Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 03 (5 page)

How many cats can do that?

12:30 p.m.

While I was waiting at the bus stop for a bus to town, two blokes in cars hooted their horns at me (ooer). I really have become a boy magnet.

Then along came Mark Big Gob who I unfortunately made the mistake of going out with in my youth. Well, ten months ago, anyway. He was messing about with his rough mates waiting for the bus. No sign of his midget girlfriend. Perhaps he had mislaid her. His mouth is sooo big; how could I have snogged him? And he had rested his hand on my basooma. Still, let bygones be bygones. My basoomas are out of his hands now. I am, after all, the girlfriend of a Sex God and Mark is the boyfriend of some toddler. I smiled kindly at him, and that is when he said to me, “You want to be careful not to move too quickly, Georgia. You'll have someone's eye out with those.”

And he meant my nunga-nungas! And all his mates laughed.

I stood there in a dignity-at-all-times sort of way until the bus came. I sat as far away from the BG and his rough mates as I could.

12:45 p.m.

It was a relief to get off the bus. As I got off I had to go past Mark and his mates. I made sure my nungas were not making a guest appearance by hunching my shoulders over.

12:50 p.m.

I've just seen a reflection of myself in a shop window looking like the hunchback of Notre Dame in Capri pants.

1:00 p.m.

In the cafe I met up with Rosie, Ellen, Mabs, Jools and Jas. Yessssssssss! The ace gang together again!! The girls are back in town, the girls are back in town!!! We had loads of really important things to talk about: makeup, snogging and, of course, berets. This term is not going so well on the beret front. Even the lunchpack beret has lost its charm.

Rosie said, “I walked by Miss Stamp with two oranges and a banana stuck under my beret and she just raised her eyes. Something must be done.”

I had a flash of total whatsit…wisdomosity. “
Mes
huge
amies
, I have given this seconds of thought, and I know what the answer is.”

They were all agog as two gogs. Jools said, “What?”

I brought out my gloves and beret from my rucky.
“Voilà.”

They looked at me. Honestly, it was like talking to the terminally deaf.

I said again, “
Voilà
…glove animal!!”

Rosie said, “What in the name of Slim's gigantic knickers are you talking about?”

Good grief. It is very tiring being the girlfriend of a Sex God and a genius at the same time. “Glove animal!!! A way of dressing sensibly and snugly using both beret and gloves. You pin a glove over each ear so that it hangs down like big dog ears and then you pop the beret over the top.” I clipped my gloves over my ears and popped the beret over the top (risking my hair's bounceability factor).

“
Voilà,
glove animal!!!”

Magnifique
, I think everyone will agree.

8:00 p.m.

Home again To my lovely delicious supper of…er…

Mutti and Vati and Loonsister out AGAIN. Still. In Love Heaven you are never really alone.

Angus is tied up to the kitchen table leg. I gave him a hug to cheer him up, and he lashed out at me. Also I notice that he has a pair of Vati's Y-fronts in his basket. Good grief. He has gone beyond sheer desperadoes. He is really sad without Naomi. I know how he feels. Every minute without the Sex God seems about sixty seconds long.

11:30 p.m.

Halloween tomorrow.

It's impossible to sleep in my bed with Libby's pumpkin lantern in here. I suppose I should be pleased she hasn't insisted on having her witch's broom and…

“Libby, no, not the broom and…”

“Move over, bad boy.”

sunday october 31st
halloween

I immediately annoyed Dad this morning by pretending that he was wearing a scary Halloween costume. In fact, his leisure slacks and Marks and Spencer's cardigan ARE very scary, but he didn't get it.

Libby is in toddler heaven because some of her little mates from kindy are coming across this afty for apple bobbing and lanterns and stuff.

11:00 a.m.

In a rare moment of sanity Vati has been over to see Mr. and Mrs. Across the Road and pleaded for Angus's manhood. He was all pleased with himself when he came back.

“I thought I'd take a look at that garden fence, Connie, see if we can keep Angus in a bit more. Then he might not have to have his biscuits nibbled.”

Biscuits nibbled?
What planet does he live on?

He started rooting around in the toolbox. I wish he would get a job and then he wouldn't be interested in DIY anymore. Mum said, “Bob, I beg you, please get someone competent to do the fence. You're only just back on your feet again.”

Vati got all dadish. “Connie, I can fix a fence, you know.”

We laughed. I helped Mum out. “Dad, there was the unfortunate leg-through-the-ceiling incident when you last went into the loft.”

“There was a weakness in the roof.”

“Yes, Dad, that was you.”

“Don't be so bloody cheeky.”

I am not wrong, though. The electrician who came to look at the fridge that blew up after Dad had “fixed it” accused Dad of being a madman. But grown-ups will never be told anything until it is too late. That is the sadnosity of grown-ups.

As Vati went into the cupboard under the stairs Mum looked at me, but what was I supposed to do? It's her husband; she should stop him. He came out of the cupboard with a hammer and a saw. I said, “Well, probably catch up with you later in Casualty then, Dad.”

He swore in a very unpleasant way.

2:00 p.m.

Dad built a hilarious fence. It was sort of leany and falling-downy at the same time. It was supposed to keep Angus away from Naomi, but when
Dad was hammering in the final nail he said, “Yes, well, that should keep him safely in,” and the whole fence fell over. And Angus just walked straight over the fence into Next Door's garden.

3:00 p.m.

Vati is having to pretend to be normal because Libby's kindy mates have arrived. Libby's an awfully rough hostess. When Millie and Oscar were bobbing for apples she “helped” them by banging them on the heads with her pumpkin lantern. Oscar couldn't walk straight for ages and Millie wanted to go home. Well, actually, all of the children wanted to go home.

5:30 p.m.

Angus is having a huge laugh. He keeps appearing on the top of fences and so on. He ate Snowy's play Bonio. Mr. Next Door said he will have to get a dog psychiatrist in.

Vati's been raving on and on. Outside I could see Mr. and Mrs. Next Door and Mr. and Mrs. Across the Road all muttering together and poking about with sticks. They are probably forming a lynch mob. For heaven's sake.

Vati said, “As soon as we find him, that is it—he has his trombone polished once and for all.”

As Dad was grumping around, moaning on and on and banging things about in the kitchen, I said to Mum, “Will you tell Vati that I don't want to discuss things of a personal nature with him, but if he takes Angus to the vet and has his, you know, trouser snake addendums tampered with, he is no longer my vati. I will be vatiless.”

Mutti just went tutting off into a world of her own.

Angus is a king amongst cats. He walks tall with his trouser snake addendums proudly dangling. Naomi is yowling all the time. Why don't they just let them be together?

away laughing on a fast camel

monday november 1st
at “breakfast”

7:50 a.m.

Back to school.

Sacré bleu, merde
and double poo.

Angus is on his lead, yowling, tied to the kitchen table. It's like having a police car in the kitchen. He was brought back under armed guard this morning. The lynch mob only managed to get him because he tried to get in through Mr. Across the Road's catflap. To see his beloved sex kitten. No one seems to appreciate the romance of the situation. Angus had even taken Naomi a midnight snack of half-chewed haddock fillet. How romantic is that?

Vati has got a job interview this morning. With my luck he'll turn up serving hot dogs in a van outside school. With, as a
coup d'état
, Uncle Eddie as
his assistant. Anyway, it means that Angus lives to polish his trombone another day.

Vati gave me a kiss on the head as he left!! Erlack!! I've asked him to respect my personal space. Well, I said, “Please don't touch me as I don't want to be sick down my school uniform.”

I made for the door before anyone else could kiss me—I had seen the state of Libby's mouth after her cornflakes and Jammy Dodger. As I went through the door Angus made a desperate bid for freedom. He was fastened to the kitchen table leg, but that didn't stop him. He dragged the table along with him. It really made me laugh, because one minute Mum was eating her cornies on the table and the next minute the table and cornies were gone.

8:15 a.m.

Slouch slouch.

I saw Jas outside her gate. She was turning her skirt over at the top to make it short for the walk to school. We unroll as we approach Stalag 14 because of the ferret on guard there (Hawkeye). She lurks around the school gates like a lurking lurker. Hawkeye's life ambition is to give us bad
conduct marks for breaking useless school rules. That's how fabulous her life is.

Anyway, I crept up behind Jas and yelled,
“Bon jour, sex bombe!!!”
and she nearly had a nervy spaz. Which was very funny.

I wasn't looking forward to facing
le
music. This was my first day back since I had been un-justly banned from school because Elvis Attwood had carelessly tripped over his wheelbarrow and injured himself. OK, he was chasing me at the time but…

When we reached the school gates I was so overcome with ennui and general pooiness that I forgot to do anything with my beret. Even Jas noticed. She said, “Gee, you've got your beret on properly.”

“That is because for the time being the party is over, Jas. You may also notice that I am not wearing lip gloss.”

“Crikey.”

As I slinked through the gate to Nazi headquarters Hawkeye was there like an eagle in heat. She hates me. I don't know why. I am vicitimized by her. That is the sadness of my life.

As I went by her she said, “Walk properly!”

What does that mean,
Walk properly
? As an amusing example of my hilariosity, I did a bit of a limp. Hawkeye shouted after me, “Georgia, don't earn yourself a reprimand before you even get your coat off!! As soon as assembly is over report to Miss Simpson's office.”

She is such a stiff! I said to Jas, “I bet she irons her knickers.”

Jas started to say “What is so wrong with that…?” but I had gone into the lavatory.

I sat down on the loo. Same old bat time, same old bat place. Good grief. In my despairosity I said out loud to myself, “What in the name of pantyhose is the point?” A voice from the next loo said, “Gee, is that you?”

It was Ellen. I grunted. But she was all chatty. Just because she has Dave the Laugh as a boyfriend. A dumpee of mine. She said through the wall, “Do you know what Dave says when he is leaving? Instead of saying good-bye?”

I wasn't remotely interested in what my castoffs said instead of good-bye. They are quite literally yesterday's news. Also, Ellen is in my bad books. I was giving her my cold shoulder. However, she was so interested in her new so-called
boy friend, Dave the so-called Laugh, that she hadn't noticed my shoulder. I thought if I flushed the loo she might get the hint, but she didn't.

“He says, ‘Well, I'm off then. I'm away laughing on a fast camel.'” And she absolutely pissed herself laughing.

What is the matter with her?
Away laughing on a fast camel?

assembly

9:00 a.m.

Fab news! Slim told us that some complete nut-case (Miss Wilson) is going to give us a special talk next week. About “reproduction.”

Lord save us.

Slim also said Miss Wilson would be answering any questions we might have about “growing up and so on.” Hahahahahahahaha. Hell could freeze over before I would ask Miss Wilson about my girlie parts.

After Slim had bored us to death for half an hour everyone else went off to English and I lolloped off slowly to her office for a spot of mental torture. I wasn't the only one waiting for a duffing; Jackie and Alison, the Bummer Twins, were sitting
round in her anteroom. They looked at me when I sat down. Jackie said, “Oohhhh, what have you been up to, Big Nose?” She must die. She must die.

Then we heard the sound of a distant elephant (Slim), and Jackie stubbed out her fag and popped in a mint.

Slim said, “Come through, Georgia.” Then she sat down at her desk and started writing. I just stood there. How many times had I been in this room for no good reason? Millions. Slim looked up and said, “Well,” and I said, “Yes, milady?”

She glared at me. “What did you say?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about my English homework assignment, Miss Simpson.”

She trembled in her jelloid way. It was amazing the way each chin could shake at a different rhythm. She said, “Well, it makes a change for you to think of anything serious or useful, Georgia.”

Oh, that is so UNFAIR. What about all the hours I had spent thinking up the glove animal?

Slim was raving on, “I hope for a great improvement in your attitude to school and work after your suspension. I hope it has given you pause for thought. But first of all, you will go to Mr. Attwood and apologize to him for causing his injuries.”

Oh great. Now I had to go and speak to the most bonkers man in the history of bonkerdom.

When I left her torture chamber Jackie Bummer said, “Did the nasty teacher tell you off and make you scared?” But when Slim shouted, “You two articles in here now!!!” they leapt up like two salmons.

Jas told me later that the Bummer Twins had arrived this morning, had a fag and then stuck a first-year to a bench with superglue.

9:35 a.m.

I walked really, really slowly along to Elvis's hut. At least if I took ages to find Elvis I might miss most of English. Sadly, that is when I saw his flat hat bobbling around. Not on its own, unfortunately; he was underneath it. Pushing his wheelbarrow along. I walked up quietly behind him and said really enthusiastically, “MR. ATTWOOD. HELLO!!!”

He leapt up like a perv in overalls (which he is). “What do YOU want?”

“Mr. Attwood, it's me!!!”

“I know who you are all right. Why are you shouting?”

“I thought you might have gone deaf.”

“Well, I haven't.”

“Well you might have. You see, I know what it's like at your stage of life—my grandad is deaf. And he's got bandy legs.”

“Well, I'm not deaf. What do you want? I'm still not right, you know. My knee gives me awful gyp.”

“Slim…er…Miss Simpson said I had to come and apologize.”

“Yes, well, quite right, too.” He was SO annoying. And a bit pingy pongoes when you got down-wind of him.

I said, “So then. See you around.”

He said, “Just a minute—you haven't said you are sorry yet.”

“I have. I just told you I had to come and apologize.”

“I know, but you haven't.”

I said patiently, “Well, why am I here then? Am I a mirage?”

“No, you're not a mirage; you're a bloody nuisance.”

“Thank you.”

“Clear off. And you should behave a bit more like a young lady. In my day you would have—”

I interrupted him politely. “Mr. Attwood, interesting though the Stone Age is, I really haven't got time to discuss your childhood. I'll just say
au revoir
and if I don't see you again in this life, best of luck in that great caretakers' home in the sky.”

He was muttering and adjusting his trousers (erlack!), but he shambled off. He daren't say too much to me because he suspects I have seen his nuddy mags, which I have.

lunchtime

Hours and hours of boredom followed by a cheese sandwich. That is what my morning has been like. And I wish Nauseating P. Green would stop ogling me. Blinking at me through her thick glas ses like a goldfish in a uniform. Since I saved her from being duffed up by the Bummers last term she follows me round like a Nauseating P. Green on a string.

Rosie said to me, “She loves you.”

Good Lord.

1:30 p.m.

Nauseating P. Green even followed me into the loos. As I was drying my hands she said, “Georgia,
would you…would you…like to see some photos of my hamster? He's called Hammy.”

Oh right, that's top of my list, photos of a hamster. I was going to say no, but she looked so blinky that I couldn't.

“P. Green.”

“Yes?”

“Hammy has got about ten babies around him.”

“I know; he's just had them.”

Well, at least someone is going to be astonished by Miss Wilson's sex talk.

2:35 p.m.

Madame Slack was so overjoyed to see me that she made me sit right at the front next to Nauseating P. Green and Slack Alice, both of whom can only see the board if it's an inch away from their glasses. Jas and Ellen (Jas's bestest new lezzie mate) and the rest of the gang sat together at the back.

On the plus side, Madame Slack told us we are going to have a student teacher next week. That is usually
très amusant
. A bit of a light in a dark world.

4:00 p.m.

Bell rang.

At last escape from this hellhole. Jas and me were walking out of the gates when we saw Tom waiting for her. She went red as two short red things because she hadn't rolled her skirt over. She managed to pout though. Tom gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Mais oui!! Très
continental for someone who works part-time in a vegetable shop. He said, “Welcome back. You missed a cracking night at the cinema the other night. What did you get up to in Och Aye land?”

“I hung around a twenty-four-hour supermarket.”

“Is that the groovy thing to do up there then?”

“No, it's the ONLY thing to do.”

5:00 p.m.

Talk about being Queen of the Goosegogs. I had to walk along with Jas and Tom holding hands. (I don't mean we were all holding hands, although that would have been funnier.) I am giving Jas the cold shoulder as well as Ellen because of going to the cinema as a gang without the essential ingredient: me.

However, my shoulders are making little impression on anyone.

7:15 p.m.

Jas phoned.

“Gee.”

“Yes, who is that?” (Even though I knew who it was.)

“It's me, Jas.”

“Oh.”

“Look, you could have come to the cinema with us, but you were in Och Aye land.”

“Huh.”

“And, well, it was just, you know, couples, and well, I don't think Robbie would have wanted to come. He doesn't really hang out with Tom much. You know Robbie's got his mates from The Stiff Dylans and because he's got the band and…”

She dribbled on for ages.

midnight

The nub and gist of Jas's pathetic apology is that I am going out with an older Sex God. We came to an understanding. The understanding is that she
has to show her remorse; she has to be my slavey girl for three days. And do everything I say.

tuesday november 2nd

lunchtime

I made slavey girl give me a piggyback to the loos. Hawkeye said we were “being ridiculous.”

8:00 p.m.

The Sex God was waiting for me outside school!!! And he was in his cool car. Fortunately I had abstained from doing anything ridiculous with my beret. So I was able to get into his car only having to concentrate on not letting my nostrils flare too much…or knocking him out with my nunga-nungas. SHUT UP, BRAIN!!!

10:00 p.m.

I must stop being jelloid woman every time I see the Sex God. Why oh why did I say “I'm away laughing on a fast camel” instead of good-bye? What is the matter with me?

However, on the whole, taking things by and large…Yessssssss!!!!!

I live at Snogging Headquarters. My address is:

10:15 p.m.

Phoned Jas.

“Jas, I've done car snogging. Have you done that?”

“No…. I've done bike snogging.”

“That's not the same.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“It's just not the same.”

“It is.”

“No, it isn't.”

“Well, there are still four wheels involved.”

Good grief.

11:00 p.m.

In the car this afternoon Robbie put his head on my knee and sang me one of his songs. It was called “I'm Not There.” I didn't tell Radio Jas that bit.

I never really know what to do with myself when he does his song singing. Maybe nod my head in
time to the rhythm? How attractive is that from upside down? And also if you were passing the car as an innocent passerby you would just see my head bobbling round.

1:00 a.m.

Libby woke me up when she pattered and clanked into my room. When she had got everybody into my bed she said, in between little sobs, “Ohh, there was a big bad man, big uggy man.”