Verona Blackford is my name, OK? Dad's gone to Prague. I know he meant to finish this article before he went. So I thought I'd do it. As a surprise. Cool? Mum hates it when I say that, right? She's gone to Prague too. They've gone TOGETHER. Cool? Snowing probably.
     It's about diving, yeah? Dad likes diving on sunken ships and things. So I made the babysitter play Battleships. I bashed her, sunk her. To the ocean floor. Yeeah. It was deep. Dark. And cool.
     Dad left a note for the babysitter. It went like this: "WALK THE DAUGHTER, FEED THE DOG - AND IF YOU COULD RATTLE OFF 600 WORDS ABOUT DIVING BEFORE I GET BACK THAT WOULD BE GREAT. HERE'S THE DOOR KEY."
     He lied. It wasn't the door key. Babysitter had to climb in through first-floor bedroom window. Then she had to explain herself to some very nice policemen. So she was a bit late picking me up from school.
     Daughter (me) is now walked, but hungry. Dog has gone. Where? Who knows? He's probably in Prague by now. Babysitter thought he was a wolf and ran away. Last seen hurtling down hill in hot pursuit of postman. The dog, not the babysitter.
     That was the first day. So I didn't get much writing done. So, back to diving. My Dad has been swimming with sharks. He thinks they're so cute. Not fierce. But then he does work in advertising.
     I have never ever been diving. We went swimming with turtles in Barbados, though. The water was salty so I didn't really want to go in. But finally I did. Well, Dad dropped me in actually. Hurled me, in fact. From the boat. It was really fun. Once I got used to it. Turtle shells are soft and a bit bumpy.
     Babysitter took me swimming the next day. We did an art workshop in the morning and I painted her hair with gold spray paint. It would NOT come off, even with dog shampoo. Luckily it washed out when she got into the swimming pool. Cool!
     Why do YOU think my Dad goes diving? He says he learns a lot. I go to school to do that, which I think is better because you don't have to get in the water. And you can talk to people and not just use hand signals. Like: "Look out, there is danger behind you!" Babysitter doesn't know that one. She reversed straight into the wall.
     But then babysitter has never ever been diving either. I told her to put her head in a bucket of water and tell me what it felt like so that I could put it in this article. She didn't want to at first. But in the end she did. She said "gggghhrrrlllnnggg", which is pretty much what anything sounds like when you say it under water.
     There must be more to diving than cold turtles and gurgling, huh? Dad says it's fun, too. He phoned on Saturday night from Prague and it sounded like he was having fun there, too. There was a lot of music and laughing. No gurgling.
     On Sunday I made babysitter take me to the London Aquarium so I could put some fish in this article. They were only little fish, and a smallish octopus. Babysitter made a terrible fuss when that hairy security lady found them in her bag. Serves her right, huh?
     If she'd just stayed in with the sharks long enough I could have written about that instead. But you've never seen anyone get out of the water so fast. I TOLD her it was OK, before I pushed her in, yeah? They're cute. Not fierce. My Dad says so.
     Anyway I'm going to e-mail this to the Editor now. Dad says all you have to do to make people who read Diver happy is to give them some old wrecks. Babysitter is downstairs, crying into the telephone, telling someone she's a wreck. She's over 30. Will that do?