all the while they are thinking how they can rub out this bit and add a line or two here and a nice picture there and BOOM! There you have them impressing the boss with their idea for 'the world's one and only rotating boat lift'.
Or something like that. Anyway it is extreme. How it works is, it turns like the sails of a windmill and lifts and lowers boats in the gondolas at either end from one level to another, joining two canals called the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal.

It is one up on the whirly teacup ride but it could go alot faster for my liking.

See, it is REALLY big and curvy with giant cogs!

I created a Slide Show! Check it out!

My Summer Holiday - Part 1, Scottish Stuff

THIS is the approach to Fingal's Cave on the Island of Staffa. As you can see a number of us wore yellow oilskins because there was more water flying into the boat than going under it. One man is being sick inside the boat. The other man is about to be sick outside the boat.

So, Scotland is excellent on the whole. It has a good lot of bridges and boatrides and caves and an altogether buzztastic boatlift called, The Falkirk Wheel (more of which later). On the down side it has way too many old churches and gardens you pay to go into (how mad is that) and bagpipes of course.
You might be excited to know that we stayed in youth hostels. I was definitely excited because this meant I got to sleep in a bunk bed and The Parents did too. Dad moaned about not sleeping properly and then moaned about someone pinching his Special K cereal from the communal kitchen and then moaned and groaned on the coachdrive across Mull (mind you he was sitting next to a baby-child who threw up at least three times into a see through plastic bag). The driver took 1 hour and twenty minutes to reach the port on the far side of the island. After the second lot of sick Dad asked for the windows to be opened but the driver refused because he said, 'it will rain and there are cattle about'. Were the cattle going to poke their heads in through the open windows and feed on us? That's what my dad asked but the driver said something back in a foreign language and even I could tell he was not being nice to his customers. By the time we got to Fionnport it was actually pouring with rain and the driver said 'told you so' to dad as he stepped out of the bus and into a cowpat.
The journey across to Staffa was like the best water ride at Alton Towers and then some more. We actually BOUNCED all the way. The captain told anyone who was not a good sailor to sit ouside. There were even some giant yellow capes called oilskins to put on, so it was just like being inside my own little room for me but Dad does not like getting his beard wet so he stayed in the fume filled cabin and missed all the bouncing fun. I leapt off at the tiny island wanting to look inside Fingal's Cave but had to wait for Mum to help Dad off the boat. He looked greyer than normal and refused to run or even get up for a good ten minutes. This was very frustrating as the other people on the boat raced ahead along the basalt cliffs to get in the cave before we did. It was worth the wait. The cave is extreme, formed fast from volcanic rock it is tall and thin with bashing waves echoing inside the cliffs and visitors having to cling to the rocky sides because there is no barrier between a the narrow slippery ledge and a long drop to a watery death. Cool.
Nobody fell off the edge and the trip to Iona was less bouncy and dad spent less time in the in the toilet and more time telling me what fun I was having. So back to normal.

Holiday in Scotland

We are off to Scotland and then somewhere else for a holiday. We are coming back on 23rd August and I hope to report LIVE on an audioblog. Listen to this space.

Don't Press That Button!

Buttons are tempting things. Especially if they are big and red and say 'DO NOT PRESS EXCEPT IN EMERGENCIES'. I cannot imagine being one of those soldiers who guard nuclear buttons. I would just HAVE to press it.


Back to the trip. We have sorted out which alien we are and now Mrs Trundle is standing next to a very tall man who is nodding alot.
'I bet he's the astronaut!' I say, nudging Dexter. 'I wanted Buzz Aldrin of course but...'
'There are so many buttons to press!' says Dexter interrupting. He is making a little blue alien creature shoot back into his spaceship over and over again.
I am about to say I don't care when Mrs Trundle blows her whistle and the tall man sort of bounces and then tries to look as though he is not shocked at all. We all stand to attention.
'Class! This is Mr Chuckle...' (lots of sniggering) She glares and and death rays beam from her eyes. The sniggering stops. 'Thankyou. As I was saying, Mr Chuckle, one of the senior curators, will show us to the spaceflight exhibition and will be judging the rocket competiton.'
Not an astronaut then. We follow Mr Chuckle. He drones on about how much fun science is and how we are all scientists and he does not seem to notice the buzz as everyone talks about the type of rocket they are going to build and who they are going to build it with.
'We're not having her,' says Dexter, pointing at Miranda. She is bossing some bug club mates, clutching her plastic lunchbox and trying not to be with us. 'We should get Tom, he's got four packets of crisps for his lunch - he'll give us some.'
It is tempting. My lunchbox has a carrot, a wholemeal cheese sandwich and two apples. I could do with some crisps. But I wonder about Miranda with her own cool club and mostly bs in the quiz; maybe she's not such an alien after all, she could even be good at building rockets.
'She might be OK,' I say, 'a bit, anyway.'
'Bet she doesn't have crisps in that tiny lunchbox,' says Dexter.
Mr Chuckle moves to one side and there it is - Apollo 10. I stop, my mouth drops open, I put my hand out to steady myself. Someone crashes into me.
'You're in the way!' says Miranda, shoving me into the wall and the big square fire alarm panel.
I put up my arms to stop myself.
'Don't press that button!' I hear Mr Chuckle shout. 'Not that button!'
Too late. I feel the glass crack beneath my elbow. The alarm is deafening. Mrs Trundle's mouth is very wide and angry. Mr Chuckle is running and waving his arms. I decide then that I don't care if Miranda has a space module stuffed with crisps. It would not be enough.

What Kind of Alien Are You?

The Americans encounter loads and loads of aliens and get really good photos of them (see left) . In the UK we have seen a couple but maybe they are from a planet in a poor part of the galaxy and cannot afford such good spaceships. The Wilmslow spaceship (see below) was shaped like a dustbin lid and was a bit rubbish compared to the American one.
I have to talk to the only half-way friendly alien I know, Atyllah the Hen.



So we walk into the Science Museum as though we are glued together and...awe and wonder! You can almost smell the science in here. I turn to make Dexter have a sniff but he is busy pocketing the free leaflets. I look around at the others for signs of awe and wonder but they are all busy sharpening their pencils or swapping Yu-Gi-Oh cards. So, who apart from me is the only one with her mouth open, gawping? It's Miranda or maybe she's just spotted a very interesting fly on the ceiling.
First stop on our voyage through the Science Museum is, 'Alien Encounter'. Normally I would think, 'cool' but when it's written on a worksheet everybody thinks it must be rubbish. As it turns out we are wrong. In the, 'Alien Fiction' bit we see some really gruesome close ups of the actual Roswell alien autopsy. Miranda makes us look at ET.
'He's so sweet!' she says.
Then we look at alien creatures right here on earth and Dexter writes, "Miranda" on the worksheet list. But she does not take much notice as she is looking carefully at blow-up photos of evil looking bugs and saying,
'They're so sweet!'
The final part is the best. There is a quiz called, 'What Kind of Alien are You?' There are questions like -
You're thinking of visiting another planet. You choose your destination because:
a. It's a lovely colour
b. Its inhabitants are weak and poorly defended
c. Its culture, though inferior, is of some interest to your anthropologists
or
What do you call your spaceship?
a. Primrose
b. Destroyer of worlds
c. E=mc2

You get the idea. So Dexter and me end up with mostly bs. And Miranda, not girly a (what Dexter thought), not know-it-all c (what I thought) .
No, she is a b. Just like me.

Intermission - Cool Dads Don't Wear Socks with Sandals

A little break in the story to talk about something that happened today.
There is a competition in the newspaper my parents read. 'The Daily Dinosaur' is trying to find the nation's coolest Dad. In the kitchen, The Parents have left the paper open at the competition page. I glance at the rules while I have breakfast.

-draw a picture/take a photograph of your own dad (someone else's dad might be better)
-tell us in 50 words or less why you think your dad is cool

Normally I would not look at this impossible job twice BUT the prize is 'A Trip to Cape Canaverel!!!!!!!!!!!!' oh and a car.
I go to the loo and think. There is a copy of the paper in there. I trundle upstairs to my bedroom and find a paper lying against the door. Serena the cat runs past me yowling. I have to wrestle a newspaper out of her collar. I think the parents want me to enter the competition.

So I give it some thought. There is the HUGE difficulty of showing what my dad looks like because this really is going to put the judges off. He is a cross between Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the wino who lolls about on the bench near the post office. This is quite a good photo of him. It was taken as he was about to leave the house to go to a conference of dentists in Norway. Norway is very cool unlike Dad.

Uncool things about Dad
-he wears socks with sandals (cool dads never wear socks with sandals)



-he wears a vest all year round
-he carries a toothbrush in his pocket
-he argues with the TV
-he takes me to football practise (wait a mo, that's quite cool)
-he doesn't care what other people think about his shorts (also quite cool)
-he cycles to work with the spiderman helmet I bought him and THAT is cool
-he winks at me if I don't eat mum's vegetable medley - cool
-he tells cool funny jokes e.g. How did the rocket lose its job? It was fired! What do scientists use to freshen their breath? Experi-mints!

Maybe I will enter that competition.

Wanttogoto Places No. 1 - The Smithsonian Institution

Some time ago Science Fan told me about the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in the USA. I have never been but it is on my list of wanttogoto places. At the Smithsonian Institution there is a whole exhibition on Apollo 11 . In 1969 Buzz Aldrin went up to the moon though Neil Armstrong sort of stole the show and Michael Collins was there as well but he didn't get out much. Their mission was to get to the moon and get back again. While they were there they did loads of interesting experiments and collected 47 pounds of moon stuff. They were not looking for aliens as the moon is dead. Which is a shame.
And they even had time to jump about on the moon for a bit. Well two of them did. It makes me wonder, if you are going to go to all the trouble of training to become an astronaut, you would actually want to get out there and have a little walk about. So once the 'Eagle' had landed in the Sea of Tranquility, I wonder if there was a big fight about who was going out and who was going first.
If there was a big fight then Neil Armstrong must have won and he got to say, 'That's one small step for Neil Armstrong (big breath); one giant leap for the rest of you (cackle)'.
But of course NASA changed it to make it sound as though he got on with everyone and was thinking about the whole world and not just about being the first person to step on the moon.
Anyway what they found out was that they could really fly to the moon and get back again without dying. What I have found out is that at the Science Museum we are going to meet a REAL astronaut; a man who has been into actual space in a spacesuit. Buzztastic.

No aliens though.

School Party

School and party are two words which don't go together. The photo on the left shows just how much fun a party at our school can be. However some of the best party fun I've had was at Dexter's house when we were actually allowed to use long dangerous sticks to hit a fairy. It was a pinata fairy and it was his sister, Trixie's party and the party bags had little hairclips in them BUT hitting the fairy was quite a thing.

For the rest of the journey up to London Miranda read a book twice as big as her head. I wasn't going to read the title but since half the book was on my side, I couldn't help notice it:
'Big Bugs are Best!'
Of course they are. Especially when they are in a book written by your own dad which is really showing off. Dexter kept trying his best to contact me from his seat in the middle of the coach. But he is actually useless at throwing and the little balls of paper kept ending up on the back of the driver's head, causing him to swerve violently. This made Mrs Trundle have to stop the coach and be sick. There were cries of 'cheat!' and no fair!' from those of us who got the time of Mrs Trundle's sickness wrong. In the end I felt sorry for her. She didn't even have the energy to stand up and bellow.
So we arrive outside the Science Museum and as soon as the coach jolts to a stop, Mrs Trundle makes a miraculous recovery. I race to join Dexter and Tom and his mum. We stand in a big group, parent helpers and us lot waiting for orders.
'Stay with your partners please children! And stick to your grown-ups!' Immediately Dexter and me and Tom pretend to stick their heads to Tom's Mum's arms. She laughs and then stops when Mrs Trundle says, 'that is not funny!'
All the grown-ups give one another a look. Mrs Trundle holds up her clipboard.
'Now has everyone got their clipboards and worksheets?'
We all wave our clipboards up and down like Mrs Trundle is too hot and we are trying to cool her down.
'Alright, alright,' she says. 'Follow me - Wilfred! Dexter and Miranda! You're with me! Come along!'
We all slouch over to her and I'm sure I see a parent saluting.
'But I want to go with my friends, Miss,' whines Miranda.
'I need someone sensible, Miranda. To keep an eye on these two.'
Looks like she hasn't forgotten the last school trip then.

Going to the Most Interesting Place on Earth

I can reveal the big reason why Mrs Trundle is miserable - she gets travel sick. She's a teacher and she gets travel sick. I ask you. It's not as though we're going to travel to the unknown savage bits of the Earth (which would be quite fun) like Livingstone. And we're not going to make a long journey by boat or train or even bicycle. Part of the fun is trying to decide when she will be sick - she thinks we're paying attention, for a change.

I think you'll agree that I am going to the most interesting place on Earth - THE SCIENCE MUSEUM!!!! My friend, Dexter thinks so too and we are both a bit excited. But although he's my best friend and we're on the same coach, we're not allowed to sit together. I have been put next to the new girl, Miranda and she is miserable because she is separated from, 'The Bug Club' gang. I am also just behind our class teacher, Mrs Trundle and she is also miserable but grown up which is worse. Mrs Trundle cannot really believe in science or she would not have stopped Dexter and me experimenting to see which bits of Dexter's lunch would roll right to the front of the coach. Dexter only eats round things. Anyway, finally everybody is in their seats and the coach sets off. As soon as it does everybody reaches for their pack-up because you need to eat on a long journey.
'What have you got in your pack-up?' I ask Miranda.
'Nothing!' she says and grabs her very tiny plastic container, then hugs it and turns to the window. I can see her reflection as she squashes her face against the glass. I want her to turn round so I can see what she has in her box.
'If you push your nose harder against the glass,' I say, hoping to grab her attention, 'you'll look like my godmother's dog, it's called a pug.'
Miranda immediately shrunk her head back into her neck like a frightened tortoise. 'Oh shut up!' she shouts. I shrug. I don't understand what the matter is but then I never do according toMrs Trundle. I think they just don't understand me.

This is a picture of our coach. Our old headteacher was a coach enthusiast and he gave this one to the school when he retired. It was made in 1948 and Mrs Trundle said thankyou but I think she wanted something that didn't bounce about quite so much.

Buzz Newsflash!

It is my absolute dream to walk on the moon, in spacesuit like Buzz or in space like Buzz or work on a lunar module, like Buzz. Maybe I will start calling myself, Buzz.

Buzz Aldrin was in the UK! He went to a big party at Buckingham Palace, run by Prince Philip.This was all to do with him being so interested in keeping people fit. Course you have to be really fit to be an astronaut. It's important to start early, so I have a training list-

-play football every Wednesday after school with Dexter
-run around at school-ALOT
-jumping from the fourth step of the stairs every morning (next week it's the fifth)
-using the roundabout in the community playground to pretend zero gravity

I suppose I could include the yoga class Mum makes me go to but we don't do much except for breathing and crossing our legs . Anyway I begged The Parents to go up to London with me so I oculd meet him. But they would not do it. Granpa Jack came round and said that he'd met Buzz Aldrin. I said, "I know that but I haven't!"
He said if he didn't have an urgent appointment he would have taken me and that he would try and speak to Buzz on the phone. Hmm.
I am going on the school trip to the Science Museum soon. That's one good thing I won't miss but I don't think Buzz will hang around waiting for me to go to London.

A Bug Club!

I can't believe that Miranda already has a club. With members. Turns out her Dad is an entymologist which is a big way of saying bug hunter and he's always flying off to hot jungles to find the biggest bugs in the world. What a show off.

So, there's a new girl and she is called, Miranda. She came to the school at Easter and she is a bit of a girl. For example, she has an especially pink pack-up and a red spotty sparkly headband which lights up in the dark. I don't know about rugby yet. I do know that if a walrus could speak, it would sound like Miranda.
We are in the playground at playtime and she is looking at the ground.
'Probably looking for a hairclip,' says Dexter.
'Yeah, or a fairy,' I say.
So we go up to her and actually ask her what she is doing. She pushes her glasses up her nose and bellows, 'I'm looking for a red ant, I saw three at lunchtime and I believe there is a nest nearby.'
We take two steps back because her voice is so loud and she sounds as though she might bite something.
'You're looking for ants!?' says Dexter. 'But you're a girl!'
'What do you know?' she shouts 'My Bug Club is ALL girls!'
'What Bug Club?' I ask and I look around.
And that's when I notice there are quite alot of girls crawling over the grass holding onto Tesco bags.
'Caterpillars,' she bellows, 'lots of them and grasshoppers, if we're lucky.'
I am unbelieveably green with jealousy. A Bug Club! Dexter's mouth is opening and closing but nothing is coming out of it.
'Well, we've got a club!' I say, trying really hard to think one up, 'it's a really good one, isn't it Dexter-for boys!'
'Let's go,' says Dexter, 'Alex Stevens has got a new football.' And he runs off.
Miranda purses her lips and sneers at me. 'You don't have a club!'
'I do!'
The whistle goes for the end of break.
'Boys!' she says and pulls her cardigan straight. 'I prefer insects.'