monday april 11th
school
Hot news straight off the press. The Stiff Dylans have got a new lead singer to replace the Sex God. Ellen was full of it in the loos. We were all holed up there at break. If any storm troopers come in we have to stand on the loo seat so they can’t see our feet. The trick is to leave the door a bit open and stand right to the other edge of the loo seat, so the cubicle looks empty. We are clearly geniuses, because it works.
Anyway, Ellen said, “He’s half Italian and half American and he’s called Masimo.”
Jools said, “I’m going to learn how to speak American immediately.”
“Mabs reckons he’s dishy and fit as a flea.”
“Angela Richards saw him arrive at the Phoenix. She lives just across from it and she said he turned up on one of those really cool Italian scooters.”
11:00 a.m.
I listened to their girlish chatter with great sadnosity. It was alright for them; they could just replace one lead singer with another. They did not know the heartbreak I had gone through because the Sex God had chosen wombats and rogue bores instead of me.
Jools said, “Angela said he is the coolest, fittest-looking boy she has ever seen. When he drew up and was parking his scooter this group of girls sort of gathered around just looking. Ogling him. He said ‘ciao’ to them.”
I said, “How is he going to be able to be in the band if he can’t speak English?”
Ellen said, “He can speak English, he’s half American.”
I said, “Oh yeah, and that’s the same, is it? I’ll just say this…Americans don’t know who Rolf Harris is, and they call knickers panties. That is not really speaking English, is it?”
Rosie said, “Yeah, you’ve got a point, Geegee, but perhaps in the spirit of neighborliness and red-bottomosity we could help him to speak properly.”
Hmmm.
swimming
Herr Kamyer was “in charge” this arvie because Miss Stamp is doing some certificate or another.
I said, “It’s probably in advanced lesbianism.”
It probably is, actually.
in the pool
I swam under Jas’s legs and she squealed like a girl because I surprised her.
She was very grumpy because in her panic she had got her fringe wet.
My crawl style is quite stylish I think. Unlike Nauseating P. Green’s style. She really is a fiasco waiting to happen. She wears armbands and she still sinks without a trace every few minutes.
Anyway, the funniest bit for me was when Herr Kamyer entered stage left. He came out in his swimming knickers and we all went “Whoaar,” which made him have such a dither attack that he stepped off into the deep end by mistake. Without removing his glasses. He spent about a million years diving down to look for them. Herr Kamyer is the palest man known to humanity. His legs and arms are like a stick insect. He does a very amusing breaststroke (in my opinion), like a cross between a human being and a twit, with just a touch of blind beaver. I could watch him for ages.
We were all having splashy fun when the fire alarm went off. Oh merde, now what? It can’t be a real fire, and even if it is, wouldn’t we be better off staying in forty-five million gallons of water, like where we are now?
But oh no, that would be too simple. The lifeguard is Mr. Attwood. He came perving along with a whistle and started yelling at us to get out of the water and go to our mustering points. What mustering points? What are we, bucking broncos?
I said to Ro Ro as we dragged ourselves up the swimming pool steps, “I can’t believe this.”
When we tried to go and get changed, Elvis had locked the doors to the changing rooms. He said, “Come on, come on, follow the exit signs pronto.” Rosie, who was practically hitting Mr. Attwood in the spectacles with her nungas, said, “Yes but where do the signs lead?”
And he said, “Outside to safety. Now get a move on.”
“Outside??”
Minutes later we were outside, in early April, in the car park. In our semi-nuddy-pants.
We were shivering like mad when Mr. Mad came round with some bacofoil stuff. I said to him, “This is hardly the time to be roasting vegetables.”
And he, in a rather surly way for someone who was supposed to be calming me down in the face of a towering inferno, said, “It’s to wrap round you.”
Marvelous.
Thank you.
3:00 p.m.
I will not easily forget standing in a car park wrapped in bacofoil next to Herr Kamyer, also in bacofoil.
He was still trying to be normal. Not that he has the slightest idea what that is, as he is German.
He said, “So girls, shall we sing a little song to practice our German? I know, let us do the funny camping one of when the Koch family go away and they forget many things which we must list.”
God save us all.
saturday april 16th
Jas has gone off to the Forest of Fools with Hunky, so the rest of the ace gang went to Churchill Square for essential shopping items. It’s incredibly nippy noodles and parky, but that didn’t stop us casually sitting on a wall chatting and lad spotting. There were hordes of lads ladding about. There is an all nighter at the Buddha Lounge tonight, but unfortunately since my report card I am virtually under house arrest. It is a lot of fuss over nothing. Slim said on the “remarks” part of my report card, “Georgia is an intelligent girl whose academic career is blighted by her immature japes.”
“Immature japes.” Lawks a mercy. I bet when Slim went to school they used to make their own fun with bits of old Weetabix packets. And a really great night out was going down the grocers and thinking about what you could make with dairy products. But tragically, life is not like that. We do not do “immature japes,” we do really sophisticated japes.
1:15 p.m.
Just as we were reapplying lippy after our nutritious lunch of choc ices, Dave the Laugh and Rollo came along. When they saw us, Dave said, “Be gentle with us.”
What is he going on about? Ellen practically exploded with ditherosity. I, on the au contraire, was a visage of casualosity; I even remembered to smile with my tongue behind my back teeth. Dave winked at me. Shut up winking.
Rollo was looking all sheepish. I think he still likes Jools, even though he finished with her. Jools is keen but she is playing hard to get. Ellen has obviously taken my hints from our boy bible on how to make any fool fall in love with you seriously. She was flicking her hair around so much I thought she might snap her neck. And also she was combining it with darting glances. Dave said, “Alright, Ellen?”
And she said, flicky flick, “Yes, I’m alright, Dave, are…you…alright?” And she gave a very meaningful flick and darting glance. But no one got it.
As I was being a bit reddish Dave’s so-called girlfriend turned up. She is not pretending to be reddish, she IS reddish. Good grief she is friendly. She said, “Oh hi, everyone, great to see you again.”
Was it? Why? Before I knew it we were all pretending to be really jolly and friendly for no reason. It was very very tiring. After they had gone, Jools and Rollo were talking to each other “privately,” so Rosie and Ellen and me went to try out makeup in Boots. When Ellen went round the other side of the “Rich Chick” range I said to Rosie, “Rachel’s a bit like Jas, isn’t she, only more ginger. It’s all ‘ooohhh look, some cuckoo spit’ and ‘ooooh have a nice day’ and ‘ooooh your hair is nice’ and—”
Rosie said, “Yes I think I have got the picture, Gee, and I think you are being very bitter and twisted and that is why I aime you so much.”
I thought Ellen was busy trying on flavored eyeshadow (a bit of a mystery that one, unless there is such a thing as eye snogging, which quite frankly wouldn’t surprise me). Anyway, Ellen popped her head up really suddenly and said, “You are not very nice about Dave the Laugh, Georgia, I mean, I am, and I’m the one he…well, you know, I’m the dumpee. Not you. I mean, what has he ever done to you? You know that time when you were supposed to snog him at the Fish party, well…”
I started blabbing about my mates being like part of me. Fortunately at that point Jools came running over like an excitable elephant in a frock.
“He says he’d like to give it another go.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon arguing about whether you should give a boy a second chance.
Who knows, the whole thing is a bloody mystery.
home
I am under heavy manners this weekend even to the extent that I am being forced to stay in and baby-sit whilst the so-called grown-ups go out and make fools of themselves. The rest of the ace gang are going to the funfair. I tried saying to Vati that we had been set “Going to the funfair” as homework, but all he said was, “Georgia, let me put it this way…no.”
Mutti said, “Anyway, you are baby-sitting for us. It’s Uncle Eddie’s birthday and we are going out.”
They are going to some really sad karaoke bar. Uncle Eddie won first prize the last time singing “Like a Virgin,” so that should give you some idea about how crap it must be.
Mutti was tarting herself up in the bathroom; she said, “Honestly, when he started singing ‘Like a Virgin’ it was like Madonna was there in his body.”
Christ, what an image.
As a fabulous parting gift, Mum said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve made an appointment to see Dr. Gilhooley, put it in your diary.”
I said, “Oh no. No, no no, there is nothing wrong with me that having normal parents wouldn’t fix. I will not show him my elbows again. They are fine, I am living with them.”
Mutti said, “It’s not about your health. I just want to see him because he is so gorgeous.”
She saw me looking sick and said, “No, not really, I want to fix up a work experience day for you there. I know how much you like biology.”
“What???? What??? Just because I can do a fantastic impression of lockjaw germ does not mean I want to be a doctor’s receptionist.”
“It will be interesting. It will give you a taste of real life.”
“Mum, you’ve been in his surgery, you know it’s not a taste of real life, it’s a taste of pensioner hell. I am not sitting around all day in a place full of people like Mr. Next Door in incontinence trunks.”
I may as well be invisible, because she just went out tutting.
After Mutti and Vati had “roared” off in the clown car—or Robinmobile, as I call it—I went up to see what my little sister was up to. She is obsessed with Gordy and is trying to teach him to jump through her hula hoop. Good luck, mad toddler. It’s not that Gordy can’t leap; he can—in fact he leaps all the time for no apparent reason.
But it is senseless leaping, not hoop leaping.
8:00 p.m.
Gordy is so alarmingly cross-eyed, it may be that he can’t even see the hoop. I wonder if you can get cat glasses?
Angus is not in. He’s on the wall with Naomi snogging and wrestling. It’s a bit pervy snogging in front of your offspring. I should know; my olds are always fondling each other and it’s disgusting. There is some manky big black cat from up the road hanging about. I see him around Naomi sometimes, he is a rival for her love.
Naomi is a dreadful minx; she seems to entice Manky, even in front of Angus. She is the furry-faced shame of womanhood.
8:25 p.m.
Oh quelle dommage, Gordy is wrestling with his own tail and the tail is winning, so Libby has turned her attention to me. Oh dear.
“Gingey, let’s go play outside now.”
“Darling, it’s nearly bedtime; I know…we could read Heidi.”
That’s when the Heidi book hit me quite hard on the head. Libby had apparently gone off cheese and lederhosen. She was stamping her little foot.
“Outside, naughty boy…OUTSIDE!”
Oh hell’s biscuits.
And she wouldn’t even get dressed. I had to put a blanket over her jimmyjams (at least she had the bottoms on, for once). She was leaping around, yelling “Hickory dickory dot, the cow leapt over the SPOOOOON!!”
I opened the front door and she went leaping out into the dark night. Angus looked down at us from the wall and casually biffed me with his paw. Thanks for your help, furry pal. When we got to the gate I said to Libbs, “There, that was nice leaping, wasn’t it, let’s go back to snugly buggly bed and—”
But she had undone the gate and was leaping away down the street in her blanket. I went after her and tried to pick her up. She nearly had my eye out.
Ten minutes later we were still leaping “over the spoon.” My plan was to leap with her and sort of round her up and head her back to our house. But I’d just get her in the right direction and she would do some quick leaps and get round me again. By this stage we had got halfway down Baron’s Street, and when I looked up from another failed attempt to head Libby off I saw Dom from The Stiff Dylans getting out of his van with his guitar. Probably turning up for a jamming session at the Phoenix. Libby was leaping in a circle, so I had a chance to smile at Dom.
He said, “Hey hi, how are you, Georgia. And Libby.”
Libby ignored him because she was busy leaping. But she still managed to tell him, “Gordon pooed in the bath.”
Dom said, “I won’t even ask. Have you heard from Robbie?”
I felt a bit tearful. “Yeah, he really likes it there.”
Dom said, “Yeah. I heard. Pity. Ah well…erm, come to the gig on the eighth. We’ve reformed and got a cool new singer, so it looks like the record deal might go ahead.”
I said, “You’ve got a new singer, yes, well, that’s cool…”
I was thinking, “Yes, that is cool if you can replace a Sex God, which you can’t, even if he is a bit obsessed with vegetables.” But I didn’t say that.
A silver scooter tore around the corner and stopped outside the Phoenix.
Dom said, “This is him actually, Masimo.”
So, at last, this was the so-called Italian-American pseudo Sex God. Huh. How interested was I out of ten? Minus twelve. Unfortunately Libby was interested in the noise of the scooter, and also because it had mirrors and stuff on it. She went leaping over to the scooter.
I yelled, “Libby, come back here now!”
One word from me and she does as she likes. I could hear her saying to the new singer, who was bending over taking off his helmet, “Heggo, I am a moo cow.”
Oh bloody Blimey O’Reilly.
I went and got hold of her round the arms, pinning them down so that she couldn’t hit me, and lifted her up. But with an alarming change of mood she started kissing me really wildy all over my hair and face. She was ruffling my hair up and messing up my lip gloss. Very very annoying and wet.
“I LOBE you, my Ginger.”
I hadn’t actually looked at the pretend Sex God as I was busy trying to wrestle with Libby, but then he spoke with an accent that was quite Italian.
“Hello, Ginger. And ciao, little moo cow.”
I looked at him. Ohmygiddygodstrousers. He was absolutely gorgeous. Really really gorgey. Really gorgey. And I do mean gorgey. That’s why I said it. He had very black wavy hair and a tan—a tan in England in April. And he had eyes and teeth and a mouth. He had a back, front, sides, arms, everything. His mouth wasn’t as big as Mark Big Gob’s (whose was?) but it was on the generous side. And he had really long eyelashes and AMBER eyes. In fact he had eyes like someone I knew, and then I realized he had eyes like Angus. How freaky deaky!! They were the same color as Angus’s! But they didn’t have that casual madnosity that Angus’s had. In fact they were smiley and soft and dreamy.
Then I realized that about two hundred years had passed since he had said hello.
I forced Libby’s mouth off the back of my neck (in a loving and caring way). I thought, “Act natural and normal, do not under any circumstances have an uncontrollable laughing attack.” I took a deep breath. “Ah yes well, er ciao to you too. I’m not really ginger, it’s just a trick of the light. Hahahahahahaha.”
Oh brilliant, I was having an uncontrollable laughing attack.
Dom must have realized that my brain had dropped out because he said, “Masimo, this is Georgia. Georgia, this is Masimo, our new lead singer. Georgia was, erm, friendly with Robbie.”
Masimo. Masimo. Whohoa Masimo. I must get a grip. Masimo was locking up his scooter. He looked up and looked me straight in the eye. I managed not to fall over. He said, “Well, Georgia, it was really nice to meet you, I hope we meet again. Ciao.”
Then they walked off to go into the Phoenix.
I said, “Yes, ciao,” and Libby shouted, “Night-night, botty boy!”
I turned round and carried her off as fast as I could.
“Libby, why did you say that naughty thing, don’t say it again!”
Libby was singing, “Have you seen the botty boy, the botty boy, the botty boy…”
Where does she get all this stuff from?
God, she weighs a lot these days. I was exhausted when we finally got home. I tucked her up in her bed—she didn’t want to come into my bed because she is cross with me for yelling at her. She wouldn’t even give me a good-night kiss, although she did manage a quick whack round my ear with scuba-diving Barbie.
in bed
Good grief.
The Dreamboat has landed again.
midnight
Now I really have got the Cosmic Horn. The only fly in the armpit is that he hasn’t shown the slightest interest in me.
12:35 a.m.
Although he did say I hope we meet again.
But does it mean that he hopes we meet again, or, you know, like he hopes we meet again but not really?
Oh happy days, I am on the rack of love again.
monday april 18th
stalag 14
Had to try to apply makeup on the move because I woke up so late. So there was a mascara-brush-in-the-eye incident. Jas was all fresh faced by her gate. And ludicrously cheerful. And loud.
“Hi, Georgia, look, I’ve got my Wilderness badge. I’ve put it next to my Ramblers’ badge. Do you see? Great, isn’t it?”
“Jas, something really—”
“Well, when we got there we had to construct a shelter out of branches and Tom—”
“Jas, I don’t want to hear about your twig house. I want to tell you about Mr. Gorgeous.”
Jas said, “You know the ace gang rule.”
“What ace gang rule?”
“She who starts first must be heard.”
“Yes, but that was ages ago we made that rule…and anyway, you are just going to rave on about twigs whereas I want to tell you about this gorgey…”
But Jas had her hands over her ears and was humming. Oh my giddy aunt’s brassiere.
I mouthed at her, “OK, you start.”
She gave me a scary smile. “Are you sure you are interested?”
I felt like yelling “Of COURSE I’m not interested, you complete twit!!” But I smiled back and said, “Of course I am, go on, tell me about making a nourishing stew out of bits of old turnip and badger poo.”
She looked all stroppy.
“You’re not really interested.”
“I am.”
“You’re not, otherwise you would ask an intelligent question.”
Oh dear God.
“Oh OK, er, did Tom’s Swiss Army knife come in handy?”
“Ah well, it’s funny you should say that because…”
8:50 a.m.
Three million years later she finished her ludicrously boring ravings on, by which time we had arrived at Stalag 14. Hawkeye—not world renowned for her deep love of me—was eyeing me like a mad beagle.
“Georgia Nicolson, you are covered in makeup, you look like a creature of the night. Go and take it off immediately, and also take a bad conduct mark.”
I was grumbling to Jas as we slouched off. “Creature of the night, what is she going on about?”
As I came out of the loo to scamper off to Assembly with that lovely red scrubbed look so beloved by the very sad, I bumped into Wet Lindsay.
“Georgia Nicolson, you are three minutes late for Assembly. Take a bad conduct mark.”
I said, “I tell you what, Lindsay, why don’t you just boil me in oil and call it a day?”
But I said it after she had trolloped off on her extremely knobbly legs.
english
We are doing the life of the Bard of Avon, otherwise known as Billy Shakespeare or the Swan of Avon, as Rosie calls him, because she deliberately misheard “bard” as “bird.” Miss Wilson was raving on about his doublet and how he invented language.
Oh I am sooo bored, and distracted by my new pash, Masimo. I can’t stop thinking about him. He is by far the dreamiest boy in the universe and probably beyond.
I sent a note to Rosie and said to pass it on to all of the gang. I wrote it in Shakespearean-type language, because I can’t help being artistic. And also I have a thirst for knowledge(ish).
I wrote, Odds bodkin I am boredeth. I feeleth a let us goeth down ye olde discotheque coming on.
Rosie wrote back, Forsooth and lack a day let us grooveth!!
So when Miss Wilson turned her back to write something dull on the blackboard, we had a quick burst of manic “Let’s go down the disco” dancing to relieve our girlish tension.
Vair vair amusant.
break
Miss Wilson will be very pleased with Billy’s enduring effect on the culture of England. When Rosie sat on the knicker toasters in the blodge labs, she leapt up and said, “Lawks a mercy, I burneth my bum-oley.”
Which made me laugh a LOT. I think I may be hysterical with love.
I don’t know whether to tell the ace gang about Masimo. They might think wrongly that I am a superficial sort of person who leaps from Sex God to Sex God.
I decided to keep my love news extravangza for the lugholes of my one and only bestest pal, Jas.
school gates
4:00 p.m.
I couldn’t wait to tell her, but I had to because she was droning on and on to the rest of the gang at the gates about her slug-eating weekend. On and on. I may have dropped off for a minute, because she had to say, “Come on then, Georgia, don’t you want to get away from this place?”
As we ambled along, I started telling Jas about Masimo.
“He is beyond gorgey, Jas, really really bon and also formidable in the extreme. He’s got these eyes, you know, really fab, like Angus’s eyes only, you know, great. Also he has got snog factor twenty-five and a half.”
“I thought the snogging scale only went up to ten.”
“Jas, pay attention. I said snog factor—that means like sex appeal.”
“Why haven’t I been told about the snog factor thing?”
“Look Jas, I just made it up and—”
“Well, why have a rule if you are just going to break it and make up your own stuff? It would be like if we were in the wilderness camp and it said make your own fire and someone used matches.”
Oh God, I couldn’t believe we were back here again, round the sodding campfire. I said, “Anyway, he is fabby beyond the dreams of avarice. I have got all of the Horns combined for him, Particular, General and Cosmic.”
Jas looked very disapproving. “You said Robbie was your only one and only only one and now it’s Masimo, who you have only seen for two minutes. You will end up a lonely person with a reputation for promiscuosity.”
What is the matter with her? She is the Mother Teresa for a new generation, with a crap fringe. I was furious. I said, “Yes, but do you know what the good news is, Jas? I won’t end up YOU, Mrs. Slug Eater.”
She got the megahump and we were walking along ignorez-vousing each other when we came across Dave the Laugh AGAIN. Since he got a girlfriend I have seen him all the time; I wonder if he is stalking me. I was about to say that when he grinned and said, “Look, Georgia, stop following me around, you know I love it.”
Damn!! By this time we had reached Jas’s gate and she went into her drive and said, as a parting shot, “Georgia thinks Masimo is really cool. She likes him, if you know what I mean.”
I couldn’t believe it!! She had ratted on me and cheapened my love by announcing it on Radio Jas. I could feel my ears going red. As we walked on, Dave was looking at me in a looking-at-me way. Which I hate.
“You just can’t resist a lead singer, can you, Georgia? He’s flash.”
I said, “He’s not flash, he’s Italian, that’s what they are like.”
Dave said, “When I saw him, he was carrying a handbag.”
“That’s not a handbag, that’s a…er…wallet thing.”
“It’s a bag he carries in his hand, known as a handbag.”
I said quickly, not necessarily bothering to involve my brain in the process, “He keeps his revolver in it.”
Dave looked right into my eyes. He said, “Excuse me—are you officially mad?”
I said, “No, are YOU mad?”
And he went, “No…are YOU mad?”
We’d got to my gate by then and we could have gone on with the “no, are YOU mad?” game forever, but as I started my bit Dave stopped me by tickling me in the ribs. It made me splutter and I got spazoid and he kept doing it. Now I was playing tickly bears with Dave the Laugh. He’d probably start talking Elfin in a minute. What is the matter with boys? I said to Dave, “What in the name of arse is the matter with boys?”
And he looked at me and then just snogged me! How dare he!!! I tried to tell him off but I couldn’t speak for the snogging. I don’t like to admit this under the circumstances, but he really is a cool snogger and I forgot everything in the puckerosity of the moment. When we stopped for breath he said, “Phwoar—excellent snogging, Georgia.”
I said, “Why did you do that? You’re going out with someone else.”
Dave said, “So?”
I said, “Well, it’s not right.”
“What isn’t?”
“You enticing me and snogging me when you’re going out with someone else.”
“Georgia, you are repeating yourself, and anyway, there is an explanation.”
Oh here we go, he’ll tell me that it is really me he likes and that it is moi he wants but I will have to say, “I’m sorry, Dave, but I am putting you aside with a firm hand—I am in love with another.”
I looked at him sympathetically. “What is the explanation, Dave?”
“I like snogging you and I have got the General Horn.”
“But…”
“It’s my age. I’ll grow out of it when I am about forty-five.”
“But I…”
“Don’t you like snogging me?”
“Well, that’s not the point, I mean, don’t you like Rachel…?”
“Yeah, she’s cool, but I like you as well, and come to think of it, I quite fancy your mum.”
“You fancy my mum????”
I couldn’t believe my earlugs. Actually I think even Dave felt like he had gone that little bit too far. He said, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just my hormones, tell them off.”
I just looked at him.
He said, “Look, girls and boys are different. Girls like to be touched twenty times a day in a nonsexual way to feel good about themselves—that is why I tickle you and link arms with you—but boys think about sex, snogging and football, and also snogging whilst playing football. Simple.”
home
No one in.
I am completely and utterly living in a state of confusiosity.
Dave is clearly insane.
But what if he is right?
Actually, the way he describes it, it explains a lot of things. Oscar, Mark Big Gob, Cousin James and those boys from Foxwood that run into our legs and say, “Any chance of a shag?”
5:00 p.m.
But on the other hand, what about Hunky with boring old Jas, and Sven and Rosie? Oh, I don’t know.
5:05 p.m.
Also I sometimes get the Cosmic Horn, so does that mean I am half girl, half boy?
5:30 p.m.
Does that mean I will have periods and also be heavily bearded and good at reading maps?
Actually, looking at my legs, I suspect I do have a touch of the hermaphrodite about me. When does the hair do its growing? It wasn’t there this morning and now it’s about a foot long.
5:45 p.m.
Mutti came in from work. I looked at her. How could Dave the Laugh say he quite fancied her? I wonder if she fancies him. Probably; she has no moral backbone. Ohohohoh get out of my head!!!
6:00 p.m.
The phone rang and for once Mutti answered it. She started giggling. “So, it’s like a sort of dance orgy thing?” Then I heard her going, “No!!” Then more silence…“No!!!…and he took off all his clothes…to the music??”
Good Lord.
Then Mum began again, “Uh-huh…no…no…no…no!!!”
I thought I would have to kill her to stop her, and then she started again, “So does everyone get naked? Oh I see…he just spontaneously took everything off because he had got carried away by the music. Wow. What time does it start? OK, what are you wearing? OK, see you there.”
bedroom
The world, which once seemed a simple place, has gone mad. Mutti has gone off to dance with men in their nuddy-pants. She says it’s called “Five Rhythms.” I bet. Dad is out with his ludicrous mates in the Robinmobile, probably marauding around harassing women. Libby is destroying some poor fool’s house. She has taken Gordy round in his cat basket to “wisit” Josh. I don’t think that Gordy was specifically invited.
Even Angus is off in his luxury bachelor pad with Naomi. He’s back in the Prat Poodles’ kennel because Mr. and Mrs. Next Door are out.
6:30 p.m.
I will have to try to distract myself from thinking about Masimo and the whole Cosmic Horn thing. I’ll try doing some homework. Another bad conduct mark and it’s Detention City for me.
6:45 p.m.
How boring is Blithering Heights? Remind me never to read anything else by Emily Brontëchitis.
7:00 p.m.
I am soooo restless.
Phoned Jools and Ellen and they said they would meet me at “homework club,” which is our code for the clock tower.
8:00 p.m.
It’s incredibly nippy noodles but at least my face is snug. It should be—it has several layers of makeup on it. I’ve got so much mascara on I’m going to have to do eyelid exercises to keep my eyes open. We sat on the wall by the Co-op. Mark Big Gob came by with his unusually lardy mates, but to my absolute amazement he said, “Alright?” to me. Which is the nearest thing to him saying, “Good morrow, Miss Nicolson.”
Jools and Ellen were totally fazed. Jools said, “He acted almost like a human being.”
We discussed the mystery that is boydom. Jools is still thinking about whether to go out with Rollo again. She said, “The last time, he finished with me because he wanted his freedom—so will he want it again in a week, when we start going out again?”
Hmmmmm.
I said, “I’m going to have to read more of my How to Make Complete Fools Fall in Love with You book.”
Ellen said, “You said the book said that if I danced by myself, Dave the Laugh would come and get off with me. He got off but not with me…so what the book says is rubbish.”
I said, “The book didn’t have a chapter called ‘Dance by Yourself, Ellen, and Dave the Laugh Will Get Off with You.’ It just said that it was a way of enticing boys into your web. And someone did come and dance with you, just not the right someone.”
Sometimes I amaze myself with my wisdomosity.
As we walked along, we happened to pass by the Phoenix. (Well, when I say “happened” to pass what I mean is that I deliberately wandered that way.) There was a light on and The Stiff Dylans’ van was outside. Wow…trembly and jelloid knees.
I said, “I bet Masimo is in there, you know, the new singer with the Dylans. He is absolutely groovy and marvy and fab.”
Jools said, “So you quite rate him then?”
I said, “There is a stage door sort of thing that you can get in, and we could have a look at him and the Dylans rehearsing. Come on, it will be cool.”
Ellen was having a dither attack and talking rubbish about private property and so on. But she followed me and Jools round the back in the dark to the stage door. It was open, so we quietly went in. We could hear the band playing. The door to the main club room was straight ahead, but to the right was a room that they used as a dressing room. I had been in it for snogging extravaganzas with Robbie. Thinking of him made me feel a bit wobbly, but he had chosen furry freaks called wombats rather than me; I had to think of the future. We opened the door and I said to Jools and Ellen, “There is a gap at the top of the wall from where you can see right onto the stage. We could step up on this chair and then onto those boxes.” My skirt was so tight that I had to tuck it into my knickers to get up.
Jools said, “Now I have quite literally seen everything.”
Ellen wouldn’t get up because she was a scaredy cat; either that or she was wearing something alarming in the pants department. She has probably been studying at the Jas school of big knickers.
It was so exciting, when we got up there we could see right onto the stage and no one could see us. The boy stalkers.
Oh general jelloidosity…there they were, the lads. And one lad in particular. Masimo was wearing a groovy Italian shirt and jeans. He was singing “Play Cool” and it sounded marvy with a bit of an accent.
Jools whispered, “Phwoar.”
And I said, “I know.”
After a few minutes they stopped playing and Dom said, “Shall we pack it in for now? I’m starving.”
Masimo said, “Yeah, I think it is, how you say, kicking. Do you like to come round to my house and I will fix us some pasta and vino?”
Dom said, “Ciao bella, mon amigo.”
And they all laughed and started packing up their gear. Masimo said, “Oh damn…scusi, first I make a phone call.”
Ben said, “Hot date, Masimo?”
Masimo smiled—good grief, he was sex on a dish when he smiled. “Well…it’s just someone, she…I will tell her another night. It is cool.”
He jumped off the stage. Oh God’s shortie nightie, he might come into the dressing room…and although I was keen, I thought being found on a box practically in your nuddy-pants seemed just that little bit too keen.
We scrambled down, nearly killing Ellen, and rushed off to the door and outside.
11:00 p.m.
I had to run home to make sure I got back into Gestapo headquarters before the olds returned. Pant pant pant. Masimo was pant pant gorgey…but who was the girl on the phone pant pant?
Angus was just strolling home with a mouse tail, as a special present for Mutti. How pleased she will be. I raced upstairs and leapt into bed to dreamy dream how to entrance Masimo.
Perhaps I had better learn Italian.
I may suggest to Slim that I give up German because there is no chance I will be going there ever since I learned that snogging in German is knutschen. And as that would leave a gap in my school schedule, I could learn Italian instead because I have a deep interest in er…ancient Rome and so on.
tuesday april 19th
jas’s house
Jas must be setting off at dawn to get to Stalag 14 because she was there before me. She is trying to ignorez-vous me, because I called her Mrs. Slugeater.
maths
I gave Jas my most attractive smile but she pretended she was interested in quadratic equations.
break
Absolutely typical of this bloody place. I went to see Slim about my Italian plan and I didn’t even get to the ancient Rome bit. In fact, to be honest, I didn’t even get to her office. Hawkeye asked me why I was hanging around waiting to see Slim, and I explained my interest and she said, “Don’t annoy me any more than you do simply by turning up to school. Off you go.”
That’s nice and encouraging isn’t it? I don’t know why she is a teacher; she hates us. Oh no, I tell a lie—she likes all the useless girlie wet beaky swots like Wet Lindsay and Astonishingly Dim Monica and so on.
lunchtime
I borrowed an Italian book from the library, Parliamo Italiano, and found a comfy loo to put my feet up and read.
five minutes later
Constantly disturbed by ludicrously excited first formers chasing each other and saying “Oh we did something really brilliant in blodge—we looked at pond life under a microscope.” Surely I wasn’t like them at their age.
Christ, now they were playing tig. Well, they were until Wet Lindsay came in to torture them. Of course she came rattling at my study door.
“Who’s in there?”
“It’s me.”
“Who’s me?”
“I am.”
She completely and unreasonably lost her rag.
“Get out here now.”
Oh odds bodkin. I sloped out of the loo. She was remarkably red, and there is really no excuse for her knees.
“I might have known it would be you.”
I said, “Lindsay, forgive me if I’m right, but there is no law against going to the piddly diddly department, is there?”
She said, “Don’t be so cheeky.”
I didn’t bother to reply. As I was leaving, she said, “Off you go and play with your silly playmates. Honestly, when will you lot grow up?”
I really hate her. She has never forgiven me for going out with Robbie, or for when she fell over into the sanitary dispenser when I was trying to help her in the school panto.
outside
Brrrr. I found a little sheltered corner round the back of Elvis’s hut. The old maniac was nowhere to be seen. So I snuggled under my coat to learn about the pasta-a-gogo people.
blodge
Rosie said, “Where in the name of Slim’s chins have you been all lunchtime?”
I told her about my Italian studies. “The main nub and thrust of their gorgey language is that you add ‘o’ to everything.”
She said, “Oh, OK, what is…er…‘desk’ then?”
“Deskio.”
She looked at me. “What is ‘snog’?”
“Snoggio.”
I think she was quite impressed.
4:15 p.m.
No sign of Jas, she must be running like the wind when the bell goes, or lurking around until she sees me going home. She is so childish.
home
5:30 p.m.
Mutti insisted on taking me to Dr. Clooney’s surgery. She has made an appointment with him to talk about my work experience. The whole thing is a fiasco. Jas is going to work in the Jenningses’ fruit and veg shop, which means she will be snogging Tom, and Rosie says her work experience will be “having the flu,” and so that means her work experience will be snogging Sven. I don’t know why everyone is bothering with all this work business. I have set my sights far higher than having a job. I am going to be a pop star’s girlfriend. It’s hard work, but someone has to do it. Try telling that to my mum, though. I did try actually. I said, “Look, Mum, it’s pointless going to find out about jobs and stuff, because I am going to be rich beyond the beyond of the Universe of Beyond.”
She was trying to capture Gordy and Libby, and was getting quite bad tempered.
“Oh yes, and how are you going to do that, exactly?”
“I have a plan.”
“Does it involve hanging around with someone in a local band and them getting a record deal and then you living in a luxurious flat in London and America and having anything you want, for ever and ever? Is that your plan?”
Wow, sometimes she is almost psychic. How did she know all this? Had she been tuning in to Radio Jas?
I said, “Wow, how did you know all that?”
She was stuffing Libby into a pair of dungarees, so she had to speak quite loudly over the growling. I think Gordy was in the dungarees somewhere too.
“I’ll tell you how I know, Georgia, because sadly, I know what rubbish your brain is full of. Get your coat on.”
Charming.
Gordy is being left behind in a secure unit (Libby’s old playpen with the table on top of it). Libby wouldn’t let go of the bars of the cat prison until Mum let her pop Pantalitzer doll in with Gordy to keep him company.
I’ve never really got Pantalitzer doll. It has a weird plastic face with a horrible fixed smile, and the rest of it is a sort of cloth bag with hard plastic hands on each side like steel forks. It says Made in Eastern Europe, so that is another place I won’t be visiting.
Vati has gone off on what he calls a “secret mission” with Uncle Eddie. He said to Mum, “I’ll be back for you later. Keep yourself warm for me.”
And then he snogged her. How disgusting is that?
Dr. Clooney’s
Oh, how very embarrassing all this is. I want to be home dreaming up my plan for entrancing Masimo. And also it is only seven days to the gig, and I haven’t even started my cleansing and toning routine—let alone thought about making my eyes as sticky as possible. I should buy some more false eyelashes, otherwise known as boy entrancers. You can get some with tiny little sparkly bits in them. Or is that going a bit too far? I don’t want to blind him, merely mesmerize him.
But maybe I have gone completely mad, like Ellen. Maybe I am just delirious with red-bottomosity. He only said it was nice to meet me. To be fair, he didn’t say, “I want you to be my girlfriend.” Or even “Do you want to come out for a cup of coffee?”
Oh Lord. Perhaps I am just being le grand idiot.
Speaking of idiots, when we walked into Dr. Clooney’s waiting room Mr. Across the Road was sitting there. He’s really cheered up since the kittykats were cruelly given away. He’s especially cheerful that we have got Gordy. As he said, “Only a complete fool would take him in.”
He said to Mum, “You’re looking gorgeous as ever, Connie, nothing wrong, I hope?”
Mum giggled in a horrible way. It’s always like this when she is around men; thank goodness I have a bit more dignitosity than her. I have certainly not learned my boy-entrancing skills from her. She said, “Oh no, I’m fine, thank you, we all are. It’s just that Georgia is thinking of taking up a career in medicine, so we’ve come to talk to the doctor.”
Mr. Across the Road went, “Oh yeah, hahahahahaha…yeah, good one.”
But then he realized that Mum was serious and crossed his legs. I don’t know why.
Mum had her usual dithering attack when we went in to see Dr. Clooney. He is very fit for a medical man. He said to me, “Any more elbow trouble, Georgia?”
“No.”
“Lungs not making a peculiar wheezing noise?”
“No.”
“So, what is it, eyebrows growing uncontrollably?”
I started to say, “Well no but if there is a cream that…”
But Mum was batting her eyelashes and speaking rubbish. “Well…hehehehhe, as you know, Georgia is very interested in science and medicine and so on…aren’t you, Georgia?”
I said, “Well, I can do an impression of a lockjaw germ.”
Mum glared at me, but Dr. Clooney said, “Go on then.”
And I did it.
Dr. Clooney said, “That is very very lifelike.”
I was quite flattered and said, “I can also do a hydra wafting plankton into its central vortex with its tentacles—do you want to see it—”
But old Mrs. Dancing in the nuddy-pants with strange men and calling it aerobics interrupted me.
“So I was wondering, as she has to do work experience for school, if she could perhaps come into your surgery for the day.”
Dr. Clooney said, “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I mean it. Nothing. The day that your family walked into my surgery, well…life has not been the same.”
That is when we noticed that Libby had got a blood pressure bandage thing wrapped round her head like a turban.
in the clown car
7:00 p.m.
I crouched down in the back of the Robinmobile as Mum rambled on.
“He is so nice, isn’t he? You know, so nice, isn’t he?”
I didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop her.
“He said nothing would give him more pleasure…”
I said, “I bet he has got a proper grown-up’s car and not a clown car.”
Mum got all defensive. “Your father loves this car, and it is not a clown car, it’s quite stylish.”
“Mum, if you had your face painted white with a red wig on and a clown nose, nobody would notice; they would think, ‘Oh look, there is a clown driving a clown car,’ and they would be right.”
“Your dad has to have hobbies.”
“Yes, but why do they have to be so crap?”
She started to tell me off when a terrible thing happened. Uncle Eddie came round the corner. Not on his usual very embarrassing prewar motorbike and sidecar, but in another Robinmobile! Oh my God they were breeding. And Dad was sitting next to him. They both had goggles on. They drove along beside us. When we got to traffic lights, they would draw up next to us and then “accelerate” away when the lights changed. Pretending to be a racing car. Libby loved it, but I just kept my head right down. Mum was trying to laugh it off, but I know she was thinking, “How did I end up married to him?”
home
I had no idea that Pantalitzer was stuffed with pigeon feathers. It was like a pigeon snowstorm in the front room when we got back. Gordy’s head was just poking out of a pile of feathers.
Mum went ballisticisimus.
“This house is a bloody madhouse. He’s worse than Angus!!”
Angus seemed quite pleased. Then Vati came bounding in and tried to grapple with Mum. She shoved him off and said, “Oh get off, Bob, first it’s bluebottles in the garage from your fishing, now it’s clown cars. I just want—”
“Him to be more normal?” I said helpfully.
Mum shouted, “NO!!”
“More absent?” I tried.
She turned round at the door and yelled, “I just want to be more…more…ME!!!!”
Crikey.
10:00 p.m.
Anyone who has seen the size of my mutti’s basoomas (which is practically everyone, as she is always revealing them) will not join in with her wish to be more.
Dad was going, “What did I do?”
But I have no time to sort out their lives; in fact I wish they would shut up about themselves. On and on they go. They’ve had their chance, and now it is my turn.
my bedroom
midnight
There has been a lot of murmuring and crying downstairs. It’s keeping me awake. Then Dad started singing to Mum a song called “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp.” Which personally wouldn’t have cheered me up.
It’s disgusting. They are snogging. My parents are snogging, I can hear the lip smackingness from up here. I am going to soundproof my room.
12:10 a.m.
I wonder how I can casually bump into Masimo. He is bound to be surrounded by girls at the gig.
Hmmm.
thursday april 21st
Got up early so that I can brush up on my boy skills from Mum’s book.
8:10 a.m.
Good Lord. Apparently girls like boys to say stuff like “You are the most beautiful girl in the world,” and boys like you to go “Uummm” or “Oooohhhh.”
Well, that is useful, because whenever I think about Masimo, my brain goes away on a short holiday to Idiotland, but even I should be able to manage “Uummm.” Is that high-pitched “Uuummm,” or more “Uuermmmm,” lower down?
You could alternate high and low, just in case.
midday
Jas is still giving me her cold shoulders. Pathetico.
Miss Wilson had the nervy spaz to end all nervy spazzes today in English. We were doing MacUseless and she had already told Rosie and Jools and Ellen off for doing “Let’s go down the disco” during the witches’ dance. Then Banquo (otherwise known as Moira Sanderson) said to the witches, “You should be women yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.”
And Rosie had a complete and utter laughing attack. It set all of us off. We had just about calmed down when Jas as Lady MacUseless said, “Thou cream-faced loon,” and that set us all off again. I think I may have pulled something.
8:00 p.m.
Vati came crashing back from football with the “lads.” I could hear them laughing and cracking open beer. I hope they don’t come up to talk to me. Oh, too late.
8:05 p.m.
Vati and Uncle Eddie came trooping up. Laughing like loons. I said, “I would love to chat, but I am doing my English homework.”
Vati went, “And you are studying How to Make Any Man Fall in Love with You, that well-known novel?”
Oh merde, I hadn’t hidden the book; now he will definitely be on my case for the next million years. I snatched it away, but fortunately before he could go on, the other lads yelled up the stairs.
“Bob, come and look at this, Dave can get two legs down one trouser leg.”
And they went raving off.
I don’t think much of the Portly One’s fitness regime, supposed to convince Mum that he is a good catch. Uncle Eddie told me that Dad was sent off tonight at football after twenty minutes for persistently calling the referee, Mr. Lancaster, “Maureen.” Then he comes home and drinks beer.
If I have “little sense of responsibility,” as Hawkeye says, I know who to thank for it.
8:30 p.m.
Mutti came home with Libby, and for a minute I thought I could hear Jas’s voice. I hope Libby isn’t doing impressions now. There was a knock on my door and it really was Jas’s voice.
“Georgia, it’s me, can I…can I come in, please?”
Blimey. Jas was forgetting that she had eschewed me with a firm hand. I said in a dignity-at-all-times way, “Come.”
And she came in all in a ditherspaz, with the piggy eyes that are all too familiar a sight to me. She said, “Tom’s going off for six months to Kiwi-a-gogo land.”
I said, “Non!”
Then she started blubbing, “Six whole months, how can he go?? And leave me behind?”
I started to say, “Ah well, you see, when the Sex God said—”
But she blubbered on and on, “I mean, how can he just go? How?”
“Yes, well, that is exactly what happened when I was dumped for marsupials, I said—”
“I mean, I wouldn’t go and leave him…I wouldn’t.” And she started the uncontrollable blubbing again. I shoved Charlie Horse in her arms and went downstairs for first aid.
When I went into the kitchen to get the milky coffee and Jammy Dodgers emergency rations, Libby was styling Gordy’s fur into a sort of Elvis quaff with hair gel. Mutti was making her costume for the Lord of the Rings party. I wasn’t aware that there was a prostitute in Lord of the Rings, but as I have never got beyond the first mention of hobbits, I will never know. I said to her, “Dad got sent off for calling the referee ‘Maureen’ and you wonder why I got a bad report. By the way, please forbid Vati to wear green tights for this party, whatever happens.”
She said, “Your father’s got rather shapely legs.”
Is she truly insane?
Then she said, “What is the matter with Jas? She just said it was something awful about Tom.”
I said, “Hunky is going off to snog sheep in Kiwi-a-gogo land for six months.”
Mutti said, “Oh dear.”
And Libby went, “Oh dear oh dear oh deary dear deary dear dear.”
I’d like to think she was being sympathetic, that is what I would like to think, but I am not stupid enough.
I said, “I know what it feels like to be dumped for a wombat.”
At that point Vati came in for another beer and a big hunk of cheese. He winked at us all. “Hi chicks.”
And went out.
I looked at Mum. “I know what it is like to be dumped for a wombat, but I don’t know what it is like to be married to one…”
Mutti said, “Don’t be cheeky. You could have worse dads, you know.”
There was a bit of a silence then, broken only by the sound of farting from the front room.
The milk was boiling and I went to make Jas’s emergency milky pops drink. Mum followed me and said, “So, what about Dave the Laugh?”
I went, “Huh.”
And she said, “Isn’t there anyone you like?”
I was a bit distracted, and before I could stop myself I said, “Well, the new singer for The Stiff Dylans is cool, he’s called Masimo and he is half Italian and actually gorgey and fabby.”
I immediately regretted having told her; in principle I think parents should really only be like sort of human purses, but I sometimes forget.
I needn’t have worried that Mutti would be at all interested in me; she was rambling on about herself.
“I had an Italian boyfriend once, I met him in Rimini on a school trip. It used to take him an hour to get his hair right. I was on the beach with him one time and this girl in a bikini bottom and with high heels got on a motorbike and rode off.”
Even I had to ask, “Do you mean she had only her bikini bottom on?”
Mum nodded.
I went on, “Do you mean she had let her nunga-nungas flow free and wild on a motorbike?”
Mum said, “Yes, and they weren’t small.”
I said, “Isn’t it a traffic hazard?”
Mum said, “Well, that is what I said. I said to my boyfriend, ‘Isn’t that a traffic hazard?’ And do you know what he said?”
I said, “No, what?”
And Mum said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. He didn’t speak any English.”
And then she had a laughing spasm that Libby joined in with.
Is that what it is like in Spaghetti-a-gogo land?
8:45 p.m.
A little voice from upstairs went, “Georgia, I’m all alone up here.”
my bedroom
Back in Heartbreak Headquarters, Jas and I snuggled up in bed and drank our milky coffee.
In between snuffling and slurping, Jas said, “How can I stop Tom going away?”
I could feel a touch of wisdomosity coming on.
“Well, Jas, there are of course two ways of looking at this.”
“Are there? You mean the right way and the wrong way?”
“No, I mean your way and the trouser way.”
She slurped attentively.
I went on, “His trousers want to go and see his brother and ferret around with vegetables. And you…er…don’t want them to.”
Jas said, “So are you saying…I should be more understanding when I say he can’t go?”
I shook my head sadly. If I had had a beard, I would have twirled it. I went on, “No. What I mean, Jas, is that never the twain shall meet. If you try to stop him, he will have, you know, frustrated trousers.”
“Frustrated trousers?”
“Yes, you know, his trousers want to go off on an adventure and you want them to hang around in your wardrobe of life.”
“They might like it in my wardrobe.”
“Ah yes, they might at first, but then they might hang in your wardrobe for ages and then be too moth-eaten to wander free.”
Jas said, “So you think I should let the trousers go, set the trousers free?”
“Yes, I think you should.”
She looked thoughtful, which is a bit unusual and scary.
“OK, but Tom doesn’t have to go as well, does he?”
Good Lord. I am on the brink of exhaustiosity. What is the point of me thinking up philosophical analogies if Jas thinks we really ARE talking about trousers?
midnight
Poor Jasy spazzy has gone home to her bed of pain. On one hand, I am really sorry for her, but on the other foot, I can’t help remembering how she didn’t give a flying fig’s pants when Sex God went to Kiwi-a-gogo.
12:05 a.m.
However, to be a jolly good pal (and I sincerely hope that Baby Jesus is not having the night off in Africa or something and is therefore noticing my goodness, and planning a reward in the shape of a gorgey half-Italian half-Hamburger-a-gogo bloke)…anyway, what was I saying before I so rudely interrupted myself…oh yes, to be a jolly good pal I may get her a Curlywhirly and wrap it up in special wrapping paper.
12:15 a.m.
Oh, I can’t sleep. I wonder how I can get to Masimo and impress him with my whatsits. Feminine willies. If I wait until the gig, he will be quite literally covered in girls.
Dom told me he goes to St. Budes art college. I could accidentally on purpose bump into him on my way home.
The fact that it is on the other side of town is a bit of a logistical problem. I may even have to bunk off school.
12:20 a.m.
Which might mean I would miss “gaseous interchange” in blodge, which is a blow.
12:25 a.m.
However, as “gaseous interchange” is another term for breathing and farting, I can make up for lost time by being in the same room as my father.