We head to the bus stop and who is waiting for our bus home? Only Stevie Lee & Co. and the EmmyLou Slinky, who is devoting herself to the Bolton Boy. He looks like he’s loving the attention. I am gutted. Shredded. And I feel I deserve it all.
‘She has a sticky-outy chin and a big, pointy nose,’ Dix says and, instead of laughing at her fabtasticness, I want to burst into loud, repentant sobs, telling her what a low-life I am and a bad, BAD friend.
What’s great, though, is that she’s right: there is a certain amount of pointy-ness to the EmmySlinky face.* I love Dixie for saying it, which, in turn, makes me feel awful all over again.
I am not worthy!
‘She’s SO not All That,’ Dix continues, oblivious to my discomfort at how life is showing me up to be (frankly) a SHIZZ.
‘NOT all that, fact,’ Uggs says.
I am a HEEL, a paring from the rough, scaly, dry skin of the sole of Humanity. They are the shiny, bright nail-varnish-newly-applied-to pedicured feet that are really so lovely they don’t even need a pedicure at all.
The bus comes. (On time, according to one city-centre clock, surely?) We go upstairs, as do all the Oakdale peeps, but this time I don’t play with the window or any passing branches of trees – I have done my bit for the amusement of humankind today. Mostly, I want to be home, safe, hidden.
It’s a rattly journey and the sound of laughter from the back seat† is enough to make me want to throw myself off this vehicle at a high speed. Dixie is discussing underwear with Uggs and I’m pretending to be involved too, though I have a horrid buzzing in my head and I feel really shaky. She’s fallen in love with some peacock colours that she assures us are IT this season. She doesn’t seem to have got any inspiration for handmade gifts unless she’s going to make bras and knickers for her family and, really, knowing Dixie, I would not put that past her.
‘Dark rich jade, deep royal blue,’ she gushes.
They do sound lovely. I’ll bet EmmyLou Slinky has such a combination of undies on, because the Slinkies are SO up to the minute fashion-wise.
The Cool People get off the stop before us, no doubt headed away to be utterly fabulous. The Less Cool of us get off closer to home.
‘I think I’d best do a trial of the bath bombs,’ Uggs says. ‘How about we go for that tomorrow?’
It’s a great idea.
‘Can it not be my house?’ I say. ‘ONLY cos who knows what crazy pregnancy craving Mum will have by then. She might want to eat the bombs and, though they’re made of good stuff, the fizziness might not suit the baby.’
There are nods all round at this wisdom. We all remember the time the class put Mentos into a big bottle of diet cola and it made a gigantic, explosive spurt of effervescence into the air and covered everything in sugary, sticky stuff. Then someone (Mike Hussy, to name names) had to go one better and did it using his own body as the experimental container and the result was THE most spectacular vomit I have ever seen, or ever will see, I suspect.‡ It was PROJECTILE. I’m glad I was not the person standing in front of him – that was Hugo Pheifer and I’m not sure he has recovered yet.
Gypsy is waiting at the bus stop. You’d think Uggs had phoned ahead to tell her when we’d be arriving. She starts leaping and barking and being generally delighted to see us back, safe and well.
‘Do you think a nice, cherry-red will suit Gyp?’ he asks.
It’s only then I see he has a bag from the great wool shop. I was so wrapped up and selfish that I didn’t notice him buy something there too.
Then he starts singing to her, to the tune, and vaguely the words, of that song ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’ that we all heard as kids.
‘Gyp-a-dee-doo-dah, Gyp-a-dee-ay,
What a great dog you are s’all I can say!
Plenty of treatses comin’ your way,
Gyp-a-dee-doo-dah, Gyp-a-dee-ay!’
For the first time in my life, I want to be that dog.
