Free Daisy and the Trouble with Life by Kes Gray Page A

bucket.

    The trouble with buckets is the more you fill them, the heavier they get.

    When buckets are really heavy, you can hardly carry them at all. Heavy buckets do things they’re not meant to do. Which isn’t your fault. One day I was helping my mum clean the car and I filled our big red bucket with soapy water. Actually I put the water in first with a hose and then I put some bubble bath in afterwards.
    Mum didn’t know I was using bubble bath. She thought I was using normal car bath. But I thought the suds would be better if I used bubble bath. And they were. But the trouble with suds is they get really sudsy and grow and grow until all you can see is suds, and you can’t see how much water is in the bucket.

    Which isn’t your fault. So when you try to lift the bucket and pour it on the car, the water goes the wrong way and spills all over you. Which isn’t your fault either. It’s the suds’ fault. My mum said it wasn’t the suds’ fault at all. It was my fault, and if I ever use bubble bath on the car again, she will make me pay for some new bubbles out of my pocket money. Which isn’t fair or my fault.
    The trouble with pocket money is Mum never gives me enough.

    I’d like to see Mum buy all the sweets she needs with only the pocket money I get. If you ask me, my pocket money should be at least a hundred— Sorry, got to go again!!!!

Chapter 8
    The trouble with tummy trouble is you never know when you’ll have to run to the loo!

    One minute you feel all right and then the next minute your bottom tells you to run up the stairs as fast as you can.
    . . .
    . . .

    It’s all my mum’s fault I’ve got tummy trouble.
    If she gave me a hundred pounds a week for my pocket money instead of 50p, I wouldn’t have run out of money, or got tummy trouble or got grounded. That’s the trouble with having pocket money that isn’t enough : it gets you into trouble. Including tummy trouble.

    If you ask me, my pocket money should be at least a hundred pounds a week. No – a day. Actually, a minute. Then I’d be able to buy all the sweets I need without them ever running out.
    My mum says that I should suck more and crunch less. Then my sweets would last much longer. It’s all right for her. She can control her teeth. I can’t. No children can. You have to be at least twenty-fiveish before you can control your teeth. Or your eyes or your arms or your fingers. Especially if it’s a strawberry dib-dab.
    Strawberry dib-dabs are totally my favourite sweets. The lolly bit tastes all strawberryyyeee and the sherbet feels all lovely and tingly and fizzy on your tongue. No children can control their teeth when they’re eating strawberry dib-dabs. No children called Daisy anyway. If you’re eating a strawberry dib-dab and your name is Daisy, then you just have to crunch.

    The trouble with crunching is, after four or five bites the lolly is always gone.

    That’s because lollies are always too small.
    I tried really hard to suck a sweet once, but in the end my teeth made me crunch. That’s the trouble with not being about twenty-fiveish .

    You just can’t control your teeth, however hard you try.
    If after about five crunches you haven’t got any bits of lolly stuck in your teeth, then the only thing you’ll have left is the stick. The trouble with lolly sticks is you can’t eat them.

    If you ask me, you should be able to eat the lolly stick too. If you ask me, all lolly sticks should be made out of more lolly, so that you can eat them all the way down. That’s the trouble with people who make lollies .

    They don’t understand how to make good sticks.
    They don’t know how to put more sherbet in the packet either. Whenever I open my dib-dab packets and look inside, there’s always too much air. Even before I’ve dipped in my lolly, there’s loads more room for sherbet. About