My Name is Electra

- by Joanna Leyland I am a very lucky girl and my family is the nicest in the world. Mummy and Daddy are important of course and when we're out we have to behave properly but when we're at home we play and laugh and have lots of fun. "You spoil them!" Mummy says, and she frowns and folds her arms in front of her but then she laughs and kisses him so I know she's not really serious. We have all sorts of games like the one where the hall is the world and the tables and chairs are different countries. Then Daddy tells us all about his travels, but he says the best thing was when he met Mummy and fell in love with her. "Now that's a happy ending," he says.

He's a wonderful Daddy and is always nice and funny. When Mummy sighs and says she's getting lots of white hairs he laughs and says, "I'll be getting them soon and then we'll be two little old people nodding off on the terrace together" then he hugs her till she cheers up. And he lets me ride on his back and gallops round the room making horse noises, then rolls on the floor. Or sometimes we play Hide and Seek or Blind Man's Buff, even if Daddy doesn't really like it . "I want to see everything all the time," he says, "Just look at my beautiful wife and fine children!" but then he laughs and plays it anyway, so he really is a good Daddy.

Nobody is as nice as my Daddy and when I was little I wanted to marry him. Well, I was just little. When I told him he said, "What about Mummy? You don't want me make Mummy unhappy, do you?" Of course I didn't, and he said that I would always be his best and favourite girl and that we would always be special friends, but really special like brother and sister, even if I've got a brother but he is very serious - lots more serious than Daddy.

Mummy is nice too but in a different way. Daddy plays with us and makes us laugh and Mummy tells us bedtime stories. I like the ones she tells about when she was little and learning how to be a queen. She says her Mummy and Daddy were very strict and never had any fun and she only started having fun when she met Daddy. Then she tells us about how they met and it is a wonderful story, just like the old tales but not scary like them. Well, the first part is scary because Daddy had to get past a monster but then he met Mummy and they loved each other at once. "It was just like we'd always known each other", says Mummy, "as if we were part of each other", then she smiles and I know she's remembering. When Daddy tells the story, my brother wants to hear about the monster and Daddy makes a joke of it because he knows I don't like monsters and terrible things. "It wasn't much of a monster" he says, "I would make a better monster. It didn't attack me and finish me off . It wanted to talk and play guessing games." Then he laughs, and if Mummy's there, he says, "Just like a woman - talk, talk, talk." "Half a woman," she says, "don't forget the lion part," then he laughs and says, "Yes, but the top part was a woman, so I knew it would think like a woman, and that whatever the question was, the answer would be 'a man'". Then they both laugh and she says that's just like him, never serious about anything.

That's my favourite story because Daddy is the hero in it and everyone lives happily ever after.