Jo was quiet for the rest of the day and then after last bell she disappeared.

Vaisey said, “Maybe she has gone on the roof. Like when I thought that Jack had dumped me. You know, when Cain told him about the band rules.”

Oh yes, I remembered. Cain had told Jack that he couldn’t go out with Vaisey because the band members of The Jones didn’t have regular girlfriends. He said it was “anti band” practice. Cain would say that.

We trooped up the stairs past the dorms and then up the narrow stairs that led on to the roof.

When we got there we discovered that Bob had put a Danger Area – absolutely NO Admittance. Dangerous tarpaulin notice across the stairs to the roof with a bit of ribbon to stop us going there.

Vaisey climbed over it, and me and Flossie walked straight through. Bob’s not around anyway. Probably gone off to comb his bob. We had a look on the roof but apart from a flapping tarpaulin held down with bricks there was nothing up there. It was chilly and lonely. Leaning over the parapet, I could just about see the dark outline of Woolfe Academy. I thought about Charlie over there. Not thinking about the thing that he wants us to forget about.

Oh yes, I am sure he wants to forget about the thing.

Forget about snogging a person and… and leading that person on. And pretending to like a person’s knees.

Well, I don’t think I can be friends with a boy like that.

Whoever he is.

I forget.

As we went back down into the dorm, Flossie said to me, “That tarpaulin is the only thing between us and the sky. Vaisey found a dead pigeon on her bedside table last night, didn’t you, Vaisey?”

Vaisey shook her curls around and said cheerfully, “Yeah, but it was just the one and it looked a bit depressed.”

Flossie said, “Well, it would be depressed, it was dead.”

Vaisey said, “No, but before that, you know, it looked like it didn’t have any mates.”

I said, “Let me get this right, Vaisey, are you saying that a pigeon committed suicide?”

Vaisey went a bit red. “Well, it looked upset.”

“Did you find a suicide note in its beak?”

Then we noticed that the curtain round Jo’s bed was drawn. We had a little peak through and Jo was lying on her bed looking at some letters. I bet they are from Phil. She looked up with her mouth all turned down like Matilda. I did my best smile, but she looked down at her letters again. Oh dear.

Flossie was rummaging through her drawers and said, “This will cheer you up, Jo. Look, I’ve got some cheeky new corker holders.”

She held up a polka dot lacy bra.

It looked a bit on the large side. We went and poked our heads through Jo’s curtain. Flossie was dangling her corker holder. She said, “Look at these beauties.”

I was looking at Flossie’s corker holder and said, “Flossie, is that the right size for you? Are you sure it fits? Isn’t it a bit on the, er, large side?”

Flossie had her deep South accent on again and said, “Oh, it fits all right, Talllluuuuulah Casey. It fits REAL fine. Real snug! I’ll show you.” And she went off and swished the curtain round her bed.

I sat on Vaisey’s bed next to Jo’s curtain and said, “Are you okey dokey, my little friendette, do you want to arm wrestle or something? You like that.”

There was a pause and then Jo’s voice came through sounding like she was under a blanket. She said, “What if I never see him again? He’s the first boy I’ve ever kissed.”

Then from behind her curtain Flossie said, “Why, sometimes on hoooottttt nights, I’m just a-setting on the stoop to get some air… or is it stooping on the set? I can’t rightly say. I don’t know what ah do, it’s so goddamn hooootttttt. Hey, open a window y’all.”

Fat chance. It was about minus 50, and anyway, you can’t open the windows because mostly there aren’t any. It’s just frames covered in clingfilm. Another Bob DIY job to cut costs. This whole place is falling down.

Jo said from behind her curtain, “I knew he was too short in the first place. When I first saw him, I said, didn’t I? I should never have trusted him. You can’t trust short people. Look at clowns.”

I was going to have to be firm to be kind with her.

I went and pulled back the curtain.

I said, “Look, Jo, well, not to, you know, upset your applecart and so on, but you yourself are quite… you are quite, you know.”

I patted her head.

She said, “Why are you patting my head?”

I looked down at her as she looked up at me. I said, “Well, you know, because I can.”

Her face went all dark and red. I stepped back.

She said, “Are you saying I’m short?”

I said, “Well, no, I’m just saying that shortness is not a reason not to trust people. There’re lots of other reasons not to trust them, but…”

Jo wasn’t listening, she was just getting redder. She stood up on her bed and looked me in the eyes and said, “Maybe I am a normal size and you are a giant girl with… with… big nobbly legs!!”

Oh, that was a bit mean.

Jo drew the curtains around her bed again really violently. Huh.

Vaisey had been lying down kicking her legs about when she sat up and said, “I think Jack might like me still, don’t you? He smiled at me a lot, didn’t he, and said ‘see you at the gig’? And he gave me the thumbs-up when I waved the plectrum, didn’t he? It was a proper smile, wasn’t it? Crinkly. You’ll come to The Jones’s gig with me on Saturday, won’t you, Lullah?”

I said, “Well, I—”

Flossie flung back her curtain and came cavorting out in her new bra and pants.

Crikey and yikes!

She walked up and down in front of Vaisey and me, swinging her hips around and shaking her corker holder. Still speaking in her ridiculous Southern drawl.

“Phew. It just gets so damn hooooottttttt in October in Yorkshire that I often walk about in mah underwear… just like those goddam Brontë sisters.”

Vaisey said, “If Bob comes in now his bob will fall off.”

I said, “Flossie. Have you got stuff in that bra that’s not you?”

She said, “Why, Miss Lullah, you just talk so much silly talk.”

Vaisey said, “You do seem much more sticky-outy than you did before you went behind the curtain.”

Flossie said, “Well, it’s the goddam heat, it just makes everything grow like crazee.”

I went and pulled out two pairs of tights from her corker holder.

Flossie said, “Well I never, how in God’s name did they git in there?”

It made us laugh. Well most of us.

I said, “Jo, come and look at this!”

There was silence from behind Jo’s curtain.

And a tiny soft snuffling.

And then more snuffling.

Oh no.

I looked at the others, then I said through the curtain, “Jo, do you remember that Phil said you were a cracking snogger?”

Jo’s muffled voice said, “So?”

I said, “Well, my coussy said that if you have excellent snogging skills, it’s like… human glue.”

No, she hadn’t said that.

Where had “human glue” come from?

I am a genius. I must write “human glue” in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

After a bit of silence, Jo said, “What do you mean, human glue?”

Ah.

Well.

Good point.

I didn’t have a clue what I meant by human glue.

But, hell fire, I was on the brink of a showbiz career. I’d been a shark this morning, I had the scars to prove it. I could improvise. “Aaah, I’m glad you brought that up.”

Vaisey and Flossie looked at me. Flossie started dancing with her teddy-bear pyjama case and Vaisey got out her plectrum.

Jo drew back her curtain and looked at me.

I shook my hair dramatically and said, “Because when you are a good snogging match, everything works out all right in the end. Because you are sort of glued at the mouth.”

Jo smiled and said, “Really?”

Crikey.

 

Back in my squirrel room I wrote in my Damson Diary:

 

Human glue.

 

I tried to remember what Cousin Georgia had said about the snogging scale. Had she said anything about glue? I know Number 1 was “holding hands” Number 2 was “arm around” Number 3 was “goodnight kiss”. What was it then?

Oh, I know, “a kiss lasting three minutes without a break”.

But where did tongues come in? Number 5? Number 6? When bat boy Ben attacked me with his tongue, we definitely hadn’t done a kiss lasting over three minutes without a break. So how come he just plunged in with his bat tongue?

He can’t know the snogging scale.

And Cain hadn’t even bothered with number one before he…

Oh, I don’t know.