The problem with Rosebud and her really talking was that our other dolls could pretend talk, and that was better. Our collection of dolls (who mostly had some disadvantage like one arm or leg, or were animals rather than being humanoid) had epic adventures surviving after nuclear wars or rescuing dragons from evil princesses. Battered old Pippa, with her one arm and her ragged hair (Mor cut it when she was disguising herself as a soldier) could stand there vowing defiance and revenge against the evil Dog Overlord (the toy dog had a moustache which could be twirled, so he often got the bad-guy parts) and Rosebud couldn’t compete when all she could say was “Let’s play schoo-ul.”
I don’t want a karass like Rosebud.
I mean I don’t want a karass like Pippa and Dog and Jr. and the others either, so this isn’t a very good analogy. (I do not miss my toys. I wouldn’t play with them anyway. I am fifteen. I miss my childhood.) Jr. was a plastic boy on a motorbike, one of our few human male toys. His name came from Ward Moore’s “Lot.” I thought it daring and American to have an odd name like that with no vowels. We pronounced it Jirr. I was mortified for whole minutes when I found out what it really meant.
When Hugh mentioned that Wim had done a session on Delany, my first thought, my very first thought, though I know I didn’t write this down yesterday but that’s because I was ashamed, was that I could do a magic to make that not have happened yet. I could do a magic that would mean he’d do it so I could be there for it. I didn’t do the magic, or even really mean to, but I thought it. If I did it, I’d be making them into Rosebud. I’d also be risking what happened to George Orr, because so far, I might have made it all happen but I might not. I didn’t see it without. It could have been there all the time. If I didn’t exist, or if I had died with Mor, they could still have had a session on Delany. Maybe all the magic did was make me see the group was there and find them. I can’t tell. I won’t ever be able to tell. Deniable magic. If I did that, I really would be treating them as Rosebud, to say the same things when I pulled a string. And that’s if I even could do that. I think actually I couldn’t, it would do that thing Glory talked about where too many people create too much weight and you can’t change what’s happened.
But even thinking about it.
I don’t want to be evil, I really don’t. The worst of anything she could do to me would be to make me like her. That’s why I ran away. That’s why the Children’s Home was better, why this is better.
I hereby solemnly swear to renounce the doing of magic for my own benefit, or for anything but protection against harm.
Morganna Rachel Phelps Markova, 16th December 1979.
MONDAY 17TH DECEMBER 1979
I hadn’t realised that with the exams over this week would be given over relentlessly to fun.
In English, I played Scrabble with Deirdre. I beat her by 600 points, but it wasn’t any fun. It would be a good game with someone who could spell and had some vocabulary. I made “torc,” Celtic necklace. She suggested shyly that it should be spelled “talk.” Then we played Snakes and Ladders, which she won.
Apart from that, I’ve been reading pretty much all day, generally in the middle of complete pandemonium.
I’m onto The Grey King.
There’s a thing in The Dark Is Rising, the Christmas one, which is definitely the best of them, where Will does magic in a church, and the vicar asks about the magic crosses and they say they’re before Christ, and he says “But not before God.” The magic generally is pretty well written but conventional, the battle of Dark and Light, and you learn it from grimoires and then you can fly and time travel and whatever you want. Nothing like magic really is, much less confusing. In children’s books with magic everything is always very black and white, though not of course in Tolkien. But “not before God” made me think.
TUESDAY 18TH DECEMBER 1979
Exam results, Winter Term 1979
Chemistry: 96%—2nd
English Literature: 94%—1st
English Language: 92%—1st
History: 91%—1st
Physics: 89%—1st
Religious Education: 89%—1st
Latin: 82%—1st
French: 79%—2nd
Mathematics: 54%—19th
Gym: excused
Games: excused
Dancing: excused
Average: 85%—3rd
I just don’t have a mathematical brain, I never have. But at least I scraped a pass. I was afraid they were going to give me a zero for gym and games and dancing and then count them into my average. Gill beat me in chem. Good. And Claudine beat me in French, which isn’t surprising as her mother is French. She pronounces it, which none of the rest of us know how to do. They should have Claudine teach the class. The maths brought me down more than I was expecting, so Claudine and Karen are both ahead of me overall. But it’s otherwise pretty good.
I wish I could show it to Gramma. Grampar will be pleased, I expect everyone will be pleased, but it isn’t the same.
I had a letter from Auntie Teg this morning. She’s very upset indeed about me not coming home for Christmas. I did already say it wasn’t my fault. I wish I could go.
Deirdre rushed out of the room when she saw her marks. I’m assuming they’re terrible. Shagger’s fourth. She deigned to say “Well done,” to me, which is the first thing she’s said to me for ages.