My name is Sam

More unreliable narration (child’s perspective):
 My name is Sam, like the fireman, and 2 and a half days ago it was my birthday. I turned seven and we had a party in a hall round the corner from my grans house that smells like dairylea dunkers. I had a bouncy castle and the best present I got was from my auntie who always picks good things out of the big Argos book. It was an action man with a pet lion and if you press a button on the lion’s belly it roars. I wanted to take it in the bath but my mum said the water would break the roar. Brad came to my birthday party and gave me new felt tip pens. Brad is my mum’s friend. My dad goes on fishing trips sometimes and Brad comes to the house and he and my mum go to her room. I’m not allowed to go with them but I don’t care because I get to watch cartoons downstairs and I know that they are just reading silly grown up books anyway. One day when my dad got back from fishing he shouted at Brad and my mums face was red like when you get sunburn but it was just because Brad didn’t like the salmon dad brought back.

    My big sister Amber was at the party, too. Amber has a thing called depression. It makes her sad but I understand because depression is when you have a sore belly all of the time and when my tummy is sore I’m sad. Every morning when we’re eating our cheerios, my mum gives Amber two green and yellow sweets. Amber doesn’t get to keep them in her room in case she eats all of them at once. One morning I asked for one but I wasn’t allowed because she needs them to make her belly get stronger so that she doesn’t feel so ill all of the time. I think they must be quite magic and wondered if Harry Potter ever used them. Last Friday there was a programme on the t.v about depression and I said Amber should watch it but my mum turned the channel over and said I was to go to bed. I was only six then though, I know that’s why she didn’t let me stay up. A whole programme about bellies would have been boring anyway.
   Now I’m going to play with my action man. I called him William. I wanted to call the lion Brad because one day when Brad was here I heard noises like the lions roar coming from the room. That day they were maybe reading a book about cats.

- 2010