Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 06 Read online

  five minutes later

  Angus is really getting into it now. He leaps over the anti-cat fence and then comes back into our garden by hurling himself through Mr. Next Door’s rhododendron bush.

  Excellent! He has made it into a track-and-field event. It is quite literally the Cat Olympics.

  five minutes later

  I would prefer it if Naomi stuck to the usual giving of medals ceremony rather than licking Angus’s trouser-snake area, but there you are—that is appalling furry tarts for you.

  monday may 9th

  Up at the crack of 8:00 A.M.

  Crikey. I’d better not get carried away with happiness, otherwise I will be on time for Stalag 14.

  Lolloping along to Jas’s place, I had to pass by Mark Big Gob smoking on the corner with his lardy mates. He is quite literally a mouth on legs. Sadly he seems to have recovered his former (crap) self after the minor duffing-up incident with Dave the Laugh.

  He just can’t help himself, especially when, like now, he has the backup lardy lads with him. As I walked by in a dignified manner, trying not to let anything jiggle about, B.G. and the lard arses were just ogling my nungas like ogling oglers (if you can imagine the horror of that, and I think you can). Then he licked his lips! Erlack, he was licking his lips at me!

  He is so très pathetico.

  I may have to ask Dave to repeat the duffing-up incident.

  five minutes later

  Jas was on her wall. I don’t know what she had for breakfast, but she has put on about one hundred and fifty pounds. Either that or her knickers have reached elephantine size.

  When she jumped down, I saw it was because she had her skirt rolled over so much that she looked like a melon with a head and an annoying fringe in a school uniform.

  She said, “My mum and dad want to come round to yours soon to talk about the arrangements.”

  “Oh, mon Dieu and also curses. I must rush home and make them normal. Your mum and dad will never let you come with us if Dad happens to be wearing his masonic apron…or his velvet loons that he wears for ‘grooving’ in. No one in their right mind would let a child of theirs anywhere near him.”

  Hawkeye was on glaring duty at the school gates, so Jas had to do a quick dive behind me to let her skirt down. She was fiddling away as we walked along, so to distract Hawkeye with my youth and exuberance I started singing, “‘Oh, what a beautiful mornin’, oh, what a—’”

  “Why are you shuffling along like idiots? Put a spring in your step!”

  I started doing a bit of springing for a laugh but then she said, “Georgia, I have been glancing at your report card and it seems to me a bit of extra tutoring wouldn’t come amiss.”

  Bloody sacré bleu! I scuttled off to the loos as fast as I could.

  Jas was pouting at herself in the mirror as I grumbled on.

  “‘Glancing at your report card.’ What kind of life is that? You might as well have a life ‘glancing at paint drying’ or ‘glancing at a cactus not doing anything’…or…anyway, it is no kind of a life for a human being. Which is why Hawkeye is so vair vair good at it.”

  Jas was now upside down under the hand dryer getting maximum voluminosity into her fringe for the day ahead; but she nodded her head wisely, in an upside-down way.

  assembly

  Usual routine: Klingon salute to the ace gang, a quick burst of “The Lord is my shepherd.” And then some incomprehensible lecture from Slim, our huge headmistress. What is she rambling on about now? She has certainly excelled herself on the fashion front this morning. Polka-dot suit in a lovely subtle orange and black. And sling-back shoes. Parts of her feet have made a desperate bid for freedom out of the sling-back bit. I’ve never known anyone with fat feet. It’s fascinating watching her. When she loses her rag (i.e., every time she speaks to us), every bit of her quivers in a tip-top jelloid way.

  “So to my point, girls: achievement. What does it mean today in the modern world? I want you all to consider what achievement really means.”

  Then she stood there and looked at us. For ages. We stood looking back. She just stood there, we just stood there. Like a staring competition. Good Lord. It went on for ages and ages—you could practically see Miss Stamp’s beard growing. Two centuries later, Slim said, “How many of us could put our hands on our hearts and say “I have achieved something really worthwhile this term?”

  Me and Rosie put our hands on our hearts.

  corridor

  9:30 a.m.

  Oh bloody marvy. Wet Lindsay, who was stick-insecting around on snitcher duty, saw us with our hands on our hearts and gave us her world-famous “How Childish You Are” lecture. Ho hum, pig’s bum. Another fabulous opportunity to look at Ms. No Forehead.

  9:36 a.m.

  Hahahahaha! Whilst Wet Lindsay was telling us off, Rosie and I kept our eyes fixed on her forehead. She couldn’t say we were doing anything wrong, but afterward she scuttled off to the loos for forehead inspection.

  The staring campaign continues!!!

  And she doesn’t know I am off to America to a Snog Fest with the Luuurve God.

  blodge

  Miss Baldwin has got gigantic basoomas. Even bigger than my mutti’s and that is saying something. I was very much afraid that she would set fire to them with the Bunsen burner. Sadly there was no basooma incendiary action, so I couldn’t use the foam extinguisher, which would have topped the lesson off in my humble opinion.

  on the knicker toaster

  break

  I told the ace gang about Operation Go to Hamburger-a-gogo land.

  They were, as usual, agog as two gogs. Three gogs in Ellen’s case. Thank the Lord she seems to have dropped her infectious laugh. I was going to have to kill her if she kept it up.

  As we crunched through our nutritious snacks of cheesy whatsits and chuddie I said, “It is going to be marv. As I said to Jas—even though she didn’t get it—we will be like the Thelma and Louise of England.”

  Rosie said, “But you won’t have a gun.”

  “I might.”

  “No, you won’t. Your dad won’t let you go to an all-nighter, so he is definitely not going to get you a gun.”

  “He is. He said I could have one when I got there.”

  Rosie just looked at me.

  “Just a small one for emergency shooting.”

  They all just looked at me.

  Ellen said (annoyingly), “Where…er…where is Masimo? I mean, where is he going to be in America?”

  I said, “Well, you know, near where we are going to be.”

  She went on in her vague, dumped-by-Dave-the-Laugh way. “Yes, but I mean, well…where are you going to be?”

  I said, “At the clown-car convention in America.”

  Rosie blew a big gob-stopper bubble and then sucked it back in again. Then she put her face right up close to mine and said slowly, “Yes, but Georgia, where is the clown-car convention?”

  “Memphis.”

  “And where is that?”

  I laughed and said, “Good grief, I thought I was bad at geoggers. Don’t you know?”

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Of course I do. It’s…down…a bit from New York.”

  “Down a bit from New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like you thought Hamburg was famous for its hamburgers?”

  What has Rosie turned into? Memo the Memory Man? Honestly, just because I had been secretly exfoliating my legs under the desk in geoggers when we were doing the Rhine and Miss Simpson sprang a surprise question on me….

  I changed the subject.

  “So, what do you think I should pack for my trip?”

  Jools said, “Well, not knickers, because they don’t wear them there.”

  I said, “Wow, saucy minxes! You mean they go round in the nuddy-pants? They don’t mention that in geoggers, do they? It’s all boring stuff about wheat belts and the Atlantic drift.”
r />   Jools said, “Panties.”

  I said, “Oy, clear off with your panties talk. You are a nice-looking girl and everything, but I am just not interested.”

  Jools said, “No, that is what the Hamburgese wear.”

  The bell went.

  Donner and Blitzen, how am I supposed to discuss my wardrobe if we keep having to go to lessons?

  Oh, hang on though, it’s German next, so that’s OK. We can discuss it then without being disturbed.

  german

  Herr Kamyer was as usual rambling on about the Koch family going on one of their endless camping trips. Keeping in mind that Koch is pronounced “cock,” and keeping in mind that they are the family that star in our German textbooks, you have to ask yourself this: What sadist decided to feature a family called Koch in our textbooks?? They know that they are going to be read out by the naff and the sad (German teachers) to a load of giggling and hysterical girls obsessed with boys and rudey-dudeyness. The family could have been called anything, couldn’t they? Schwartz or Schmidt, for instance, but oh no, it had to be the Kochs and their spangleferkels. How many sausages can one family eat? In the Kochs’ case the answer is a lot.

  I put my hand up because I am sehr interested in the Kochs.

  Herr Kamyer said, “Jah, Georgia?”

  I said, “Herr Kamyer, did all the Kochs go camping or was it just the little Kochs, and the big Kochs stayed behind? Or was it a mixture of little and big Kochs that came out?”

  The whole class was in uproar. Herr Kamyer was, as usual, completely bewildered. He said, “Vat is zo funny about the Kochs? Do you not haf the Kochs in England?”

  Happy days.

  As we lolloped off I said, “German is such a restful and amusing, language isn’t it? Incomprehensible, obviously. As, indeed, are the lederhosen that the Germans go yodeling in.”

  Jas was in Jasland and said, “You think The Sound of Music is what Germany is like, don’t you? That’s why you always rave on about singing nuns and yodeling?”

  “Well, The Sound of Music is, of course, a documentary-style film. You can’t argue with facts, and I do know what I am talking about because Libby has made me watch it twelve times.”

  “It was set in Austria.”

  “Yes…and?”

  “Last term you said that Germans were obsessed with goats and cheese.”

  “Yes…and?”

  “That was because you had read Heidi. And that was set in Switzerland.”

  “Jas, what in the name of Beelzebub’s stamp collection are you going on about?”

  “You are crap at geoggers.”

  Oh rave on, fringy nitwit. (I didn’t say that bit aloud because I am grooming her to be my sidekick on the Road to Romance.)

  Still, in the interests of world peace I might be forced to get the old atlas out and look at where Memphis is and so on.

  Work work work, I’m so vair tired.

  And I still have to walk all the way home.

  I wonder if Jassy will give me a piggyback home.

  4:30 p.m.

  No.

  5:00 p.m.

  I’ll be bloody glad when Gordy is allowed out. When I arrived home he had the rubber plant on his head. I’ve put the stump back in the plant pot and superglued some of the leaves back on. With a bit of luck it will be alright till we go away and then I can blame it on whatever fool catsits for us.

  in my bedroom

  How can I find out exactly where Masimo is?

  five minutes later

  I can’t trust Radio Jas to ask Tom to find out where Masimo has gone in Hamburger-a-gogo land. Anytime I ask her anything private it’s usually on the Radio Jas airwaves in about two and a half minutes. Her idea of being subtle and finding out things is going out into the streets and shouting “Anyone know anything about this secret thing I am never going to mention?”

  Hmmmmmmmm.

  I hate to admit it, but I need the assistance of Dave the Laugh.

  Donner and Blitzen!

  If I could just accidentally bump into him on the way home then I wouldn’t have to phone him.

  ten minutes later

  Because if I phone him and Rachel is there I will feel like a facsimile of a sham. I mean, he is officially(ish) going out with her.

  five minutes later

  Even though he keeps snogging me.

  ten minutes later

  Anyway, how can I trust anything he says—it was he, after all, who said he fancied my mum!

  But then, he is also my mate and official Hornmeister.

  Also he said that I have accidentally done the right thing and become Mystery Girl with Masimo.

  tuesday may 10th

  on the way home

  Me and Jas were ambushed by four Foxwood lads. Two of them deliberately ran into my legs on their bikes, fell off, got back on backwards and started circling us really fast yelling: “You slags!” Why? We were just looking at them and then they fell off their bikes again, this time down a ditch. Whilst they were climbing out, we set off walking. After a couple of minutes we noticed they were lurking along behind us, pretending not to follow us. Then Dave the Laugh and his mates appeared round the corner.

  Dave smiled. He has a great smile and he looked as if he was really glad to see me. He has grown his hair a bit since I last saw him and it looked v. cool. Oh shutupshutup, Voice of the Horn.

  He said, “Hello, Sex Kitty and pal.”

  Then he saw the boy bloodhounds following us.

  “Well, if it isn’t Tosser Thompson and his band of trainee tossers. On your way, kids.”

  Dave really is quite well built and he was just standing looking at them.

  One of the trainee tossers said, “Come on, it’s not worth it.”

  And they shuffled off, shoving each other and making pretend farting noises.

  Wow. It was a bit like Gladiator. But not set in Roman times, and Dave was wearing his school trousers and not a goatskin…. More’s the pity. Shutupshutup.

  Dave put his arm around me.

  “You entice them, you know, with your sparkling personality and magnificent nungas.”

  He is soooo annoying. And rude. I tried to have a strop but he is notoriously difficult to do that with.

  As we walked along Jas said, “S’later,” and went off home. Dave’s mates all said “S’later” until it was just me and Dave.

  I don’t know if it’s because I am suppressing my red bottom, but he does seem to be getting better-looking all the time., But no, no, he is not the only one and only, he is yesterday’s news. Last week’s snog. Anyway, I said to Dave, “Aren’t you rushing to meet your GIRLFRIEND? Won’t your GIRLFRIEND be upset if she sees you with me?”

  And he started that “Are you mad?” thing, but I managed to stop myself joining in; otherwise it would have developed into tickly bears and then possibly No. 6 on the snogging scale. Who knows?

  Who knows what goes on in my mind? I will be the last to know.

  Even when I am totally and without doubtosity in luuurve, absolutely wouldn’t dream of being with anyone else, etc. etc., still the Cosmic Horn rears its ugly head. And there is something about Dave and his special lip-nibbling technique. In fact he is one of the best snoggers I have come across and I haven’t even snogged Masimo yet. What if Italian boys are useless in the snoggosity department? What if Masimo looks cool but is a nunga pouncer like Mark Big Gob? Or kisses all wet and sucky like whelk boy?

  Dave interrupted my brain, thank the Lord.

  “So, how are you, chicklet?

  I said, “Fab, fanks, I’m going to Hamburger-a-gogo land for a clown-car convention.”

  Dave looked at me.

  “YOU are going to a clown-car convention? Mad as a hen.”

  I got quite huffy.

  “I am very interested in old cars, as you know, and—”

  Dave said, “You would rather snog Spotty Norman than go to a clown-car convent
ion.”

  Fair point, well made.

  I said, “Well, there is another reason…”

  Dave raised one of his eyebrows. Which was quite amusing.

  We were passing Luigi’s and Dave said, “Come on, let’s do coffee, man.”

  And we went in.

  Oh, buggering bum’s buggering bum. Sitting down at one of the tables were Wet Lindsay and Astonishingly Dim Monica.

  Sacré bloody bleu.

  Perhaps they are doing reverse stalking.

  Wet Lindsay almost threw up when she saw me with Dave. But she covered it quickly and was all dillydollyish with him. He said, “Hi,” and she batted her eyelashes and flicked her hair. She must have read How to Make Any Twit Fall in Love with You. If she tried toffee eyes on Dave, I would have to kill her. Even though Dave was slightly behind me, she looked straight through me and said to him, “Oh, Dave, it was really groovy at ‘Late and Live,’ wasn’t it? Mas and I had a great time. Did you and Rachel?”

  I hate her double with knobs on.

  Dave was coolosity personified.

  “Yeah, it was cool.”

  And then he deliberately pulled a chair out for me at a table not too near the grotesque twins. As I sat down he said loudly enough for them to hear, “Now then, even though you treat me bad, what would you like, Ms. Gorgeous?”

  He is soooo nice. I really like the way he is, you know, so nice to me.

  five minutes later

  As Lindsay and ADM went out Lindsay gave Dave what she probably thinks (wrongly) is her attractive smile. She said, “’Bye, Dave, maybe see you when Mas gets back.”

  Then she stick-insected out of the door. Without leaving a slimy trail on the floor, surprisingly.

  I said to Dave, “I hate her, I hate her. She called him ‘Mas.’ How crap is that?”

  Dave looked at me.

  “You don’t like her, then?”

  As we drank our coffee (me trying to avoid the foam mustache fandango) I wanted to ask Dave if he could find out where Masimo was. But I didn’t think I could just launch in, so I thought I would do some limbering-up questions first.

  “Dave, you know those boys…Well, just before you got there, they ran into my legs on their bikes, then they rode off backward. Then they called us slags.”