‘… and that’s when it fell off in my hand.’
‘… and that’s when it fell off in my hand.’
Louise Rennison
Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison’s fifth book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Louise is a star on the HarperCollins teenage list.11.20 a.m.This is my fabulous life: the Sex God left for Whakatane last month and he has taken my heart with him.11.25 a.m.Not literally of course otherwise there would be a big hole in my nunga-nungas.11.28 a.m.And also I would be dead. Which quite frankly would be a blessing in disguise.12.00 p.m.It is soooo boring being brokenhearted……but Georgia doesn't remain brokenhearted for long: frequent snogging extravaganzas with old flame, Dave the Laugh, and the arrival of jelloid-knee-inducing Italian Stallion, Masimo, mean that Georgia has her work cut out to be the composed sex-kitten that she aspires to be.Follow Georgia's hilarious antics as she desperately muddles her way through teenage life and all that it entails: make-up disasters, rapidly expanding nunga-nungas, school – urgh, unsympathetic friends, highly embarrassing family (and pets) and, of course, BOYS.
Copyright (#ulink_225f05be-b015-56cd-8df5-f1f2ff3fe0b8)
First published in Great Britain in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2004 First published in Great Britain in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2005
HarperCollins Children’s Books A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Find out more about Georgia atwww.georgianicolson.com (http://www.georgianicolson.com)
Copyright © Louise Rennison 2004
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
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Source ISBN: 9780007183203
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007402731
Version: 2015-01-27
A Note from Georgia
Dear Chumettes,
Bonsoir!!! I am writing to you from my “imagination den” (or my bed as some people call it), just to say how much I hope you like “…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” Interestingly, the Hamburger-a-gogo types (who I suspect may be a button short of a cardigan) called my book “Away Laughing on a Fast Camel”. They said that “…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” sounds too rude.
They are indeed weird, but what you have to take into account is that they don’t really speak English as such. For instance “fag” only means homosexualist in their land. It doesn’t mean cigarette. So when I wrote that “Alison Bummer lit up a fag”, they said they thought that was “kind of cruel” because they thought she was setting fire to a gay person. I think that illustrates what I am up against.
Anyway, my little chums, I have spent many happy minutes… er… hours writing this and there were a lot of other things I could have been doing, believe me. Juan and Carlos - my imaginary maidservants - could have spent time amusing me, but I said (in my mind), “No, Juan and Carlos! Put down your guitars! Stop plucking! I must write another book for my lovely fans.”
That is how much I love you all.
A LOT.
I do.
I am not exaggerating.
I LOVE YOU ALL.
Georgia, XXXXXXX
p.s. But I am not on the turn.
Contents
Cover (#u327abeeb-658d-5e6e-8fe8-ade9c0cdb093)
Title Page (#u1e2dc68b-c393-579c-a332-1328276c2bc1)
Copyright (#u3211971b-46d1-5000-8272-b93d4409043c)
Dedication (#u4f2b29cb-ae9a-5bdb-973d-c03cca3b92f5)
Alone, all aloney, on my owney (#ue78f5867-ff15-5c29-a1b4-462a6294f52f)
Son of Angus, otherwise known as Cross-eyed Gordy (#litres_trial_promo)
Snog factor 25 and a half (#litres_trial_promo)
“…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” (#litres_trial_promo)
Once more into the oven of love (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Georgia’s Glossary (#litres_trial_promo)
‘…then he ate my boy entrancers.’ Sample Chapter (#litres_trial_promo)
The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson Series (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Alone, all aloney, on my owney (#ulink_e8f9af9f-1829-5fa4-ac82-e3d69421fcbb)
Saturday March 5th 11:00 a.m. as the crow flies
Grey skies, grey cluds, grey knickers.
I can’t believe my knickers are grey, but it is typico of my life. My mutti put my white lacy knickers in the wash with Vati’s voluminous black shorts and now they are grey.
If there was a medal for craposity in the mutti department, she would win it hands down.
I am once again wandering lonely as a clud through this Vale of Tears.
I wish there was someone I could duff up but I have no one to blame. Except God, and although He is everywhere at once, He is also invisible. (Also, the last person who tried to duff God up was Satan, and he ended up standing on his head in poo with hot swords up his bum-oley.)
11:20 a.m.
This is my fabulous life: the Sex God left for Whakatane last month and he has taken my heart with him.
11:25 a.m.
Not literally, of course, otherwise there would be a big hole in my nunga-nungas.
11:28 a.m.
And also I would be dead. Which quite frankly would be a blessing in disguise.
12:00 p.m.
It is soooo boring being brokenhearted. My eyes look like little piggie eyes from crying. Which makes my nose look ginormous.
Still, at least I am a lurker-free zone. Although with my luck there will be a lurker explosion any minute.
Alison Bummer once had a double yolker on her neck; she had a big spot and it had a baby spot growing on top of it.
I’ll probably get that.
12:05 p.m.
Phoned my very bestest pally, Jas.
“Jas, it’s me.”
“What?”
“Jas, you don’t sound very pleased to hear from me.”
“Well… I would be, but it’s only five minutes since you last phoned and Tom is just telling me about this thing you can do. You go off into the forest and—”
“This hasn’t got anything to do with badgers, has it?”
“Well… no, not exactly, it’s a wilderness course and you learn how to make fire and so on.”
Oh great balls of merde here we go, off into the land of the terminally insane, i.e. Jasland. I said as patiently as I could because I am usually nice(ish) to the disadvantaged, “You are going off on a course to learn how to make fire?”
“Yes, exciting, eh?”
“Why do you have to go on a course to learn how to open a box of matches?”
“You can’t use matches.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a wilderness course.”
“No, wrong, Jas, it’s a crap course where people are too mean to give you any matches.”
She did that sighing business.
“Look, Georgia, I know you’re upset about Robbie going off to Kiwi-a-gogo land.”
“I am.”
“And you not having a boyfriend or anything.”
“Yes, well…”
“And, you know, being all lonely, with no one to really care about you.”
“Yes, all right Jas, I know all th—”
“And the days stretching ahead of you without any meaning and—”
“Jas, shut up.”
“I’m only trying to say that—”
“That is not shutting up, Jas. It is going on and on.”
She got all huffy and Jasish.
“I must go now. Tom has got some knots to show me.”
I was in the middle of saying, “Yes I bet he has…” in an ironic and très amusant way when she brutally put the phone down.
12:30 p.m.
Alone, all aloney.
On my owney.
The house is empty, too. Everyone is out at Grandad’s for lunch.
I was nearly made to go until I pointed out that I am in mourning and unable to eat anything because of my heartbreak.
Mine is a pathetico tale that would make anyone who had a heart weep, but that does not include Vati. He said he would gladly leave me behind because talking to me made him realise the fun he had had when he accidentally fell into the open sewers in India.
1:15 p.m.
Looking out of my bedroom window. Entombed in my room for ever. Like in that book, The Prisoner of Brenda, or whatever it’s called.
Except I could go out if I wanted.
But I don’t want to.
I may never go out again.
Ever.
1:30 p.m.
This is boring. I’ve been cooped up for about a million years.
What time is it?
Phoned Jas.
“Jas?”
“Oh God.”
“What time is it?”
“What?”
“Why are you saying ‘what’? I merely asked you a civil question.”
“Why don’t you look at your own clock?”
“Jas, have you noticed I am very, very upset and that my life is over? Have you noticed that?”
“Yes I have, because you have been on the phone telling me every five minutes for a month.”
“Well, I am soo sorry if it’s too much trouble to tell your very bestest pal the time. Perhaps my eyes are too swollen from tears to see the clock.”
“Well are they?”
“Yes.”
“Well how come you could see to dial my number?”
Mrs Huffy Knickers was so unreasonable.
“Anyway, I’m not your bestest pal any more, Nauseating P. Green is your bestest pal now that you rescued her from the clutches of the Bummer twins.”
I slammed down the phone.
Brilliant. Sex Godless and now friend to P. Green, that well-known human goldfish.
Sacré bloody bleu and triple merde.
And poo.
Oh Robbie, how could you leave me and go off to the other (incredibly crap) side of the world? What has Kiwi-a-gogo land got that I haven’t? Besides forty million sheep.
I think I’ll play the tape he gave me again. It’s all I have left to remind me of him and our love. That will never die.
2:20 p.m.
Good grief, now I am really depressed. His song about Van Gogh, “Oh No, It’s Me Again”, has to be one of the most depressing songs ever written.
2:30 p.m.
Second only to track four, “Swim Free”, about a dolphin that gets caught in a fishing net, and every time we eat a tuna sandwich we’re eating Sammy the dolphin. Fortunately I never eat tuna, as Mum mostly stocks up on Jammy Dodgers and there is definitely nothing that was ever alive in them.
2:35 p.m.
If I am brutally honest, which I try to be, the only fly in the ointmosity of the Sex God was that he could be a bit on the serious side. Always raving on about the environment and so on. Actually, his whole family is obsessed with vegetables. Let’s face it, his brother Tom (otherwise known as Hunky) has chosen one to be his girlfriend!
Hahahahahaha. That’s a really good joke about Jas that I will never tell her but secretly think of when she flicks her fringe about or shows me her Rambler’s badge.
I will never forget Robbie, though. The way he used to nibble my lips. He will always be Nip Libbler Extraordinaire.
2:50 p.m.
Oh no, hang on. The Sex God used to snog my ears. It was Dave the Laugh who enticed me into the ways of nip libbling. Which reminds me. I wonder why he hasn’t phoned me? Did I remember to tell him that I was thinking about letting him be my unserious boyfriend?
I should punish him, really. It was, after all, he who introduced me to the Cosmic Horn when I was happy just having the Particular Horn for the Sex God.
2:55 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“RoRo.”
“Bonsoir.”
“I am having the cosmic droop.”
“Well, fear not, my pally, because I have le plan de la genius.”
“What is it, and does it involve the police?”
Rosie laughed in a not-very-reassuring way if you like the sound of sane laughter. She said, “I’m having a party for Sven’s return from Swedenland next Saturday.”
“What kind of party is it going to be?”
“Teenage werewolf.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“Good grief.”
“Bless you.”
“Rosie, what has Sven been doing while he’s been away working for Santa Claus on a reindeer farm?”
“He hasn’t been to Lapland.”
“How can you be sure? Geoggers is not your best subject, is it?”
“Well, excuse me if I’m right, but it isn’t yours either, Gee. You missed out the whole of Germany on your world map.”
“Easily done.”
“Not when you’re copying from the atlas. Anyway, I must go. I have a costume to make. See you at Stalag 14 on Monday.”
Bathroom 3:00 p.m.
Sometimes I amaze myself with my courageosity. Even though I have been through the mangle of love and beyond, I can still be bothered to cleanse and tone.
3:30 p.m.
But the effort of a high-quality beauty regime has made me exhausted. I am going to go to my room and read my book on my inner dolphin or whatever it’s called. Anyway it is to do with peace and so on. I may even make a little shrine to Robbie to celebrate our undying love. Even though he hasn’t bothered to write to me since he went to Kiwi-a-gogo land.
3:45 p.m.
Hmm. I have covered all the cosmic options with my shrine: I’ve put a photo of Robbie in the middle of some shiny paper, it has a figure of Buddha on one side of the beloved Sex God, and one of Jesus and a little dish for offerings on the other. Also, when I was accidentally going through Mum’s knicker drawer, I found some incense stuff. I don’t like to think what she and Vati do with it: some horrific snogging ritual they learned in Katmandu or something.
3:50 p.m.
I had to BluTack Jesus on to my dressing table because Libby has been using him as a boyfriend for scuba-diving Barbie and one of his feet is missing.
4:00 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“RoRo, explain this if you can with your wisdomosity. I only had the Particular Horn for SG before I met Dave the Laugh and then Dave the Laugh lured me into the web of the General and Cosmic Horns.”
RoRo said, “He’s groovy, isn’t he, Dave the Laugh?”
“Yeah… sort of.”
“Shall I ask him on Saturday?”
“It doesn’t matter to me, because I am eschewing him with a firm hand.”
“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind badger.”
What in the name of Miss Wilson’s moustache is she talking about?
My bedroom, in my bed of pain (quite literally) 10:00 PM
Libby’s bottom is bloody freezing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’d been sitting in a bucket of frozen mackerel. Still, she has been round to Grandad’s, so anything could have happened; he is, after all, the man who set fire to himself with his own pipe.
10:05 p.m.
She might have a cold botty and be mad as a snake, but she looks so lovely when she’s asleep and she is my little sister. I really love her. I kissed her on her forehead and without opening her eyes she slapped me and said, “Cheeky monkey.” I don’t know what goes on in her head. (Thank God.)
10:15 pm
Do the Prat Poodles deliberately wait until I’m drifting off before they start their yowling fest? What is the matter with them? Have they been startled by a vole?
I looked out the window. Mr and Mrs Next Door have put a kennel outside in the garden for the Prat Poodles, but the poodley twits are too stupid and frightened to go into it. They are barking at it and running away from it. How pathetic is that? It’s only a kennel, you fools. What kind of dog is frightened of a kennel?
10:20 pm
Oh, I get it!! Angus is in their kennel. I just saw his huge paw come out and biff one of the Prat Poodles on the snout. Supercat strikes again!!!
Hahahaha and ha di hahaha, he is a très très amusant cat. He has set up a little cat flatlet in the Prats’ kennel. It’s his pied-à-terre. Or his paw-de-terre.
10:25 PM
Uh-oh. Mr Next Door is on the warpath. Surely it must be against the laws of humanity to sell pyjamas like his. He looks like a striped hippopotamus, only not so attractive and svelte.
He’s trying to poke Angus out with a stick. Good luck, Mr Hippo.
Angus thinks it’s the stick game. He LIKES being prodded with a stick, it reminds him of his Scottish roots. Next thing is, he will get hold of it and start wrestling with Mr Next Door to try to get it away from him.
10:28 PM
Yes, yes, he’s clamped on the end! Mr Next Door will never get him off by shaking it around. He will be there going round and round the garden for the rest of his life.
10:33 PM
Sometimes for a laugh Angus lets go of the stick and Mr Next Door crashes backwards. Then Angus strolls over and gets hold of the stick again. I could watch all night long… uh-oh, Mr Next Door has seen me. He is indicating that he would like me to step downstairs. Although I think shouting and saying “bugger” at this time of night is a bit unneighbourly.
Honestly, I am like a part-time game warden and careworker for the elderly mad. I should get a net and a badge.
Mr Next Door’s garden 10:40 p.m.
Mr Next Door was sensationally red as he tried to shake Angus off the end of his stick.
He said, in between wheezing and coughing, “This thing is demented, it should be put down!!”
Oh yeah, fat chance – Angus nearly had the vet’s arm off the last time he was in surgery. The vet has asked us to not come back again.
However, I used my natural talents of diplomosity with Mr Mad. I spoke clearly and loudly. “You need another broom to beat him off with.”
I said again, “YOU NEED ANOTHER BROOM TO BEAT HIM OFF WITH.”
He said, “There’s no need to shout, I’m not deaf.”
And I said, “Pardon?”
Which is an excellent display of humourosity in anyone’s book. Except Mr Mad’s. In the end, I lassoed Angus with the clothesline and dragged him home and locked him in the airing cupboard. Dad’s “smalls” (not) will be in tatters by morning, but you can’t have everything.
Sunday March 6th
Dreamed about the Sex God and our marriage. It was really groovy and gorgey. I wore a long white veil, and when I was at the altar SG pushed it back and said, “Why… Georgia, you’re beautiful.” And I didn’t go cross-eyed or speak in a stupid German accent. I even remembered to put my tongue at the back of my teeth to stop my nostrils flaring when I smiled. The church was packed with loads of friends, and everyone looked nice and relatively normal. Even Vati had shaved the tiny badger off his chin, and Uncle Eddie had a hat on so that he didn’t look quite so much like a boiled egg in a suit.
The choir was singing “Isn’t She Lovely?” and for some reason the choir was made up of chipmunks and Libby was in charge of them. It was sweet, even if the singing was a bit high-pitched.
And then the vicar said, “Is there anyone here who knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in matrimony?”
I was gazing into the dark blue of Sex God’s eyes, dreamy dreamy. Then from the back, Jackie Bummer (smoking a fag) shouted, “I’ve got a reason: Georgia has got extreme red-bottomosity.”
And Alison Bummer (smoking two fags) joined in, “Yeah, and the Cosmic Horn.”
And I could feel myself getting hotter and hotter, and I couldn’t breathe. I woke up crying out to find Libby sitting on my nungas with Charlie Horse and singing, “Smelly the elepan bagged her trunk and said goodguy to the circus.”
8:15 a.m.
It’s only 8:15 a.m. On Sunday. I want to sleep for ever and ever and never wake up to life as a red-bottomed spinster.
8:30 a.m.
Maybe if I make a special plea to Baby Jesus for clemency he will hear me. If I promise to put my red bottom aside with a firm hand, he might send the SG back to me.
8:35 a.m
I can’t pray here – Baby Jesus won’t be able to hear a thing above Libby’s singing. Maybe I should make the supreme sacrifice and go to God’s house. Call-me-Arnold the vicar would be beside himself with joy; he would probably prepare a fatted whatsit… pensioner.
9:05 a.m
What should I wear for church? Keep it simple and reverential, I think.
9:36 a.m.
My false eyelashes are fab.
9:37 a.m
Maybe I shouldn’t wear them, though, because it might give the wrong impression. It might imply that I’m a bit superficial. I’ll take them off.
9:38 a.m
It has taken me ages to stick them on, though. Anyway, if God can read your every thought because of his impotence ability, He will know that I really want to wear my eyelashes and have only taken them off in case He didn’t like them. They didn’t have false eyelashes in ye olde Godde tymes so it is a moot point
Perhaps He will think they are my real ones.
9:40 a.m
But that would make Him not an impotent all-wise God, that would make Him a really dim God. Who can’t even tell the difference between real and false eyelashes, even though He has been watching someone put them on for the last half an hour.
And I say that with all reverencosity.
Anyway, surely He is looking at the starving millions, not sneaking around in my bedroom.
Intheloo 9:50 a.m.
Is He watching me now? Erlack.
In the street out side my house 10:10 a.m
Quiet, apart from Mr and Mrs Across the Road’s house. As I passed by, there was loads of shouting and yowling. I hope Mr Across the Road is not ill-treating Angus’s children. He looks like a kittykat abuser to me. And he has a very volatile temperament. The least thing sets him off. He’s like my vati. He appeared shouting and yelling at his kitchen door as I went by to God’s house. At first I thought he was wearing a fur coat and hat until I realised the coat and hat were moving. He was completely covered in Angus’s offspring.
Naomi as usual is not taking a blind bit of notice. She is a bit of a slutty mother: mostly she just lolls around in the kitchen window enticing Angus with her bottom antics.
Last week the kittykats, who are ADORABLE, if a bit on the bonkers side, burrowed their way under the fence and were larking around in Mr and Mrs Next Door’s ornamental pond.
I said to Mutti, “I didn’t know the Next Doors had flying fish in their pond.”
And she said, “They haven’t.”
The flying fish turned out to be goldfish that the kittykats were biffing about in the air. When the mad old next-door loons noticed and came raging out of the house, the kittykats cleared off back under the fence. I don’t know what the fuss is about: they got the boring old goldfish back into the pond. Even the one caught in the hedge. Anyway, as punishment, the kitties were caged up in the rabbit run. Not for long it seems.
Mr Across the Road was trying to get the kittykats off him, but they had dug their claws in. They are sooo clever.
He shouted at me, “They’re going, you know. They are going.”
Rave on, rave on. I bet he loves them really.
Church
Call-me-Arnold was alarmingly glad to see me. He kept calling me his child. Which I am clearly not. My vati is an embarrassment in the extreme, but he is not an albino. Call-me-Arnold is so blondy that his head is practically transparent
I really gave up the will to carry on when Call-me-Arnold got his guitar out to sing some incredibly crap song about the seasons. Why can’t we just sing something depressing like we do at school and get on with it? I even had to shake hands with people. But I must remember this is God’s house and also that I am asking for a cosmic favour.
At the end, after most people had filed out, I noticed that some people were going to a side chapel and lighting a candle and then praying.
That must be the cosmic request shop. Fab! I would go light a candle and plead for mine and Robbie’s love.
I went up and got my candle and lit it, ready for action, but an elderly lady was kneeling right in front of the display thing. I could hear her mumbling. She had a headscarf on. On and on she went, mumble mumble. Bit greedy, really. She must have had a whole list of stuff to ask for.
Ho hum, pig’s bum.
I knelt down behind her because I was feeling a bit exhausted. I had, after all, been up since the crack of dawn. (Well, eight fifteen.)
I was holding my candle and thinking and thinking about the Sex God and our love that knew no bounds and stretched across the Pacific Ocean. Or was it the Australian Bite? Anyway, our love was stretching across some big watery thing.
I think I might actually have nodded off for a little zizz, because I came round to see a small inferno ablaze in front of me. Oh hell’s teeth, I had accidentally set fire to an elderly pensioner! The end of her headscarf was blazing merrily and she hadn’t even noticed.
I started beating the flames out with my handbag. I was trying to help, but she started hitting me back with her handbag. Before I knew it, I was in a handbag fight.
11:45 a.m.
I did try to point out that long dangly scarves on the very elderly could be considered a health hazard around naked flames. But Call-me-Arnold wasn’t calling me his child any more and he didn’t ask if he would see me next week.
Which he won’t.
Lunchtime
I am exhausted by trying to get along with the Lord.
Monday March 7th Back to Stalag 14
As a mark of my widowosity, I wore dark glasses and a black armband. Also I found a black feather from Mutti’s sad feather boa that she wears if I don’t spot her first. I stuck that in the side of my beret, which I pulled down right over my ears.
I was walking along with Jas and I said, “Even in the depths of my sadnosity I think I have a touch of the Jacqueline Onassis about me.”
She said, “Why? Did she look like a prat as well?”
A quick duffing up showed her the error of her ways.
Oh God, oh Goddy God God, a whole day of Stalag 14.
Assembly
Our revered and amazingly porky Headmistress Slim rambled on about exams and achievement and said wisely, “Now, in conclusion, girls, I would say, it’s not all about winning, it’s how you play the game.”
What game? What in the name of Ethelred the Unready’s pantyhose is she talking about? As we filed off to the science block, Hawkeye was in a super-duper strop for some reason. She made me remove my armband and she was marching up and down looking at people like a Doberman, only much taller. And not a dog. She alarmed a first former so much that the first former fell into a holly bush and had to be fished out and sent to the nurse to calm down.
I said to Rosie, “I think widowhood has toughened me up. If Hawkeye gets on my case I am going to say to her, ‘Hawkeye, sir, when you have suffered the torments of love like I have, you will not give a flying pig’s bum about your Latin homework. Romulus and Remus could have been brought up by ostriches for all I care.’”
Rosie said, “Yeah right, well, let’s see what happens when she gives you double detention.”
“Do you know what I saw on TV the other night? Ostriches fall in love with human beings. On ostrich farms they go all gooey and even more dim when humans come to feed them. They try to snog them.”
“Ostriches try to snog humans?”
“Yes.”
“Non.”
“Mais oui, mon petit idiot, c’est vrai. It is very very vrai.”
“How can they snog when they have beaks?”
“You are being a bit beakist, Rosie.”
Lunchtime
The Ace Gang are going on and on about the teenage werewolf party. Jas said, “Tom and I are going to wear matching false ears!” And then she had an uncontrollable laughing spaz.
I said, “Jas, when was the last time you saw a teenage werewolf with false ears?”
That made her stop snorting like a fool. She was all shuffily on the knicker toaster (radiator). “Well… it’s, well… I mean…”
Rosie – who is in an alarmingly good mood now that Sven is winging his way home on his sleigh – slapped me on the back and said, “What do you get when you cross a mouse with an elephant?”
We all just looked at her and she put her glasses on sideways and said, “Massive holes in the skirting board!”
I feel like a bean in a bikini, tossed around on the sea of life. Set apart from my mates because of heartbreakosity. I love them but how childish they seem, chatting on about false eyebrows. I may never wear extra body hair ever again.
3:00 a.m.
We should be having Hawkeye for English but she is too busy torturing people, so Miss Wilson will be taking most of our lessons this term. She is a tremendous div, so English will be more or less a free period.
Oh, what larks! We are doing Macbeth as our set play. Although Miss Wilson says we are not allowed to say its name: we have to call it “The Scottish Play”, because it’s bad luck to say its name. As I said to Rosie and Jools, “Hurrah! A play about blokes in tights talking in Och Aye language for a thousand years.”
We’ve all been dished out parts and, tragically, Jas is going to be Lady MacScottishplay. Rosie, Jools and Ellen are the three witches and I am some complete twit in tights called Macduff. Nauseating P. Green is my wife, Lady Macduff. She is thrilled and keeps mooning over at me.
I don’t see how I am supposed to be a bloke, because they are – as we all know – a complete mystery.
4:15 p.m.
On the way home Jas was looking at her hand and going, “Out damn spot.”
I said, “It’s not the spot on your hand you have to worry about, Jas, it’s the huge lurker lurking on your chin.”
That shut her up and got her feeling about.
Actually, she hasn’t got a lurker on her chin, but if she goes on fingering it long enough she will have.
Home (ha)5:00 p.m.
Oh brilliant, Angus has gone into my wardrobe and found some of my knickers to attack. He was ambling out of my room with his head through one of the legs like some sort of Arab sheikh. I kicked at him but he dodged out of the way. He was purring really loudly; he loves it when you get rough with him. He is a good example of the benefits of rough love. I should really give him a good kicking every day.
Kitche 5:30 pm
Oh yum yum and quelle surprise, we are having les delicieuses fish fingers and frozen peas for our tea! I am sure that I am developing rickets: my legs look distinctly bendy. Vati came in in a hilariously good mood. He kissed me on the head even though I tried to dodge him. I said, “Father, I need my own space and frankly you are in it.”
He just laughed and said, “I’ve just seen Colin and he and Sandy are having a Lord of the Rings party and we’re all invited.”
Mutti said, “What a hoot.”
I said with great meaningosity, “Vati, I will never – and I repeat, never – be wearing an elf’s outfit in this lifetime, and for the sake of any sensitive people on the planet – that is, me – I beg you not to consider green tights.”
He just smiled and said, “I know you are secretly very thrilled, Georgia.”
He and Mutti laughed. And Libby joined in with a very alarming sort of laughing. Like a mad Santa Claus and pig combined. “Hohohogoggyhoggyhog.”
I don’t know what they teach her at nursery school, but it’s not how to be normal.
Only 6:30 pm
I wonder what time it is in Kiwi-a-gogo land? They are twenty-four hours ahead of us and it’s Monday here, so it must be Tuesday there.
6:35 p.m.
Does that mean that SG knows what I will be wearing for the teenage werewolf party before I do?
Not that I will be going.
Will I?
I will be the last to know as usual.
Oh Baby Jesus and your cohorts, please make something really great happen. Otherwise I am going to bed. But I will wait for half an hour because I trust in your ultimate goodnosity.
7:35 p.m.
It’s not much to ask, is it? But oh no, Baby Jesus is just too busy to make anything interesting happen. Maybe he is holding the pensioner inferno against me.
In the loo
Sitting in the loo of life contemplating my navel.
My navel sticks out a bit. Is it supposed to do that? I hope it’s not unravelling. That would be the final straw.
Vati keeps books in the loo. How disgusting is that? Pooing and reading. What is he reading? It’s called Live and Let Die. How true.
8:3O p.m.
No one has bothered to ring me. I wonder why Dave the Laugh hasn’t phoned me? I could phone him, but that would mean he might think I am keen on him.
Which I am not.
8:45 p.m.
Vati’s book is about James Bond, who is a sort of specialagent-type thing. Vati probably thinks he is like James Bond. Which he would be, if James Bond was a porky bloke with a badger attachment.
9:00 p.m.
I am in the prime of my womanhood, nunga-nungas poised and trembling (attractively). Lips puckered up and in peak condition for a snogging fest.
And I am in bed.
At nine p.m.
9:05 p.m
Not alone for long, because my sister is now in bed with me. She has got her bedtime book for me to read to her. Heidi. About some girl who goes up a mountain in Swisscheeseland to live with some elderly mad bloke in lederhosen, who sadly for her is her grandfather.
I know how she feels. At least my grandad doesn’t wear leather shorts. Yet.
9:15 p.m.
So far Heidi and Old Mr Mad of the Mountains have herded up goats and eaten a lot of cheese. A LOT. They are constantly eating cheese.
9:20 p.m.
Even Libby was so bored by the cheese extravaganza that she nodded off to sleep, so I slipped downstairs to phone Jas. I did it quietly because there will only be the usual tutting explosion from Vati about me using the phone if he hears me.
I whispered, “Jas?”
Oh, it’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve got my jimmyjams on and I was reading my book about the wilderness course that Tom and I are going to go on.”
“Oh I am sooooooo sorry, Jas, soooo sorry to interrupt your twig work just because I am all on my own without the comfort of human company and my life is ebbing away.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
“Jas, are you still there?”
Her voice sounded a bit distant. “Yes.”
I said, “What is that cracking noise?”
“Er…”
“You are actually playing with twigs, aren’t you?”
“Well… I…”
How pathetico.
She said all swottily, “Look, I have to go. I’ve got my German homework to do.”
“Don’t bother learning their language, they are obsessed with goats.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lederhosen-a-gogo-land people are obsessed with goats… and cheese.”
“Who says so?”
“It’s in a book I am reading about them.”
“What book?”
“It’s called Heidi. It is utterly crap.”
“Heidi?”
“Jah.”
Mrs Picky Knickers sounded all swotty and know-it-all. “Heidi is a children’s book about a girl who lives in the Alps in Switzerland.”
“Yes, and your point is?”
“That’s not Germany.”
“It’s very near.”
“You might as well say that Italy and France are the same because they are very near.”
“I do say that.”
“Or Italy and Greece.”
“I say that as well.”
“You talk rubbish.”
“Yeah but I don’t play with twigs like a… like a fringey thrush.”
She slammed the phone down on me.
Well. She is so annoying.
But on the other hand, no one else is around to talk to.
Phoned her back.
“Jas, I’m sorry, you always hurt the one you love.”
“Don’t start the love thing.”
“OK, but night-night.”
“Night.”
10:00 p.m.
Oh, I am so restless and bored. I think my mouth may be sealing over because of lack of snogging. Or shrinking. I wonder if that can happen? They say “Use It or Lose It” on all those really scary posters in the doctor’s surgery, mainly for very very old people who are too lazy to walk about, and then their legs shrink, possibly. But it may be the same for lips.
10:05 p.m.
No sign of any shrinkage on the basooma front.
In the loo 11:00 p.m.
In Dad’s James Bond book it says, “Bond came and stood close against her. He put a hand over each breast. But still she looked away from him out of the window. ‘Not now,’ she said in a low voice.”
Now I am completely baffled. What in the name of arse does that mean?
A hand over each nunga?
Like a human nunga-nunga holder.
Do boys do that?
Wednesday March 9th
No letters from the Sex God.
And I haven’t heard anything from Dave the Laugh either.
Still, what do I care, I am full of glaciosity for him.
I wonder if he will go to the party on Saturday. Not that I am interested, as I will be at home embroidering toilet roll holders or whatever very sad spinsters do.
Bathroom 7:30 a.m.
Oh fabulous, I have a lurking lurker on my cheek. The painters are due in this week and that is probably why I am feeling so moody.
That and the fact that my life is utterly crap.
Still, a really heavy period should cheer me up.
Maybe if I disguise the lurker with some eye pencil it will look like a beauty spot.
Breakfast
Mutti said, “Georgia, why don’t you just hang a sign on your head that says, ‘Have you noticed I’ve got a spot, everybody?’”
I tried to think of something clever to say to her but I am too tired.
8:20 a.m.
I was dragging myself out the door to another day of unnatural torture (school) when the postman arrived. It takes him about a year to get up our driveway because he tries to dodge Angus. Angus loves him. He is his little postie pal. The postie, who is not what you would call blessed in the looks department, was furtively looking around and shuffling about. I said helpfully, “Angus is off on his morning constitutional, so I am afraid you can’t play with him.”
The postie said, “I know what I would like to do with him and it involves a sack and a river. Here you are.”
And he shoved a letter at me. Not ideal behaviour from a servant of the people I don’t think.
Then I noticed it was an aerogram-type letter. For me. From Kiwi-agogo land. From the Sex God.
Oh joy joy joy joyitty joy joy.
And also thrice joy.
I looked at the writing. So Sex-Goddy. And it said “Georgia Nicolson” on it.
That was me.
And on the back it said:
From Robbie Jennings
R.D. 4
Pookaka lane (honestly)
Whakatane
New Zealand
That was him. The Sex God. I started skipping down the street until unfortunately I saw Mark Big Gob and his lardy mates. He doesn’t even bother to look at my face, he just talks to my nungas.
Mark was leery like a leering thing and he said, “Careful, Georgia, you don’t want to knock yourself out with your jugs.” And they all laughed.
Thank goodness I had worn my special sports nunga holder, or my “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”, as Rosie calls it. At least my basoomas were nicely encased. Anyway, ha di hahahaha to Mark Big Gob – nothing could upset me today because I was filled with the joyosity of young love.
I did stop skipping though, and walked off with a dignity-at-all-times sort of walk.
But Mark still hadn’t had his day; he shouted after me, “I’ll carry them to school for you if you like!”
He is disgusting. And a midget lover. I don’t know how I could have ever snogged him.
8:35 a.m.
Jas was stamping around outside her house going, “Oh brrrrr, it is so nippy noodles, brr!”
She had a sort of furry bonnet over her beret. I said, “You look like a crap teddy bear.”
She just went on shivering and said, “Do you think we will get let off hockey because of Antarctic conditions?”
“Jas, you live, as I have always said, in the land of the terminally deluded and criminally insane. Nothing gets us off hockey. We are at the mercy of a Storm Trooper and part-time lesbian. Miss Stamp LOVES Antarctic conditions. You can see her moustache bristling with delight when it snows.”
If Jas has to wear a furry bonnet in cold weather, I don’t think much of her chances of survival on her survival-type course.
Still, that is life.
Or in her case, death.
She was still going “Brrr brr,” but I didn’t let it spoil my peachy mood.
“Jas, guess what? Something très très magnifique has happened at last.”
“Brrr.”
“Shut up brrring, Jas.”
I got out my aerogram.
“Look, it’s from SG.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t opened it yet, I am savouring it.”
“It’s not a pie.”
“I know that, Jas. Please don’t annoy me. I don’t want to have to beat you within an inch of your life so early in the day.”
I tucked the aerogram down the front of my shirt for safe keepies as we trudged up the hill to Stalag 14. But I had a song in my heart.
“Jas, I have a song in my heart, and do you know what it is?”
But she just ran off into the cloakroom to sit on the knicker toaster for a few minutes to thaw out.
Still, I did have a song in my heart called “I Have a Letter from a Sex God in my Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”.
Assembly
Slim told us exciting news this morning. Elvis Attwood, the most bonkers man in Christendom and part-time caretaker, is retiring. We started cheering but had to change our cheering into a sort of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” thing because Hawkeye was giving us her ferret eye. Slim was rambling on in her jelloid way, chins shaking like billyo.
“So, as a special thank you for all the magnificent work Mr Attwood has put in over the years, we will be having a going-away party for him. We will have music and so on, and perhaps Mr Attwood will show us how to ‘get with it’, as you girls say.”
She laughed like a ninny. Get with it? What in the name of her enormous undergarments is she raving on about? The last time Elvis did any dancing he had to be taken to the casualty department. So every cloud has a silver lining.
I said to the Ace Gang as we trailed out of Assembly to RE, “What started out as a scheissenhausen day has turned out to be a groovy gravy day.”
I am looking forward to RE because while everyone has their little snooze I can read my letter from the beloved.
RE
We all snuggled down at the back. RoRo was knitting something for the teenage werewolf party. I think it might be a full-length beard. Jools was doing her cuticles and Jas was reading her wilderness manual. She loves it because it has lots of photos of girlie swots building incomprehensible things out of twigs. Anyway, time to read my letter. Miss Wilson was beginning to ramble on about “world peace” and asking us for our views. I didn’t want to have to answer anything, I just wanted her to soothingly write stuff on the board or rave on. So I put my hand up. That startled her. I said, “Miss Wilson, I have been very troubled in my mind.”
That started Rosie off in uncontrollable sniggering. Miss Wilson looked at me through her owly glasses. She is the most strangely put together person I have ever come across. Where does she get her clothes from? Did you know that you could get dresses made out of red felt with matching booties for grown-ups? She has clearly been to the circus shop that Slim buys her wrinkly elephant-tights from.
Anyway, Miss Wilson was vair vair interested in my troubled mind.
“Is it something of a theological nature, Georgia?”
“Yes indeedy, Miss Wilson. This is what is troubling me. If God is, you know, impotent…”
Miss Wilson went sensationally red, so now her head matched her booties.
“Well… er… Georgia, erm, impotent means not being able to have any children… I rather think you mean omnipotent.”
“Whatever. Well, if He is, does that mean that He is with you even when you are in the lavatory?”
Miss Wilson started rambling on about God not being really a bloke like other geezers but more of a spiritual whatsit. Hmmm. She has a very soothing manner. Jools had finished her cuticles and was having a little zizz on her pencil case.
I opened my letter with trembly hands. I wondered how long it would take me to fly to Kiwi-agogo land.
Dear Georgia,
Sorry it has taken me S0 long to write to you but it has been full-on since I got here. The countryside around here is fantastic, it’s all formed from volcanic activity. There are volcanoes near here that are still live and there is a lot of geothermal activity.
Yesterday when we were eating our lunch outside, the table was heaving and lurching about. That’s because the molten steam trapped beneath the Earth’s crust makes the ground move and shake around. It was amazing! The sheep were going backwards and forwards, and the trees were going up and down. There are bore fields around the whole area where they tap the steam and make electricity out of it. The lads took me to see a rogue bore called Old Faithful that explodes every fifteen minutes.
Rogue bore? He could have stayed here and just sat still in our school for a few minutes; it’s full of rogue bores. Sadly, they do not explode.
And that is all the letter was about, just loads and loads of stuff about vegetables and sheep and lurching tables. Not one thing about missing me.
I couldn’t believe it.
At the end, it said,
Well, I must go, some of the guys are going down to the river. It has natural hot springs that run through it. We go down there at night and lie in it playing our guitars.
He was going down to a river and he was going to lie in it.
That was the big nightspot.
I wrote a note to Jas.
Jas,
SG just talked about opossums and rogue bores and a river and then at the end he said, “I hope you are well and happy. You’re a great girl. Gidday. Robbie x”
One measly kiss.
11:00 am
After RE I was in a state of shock. I could hardly eat my cheesy snacks. We sat on the knicker toaster in the Blodge lab and the Ace Gang had a look at the letter.
Jas said, “Well, he said you were a great girl.”
I just looked at her.
“And it’s really interesting about the molten steam and the geothermal… stuff.”
I just looked at her again.
Rosie said, “Forget him, he’s obsessed with marsupials. When he comes back he’ll be playing a didgeridoo and be like Rolf Harris. Move on.”
4:15 p.m.
Walking home with Jas. I said to her, “I cannot believe my life. I’ve kept reading SG’s letter over and over but it still rambles on about steam and vegetables.”
Jas looked thoughtful (crikey) and then she said something almost bordering on the very nearly not mad. She said, “Maybe it’s in code.”
“In code?”
“Yes, so that, erm, the customs people, or say it fell into the wrong hands, like your mum and dad… well, so that they couldn’t tell what he had really written.”
I gave her a hug. “Jas, I am sorry that I ever doubted your sanity. You are a genius of the first water.”
In my room 4:45 p.m.
So let’s see.
5:30 p.m.
If I underline every fourth word, that might work.
6:00 p.m.
I think I have got it! Phoned Jas.
“Jas, I think I’ve got it.”
“Go on then.”
“OK. It’s sort of in shorthand even when it is decoded but… anyway… this is what it says:
‘Dear Georgia. Me, you fantastic. When we were heaving and lurching about it was amazing. Me explodes every fifteen minutes. At night me in it playing you. You’re great. Love Robbie.’”
There was a silence. Then Jas said, “Did you say, ‘me explodes every fifteen minutes’?” “Yes… keen, isn’t he?”
In bed 7:00 p.m.
It wasn’t in code. It was just a really, really crap letter.
Nothing can be worse than how I feel now.
7:30 p.m.
Wrong. I cannot believe my vati. He has sold our normal(ish) car and bought a Robin Reliant. You know, one of those really really sad cars that only the very mad buy? It has got three wheels. It is a three-wheeled car. I shouted down to Vati, “Why?”
He was all preened-up and dadish.
He shouted back up, “It’s an antique.”
I tried logic with him. “Vati, sometimes antiques are interesting – the crown jewels, for instance, they interest me – but this is just a really old crap car that only has three wheels.”
He was polishing it. It’s red and it has a racing strip.
Vati said, “Hop in and I’ll take you fora spin.” As if.
Dad started rustling around in the boot and shouted to Mum, “Connie, come on, I’ll take you and Libby fora ride in the Sexmobile.”
He is so ludicrously pleased with himself.
And Mutti was as bad. All dillydollyish and also she had a tiny skirt on. At least she had on a skirt though, unlike Libby, who was in the nuddy-pants.
8:00 PM
In the end they all went off, including Angus, who I actually thought was driving the car at first. He had his paws on the steering wheel and was looking straight ahead. Even though I am on the rack of love, it did make me laugh. Then Vati’s head popped up. Not content with the humiliatorosity of the Robin Reliant clown car, Vati also bought a Second World War flying helmet and goggles.
As they drove off, he wound down the window and shouted, “Chocks away!!!”
What does Mutti see in him? He must have been like this when she met him. Which means, in essence, that she likes porky blokes with badgers on their chins who are clearly mental.
At this rate I am going to spend the rest of my life with them, so I should get used to it, I suppose.
8:05 p.m.
I can’t. I would rather plunge my head into a basket of whelks.
8:10 p.m.
What is it with boys?
I may do some research on them for my part in MacUseless or The Och Aye Play.
I may as well, as my so-called mates can’t be bothered to ring me.
8:30 p.m.
Phone rang.
If it’s Dave the Laugh, I am going to give him the full force of my glaciosity. I hate boys.
It was Rosie.
“Gee?”
“Oh hi, I’m glad you rang because I am sooo—”
“Did you hear about the dog who went into a pub and said to the barman, ‘Can I have a pint and a bag of crisps please?’”
“Rosie, I don’t-”
“The barman said, ‘Blimey, that’s brilliant. There’s a circus in town. You should go and get a job.’”
“Rosie, I have-”
“And the dog said, ‘Why? Do they need electricians?’”
And she slammed down the phone.
I am seriously worried about her dwindling sanity. I’d just got back upstairs to my bed of pain when the phone rang again. Why can’t we have a portable fandango thing or, alternatively, a servant called Juan who answers it?
Is it so much to ask?
This time it was Ellen.
“Georgia, it’s me. I was, you know… for the party. Well, do you… think I… well, if you were me, would you or would you just kind of, you know… or not?”
What in the name of Hitler’s pants and matching bra set is she on about?
“Ellen, how can I put this? What in the name of arse are you talking about?”
“Dave the Laugh, should I, you know, well, would you?”
Oh marvellous, I have to be Wise Woman of the Forest for my mates. Also it reminded me that if Ellen found out about the Dave the Laugh snogging scenarios, there might well be fisticuffs at dawn.
Still, I am not God and also I am very very busy with my own problems. My lurking lurker has to be dealt with before it makes a surprise appearance. Not that I will ever be going out again anyway. My lurker could grow to the size of my head if it wanted to. Erlack, now I feel sick.
Ellen was rambling on and on about Dave the Laugh and how to entice him and so on. In the end, in sheer desperadoes, I said, “Look, do you know why Dave the Laugh is called, you know, Dave the Laugh?”
Ellen said, “Er. No, why is that?”
I am being pushed to the limits of my nicosity, but I tried, God knows I tried.
“He’s called that because he likes a laugh, and well, to be frank, Ellen, you are a bit lacking vis-à-vis the laughometer scale.”
9:00 p.m.
I wish when I am speaking complete and utter bollocks people would not take me seriously. It’s not my fault that I have advised Ellen to develop an infectious laugh, is it? Oh, I am so tired.
9:30 p.m.
By the time the Circus Family came home, I was tucked up in my bed with the lights off. Not that it makes any difference whatsoever.
Sure enough, it was tramp, tramp up the stairs. Open door, blinding light as Mutti switched it on. Swiss Family Mad came and sat on my bed. Angus now had the goggles on and a scarf round his neck.
Mutti said, “Oh, it was really good fun, Georgie.”
Libby got in bed with me and started prodding my lurker, going, “Spottie bottie boy.”
Then Vati came in. Into my bedroom. He was looking at me and I was only wearing my pyjamas.
I said, “Did anyone notice that my light was off and that I was asleep? Did anyone get that?”
But they just went on chattering and giggling, and Vati was playing tickly bears with Libby and Mutti.
Please save me.
Thursday March 10th Maths
I am going to have to kill Rosie – she is soo overexcited about the return of Sven. Every time Miss Stamp turns round she does mad disco dancing. Miss Stamp turned round a bit sharpish and caught Rosie nodding her head like a loon. She said, “Rosemary Mees, what are you doing?”
Rosie said, “I was agreeing with your excellent point on the roundness of circles.”
She got a bad conduct mark for cheek, but she is still as mad as a hen.
She sent me a note: What swings round and round a cathedral wrapped in cellophane?
I tried to ignore her but she kept looking and raising her eyebrows until I thought she would have a nervy spaz. So I mouthed back, “What?” and she sent another note:The lunchpack of Notre Dame.
Dear God, am I never to be free?
English
Oh rave on, rave on. Not content with boring us to death with MacUseless, we are also doing two more books. Wuthering Heights, or Blithering Heights, as we call it, and Samuel Pepys’ Diary, about this horrifically boring bloke called Samuel Pepys. He quite literally, from what I can gather, peeps about. He just looks up ladies’ skirts most of the time and says “prithee”. Still, we all have to accept he is a genius. On the plus side, the dirty bits will make Miss Wilson go completely spazoid.
4:30 p.m.
Walking home with Jas and Rosie when we saw Dave the Laugh and Rollo and Tom. Jas went ludicrously girlish, even though she has been seeing Hunky for about a zillion years. I should know – I am like that bloke, Pepys’s mate… Boswell, who had to write down all the boring stuff that Pepys did because he was his secretary or something.
I could write a diary about Jas: “Prithee it bee Thursdayee and Missee Jas gotte uppee this morning and puttee on her pantee forsooth and lack a day, her bottom I declareth groweth by the minutee.”
I had a bit of a nervy spaz when I saw Dave. He was all cool. Rats. He said, “Easy girls, don’t be selfish, there’s more than enough of me to go round.”
I gave him my glacial look but he just winked at me. I couldn’t smile even if I wanted to because I had got so much lurker eradicator (cover-up) on that I couldn’t move my face.
Rosie said, “Are you coming to Sven’s teenage werewolf party on Saturday? There will be snacks.”
Rollo said, “It’s not fish fingers, is it?”
Rosie looked pityingly at him. “Rollo, keep up, this is a teenage werewolf party.”
Dave the Laugh said, “Babies’ tiny heads then, is it?”
Rosie said, “Now you are ignoring the sophisticosity of the occasion. It is of course sausages with lashings of tomato ketchup.”
Dave said, “Of course it is. See you later, chicklets. And Georgia, it is useless trying to ignore me – it just gives me the Mega Horn.”
And he and the lads went off whistling the theme from The Italian Job.
4:45 p.m.
How annoying is that?
I could kill him.
He completely ignored my glaciosity.
Rosie and Jas were looking at me in a looking-at-me sort of way. Which I hate. Tom walked along with us. Jas was wittering on to him and holding his hand.
“I’ve found this stuff in the library about different kinds of fungi you can eat. You know, for our wilderness thing. Well, if we got lost away from the others in the group we could eat it and not starve.”
I said, “Forgive me if I’m right, but are you talking about mushrooms?”
Jas got all huffy. “Well. All YOU are interested in is Dave the Laugh.”
I tried to look as bewildered as a bee who finds itself in an egg-cup hat.
“I am not at all interested in Dave the Stupid Laugh – it’s just that I am even less interested in grey shapeless things that lurk about the woods.”
They were all looking at me still.
I tried again. “Oh come on, get real… Dave the Laugh, I – me – I mean…”
Tom said, “So you do like him then?”
Jas said meaningfully, “Yes, well, SOME people know SOMETHING about SOMETHING.”
Oh good point, well made. Not.
I wanted to kill her and make her eat her fringe. And her knickers.
Rosie, who had been practising being blind and using me as her guide dog, said, “I’ve got an uncle in Yorkshire who eats cow udder as a treat.”
That can’t be true.
Can it?
5:00 p.m.
Walking home all alone.
I let myself in when I got to our house.
I opened the door and yelled out, “Hello Georgia darling, take your coat off and come and warm yourself by this blazing fire! I’ve made a nourishing stew for you, and when your father comes home from being really masculine and rich we can talk about the four hundred pounds a week you need for a decent pad in London.” As if.
6:00 p.m.
Mum is out tossing herself around a room full of red-faced loons in leotards. Again. Who knows where Dad is. Out in his clown car causing havoc.
Brrr, it is so nippy noodles and dark.
Got into bed it was so chilly bananas.
Oh I am so cold and bored.
7:00 p.m.
Phone rang. It was Ellen.
“I heard you saw Dave on the way home and he’s definitely coming on Saturday because he said he was and that means he is. Do you think?”
I said, “Put it this way, there will be snacks and Sven possibly in a Viking outfit, of course Dave the Laugh will be there.”
And then Ellen started doing this thing. I thought she was having a fit at first. She was snorting and going “Hnnurknurkhhhhnuuuuuurkkk.” “Ellen, what are you doing?” “I’m practising my infectious laugh.” Good grief.
Bedroom
I am so depressed and bored I may even have to do some homework.
In Mutti’s bedroom 7:15 p.m.
I wonder if Mutti has got anything new I could wear to the party.
Ho hum.
I have squirted my lurker with her Opium. I think it might be retreating to where it came from. Although with my luck it will probably re-emerge on the end of my nose, giving me that two-nosed look that is so popular amongst the very very ugly.
7:30 p.m.
I haven’t even got the heart to write to the Sex God, otherwise known as Marsupial Man. He’ll probably be lying in a river somewhere anyway.
7:40 p.m.
My new address is:
Georgia Nicolson
Crap House
Crapton-on-sea
Crapshire
Crapland
7:45 p.m.
What is this book that Mutti has hidden in her knicker drawer?
How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You.
8:00 p.m.
This is amazing.
8:30 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“Rosie.”
“Quoi?”
“Do you know how to make anyone fall in love with you?”
“Well, in Sven’s case I reel him in with snacks and snogging.”
I’ve seen the two of them snogging and eating snacks at the same time, so I didn’t really want to talk about it much.
I went on, “My mutti’s got a secret book and it tells you how to make anyone fall in love with you, even normal boys, boys who are not Svens.”
Friday March 11th
Odds bodkin, what is the matter with grown-ups? They are all mad as hens (madder). Usually when you do plays you just read them out in order and so on. Not at this hellhole. Miss Wilson decided we had to “get into” our parts by improvising. How crap is that? Very, very very and thrice very crap.
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Louise Rennison
Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison’s fifth book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Louise is a star on the HarperCollins teenage list.11.20 a.m.This is my fabulous life: the Sex God left for Whakatane last month and he has taken my heart with him.11.25 a.m.Not literally of course otherwise there would be a big hole in my nunga-nungas.11.28 a.m.And also I would be dead. Which quite frankly would be a blessing in disguise.12.00 p.m.It is soooo boring being brokenhearted……but Georgia doesn't remain brokenhearted for long: frequent snogging extravaganzas with old flame, Dave the Laugh, and the arrival of jelloid-knee-inducing Italian Stallion, Masimo, mean that Georgia has her work cut out to be the composed sex-kitten that she aspires to be.Follow Georgia's hilarious antics as she desperately muddles her way through teenage life and all that it entails: make-up disasters, rapidly expanding nunga-nungas, school – urgh, unsympathetic friends, highly embarrassing family (and pets) and, of course, BOYS.
Copyright (#ulink_225f05be-b015-56cd-8df5-f1f2ff3fe0b8)
First published in Great Britain in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2004 First published in Great Britain in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2005
HarperCollins Children’s Books A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Find out more about Georgia atwww.georgianicolson.com (http://www.georgianicolson.com)
Copyright © Louise Rennison 2004
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007183203
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007402731
Version: 2015-01-27
A Note from Georgia
Dear Chumettes,
Bonsoir!!! I am writing to you from my “imagination den” (or my bed as some people call it), just to say how much I hope you like “…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” Interestingly, the Hamburger-a-gogo types (who I suspect may be a button short of a cardigan) called my book “Away Laughing on a Fast Camel”. They said that “…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” sounds too rude.
They are indeed weird, but what you have to take into account is that they don’t really speak English as such. For instance “fag” only means homosexualist in their land. It doesn’t mean cigarette. So when I wrote that “Alison Bummer lit up a fag”, they said they thought that was “kind of cruel” because they thought she was setting fire to a gay person. I think that illustrates what I am up against.
Anyway, my little chums, I have spent many happy minutes… er… hours writing this and there were a lot of other things I could have been doing, believe me. Juan and Carlos - my imaginary maidservants - could have spent time amusing me, but I said (in my mind), “No, Juan and Carlos! Put down your guitars! Stop plucking! I must write another book for my lovely fans.”
That is how much I love you all.
A LOT.
I do.
I am not exaggerating.
I LOVE YOU ALL.
Georgia, XXXXXXX
p.s. But I am not on the turn.
Contents
Cover (#u327abeeb-658d-5e6e-8fe8-ade9c0cdb093)
Title Page (#u1e2dc68b-c393-579c-a332-1328276c2bc1)
Copyright (#u3211971b-46d1-5000-8272-b93d4409043c)
Dedication (#u4f2b29cb-ae9a-5bdb-973d-c03cca3b92f5)
Alone, all aloney, on my owney (#ue78f5867-ff15-5c29-a1b4-462a6294f52f)
Son of Angus, otherwise known as Cross-eyed Gordy (#litres_trial_promo)
Snog factor 25 and a half (#litres_trial_promo)
“…and that’s when it fell off in my hand.” (#litres_trial_promo)
Once more into the oven of love (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Georgia’s Glossary (#litres_trial_promo)
‘…then he ate my boy entrancers.’ Sample Chapter (#litres_trial_promo)
The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson Series (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Alone, all aloney, on my owney (#ulink_e8f9af9f-1829-5fa4-ac82-e3d69421fcbb)
Saturday March 5th 11:00 a.m. as the crow flies
Grey skies, grey cluds, grey knickers.
I can’t believe my knickers are grey, but it is typico of my life. My mutti put my white lacy knickers in the wash with Vati’s voluminous black shorts and now they are grey.
If there was a medal for craposity in the mutti department, she would win it hands down.
I am once again wandering lonely as a clud through this Vale of Tears.
I wish there was someone I could duff up but I have no one to blame. Except God, and although He is everywhere at once, He is also invisible. (Also, the last person who tried to duff God up was Satan, and he ended up standing on his head in poo with hot swords up his bum-oley.)
11:20 a.m.
This is my fabulous life: the Sex God left for Whakatane last month and he has taken my heart with him.
11:25 a.m.
Not literally, of course, otherwise there would be a big hole in my nunga-nungas.
11:28 a.m.
And also I would be dead. Which quite frankly would be a blessing in disguise.
12:00 p.m.
It is soooo boring being brokenhearted. My eyes look like little piggie eyes from crying. Which makes my nose look ginormous.
Still, at least I am a lurker-free zone. Although with my luck there will be a lurker explosion any minute.
Alison Bummer once had a double yolker on her neck; she had a big spot and it had a baby spot growing on top of it.
I’ll probably get that.
12:05 p.m.
Phoned my very bestest pally, Jas.
“Jas, it’s me.”
“What?”
“Jas, you don’t sound very pleased to hear from me.”
“Well… I would be, but it’s only five minutes since you last phoned and Tom is just telling me about this thing you can do. You go off into the forest and—”
“This hasn’t got anything to do with badgers, has it?”
“Well… no, not exactly, it’s a wilderness course and you learn how to make fire and so on.”
Oh great balls of merde here we go, off into the land of the terminally insane, i.e. Jasland. I said as patiently as I could because I am usually nice(ish) to the disadvantaged, “You are going off on a course to learn how to make fire?”
“Yes, exciting, eh?”
“Why do you have to go on a course to learn how to open a box of matches?”
“You can’t use matches.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a wilderness course.”
“No, wrong, Jas, it’s a crap course where people are too mean to give you any matches.”
She did that sighing business.
“Look, Georgia, I know you’re upset about Robbie going off to Kiwi-a-gogo land.”
“I am.”
“And you not having a boyfriend or anything.”
“Yes, well…”
“And, you know, being all lonely, with no one to really care about you.”
“Yes, all right Jas, I know all th—”
“And the days stretching ahead of you without any meaning and—”
“Jas, shut up.”
“I’m only trying to say that—”
“That is not shutting up, Jas. It is going on and on.”
She got all huffy and Jasish.
“I must go now. Tom has got some knots to show me.”
I was in the middle of saying, “Yes I bet he has…” in an ironic and très amusant way when she brutally put the phone down.
12:30 p.m.
Alone, all aloney.
On my owney.
The house is empty, too. Everyone is out at Grandad’s for lunch.
I was nearly made to go until I pointed out that I am in mourning and unable to eat anything because of my heartbreak.
Mine is a pathetico tale that would make anyone who had a heart weep, but that does not include Vati. He said he would gladly leave me behind because talking to me made him realise the fun he had had when he accidentally fell into the open sewers in India.
1:15 p.m.
Looking out of my bedroom window. Entombed in my room for ever. Like in that book, The Prisoner of Brenda, or whatever it’s called.
Except I could go out if I wanted.
But I don’t want to.
I may never go out again.
Ever.
1:30 p.m.
This is boring. I’ve been cooped up for about a million years.
What time is it?
Phoned Jas.
“Jas?”
“Oh God.”
“What time is it?”
“What?”
“Why are you saying ‘what’? I merely asked you a civil question.”
“Why don’t you look at your own clock?”
“Jas, have you noticed I am very, very upset and that my life is over? Have you noticed that?”
“Yes I have, because you have been on the phone telling me every five minutes for a month.”
“Well, I am soo sorry if it’s too much trouble to tell your very bestest pal the time. Perhaps my eyes are too swollen from tears to see the clock.”
“Well are they?”
“Yes.”
“Well how come you could see to dial my number?”
Mrs Huffy Knickers was so unreasonable.
“Anyway, I’m not your bestest pal any more, Nauseating P. Green is your bestest pal now that you rescued her from the clutches of the Bummer twins.”
I slammed down the phone.
Brilliant. Sex Godless and now friend to P. Green, that well-known human goldfish.
Sacré bloody bleu and triple merde.
And poo.
Oh Robbie, how could you leave me and go off to the other (incredibly crap) side of the world? What has Kiwi-a-gogo land got that I haven’t? Besides forty million sheep.
I think I’ll play the tape he gave me again. It’s all I have left to remind me of him and our love. That will never die.
2:20 p.m.
Good grief, now I am really depressed. His song about Van Gogh, “Oh No, It’s Me Again”, has to be one of the most depressing songs ever written.
2:30 p.m.
Second only to track four, “Swim Free”, about a dolphin that gets caught in a fishing net, and every time we eat a tuna sandwich we’re eating Sammy the dolphin. Fortunately I never eat tuna, as Mum mostly stocks up on Jammy Dodgers and there is definitely nothing that was ever alive in them.
2:35 p.m.
If I am brutally honest, which I try to be, the only fly in the ointmosity of the Sex God was that he could be a bit on the serious side. Always raving on about the environment and so on. Actually, his whole family is obsessed with vegetables. Let’s face it, his brother Tom (otherwise known as Hunky) has chosen one to be his girlfriend!
Hahahahahaha. That’s a really good joke about Jas that I will never tell her but secretly think of when she flicks her fringe about or shows me her Rambler’s badge.
I will never forget Robbie, though. The way he used to nibble my lips. He will always be Nip Libbler Extraordinaire.
2:50 p.m.
Oh no, hang on. The Sex God used to snog my ears. It was Dave the Laugh who enticed me into the ways of nip libbling. Which reminds me. I wonder why he hasn’t phoned me? Did I remember to tell him that I was thinking about letting him be my unserious boyfriend?
I should punish him, really. It was, after all, he who introduced me to the Cosmic Horn when I was happy just having the Particular Horn for the Sex God.
2:55 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“RoRo.”
“Bonsoir.”
“I am having the cosmic droop.”
“Well, fear not, my pally, because I have le plan de la genius.”
“What is it, and does it involve the police?”
Rosie laughed in a not-very-reassuring way if you like the sound of sane laughter. She said, “I’m having a party for Sven’s return from Swedenland next Saturday.”
“What kind of party is it going to be?”
“Teenage werewolf.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“Good grief.”
“Bless you.”
“Rosie, what has Sven been doing while he’s been away working for Santa Claus on a reindeer farm?”
“He hasn’t been to Lapland.”
“How can you be sure? Geoggers is not your best subject, is it?”
“Well, excuse me if I’m right, but it isn’t yours either, Gee. You missed out the whole of Germany on your world map.”
“Easily done.”
“Not when you’re copying from the atlas. Anyway, I must go. I have a costume to make. See you at Stalag 14 on Monday.”
Bathroom 3:00 p.m.
Sometimes I amaze myself with my courageosity. Even though I have been through the mangle of love and beyond, I can still be bothered to cleanse and tone.
3:30 p.m.
But the effort of a high-quality beauty regime has made me exhausted. I am going to go to my room and read my book on my inner dolphin or whatever it’s called. Anyway it is to do with peace and so on. I may even make a little shrine to Robbie to celebrate our undying love. Even though he hasn’t bothered to write to me since he went to Kiwi-a-gogo land.
3:45 p.m.
Hmm. I have covered all the cosmic options with my shrine: I’ve put a photo of Robbie in the middle of some shiny paper, it has a figure of Buddha on one side of the beloved Sex God, and one of Jesus and a little dish for offerings on the other. Also, when I was accidentally going through Mum’s knicker drawer, I found some incense stuff. I don’t like to think what she and Vati do with it: some horrific snogging ritual they learned in Katmandu or something.
3:50 p.m.
I had to BluTack Jesus on to my dressing table because Libby has been using him as a boyfriend for scuba-diving Barbie and one of his feet is missing.
4:00 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“RoRo, explain this if you can with your wisdomosity. I only had the Particular Horn for SG before I met Dave the Laugh and then Dave the Laugh lured me into the web of the General and Cosmic Horns.”
RoRo said, “He’s groovy, isn’t he, Dave the Laugh?”
“Yeah… sort of.”
“Shall I ask him on Saturday?”
“It doesn’t matter to me, because I am eschewing him with a firm hand.”
“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind badger.”
What in the name of Miss Wilson’s moustache is she talking about?
My bedroom, in my bed of pain (quite literally) 10:00 PM
Libby’s bottom is bloody freezing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’d been sitting in a bucket of frozen mackerel. Still, she has been round to Grandad’s, so anything could have happened; he is, after all, the man who set fire to himself with his own pipe.
10:05 p.m.
She might have a cold botty and be mad as a snake, but she looks so lovely when she’s asleep and she is my little sister. I really love her. I kissed her on her forehead and without opening her eyes she slapped me and said, “Cheeky monkey.” I don’t know what goes on in her head. (Thank God.)
10:15 pm
Do the Prat Poodles deliberately wait until I’m drifting off before they start their yowling fest? What is the matter with them? Have they been startled by a vole?
I looked out the window. Mr and Mrs Next Door have put a kennel outside in the garden for the Prat Poodles, but the poodley twits are too stupid and frightened to go into it. They are barking at it and running away from it. How pathetic is that? It’s only a kennel, you fools. What kind of dog is frightened of a kennel?
10:20 pm
Oh, I get it!! Angus is in their kennel. I just saw his huge paw come out and biff one of the Prat Poodles on the snout. Supercat strikes again!!!
Hahahaha and ha di hahaha, he is a très très amusant cat. He has set up a little cat flatlet in the Prats’ kennel. It’s his pied-à-terre. Or his paw-de-terre.
10:25 PM
Uh-oh. Mr Next Door is on the warpath. Surely it must be against the laws of humanity to sell pyjamas like his. He looks like a striped hippopotamus, only not so attractive and svelte.
He’s trying to poke Angus out with a stick. Good luck, Mr Hippo.
Angus thinks it’s the stick game. He LIKES being prodded with a stick, it reminds him of his Scottish roots. Next thing is, he will get hold of it and start wrestling with Mr Next Door to try to get it away from him.
10:28 PM
Yes, yes, he’s clamped on the end! Mr Next Door will never get him off by shaking it around. He will be there going round and round the garden for the rest of his life.
10:33 PM
Sometimes for a laugh Angus lets go of the stick and Mr Next Door crashes backwards. Then Angus strolls over and gets hold of the stick again. I could watch all night long… uh-oh, Mr Next Door has seen me. He is indicating that he would like me to step downstairs. Although I think shouting and saying “bugger” at this time of night is a bit unneighbourly.
Honestly, I am like a part-time game warden and careworker for the elderly mad. I should get a net and a badge.
Mr Next Door’s garden 10:40 p.m.
Mr Next Door was sensationally red as he tried to shake Angus off the end of his stick.
He said, in between wheezing and coughing, “This thing is demented, it should be put down!!”
Oh yeah, fat chance – Angus nearly had the vet’s arm off the last time he was in surgery. The vet has asked us to not come back again.
However, I used my natural talents of diplomosity with Mr Mad. I spoke clearly and loudly. “You need another broom to beat him off with.”
I said again, “YOU NEED ANOTHER BROOM TO BEAT HIM OFF WITH.”
He said, “There’s no need to shout, I’m not deaf.”
And I said, “Pardon?”
Which is an excellent display of humourosity in anyone’s book. Except Mr Mad’s. In the end, I lassoed Angus with the clothesline and dragged him home and locked him in the airing cupboard. Dad’s “smalls” (not) will be in tatters by morning, but you can’t have everything.
Sunday March 6th
Dreamed about the Sex God and our marriage. It was really groovy and gorgey. I wore a long white veil, and when I was at the altar SG pushed it back and said, “Why… Georgia, you’re beautiful.” And I didn’t go cross-eyed or speak in a stupid German accent. I even remembered to put my tongue at the back of my teeth to stop my nostrils flaring when I smiled. The church was packed with loads of friends, and everyone looked nice and relatively normal. Even Vati had shaved the tiny badger off his chin, and Uncle Eddie had a hat on so that he didn’t look quite so much like a boiled egg in a suit.
The choir was singing “Isn’t She Lovely?” and for some reason the choir was made up of chipmunks and Libby was in charge of them. It was sweet, even if the singing was a bit high-pitched.
And then the vicar said, “Is there anyone here who knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in matrimony?”
I was gazing into the dark blue of Sex God’s eyes, dreamy dreamy. Then from the back, Jackie Bummer (smoking a fag) shouted, “I’ve got a reason: Georgia has got extreme red-bottomosity.”
And Alison Bummer (smoking two fags) joined in, “Yeah, and the Cosmic Horn.”
And I could feel myself getting hotter and hotter, and I couldn’t breathe. I woke up crying out to find Libby sitting on my nungas with Charlie Horse and singing, “Smelly the elepan bagged her trunk and said goodguy to the circus.”
8:15 a.m.
It’s only 8:15 a.m. On Sunday. I want to sleep for ever and ever and never wake up to life as a red-bottomed spinster.
8:30 a.m.
Maybe if I make a special plea to Baby Jesus for clemency he will hear me. If I promise to put my red bottom aside with a firm hand, he might send the SG back to me.
8:35 a.m
I can’t pray here – Baby Jesus won’t be able to hear a thing above Libby’s singing. Maybe I should make the supreme sacrifice and go to God’s house. Call-me-Arnold the vicar would be beside himself with joy; he would probably prepare a fatted whatsit… pensioner.
9:05 a.m
What should I wear for church? Keep it simple and reverential, I think.
9:36 a.m.
My false eyelashes are fab.
9:37 a.m
Maybe I shouldn’t wear them, though, because it might give the wrong impression. It might imply that I’m a bit superficial. I’ll take them off.
9:38 a.m
It has taken me ages to stick them on, though. Anyway, if God can read your every thought because of his impotence ability, He will know that I really want to wear my eyelashes and have only taken them off in case He didn’t like them. They didn’t have false eyelashes in ye olde Godde tymes so it is a moot point
Perhaps He will think they are my real ones.
9:40 a.m
But that would make Him not an impotent all-wise God, that would make Him a really dim God. Who can’t even tell the difference between real and false eyelashes, even though He has been watching someone put them on for the last half an hour.
And I say that with all reverencosity.
Anyway, surely He is looking at the starving millions, not sneaking around in my bedroom.
Intheloo 9:50 a.m.
Is He watching me now? Erlack.
In the street out side my house 10:10 a.m
Quiet, apart from Mr and Mrs Across the Road’s house. As I passed by, there was loads of shouting and yowling. I hope Mr Across the Road is not ill-treating Angus’s children. He looks like a kittykat abuser to me. And he has a very volatile temperament. The least thing sets him off. He’s like my vati. He appeared shouting and yelling at his kitchen door as I went by to God’s house. At first I thought he was wearing a fur coat and hat until I realised the coat and hat were moving. He was completely covered in Angus’s offspring.
Naomi as usual is not taking a blind bit of notice. She is a bit of a slutty mother: mostly she just lolls around in the kitchen window enticing Angus with her bottom antics.
Last week the kittykats, who are ADORABLE, if a bit on the bonkers side, burrowed their way under the fence and were larking around in Mr and Mrs Next Door’s ornamental pond.
I said to Mutti, “I didn’t know the Next Doors had flying fish in their pond.”
And she said, “They haven’t.”
The flying fish turned out to be goldfish that the kittykats were biffing about in the air. When the mad old next-door loons noticed and came raging out of the house, the kittykats cleared off back under the fence. I don’t know what the fuss is about: they got the boring old goldfish back into the pond. Even the one caught in the hedge. Anyway, as punishment, the kitties were caged up in the rabbit run. Not for long it seems.
Mr Across the Road was trying to get the kittykats off him, but they had dug their claws in. They are sooo clever.
He shouted at me, “They’re going, you know. They are going.”
Rave on, rave on. I bet he loves them really.
Church
Call-me-Arnold was alarmingly glad to see me. He kept calling me his child. Which I am clearly not. My vati is an embarrassment in the extreme, but he is not an albino. Call-me-Arnold is so blondy that his head is practically transparent
I really gave up the will to carry on when Call-me-Arnold got his guitar out to sing some incredibly crap song about the seasons. Why can’t we just sing something depressing like we do at school and get on with it? I even had to shake hands with people. But I must remember this is God’s house and also that I am asking for a cosmic favour.
At the end, after most people had filed out, I noticed that some people were going to a side chapel and lighting a candle and then praying.
That must be the cosmic request shop. Fab! I would go light a candle and plead for mine and Robbie’s love.
I went up and got my candle and lit it, ready for action, but an elderly lady was kneeling right in front of the display thing. I could hear her mumbling. She had a headscarf on. On and on she went, mumble mumble. Bit greedy, really. She must have had a whole list of stuff to ask for.
Ho hum, pig’s bum.
I knelt down behind her because I was feeling a bit exhausted. I had, after all, been up since the crack of dawn. (Well, eight fifteen.)
I was holding my candle and thinking and thinking about the Sex God and our love that knew no bounds and stretched across the Pacific Ocean. Or was it the Australian Bite? Anyway, our love was stretching across some big watery thing.
I think I might actually have nodded off for a little zizz, because I came round to see a small inferno ablaze in front of me. Oh hell’s teeth, I had accidentally set fire to an elderly pensioner! The end of her headscarf was blazing merrily and she hadn’t even noticed.
I started beating the flames out with my handbag. I was trying to help, but she started hitting me back with her handbag. Before I knew it, I was in a handbag fight.
11:45 a.m.
I did try to point out that long dangly scarves on the very elderly could be considered a health hazard around naked flames. But Call-me-Arnold wasn’t calling me his child any more and he didn’t ask if he would see me next week.
Which he won’t.
Lunchtime
I am exhausted by trying to get along with the Lord.
Monday March 7th Back to Stalag 14
As a mark of my widowosity, I wore dark glasses and a black armband. Also I found a black feather from Mutti’s sad feather boa that she wears if I don’t spot her first. I stuck that in the side of my beret, which I pulled down right over my ears.
I was walking along with Jas and I said, “Even in the depths of my sadnosity I think I have a touch of the Jacqueline Onassis about me.”
She said, “Why? Did she look like a prat as well?”
A quick duffing up showed her the error of her ways.
Oh God, oh Goddy God God, a whole day of Stalag 14.
Assembly
Our revered and amazingly porky Headmistress Slim rambled on about exams and achievement and said wisely, “Now, in conclusion, girls, I would say, it’s not all about winning, it’s how you play the game.”
What game? What in the name of Ethelred the Unready’s pantyhose is she talking about? As we filed off to the science block, Hawkeye was in a super-duper strop for some reason. She made me remove my armband and she was marching up and down looking at people like a Doberman, only much taller. And not a dog. She alarmed a first former so much that the first former fell into a holly bush and had to be fished out and sent to the nurse to calm down.
I said to Rosie, “I think widowhood has toughened me up. If Hawkeye gets on my case I am going to say to her, ‘Hawkeye, sir, when you have suffered the torments of love like I have, you will not give a flying pig’s bum about your Latin homework. Romulus and Remus could have been brought up by ostriches for all I care.’”
Rosie said, “Yeah right, well, let’s see what happens when she gives you double detention.”
“Do you know what I saw on TV the other night? Ostriches fall in love with human beings. On ostrich farms they go all gooey and even more dim when humans come to feed them. They try to snog them.”
“Ostriches try to snog humans?”
“Yes.”
“Non.”
“Mais oui, mon petit idiot, c’est vrai. It is very very vrai.”
“How can they snog when they have beaks?”
“You are being a bit beakist, Rosie.”
Lunchtime
The Ace Gang are going on and on about the teenage werewolf party. Jas said, “Tom and I are going to wear matching false ears!” And then she had an uncontrollable laughing spaz.
I said, “Jas, when was the last time you saw a teenage werewolf with false ears?”
That made her stop snorting like a fool. She was all shuffily on the knicker toaster (radiator). “Well… it’s, well… I mean…”
Rosie – who is in an alarmingly good mood now that Sven is winging his way home on his sleigh – slapped me on the back and said, “What do you get when you cross a mouse with an elephant?”
We all just looked at her and she put her glasses on sideways and said, “Massive holes in the skirting board!”
I feel like a bean in a bikini, tossed around on the sea of life. Set apart from my mates because of heartbreakosity. I love them but how childish they seem, chatting on about false eyebrows. I may never wear extra body hair ever again.
3:00 a.m.
We should be having Hawkeye for English but she is too busy torturing people, so Miss Wilson will be taking most of our lessons this term. She is a tremendous div, so English will be more or less a free period.
Oh, what larks! We are doing Macbeth as our set play. Although Miss Wilson says we are not allowed to say its name: we have to call it “The Scottish Play”, because it’s bad luck to say its name. As I said to Rosie and Jools, “Hurrah! A play about blokes in tights talking in Och Aye language for a thousand years.”
We’ve all been dished out parts and, tragically, Jas is going to be Lady MacScottishplay. Rosie, Jools and Ellen are the three witches and I am some complete twit in tights called Macduff. Nauseating P. Green is my wife, Lady Macduff. She is thrilled and keeps mooning over at me.
I don’t see how I am supposed to be a bloke, because they are – as we all know – a complete mystery.
4:15 p.m.
On the way home Jas was looking at her hand and going, “Out damn spot.”
I said, “It’s not the spot on your hand you have to worry about, Jas, it’s the huge lurker lurking on your chin.”
That shut her up and got her feeling about.
Actually, she hasn’t got a lurker on her chin, but if she goes on fingering it long enough she will have.
Home (ha)5:00 p.m.
Oh brilliant, Angus has gone into my wardrobe and found some of my knickers to attack. He was ambling out of my room with his head through one of the legs like some sort of Arab sheikh. I kicked at him but he dodged out of the way. He was purring really loudly; he loves it when you get rough with him. He is a good example of the benefits of rough love. I should really give him a good kicking every day.
Kitche 5:30 pm
Oh yum yum and quelle surprise, we are having les delicieuses fish fingers and frozen peas for our tea! I am sure that I am developing rickets: my legs look distinctly bendy. Vati came in in a hilariously good mood. He kissed me on the head even though I tried to dodge him. I said, “Father, I need my own space and frankly you are in it.”
He just laughed and said, “I’ve just seen Colin and he and Sandy are having a Lord of the Rings party and we’re all invited.”
Mutti said, “What a hoot.”
I said with great meaningosity, “Vati, I will never – and I repeat, never – be wearing an elf’s outfit in this lifetime, and for the sake of any sensitive people on the planet – that is, me – I beg you not to consider green tights.”
He just smiled and said, “I know you are secretly very thrilled, Georgia.”
He and Mutti laughed. And Libby joined in with a very alarming sort of laughing. Like a mad Santa Claus and pig combined. “Hohohogoggyhoggyhog.”
I don’t know what they teach her at nursery school, but it’s not how to be normal.
Only 6:30 pm
I wonder what time it is in Kiwi-a-gogo land? They are twenty-four hours ahead of us and it’s Monday here, so it must be Tuesday there.
6:35 p.m.
Does that mean that SG knows what I will be wearing for the teenage werewolf party before I do?
Not that I will be going.
Will I?
I will be the last to know as usual.
Oh Baby Jesus and your cohorts, please make something really great happen. Otherwise I am going to bed. But I will wait for half an hour because I trust in your ultimate goodnosity.
7:35 p.m.
It’s not much to ask, is it? But oh no, Baby Jesus is just too busy to make anything interesting happen. Maybe he is holding the pensioner inferno against me.
In the loo
Sitting in the loo of life contemplating my navel.
My navel sticks out a bit. Is it supposed to do that? I hope it’s not unravelling. That would be the final straw.
Vati keeps books in the loo. How disgusting is that? Pooing and reading. What is he reading? It’s called Live and Let Die. How true.
8:3O p.m.
No one has bothered to ring me. I wonder why Dave the Laugh hasn’t phoned me? I could phone him, but that would mean he might think I am keen on him.
Which I am not.
8:45 p.m.
Vati’s book is about James Bond, who is a sort of specialagent-type thing. Vati probably thinks he is like James Bond. Which he would be, if James Bond was a porky bloke with a badger attachment.
9:00 p.m.
I am in the prime of my womanhood, nunga-nungas poised and trembling (attractively). Lips puckered up and in peak condition for a snogging fest.
And I am in bed.
At nine p.m.
9:05 p.m
Not alone for long, because my sister is now in bed with me. She has got her bedtime book for me to read to her. Heidi. About some girl who goes up a mountain in Swisscheeseland to live with some elderly mad bloke in lederhosen, who sadly for her is her grandfather.
I know how she feels. At least my grandad doesn’t wear leather shorts. Yet.
9:15 p.m.
So far Heidi and Old Mr Mad of the Mountains have herded up goats and eaten a lot of cheese. A LOT. They are constantly eating cheese.
9:20 p.m.
Even Libby was so bored by the cheese extravaganza that she nodded off to sleep, so I slipped downstairs to phone Jas. I did it quietly because there will only be the usual tutting explosion from Vati about me using the phone if he hears me.
I whispered, “Jas?”
Oh, it’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve got my jimmyjams on and I was reading my book about the wilderness course that Tom and I are going to go on.”
“Oh I am sooooooo sorry, Jas, soooo sorry to interrupt your twig work just because I am all on my own without the comfort of human company and my life is ebbing away.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
“Jas, are you still there?”
Her voice sounded a bit distant. “Yes.”
I said, “What is that cracking noise?”
“Er…”
“You are actually playing with twigs, aren’t you?”
“Well… I…”
How pathetico.
She said all swottily, “Look, I have to go. I’ve got my German homework to do.”
“Don’t bother learning their language, they are obsessed with goats.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lederhosen-a-gogo-land people are obsessed with goats… and cheese.”
“Who says so?”
“It’s in a book I am reading about them.”
“What book?”
“It’s called Heidi. It is utterly crap.”
“Heidi?”
“Jah.”
Mrs Picky Knickers sounded all swotty and know-it-all. “Heidi is a children’s book about a girl who lives in the Alps in Switzerland.”
“Yes, and your point is?”
“That’s not Germany.”
“It’s very near.”
“You might as well say that Italy and France are the same because they are very near.”
“I do say that.”
“Or Italy and Greece.”
“I say that as well.”
“You talk rubbish.”
“Yeah but I don’t play with twigs like a… like a fringey thrush.”
She slammed the phone down on me.
Well. She is so annoying.
But on the other hand, no one else is around to talk to.
Phoned her back.
“Jas, I’m sorry, you always hurt the one you love.”
“Don’t start the love thing.”
“OK, but night-night.”
“Night.”
10:00 p.m.
Oh, I am so restless and bored. I think my mouth may be sealing over because of lack of snogging. Or shrinking. I wonder if that can happen? They say “Use It or Lose It” on all those really scary posters in the doctor’s surgery, mainly for very very old people who are too lazy to walk about, and then their legs shrink, possibly. But it may be the same for lips.
10:05 p.m.
No sign of any shrinkage on the basooma front.
In the loo 11:00 p.m.
In Dad’s James Bond book it says, “Bond came and stood close against her. He put a hand over each breast. But still she looked away from him out of the window. ‘Not now,’ she said in a low voice.”
Now I am completely baffled. What in the name of arse does that mean?
A hand over each nunga?
Like a human nunga-nunga holder.
Do boys do that?
Wednesday March 9th
No letters from the Sex God.
And I haven’t heard anything from Dave the Laugh either.
Still, what do I care, I am full of glaciosity for him.
I wonder if he will go to the party on Saturday. Not that I am interested, as I will be at home embroidering toilet roll holders or whatever very sad spinsters do.
Bathroom 7:30 a.m.
Oh fabulous, I have a lurking lurker on my cheek. The painters are due in this week and that is probably why I am feeling so moody.
That and the fact that my life is utterly crap.
Still, a really heavy period should cheer me up.
Maybe if I disguise the lurker with some eye pencil it will look like a beauty spot.
Breakfast
Mutti said, “Georgia, why don’t you just hang a sign on your head that says, ‘Have you noticed I’ve got a spot, everybody?’”
I tried to think of something clever to say to her but I am too tired.
8:20 a.m.
I was dragging myself out the door to another day of unnatural torture (school) when the postman arrived. It takes him about a year to get up our driveway because he tries to dodge Angus. Angus loves him. He is his little postie pal. The postie, who is not what you would call blessed in the looks department, was furtively looking around and shuffling about. I said helpfully, “Angus is off on his morning constitutional, so I am afraid you can’t play with him.”
The postie said, “I know what I would like to do with him and it involves a sack and a river. Here you are.”
And he shoved a letter at me. Not ideal behaviour from a servant of the people I don’t think.
Then I noticed it was an aerogram-type letter. For me. From Kiwi-agogo land. From the Sex God.
Oh joy joy joy joyitty joy joy.
And also thrice joy.
I looked at the writing. So Sex-Goddy. And it said “Georgia Nicolson” on it.
That was me.
And on the back it said:
From Robbie Jennings
R.D. 4
Pookaka lane (honestly)
Whakatane
New Zealand
That was him. The Sex God. I started skipping down the street until unfortunately I saw Mark Big Gob and his lardy mates. He doesn’t even bother to look at my face, he just talks to my nungas.
Mark was leery like a leering thing and he said, “Careful, Georgia, you don’t want to knock yourself out with your jugs.” And they all laughed.
Thank goodness I had worn my special sports nunga holder, or my “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”, as Rosie calls it. At least my basoomas were nicely encased. Anyway, ha di hahahaha to Mark Big Gob – nothing could upset me today because I was filled with the joyosity of young love.
I did stop skipping though, and walked off with a dignity-at-all-times sort of walk.
But Mark still hadn’t had his day; he shouted after me, “I’ll carry them to school for you if you like!”
He is disgusting. And a midget lover. I don’t know how I could have ever snogged him.
8:35 a.m.
Jas was stamping around outside her house going, “Oh brrrrr, it is so nippy noodles, brr!”
She had a sort of furry bonnet over her beret. I said, “You look like a crap teddy bear.”
She just went on shivering and said, “Do you think we will get let off hockey because of Antarctic conditions?”
“Jas, you live, as I have always said, in the land of the terminally deluded and criminally insane. Nothing gets us off hockey. We are at the mercy of a Storm Trooper and part-time lesbian. Miss Stamp LOVES Antarctic conditions. You can see her moustache bristling with delight when it snows.”
If Jas has to wear a furry bonnet in cold weather, I don’t think much of her chances of survival on her survival-type course.
Still, that is life.
Or in her case, death.
She was still going “Brrr brr,” but I didn’t let it spoil my peachy mood.
“Jas, guess what? Something très très magnifique has happened at last.”
“Brrr.”
“Shut up brrring, Jas.”
I got out my aerogram.
“Look, it’s from SG.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t opened it yet, I am savouring it.”
“It’s not a pie.”
“I know that, Jas. Please don’t annoy me. I don’t want to have to beat you within an inch of your life so early in the day.”
I tucked the aerogram down the front of my shirt for safe keepies as we trudged up the hill to Stalag 14. But I had a song in my heart.
“Jas, I have a song in my heart, and do you know what it is?”
But she just ran off into the cloakroom to sit on the knicker toaster for a few minutes to thaw out.
Still, I did have a song in my heart called “I Have a Letter from a Sex God in my Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”.
Assembly
Slim told us exciting news this morning. Elvis Attwood, the most bonkers man in Christendom and part-time caretaker, is retiring. We started cheering but had to change our cheering into a sort of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” thing because Hawkeye was giving us her ferret eye. Slim was rambling on in her jelloid way, chins shaking like billyo.
“So, as a special thank you for all the magnificent work Mr Attwood has put in over the years, we will be having a going-away party for him. We will have music and so on, and perhaps Mr Attwood will show us how to ‘get with it’, as you girls say.”
She laughed like a ninny. Get with it? What in the name of her enormous undergarments is she raving on about? The last time Elvis did any dancing he had to be taken to the casualty department. So every cloud has a silver lining.
I said to the Ace Gang as we trailed out of Assembly to RE, “What started out as a scheissenhausen day has turned out to be a groovy gravy day.”
I am looking forward to RE because while everyone has their little snooze I can read my letter from the beloved.
RE
We all snuggled down at the back. RoRo was knitting something for the teenage werewolf party. I think it might be a full-length beard. Jools was doing her cuticles and Jas was reading her wilderness manual. She loves it because it has lots of photos of girlie swots building incomprehensible things out of twigs. Anyway, time to read my letter. Miss Wilson was beginning to ramble on about “world peace” and asking us for our views. I didn’t want to have to answer anything, I just wanted her to soothingly write stuff on the board or rave on. So I put my hand up. That startled her. I said, “Miss Wilson, I have been very troubled in my mind.”
That started Rosie off in uncontrollable sniggering. Miss Wilson looked at me through her owly glasses. She is the most strangely put together person I have ever come across. Where does she get her clothes from? Did you know that you could get dresses made out of red felt with matching booties for grown-ups? She has clearly been to the circus shop that Slim buys her wrinkly elephant-tights from.
Anyway, Miss Wilson was vair vair interested in my troubled mind.
“Is it something of a theological nature, Georgia?”
“Yes indeedy, Miss Wilson. This is what is troubling me. If God is, you know, impotent…”
Miss Wilson went sensationally red, so now her head matched her booties.
“Well… er… Georgia, erm, impotent means not being able to have any children… I rather think you mean omnipotent.”
“Whatever. Well, if He is, does that mean that He is with you even when you are in the lavatory?”
Miss Wilson started rambling on about God not being really a bloke like other geezers but more of a spiritual whatsit. Hmmm. She has a very soothing manner. Jools had finished her cuticles and was having a little zizz on her pencil case.
I opened my letter with trembly hands. I wondered how long it would take me to fly to Kiwi-agogo land.
Dear Georgia,
Sorry it has taken me S0 long to write to you but it has been full-on since I got here. The countryside around here is fantastic, it’s all formed from volcanic activity. There are volcanoes near here that are still live and there is a lot of geothermal activity.
Yesterday when we were eating our lunch outside, the table was heaving and lurching about. That’s because the molten steam trapped beneath the Earth’s crust makes the ground move and shake around. It was amazing! The sheep were going backwards and forwards, and the trees were going up and down. There are bore fields around the whole area where they tap the steam and make electricity out of it. The lads took me to see a rogue bore called Old Faithful that explodes every fifteen minutes.
Rogue bore? He could have stayed here and just sat still in our school for a few minutes; it’s full of rogue bores. Sadly, they do not explode.
And that is all the letter was about, just loads and loads of stuff about vegetables and sheep and lurching tables. Not one thing about missing me.
I couldn’t believe it.
At the end, it said,
Well, I must go, some of the guys are going down to the river. It has natural hot springs that run through it. We go down there at night and lie in it playing our guitars.
He was going down to a river and he was going to lie in it.
That was the big nightspot.
I wrote a note to Jas.
Jas,
SG just talked about opossums and rogue bores and a river and then at the end he said, “I hope you are well and happy. You’re a great girl. Gidday. Robbie x”
One measly kiss.
11:00 am
After RE I was in a state of shock. I could hardly eat my cheesy snacks. We sat on the knicker toaster in the Blodge lab and the Ace Gang had a look at the letter.
Jas said, “Well, he said you were a great girl.”
I just looked at her.
“And it’s really interesting about the molten steam and the geothermal… stuff.”
I just looked at her again.
Rosie said, “Forget him, he’s obsessed with marsupials. When he comes back he’ll be playing a didgeridoo and be like Rolf Harris. Move on.”
4:15 p.m.
Walking home with Jas. I said to her, “I cannot believe my life. I’ve kept reading SG’s letter over and over but it still rambles on about steam and vegetables.”
Jas looked thoughtful (crikey) and then she said something almost bordering on the very nearly not mad. She said, “Maybe it’s in code.”
“In code?”
“Yes, so that, erm, the customs people, or say it fell into the wrong hands, like your mum and dad… well, so that they couldn’t tell what he had really written.”
I gave her a hug. “Jas, I am sorry that I ever doubted your sanity. You are a genius of the first water.”
In my room 4:45 p.m.
So let’s see.
5:30 p.m.
If I underline every fourth word, that might work.
6:00 p.m.
I think I have got it! Phoned Jas.
“Jas, I think I’ve got it.”
“Go on then.”
“OK. It’s sort of in shorthand even when it is decoded but… anyway… this is what it says:
‘Dear Georgia. Me, you fantastic. When we were heaving and lurching about it was amazing. Me explodes every fifteen minutes. At night me in it playing you. You’re great. Love Robbie.’”
There was a silence. Then Jas said, “Did you say, ‘me explodes every fifteen minutes’?” “Yes… keen, isn’t he?”
In bed 7:00 p.m.
It wasn’t in code. It was just a really, really crap letter.
Nothing can be worse than how I feel now.
7:30 p.m.
Wrong. I cannot believe my vati. He has sold our normal(ish) car and bought a Robin Reliant. You know, one of those really really sad cars that only the very mad buy? It has got three wheels. It is a three-wheeled car. I shouted down to Vati, “Why?”
He was all preened-up and dadish.
He shouted back up, “It’s an antique.”
I tried logic with him. “Vati, sometimes antiques are interesting – the crown jewels, for instance, they interest me – but this is just a really old crap car that only has three wheels.”
He was polishing it. It’s red and it has a racing strip.
Vati said, “Hop in and I’ll take you fora spin.” As if.
Dad started rustling around in the boot and shouted to Mum, “Connie, come on, I’ll take you and Libby fora ride in the Sexmobile.”
He is so ludicrously pleased with himself.
And Mutti was as bad. All dillydollyish and also she had a tiny skirt on. At least she had on a skirt though, unlike Libby, who was in the nuddy-pants.
8:00 PM
In the end they all went off, including Angus, who I actually thought was driving the car at first. He had his paws on the steering wheel and was looking straight ahead. Even though I am on the rack of love, it did make me laugh. Then Vati’s head popped up. Not content with the humiliatorosity of the Robin Reliant clown car, Vati also bought a Second World War flying helmet and goggles.
As they drove off, he wound down the window and shouted, “Chocks away!!!”
What does Mutti see in him? He must have been like this when she met him. Which means, in essence, that she likes porky blokes with badgers on their chins who are clearly mental.
At this rate I am going to spend the rest of my life with them, so I should get used to it, I suppose.
8:05 p.m.
I can’t. I would rather plunge my head into a basket of whelks.
8:10 p.m.
What is it with boys?
I may do some research on them for my part in MacUseless or The Och Aye Play.
I may as well, as my so-called mates can’t be bothered to ring me.
8:30 p.m.
Phone rang.
If it’s Dave the Laugh, I am going to give him the full force of my glaciosity. I hate boys.
It was Rosie.
“Gee?”
“Oh hi, I’m glad you rang because I am sooo—”
“Did you hear about the dog who went into a pub and said to the barman, ‘Can I have a pint and a bag of crisps please?’”
“Rosie, I don’t-”
“The barman said, ‘Blimey, that’s brilliant. There’s a circus in town. You should go and get a job.’”
“Rosie, I have-”
“And the dog said, ‘Why? Do they need electricians?’”
And she slammed down the phone.
I am seriously worried about her dwindling sanity. I’d just got back upstairs to my bed of pain when the phone rang again. Why can’t we have a portable fandango thing or, alternatively, a servant called Juan who answers it?
Is it so much to ask?
This time it was Ellen.
“Georgia, it’s me. I was, you know… for the party. Well, do you… think I… well, if you were me, would you or would you just kind of, you know… or not?”
What in the name of Hitler’s pants and matching bra set is she on about?
“Ellen, how can I put this? What in the name of arse are you talking about?”
“Dave the Laugh, should I, you know, well, would you?”
Oh marvellous, I have to be Wise Woman of the Forest for my mates. Also it reminded me that if Ellen found out about the Dave the Laugh snogging scenarios, there might well be fisticuffs at dawn.
Still, I am not God and also I am very very busy with my own problems. My lurking lurker has to be dealt with before it makes a surprise appearance. Not that I will ever be going out again anyway. My lurker could grow to the size of my head if it wanted to. Erlack, now I feel sick.
Ellen was rambling on and on about Dave the Laugh and how to entice him and so on. In the end, in sheer desperadoes, I said, “Look, do you know why Dave the Laugh is called, you know, Dave the Laugh?”
Ellen said, “Er. No, why is that?”
I am being pushed to the limits of my nicosity, but I tried, God knows I tried.
“He’s called that because he likes a laugh, and well, to be frank, Ellen, you are a bit lacking vis-à-vis the laughometer scale.”
9:00 p.m.
I wish when I am speaking complete and utter bollocks people would not take me seriously. It’s not my fault that I have advised Ellen to develop an infectious laugh, is it? Oh, I am so tired.
9:30 p.m.
By the time the Circus Family came home, I was tucked up in my bed with the lights off. Not that it makes any difference whatsoever.
Sure enough, it was tramp, tramp up the stairs. Open door, blinding light as Mutti switched it on. Swiss Family Mad came and sat on my bed. Angus now had the goggles on and a scarf round his neck.
Mutti said, “Oh, it was really good fun, Georgie.”
Libby got in bed with me and started prodding my lurker, going, “Spottie bottie boy.”
Then Vati came in. Into my bedroom. He was looking at me and I was only wearing my pyjamas.
I said, “Did anyone notice that my light was off and that I was asleep? Did anyone get that?”
But they just went on chattering and giggling, and Vati was playing tickly bears with Libby and Mutti.
Please save me.
Thursday March 10th Maths
I am going to have to kill Rosie – she is soo overexcited about the return of Sven. Every time Miss Stamp turns round she does mad disco dancing. Miss Stamp turned round a bit sharpish and caught Rosie nodding her head like a loon. She said, “Rosemary Mees, what are you doing?”
Rosie said, “I was agreeing with your excellent point on the roundness of circles.”
She got a bad conduct mark for cheek, but she is still as mad as a hen.
She sent me a note: What swings round and round a cathedral wrapped in cellophane?
I tried to ignore her but she kept looking and raising her eyebrows until I thought she would have a nervy spaz. So I mouthed back, “What?” and she sent another note:The lunchpack of Notre Dame.
Dear God, am I never to be free?
English
Oh rave on, rave on. Not content with boring us to death with MacUseless, we are also doing two more books. Wuthering Heights, or Blithering Heights, as we call it, and Samuel Pepys’ Diary, about this horrifically boring bloke called Samuel Pepys. He quite literally, from what I can gather, peeps about. He just looks up ladies’ skirts most of the time and says “prithee”. Still, we all have to accept he is a genius. On the plus side, the dirty bits will make Miss Wilson go completely spazoid.
4:30 p.m.
Walking home with Jas and Rosie when we saw Dave the Laugh and Rollo and Tom. Jas went ludicrously girlish, even though she has been seeing Hunky for about a zillion years. I should know – I am like that bloke, Pepys’s mate… Boswell, who had to write down all the boring stuff that Pepys did because he was his secretary or something.
I could write a diary about Jas: “Prithee it bee Thursdayee and Missee Jas gotte uppee this morning and puttee on her pantee forsooth and lack a day, her bottom I declareth groweth by the minutee.”
I had a bit of a nervy spaz when I saw Dave. He was all cool. Rats. He said, “Easy girls, don’t be selfish, there’s more than enough of me to go round.”
I gave him my glacial look but he just winked at me. I couldn’t smile even if I wanted to because I had got so much lurker eradicator (cover-up) on that I couldn’t move my face.
Rosie said, “Are you coming to Sven’s teenage werewolf party on Saturday? There will be snacks.”
Rollo said, “It’s not fish fingers, is it?”
Rosie looked pityingly at him. “Rollo, keep up, this is a teenage werewolf party.”
Dave the Laugh said, “Babies’ tiny heads then, is it?”
Rosie said, “Now you are ignoring the sophisticosity of the occasion. It is of course sausages with lashings of tomato ketchup.”
Dave said, “Of course it is. See you later, chicklets. And Georgia, it is useless trying to ignore me – it just gives me the Mega Horn.”
And he and the lads went off whistling the theme from The Italian Job.
4:45 p.m.
How annoying is that?
I could kill him.
He completely ignored my glaciosity.
Rosie and Jas were looking at me in a looking-at-me sort of way. Which I hate. Tom walked along with us. Jas was wittering on to him and holding his hand.
“I’ve found this stuff in the library about different kinds of fungi you can eat. You know, for our wilderness thing. Well, if we got lost away from the others in the group we could eat it and not starve.”
I said, “Forgive me if I’m right, but are you talking about mushrooms?”
Jas got all huffy. “Well. All YOU are interested in is Dave the Laugh.”
I tried to look as bewildered as a bee who finds itself in an egg-cup hat.
“I am not at all interested in Dave the Stupid Laugh – it’s just that I am even less interested in grey shapeless things that lurk about the woods.”
They were all looking at me still.
I tried again. “Oh come on, get real… Dave the Laugh, I – me – I mean…”
Tom said, “So you do like him then?”
Jas said meaningfully, “Yes, well, SOME people know SOMETHING about SOMETHING.”
Oh good point, well made. Not.
I wanted to kill her and make her eat her fringe. And her knickers.
Rosie, who had been practising being blind and using me as her guide dog, said, “I’ve got an uncle in Yorkshire who eats cow udder as a treat.”
That can’t be true.
Can it?
5:00 p.m.
Walking home all alone.
I let myself in when I got to our house.
I opened the door and yelled out, “Hello Georgia darling, take your coat off and come and warm yourself by this blazing fire! I’ve made a nourishing stew for you, and when your father comes home from being really masculine and rich we can talk about the four hundred pounds a week you need for a decent pad in London.” As if.
6:00 p.m.
Mum is out tossing herself around a room full of red-faced loons in leotards. Again. Who knows where Dad is. Out in his clown car causing havoc.
Brrr, it is so nippy noodles and dark.
Got into bed it was so chilly bananas.
Oh I am so cold and bored.
7:00 p.m.
Phone rang. It was Ellen.
“I heard you saw Dave on the way home and he’s definitely coming on Saturday because he said he was and that means he is. Do you think?”
I said, “Put it this way, there will be snacks and Sven possibly in a Viking outfit, of course Dave the Laugh will be there.”
And then Ellen started doing this thing. I thought she was having a fit at first. She was snorting and going “Hnnurknurkhhhhnuuuuuurkkk.” “Ellen, what are you doing?” “I’m practising my infectious laugh.” Good grief.
Bedroom
I am so depressed and bored I may even have to do some homework.
In Mutti’s bedroom 7:15 p.m.
I wonder if Mutti has got anything new I could wear to the party.
Ho hum.
I have squirted my lurker with her Opium. I think it might be retreating to where it came from. Although with my luck it will probably re-emerge on the end of my nose, giving me that two-nosed look that is so popular amongst the very very ugly.
7:30 p.m.
I haven’t even got the heart to write to the Sex God, otherwise known as Marsupial Man. He’ll probably be lying in a river somewhere anyway.
7:40 p.m.
My new address is:
Georgia Nicolson
Crap House
Crapton-on-sea
Crapshire
Crapland
7:45 p.m.
What is this book that Mutti has hidden in her knicker drawer?
How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You.
8:00 p.m.
This is amazing.
8:30 p.m.
Phoned Rosie.
“Rosie.”
“Quoi?”
“Do you know how to make anyone fall in love with you?”
“Well, in Sven’s case I reel him in with snacks and snogging.”
I’ve seen the two of them snogging and eating snacks at the same time, so I didn’t really want to talk about it much.
I went on, “My mutti’s got a secret book and it tells you how to make anyone fall in love with you, even normal boys, boys who are not Svens.”
Friday March 11th
Odds bodkin, what is the matter with grown-ups? They are all mad as hens (madder). Usually when you do plays you just read them out in order and so on. Not at this hellhole. Miss Wilson decided we had to “get into” our parts by improvising. How crap is that? Very, very very and thrice very crap.
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Louise Rennison
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детская проза
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison’s fifth book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Louise is a star on the HarperCollins teenage list.11.20 a.m.This is my fabulous life: the Sex God left for Whakatane last month and he has taken my heart with him.11.25 a.m.Not literally of course otherwise there would be a big hole in my nunga-nungas.11.28 a.m.And also I would be dead. Which quite frankly would be a blessing in disguise.12.00 p.m.It is soooo boring being brokenhearted……but Georgia doesn′t remain brokenhearted for long: frequent snogging extravaganzas with old flame, Dave the Laugh, and the arrival of jelloid-knee-inducing Italian Stallion, Masimo, mean that Georgia has her work cut out to be the composed sex-kitten that she aspires to be.Follow Georgia′s hilarious antics as she desperately muddles her way through teenage life and all that it entails: make-up disasters, rapidly expanding nunga-nungas, school – urgh, unsympathetic friends, highly embarrassing family (and pets) and, of course, BOYS.