Angelo is my name and I am an angel. An Angel-man. A Happy Puppet.
When I sit at my computer I amaze people. They are amazed. I am amazing.
I cannot speak. I am 13 years old and have never spoken.
People think I speak with my hands. My hands wave around. People think I wave at them. People think I am so happy.
I am not so happy.
I am not so happy but I am smart. I know what Angelman's Syndrome is. Not many 13-year-olds know what Angelman's Syndrome is.
That's because it's never in the paper. I read the paper everyday. Since I was six. Everybody thought it was cute that I was pretending to read the paper. But I was reading the paper. I was not pretending. It was still cute.
My mother taught me letters with cards. But no-one understands how I write by myself with a computer.
I sit at this computer and write. My teacher is Mrs. Christie. She sends me homework in an email. My Dad opens the email for me and I read it. Then I remember it. Then I write my answers. Then my Dad emails it to Mrs Christie.
I can't send my own emails because I have hands that want to wave about. Only when I am reading or writing can I control them at all. People think I am stupid because I can't use emails or the Internet. Internet always has a capital letter. The Internet is dangerous.
Mrs Christie writes that my language levels are five years ahead of my age. Five years is a lot, I think. I am not good with numbers.
Mrs Christie asked to meet me at Christmas but I said no. She is in another city most of the time. I do not like other people being in the same room as me.
When I go to the shopping centre with my Dad, kids stare and point and laugh. The laugh at my hands and my face, and because I dribble a bit.
I still want to go to the shopping centre every day, because of the fountain. The fountain is the best place. It has lots of water jets, and you never know which one will go off next. My Dad always lets me look at the fountain for ten minutes.
One day the fountain was turned off for cleaning. I asked my Dad if we could wait. We waited for two hours until they turned it back on. Dad was in a lot of trouble because he was late for work.
I don't like Sonia. Sonia does not like me. She thinks I am a retard, I heard her say to Troy on the phone that I was a retard. She uses funny words. She is not from America, but she talks like people from America.
Sonia thinks I can't hear her, because I can't speak. She does not think I notice things. I notice she talks to Troy all the time. I notice she forgets to give me my dinner some days. I notice she drinks from my Dad's bar. Sometimes she puts on my waterfall DVD and just leaves me watching it while she goes away. I am always still watching it when she gets back.
Sonia always tells Troy that my Dad does not pay her enough.
Yesterday or some other day, Troy came over to our house and they went upstairs and I watched the waterfalls.
I do not like Troy. He laughs at me and waves his hands about. He calls me a puppet. Today Troy took the battery from the smoke alarm and touched my tongue with it. He laughed, but Sonia told him to not do it again.
Troy said that is was no wonder the sad bitch topped herself with a retard to look after and Sonia said like whatever and turned on the TV. Sonia lit the candle that she always lights when they smoke those cigarettes that do not smell like cigarettes. I went to my room. But that was earlier, so that is now history.
I know what history is. History is what is not happening now. Wars happened in history. I went to the shopping centre and saw the fountains a lot in history. My mother died in history. When it was history-times people called angels Happy Puppets. No-one does that anymore, except Troy and some kids in the street.
I like to write. I write these diary stories. I can never remember what I have typed last time, so when I read them, they are interesting to me.
Doctor Naismith and Mrs Christie think maybe I am not an angel after all, because other angels don't write as well as me. I have an excellent vocabulary. I write a lot. I never make a mistake because I type really slow and wait if my hands do not want to type. But I am an angel. Dr Naismith called me Angelo-man. Doctor Naismith is funny.
I can smell smoke and it is hard to breathe. I think I can hear my Dad. I will look out of the window now.
I have looked out of the window and my Dad is in the street and so is Sonia and so is Troy. My dad is calling me. I am not sure what he is saying. It is quite noisy with sirens.
There are fire trucks outside our house. I like fire trucks. They have great big hoses with water in them, like giant fountains. I will go and watch the water. Angels like water.
