I can hear Pascalle crying through the wall. This isn’t unusual. She cries a lot. She cried when Brad and Jennifer split up. She even cried when J Lo and Ben Affleck split up. I cried when I saw J Lo and Ben in Gigli – just before I ripped it out of the machine and threw it out the front door of the Video Hut.

The point is Pascalle cries about a lot and sometimes it can be hard to figure out what it is she’s crying about. Like now she might be crying because she’s just heard a rumour Britney and K-Fed have broken up. Or she might be crying because she and Hayden have broken up. (Pascalle and Hayden, that is – not Britney and Hayden. Or K-Fed and Hayden. Nah, they’d probably be perfect for each other, come to think of it.)

Or she might be crying ‘cause Mum just told us she’s been rooting a cop.

I don’t give a shit what people think about my family. We are the way we are. But the one thing we’ve always had going for us is we have certain rules. Sure, they’re not, like, the rules everyone else lives by – like laws and stuff like that – but they’re our rules and we’ve always stuck to them.

You get caught, you take your punishment like a man (or woman) – or you blame it on Van. You only lie when you can get away with it. You spend longer than ten minutes in the bathroom, you have no right to complain when another family member kicks the door in. Rule like that.

Our Big #1 Rule is: never talk to cops. Never tell them anything; never give up anything to a cop.

Guess Mum kinda broke that rule when she gave it all up to Judd, eh?

Guess this explains why Dad took off in such a hurry.

Pascalle is still crying. Shit, I’ll never get to sleep now.