Stop in the Name of Pants!

by Louise Rennison

  My dad, that is what sort of person.

  I said to him, “Why would anyone do that?”

  He said, “They’re all there. I know you, you would lose yours or put makeup on it or Angus would eat it. I know where it is now.”

  I said, “Well, now I know where it is as well, so why don’t you go and get me MY passport. Which is issued to me in my name. By her Maj the Queen. Because it is my passport, do you see? Not yours. And whilst you are in the safe, you may as well get me the five hundred pounds’ child support you promised me.”

  He said no.

  I said to Dad as I stormed off to bed, “Dad, I quite literally hate you.”

  ten minutes later

  So this is my life.

  I am best friends with some Yorkshire bloke called Fat Bob.

  I will have to explain to my marvy and groovy new pop idol Luuurve God boyfriend that I am not allowed my own passport.

  And I have got £1.50 to get to Pizza-a-gogo land.

  What could be worse?

  midnight

  Libby put an egg under my pillow to “get a baby chicken.”

  It has gone all over my pajamas.

  wednesday august 24th

  8:00 a.m.

  I am the prisoner of my utterly useless and mean parents. Just because they have a crap life they are determined to make mine crap as well. I would have said that to them if I were speaking to them. Or they were speaking to each other.

  in my bedroom

  Dad came knocking on my door.

  I said, “The door is locked.”

  Dad pushed open the door and said, “You haven’t got a lock on your door.”

  I said, “You might not see the lock but the lock is there, otherwise I wouldn’t be.”

  But he’s not interested in me. He said, “Look, I am going away for a few days and—”

  I said, “What is it like to be able to walk around on the planet wherever you like?”

  He said, “You’re not still going on about not visiting this Italian Stallion lad, are you? He’ll be back in a week or two, anyway.”

  “Dad, I might not be alive in a week or two, things happen, if I were a mayfly I would be dead in about half an hour and that would have been my whole life.”

  He just looked all grumpy like a big leatherette grumpy fool. What was he wearing? A leather jacket.

  I said, “You’re not thinking of going out in that jacket, are you?”

  He said, “Look, don’t start, I’ve just come to say good-bye and to say that, well…you know that Mum and I have been, you know, not hitting it off.”

  “She threw your undercrackers away.”

  “I know she bloody did, most of them were covered in cat litter when I fished them out.”

  Oh really, do I have to listen to this sort of thing, I will quite literally spend most of my superstar money on psychiatric fees. He still hadn’t finished, though.

  “Don’t worry too much, we’ll sort it out, and if, well, if things don’t get any better, sometimes people have to…”

  Oh no, I think he might be going to get emotional, if he starts crying, I may well be sick. But then he did something much much worse, he came over and kissed the top of my head. How annoying. And odd.

  one hour later

  As Mum went off to “work,” she said, “You look a bit peaky.”

  I said, “It’s probably a symptom of my crap life. Which is your fault.”

  She just ignored me.

  I know what she is up to, though. She isn’t bothered about me having rickets or something, she just fancies a trip to Dr. Clooney’s. That will be the next thing. She’ll start peering at me and saying stuff about my knees being a bit nobbly or that I don’t blink enough or something and then suggest a quick visit to the surgery. She will have to drag me there.

  10:40 a.m.

  The post arrived.

  I may as well check if there is anything for me.

  one minute later

  Oh joy unbounded, there is a postcard from the Luuurve God! It has a picture of a donkey drinking a bottle of wine on the front of it. Is that what goes on in Rome? You never know with not English people.

  Shut up, brain, and read the postcard from the beluuurved.

  Ciao, bella.

  I am mis you like crazy. I am not for long to wait to see you. Todaya we go to the mountains, I have song in my heart for you. Masimo

  Aaaaaahhhh. He has a song in his heart for me. I hope it is not “Shut Uppa You Face, Whatsa Matta You.” Or, as it is in the beautiful language of Pizza-a-gogo land, “Shut Uppa You Face, Whatsa Matta You.”

  Oh, I sooo want to see him.

  I wonder if I had a whip round of the ace gang I could get the money. I bet Jas has got hundreds stashed in her piggy bank. But then what about my passport? Maybe I could make a forgery?

  I HATE my parents.

  evening

  To celebrate our last days of freedom before we get sent back to Stalag 14, we have decided to have a spontaneous girls night in. We are all staying round at Jools’s place because she has her own sort of upstairs area with her own TV and bathroom.

  Now that is what I call proper parenting. Getting a house big enough so that you don’t actually have to have anything to do with your parents. No growing girl should ever run the risk of seeing either her mutti or vati in undercrackers.

  11:00 p.m.

  I’ve perked up a bit.

  Rosie, Jools, Mabs and me are in one huge bed and Jas, Ellen, Honor and Sophie are in the other one.

  Jas amazed me by saying, “Actually, it’s quite nice being single for a bit, isn’t it? You can really let yourself go mad and wild. I mean, this is the first time I’ve worn my Snoopy T-shirt for ages.”

  I said, “Blimey, Jas, calm down.”

  Rosie said, “What we all have to remember is that yes, boys and snogging are good, but luuurve with a boy may be temporary and Miss Selfridge and Boots are yours for life.”

  Vair vair wise words.

  Then we got down to serious business.

  Mabs said, “Well, I dunno really, what do you think of this? I saw Edward in the street, across the road with his mates, and he did that phone thing…you know when you pretend you have got a phone in your hand, and you do a dial thing. Meaning you know, bell me.”

  We all looked at her.

  I said, “So have you?”

  She said, “No, because I didn’t know if he meant, like, I’m going to bell you or you should bell me. I’m sort of all—”

  I said, “Belled up?”

  And she nodded.

  Blimey.

  This was worse than s’laters.

  ten minutes later

  We’ve decided that Mabs can’t take the risk of an ad hoc bell-you fandango and therefore the only thing to do is to accidentally bump into him and see what happens.

  Jools said, “I know that they play five a side in the park on Wednesday arvies, so we could accidentally on purpose be there. The last time I saw Rollo he said the same to me. He said, ‘Give us a bell.’ But then I did and he seemed sort of busy. He was on his way out to practice and he said, ‘Give us a bell later.’ But I didn’t because that was like a double fandango, give us a bell and also s’later. Nightmare scenario.”

  Hmmmmm.

  Then Ellen told us about going out with Declan.

  I said, “Please don’t tell me you went to a knife shop for the evening.”

  Ellen said, “No, we, well—erm…we and I—”

  I said, “I know you feel sort of sensitive about this, and, you know, shy and a bit self-conscious, but you are amongst your own kind now, you are amongst the ace gang. Your best pallies, your bestiest most kindiest maties. So let me put it this way—WHAT NUMBER DID YOU GET UP TO ON THE SNOGGING SCALE AND ARE YOU GOING TO SEE HIM AGAIN???”

  forty years later

  So just to save precious hours I will sum up Ellen’s evening with Declan. After a lot of chatting and Coke drinking (wise choice drinkwise vi
s-à-vis foam mustache, etc.), Declan had said good night and they had done 1, 2, 3 and a bit of 4. Hurrah, thank the Lord!!!

  On the down side, as she had gone in her house Declan said, “We must do this again sometime.”

  And gone off.

  We decided that “sometime” is in fact “s’laters” in disguise.

  I told them about my mum’s theory about boys being gazelles in trousers that must be enticed out of the woods (i.e., away from their stupid mates). We decided that the best thing was to be alert for sightings of the gazelles (playing footie, etc.) and to be attractively semi available.

  Jas then got all misty eyed about first meeting Tom. She said to me, “Do you remember when I first saw Tom and he was so hunky, working in the shop? And we had a plan to make him notice me. And I went into the shop to buy some onions and then you came in and made out like I was the most popular girl in the school sort of thing. And the rest is history.”

  She looked a bit sad and said, “Quite literally, the rest might be history.”

  To cheer her up, and also to stop her moaning on about the vole years, I suggested we get down to talking about serious world matters. Like the beret question for winter term. Could we improve on the lunchpack theme?

  Sophie said, “My very favoritist was Glove Animal. Couldn’t he come back for a reprise this term?”

  midnight

  We were comparing notes snogging scale wise and also saying what number we thought people had got to.

  Jools said, “Do you think Miss Wilson has ever snogged anyone? If so, what number do you think she has got up to?”

  Erlack.

  I said, “No man alive could get through all the corduroy.”

  Rosie said, “Oh, I don’t know, she has a certain charm. I think I may be on the turn actually, because I thought she was quite fit when I saw her in the nuddy-pants with her soap on a rope.”

  We all looked at her. Sometimes even I am surprised by how mad and weird she is.

  I said, “Jools, swap places with me, I am not sleeping next to Lezzie Mees.”

  And then Rosie started puckering up at me.

  I stood up in bed and started kicking her off and she grabbed my ankles and pulled me over.

  Mabs yelled, “Girl fight, girl fight!” and we started a massive pillow fight.

  At which point the door opened and Jools’s mum came in.

  Oh, dear.

  She looked very serious. Here we go with the “We give you girls a bit of freedom and you just take advantage, when I was a girl we didn’t even have pillows, we slept in a drawer and—”

  But she just said, “Georgia, your mum is on the phone for you. You can take it on the extension up here if you like, dear.”

  I wonder why she is looking at me so funny? Maybe Mum is drunk on vino tinto and having an ABBA evening with her friends and has decided to start a new life with a fireman that she met at aquarobics. Well, I tell you this for free, I am not going to live with her and Des or whatever he is called.

  Mum was actually crying when I picked up the phone. Oh brilliant, she has already been dumped by Des and I will have to listen to her rambling on about it for the rest of my life.

  She said, “Oh, darling, I am so so sorry.”

  Then she started crying again.

  I said, “Er, Mum, I will not be moving in with you and Des.”

  She didn’t even bother to reply, she just was gulping and crying. Actually I was a bit worried about her because she did sound very upset. Oh, blimey.

  She went on, “Mr. Across the Road came—over…and oh, it was so—when I opened the door, I thought, I thought he was carrying a baby—all wrapped up in a blanket…and then, oh love, and…and oh one of his paws fell out of the, out of the blanket and, it just…hung there…all limp.”

  And she started weeping and weeping.

  I couldn’t understand what she meant.

  I said, “What do you mean, whose paw?”

  And she said, “Oh, darling, it was Angus.”

  I couldn’t speak and my brain wouldn’t work.

  I could hear Mum sobbing and talking but she sounded like a little toyperson on the end of the phone.

  “Mr. Across the Road found him at the bottom…of our street…by the side of the road—you know how much he liked cars…he, he thought they were big mice on wheels, didn’t he—and he must have been—and he was just lying there.”

  Then tears started coming out of my eyes, all by themselves, just pouring out of my eyes and plopping on my pajamas. My mouth was dry, and I felt like I was choking on something.

  Mum was still talking. “Georgia, love, please talk to me. Please say something, please.”

  I don’t know how long I stood there with the tears falling, but then I felt a big pain in my heart like someone had kicked it and then stuck a knife in it. And I think a noise came out of me, you know like when people are in pain and they make like a deep groan. It didn’t feel like my voice, just like someone in pain very far away.

  I think it must have been real because the next thing I knew Jas had her hand on my shoulder. She said, “What’s happened, Gee, what’s the matter?”

  I couldn’t say, I could only cry and shake.

  Jas took the phone out of my hand.

  “Hello? It’s Jas. What has happened?…Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  As she was speaking Jas had put her arm around me. “Yes, yes, I’m here, I’ll look after her. I’ll come with her in a taxi. Yes, yes, I’ll look after her, we are all here, we’ll take care of her.”

  By now the ace gang had come out into the hall and when they saw me they came and all hugged me. I just wanted to be unconscious, I think. I wanted to tear my head off so it wouldn’t have anything in it.

  I can’t really remember what happened, but I know I was shaking so much that Jools’s mum wrapped me in a big blanket and the taxi arrived. I cried and cried into Jas’s shoulder and she made those noises that people do, not really words, just like “there, there—sshhhh” like you do when little children have nightmares. She was rocking me.

  When we got to our house all the lights were on in the front room. I could see Mum looking out of the window as we pulled into the driveway.

  When I tried to get out of the cab I couldn’t make my legs work and the cab driver got out of his seat and came and picked me up. He said, “Don’t worry, love, I’ve got you.”

  He carried me into the house and when he put me down, Mum and Jas got hold of an arm each to make me safe. As he went the cab driver said, “Look after her, there’s no charge. God bless.”

  My voice was all croaky when I tried to speak. I said, “Where…is he?”

  And Mum said, “I put him on the sofa.”

  It was really weird going into the front room, it was like a gale force wind was blowing, I was sure it was real, I could hear it whooshing against the door. Trying to keep me out. I felt like I was walking into the wind trying to get to Angus.

  He was on the sofa wrapped up in the blanket, his eyes all closed and his mouth half open. There was a big deep red gash on his head. I went over to him and looked down and my tears splashed onto his face. How could I live without my furry pal? He wasn’t supposed to leave me. In that moment I would have actually rather it was me lying there.

  I sat down beside him and put my finger on his nose and stroked it. It was the first time I had ever been able to do that. He would have attacked my hand when he—when he—and I started wailing again, just saying, “Oh, Angus, Angus, I love you, I love you more than anything.”

  And then a little noise came out of him. Like a little growl.

  I yelled, “Mum, Mum, he’s alive!!! He’s moving!!! He’s alive.”

  Mum came over and put her arms around me. “I know he’s still breathing, love, but when I phoned the vet I told him what had happened and what he looked like—the vet said he would have internal injuries and that really the best, the kindest thing, would be to put him to sleep. He’s coming over now and going to take
him to the surgery and—”

  I leapt up, “He is NOT going to be put to sleep. If anyone tries to do that, I will KILL them. I mean it, Mum. It is not going to happen. No, you can’t let him. I won’t let him.”

  The doorbell rang.

  thirty seconds later

  I must have looked like I was going to kill the vet. He looked at me and then he said, “Let me have a look at the poor fellow.”

  He gently felt all over Angus and lifted up his legs. They just flopped back. Angus didn’t make any more noises.

  The vet sighed. He said, “I’m afraid there will be a lot of internal injury. I think the kindest thing all round would be—”

  I just said, “No.”

  The vet looked at me. He shook his head.

  I said, “Please try, I love him.”

  And the tears started plopping out of my eyes again.

  I stroked Angus’s face and he did a bit of a growl again.

  I said to the vet, “You see?”

  After a minute or two the vet said, “Alright, I’ll try, but I’m being honest with you, cats don’t often survive this sort of thing.”

  He packed Angus in blankets and said he will give him X-rays and drips and anything he can at the surgery.

  I said, “Thank you.”

  I didn’t mean to but I gave him a hug.

  And he’s got a beard.

  vet’s surgery

  Angus has bandages everywhere, even on his tail. He has not made any noise since the little one when I stroked his face. He is on a drip, and his tongue is lolling out.

  But I am not annoyed about his tongue lolling out, I can’t imagine being ever annoyed with him again about anything. If he will live he can have anything he wants.

  I said that to Jas, who was still with me. I said, “When I get home I am going to pray for Angus to Baby Jesus, and if he will let Angus live, I will try to be a really good person.” And I included Jas’s fringe flicking in that. And my dad’s leather trousers. That is how serious it all was.

  Angus was going to stay in the surgery overnight and the vet said I could come the next day as soon as they opened.

  He looked tired and a bit sad. And now I noticed it he also looked very beardey. No, no, I don’t want the tired and sad beardey vet, I want the handsome, thrusting ER vet who says, “I’ve done it, he’s going to pull through. Have a nice day.”