Dear Diary

My name is Olive Hoover.

I'm 10 years old and I'd love to be Little Miss Sunshine.

My grandad helps me practise my routine because he is my coach, that he helped me come up with everyday for the Little Miss Sunshine contest. My uncle Frank came to stay with us today, he tried to kill himself. Dinner was tense but then I got a call from the beauty pageant saying that I got make sure that I was prepered to win the LIttle Miss Sunshine contest dad asked me if I was preapered to use his Nine steps to winning, I said yes so my whole family-my brother Dwayne(he doesn't talk, he took a vow of silence cause he wants to be in the air force) my grandad, mum, dad, and uncle Frank all decided to come with me to California for the Little Miss Sunshine contest. We dont have enough money cause we are poor so we all drove in our old car a volkswagen bus.

Mum ended up breaking the clutch in the bus so we all have to push it to start the car moving.I'm going to go now because i'm starting to feel car sick.

By diary.

Dear Diary

It's me Olive,

Dad doesn't like losers, I'm afraid if I loose the Little Miss Sunshine contest he won't love me anymore, I told grandpa and he said even though dad says he doesn't like losers I'm his baby so he will always love me. I went to bed after that, I woke up but grandpa didn't, I wish he would, but I know he is dead. I hope dad doesn't think that grandad is a loser because he gave up and died, I don't want dad to think he is a loser. We called an ambulance to come and get grandad, we followed the ambulance to the hospital where we were waiting for confirmation that grandad was dead. We got told by a nurse that we couldn't leave grandad there so we stole grandad from the hospital and put him in the boot of our car, the whole way to the hotel for the contest i was talking to grandpa in my mind.

On the way to the hotel we got pulled over because dad hit the car horn in frustration, he didn't hit it that hard but because our car is so old the horn started going off non stop, which was really loud and annoying. I thought we were in trouble because of the non stop honking, the officer let us go after talking to dad.

I'm going to go cause we are almost there and i'm tired.

night diary.

Dear Diary

It's Olive again

Dwayne started talking again today in the car, after uncle Frank told him that he is colour blind, he started screaming so we stopped the car and he ran down the hill that we had stopped next to. Mum tried talking to Dwayne but he just got even more upset, dad told me to go talk to Dwayne, mum tried to stop me but I went anyway. I gave Dwayne a hug, but I also told him that he may be colour blind but he is the best brother anyway and that I don't think he is a loser. That got him to calm down and apologise to mum and then we all got back in the car.

We got to the hotel and put my name down, a couple of minutes before I went on stage dad and Dwayne came in and spoke to mum about not letting me go on stage, I decided to go on with the show. I got on stage and dedicated my performance to grandpa, I started dancing but people got up and left because they didn't like my dancing, I felt like a loser when I saw people leaving. I hope dad doesn't think i'm a loser, dad came on stage because the guy with the microphone was chasing me, dad started dancing with me then mum, Dwayne and uncle Frank joined in as well, I had fun and i think it brought our family a lot closer.

On the way home I asked dad if he thought I was a loser because I didn't win and he told me that he didn't believe in the nine steps to winning anymore, because I showed him that you don't have to be a winner to win.

Dad used to be a firm believer in his self made nine steps to winning, but losing the contract deal made him rethink his choice, seeing me onstage and losing grandpa just helped him make up his mind that you don't need nine steps to winning because its not winning that makes you a winner, its trying your best, thats what makes you a winner.

This whole trip has brought me and my family closer together than ever.

Thank you diary, for always listening to my thoughts and problems, we are almost home now so i'm going to go.

Olive Hoover