Stop in the Name of Pants!

by Louise Rennison

  I am probably scarred for life mentally, but I don’t complain.

  At least I don’t get made to hang out with him now because he has joined the navy.

  So with a bit of luck he will turn gay.

  one minute later

  Then there was Peter Dyer, also known as whelk boy. Dave the Laugh still can’t believe that all us girls actually went round to whelk boy’s house to learn how to snog.

  We used to queue up politely outside his door. And he had a timer.

  one minute later

  In fact, Dave the Laugh said, “Now that is a top job. Teaching girls to snog. It is quite literally the Horn come true.”

  Back to my list.

  Next came Mark Big Gob.

  one minute later

  To tell you the truth, my list is not perking me up much so far. In fact, it is depressing the arse off me. What was I thinking of, snogging Mark Big Gob?

  I can’t even bear to look at him now.

  How could I snog him???

  I think he must have sort of hypnotized me into doing it. I think I was so mesmerized by the sheer size of his mouth that I was paralyzed.

  Anyway, it is giving me the droop to think about it, so I will move swiftly on.

  Then was it the Sex God? Or did I accidentally snog Dave the Laugh first?

  No, I think it was the Sex God because then he said I was too young for him and I used Dave the Laugh as a red herring to make him jealous.

  And it was a bit of a surprise because Dave was quite good at snogging.

  In fact, very good.

  He did the lip nibbling thing, which was quite groovy.

  But, anyway…

  Then it was the Sex God deffo.

  Aaah, Robbie. My first love. Funny that you can care so much about someone and then they are just another bloke. Not that I don’t care about him. I do. It’s just that—oh, I don’t know. I hope he is not still so upset. He looked like he was going to say something to me at the footie, until Miss Octopussy head started asking him to get her a Coke and so on. And then threatening me with torture at Stalag 14.

  I can’t think about it.

  I’ll get on with my list.

  Blimey, then I’m afraid it was the Hornmeister again. Encouraging me toward the general horn. Bad, bad, Dave the Laugh…

  Then the Sex God again.

  Then Dave the Laugh.

  Then the Luuurve God.

  Then Dave the Laugh again.

  I am beginning to see a pattern emerging here. Hmmmm.

  one minute later

  Of course I have not included animal snogging, like when Angus accidentally stuck his tongue in my mouth.

  Or weird toddler behavior.

  Libby snogging my ear.

  Ditto knees.

  five minutes later

  Jas phoned at last. And I was full of coolnosity with her. But she didn’t notice because she only wanted to talk about making Tom so fascinated by her that he will forget about going away to college.

  I said grumpily, “Well, you can start doing glaciosity right now, you must start eschewing Tom with a firm hand forthwith and lackaday.”

  She said, “Rightio.”

  Hmm. Good, that will serve her right. See how she likes not having a boyfriend around.

  ten minutes later

  I am on cat patrol because Angus is trying to escape from his basket. I have tucked the blankets around him really tightly so that he can’t leap about and spoil all his stitches and so on.

  In the end I had to clip his lead on and fasten it to the basket.

  He’s livid.

  But he is still a bit weak and after he had yowled about a bit he went off to snoozeland.

  When I went to boboland tired from my day of constant caring I said to Mum, “You should try caring, Mum. It’s vair vair tiring.”

  friday september 2nd

  up at the crack of 10:30 a.m.

  Angus is getting stronger and more mad every day. He hates being in his basket. And he has chewed through his lead. I’m going to have to get him a metal one. He is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of cat land.

  twenty minutes later

  I can’t stand the sound of moaning and miaowing and yowling anymore. Maybe if I take him outdoors, he will calm down a bit. Besides which, he has eaten so much of his basket, it is practically just a pile of old sticks.

  11:00 a.m.

  Jas came round to report on her boy entrancing skills vis-à-vis Hunky.

  I am preparing myself to forgive her, just to pass the time, actually.

  I said, “Right, what did you say when you last saw him?”

  She did a bit of fringe fiddling and then said, “Hmmm, I said, see you later.”

  I said, “Right, that’s good, very good, nice and vague, give him time to wonder what you have been up to and so on. When did you last see him?”

  She did more fringe fiddling and thinking, then she said, “Erm, let me see—erm, it was about half an hour ago.”

  “Half an hour ago. Jas, you are not as such getting this, are you? You are officially giving him space so he can come pinging bang like an elastic band. Seeing him half an hour ago is not having space, that is seeing him all the time.”

  “I like to see him.”

  “That is as maybe, but it is not the key to entrancement.”

  “What is then?”

  “You must be more mysterious and unavailable. You must gird your loins and display glaciosity and so on. You must make him jealous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because jealousy is good vis-à-vis entrance-mentosity.”

  “How do I make him jealous? Shall I say I found some unusual mollusks and not show them to him?”

  “No. I am not talking about nature, I am talking about the game of luuurve. You have to flirt with other blokey fandangos.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, you flirt with other blokey fandangos.”

  “That is all very well for you, Georgia, you are inclined to thrust your red bottom about, but it is against my nature.”

  Oh, she is soooo annoying.

  In the end I got her to agree that she will practice flirting with other boys. And she will play Tom at his own gamey and win. She said, “Right, I’m going to start now. I am practicing glaciosity. This is me being unavailable.”

  And she tilted her nose up and flicked her fringe.

  “No, Jas, that is just you looking stupid in my house where Tom can’t even see you. You have to do something that he will notice.”

  She had a bit of a think and then said, “Right, I’m going to phone him and say that I think he’s right that we should have more space and that I need more space actually, because he has only been my one and only. And that I will see him when I have a spare moment.”

  “Good, that is good, Jas.”

  She went off to phone him and I started rooting around in the garage for a cat transporter. I hope I don’t get attacked by bluebottles. Usually when Dad has been fishing he leaves his maggots in their little maggot home thing, forgets about them and they turn into huge bluebottles. I peered in, no menacing humming going on—so—now then, what can I put Angus in as a sort of cat wheelchair? Aha!!! Libby’s old pushchair!!! Perfect.

  four minutes later

  Jas came back looking a bit flushed.

  I was trying to work the straps out on the pushchair and she was flicking her fringe around like a madwoman.

  She said, “Well…that’s done. I’ve told him. I said I was having a bit of space and that he should have a bit of space. And he said OK. Which is a bit weird. What do you think he meant by OK?”

  I said, “I think he meant OK. Now, where is the bit that clicks into the buckle?”

  “Anyway, whatever he means, I’m quite looking forward to a bit of freedom. You know, trying out my entrancing skills and so on. What is the special entrancing walk thingy?”

  I showed her the hip hip wiggle wiggle hip hip thing. And also did a bit of fl
icky hair.

  two minutes later

  She managed the hip hip wiggle wiggle thing but when she tried to incorporate flicky hair at the same time, she banged into a wall.

  ten minutes later

  We carried Angus out to the driveway in the washing up bowl. We tried to lift the cat basket up, but the bottom just fell out and Angus was yowling like a cat who has just crashed to the floor out of its basket.

  Both of us were wearing gardening gloves. I’d like to say that Angus was really looking forward to his little outing and in his catty way appreciated what we were doing for him, but the spitting and pooing would suggest otherwise.

  I said to Jas as we shoved him down the drive in the pusher, “You have to be cruel to be kind. Some things in life are not pleasant, but they have to be done. For instance, German. And maths. And, well, school. I can’t believe the holidays have gone so quickly and we are being forced back into the torture chamber of life.”

  Jas said, “I’m quite looking forward to it now. We’re doing Romeo and Juliet in English. I wonder if I will get a part like I did in last year’s production. You know, I really felt that I got into the Lady M part. It took quite a lot out of me.”

  I said, “It took quite a lot out of me.”

  But she had gone off into Jasland. Is it likely that she will be cast as Juliet? Because that is what she is thinking. Who ever heard of a Juliet with a stupid flicky fringe and an obsession with owls. Billy Shakespeare didn’t write “Hark! What owl through yonder window breaks?”

  Angus is nicely strapped into the pushchair. I have put a little blankin’ over him and tucked a couple of sausages under his armpit so he can reach it for a nibble.

  As we wheeled Angus out of our gate Mr. and Mrs. Next Door were coming back from walkies with the Prat brothers. They are looking unusually unusual today as they have matching pink collars. And the poodles look ridiculous, too!!! Hahahaha, did you see what I did there? I implied that Mr. and Mrs. Next Door were wearing matching pink—oh, never mind.

  Mr. Next Door looked at us wheeling Angus along and said, “He’s not dead then?”

  And he didn’t say it in a pleased way.

  Naomi followed us for a while doing that mad high-pitched thing that nutcase Burmese cats do. But then when she reached the end of the road the big black Manky cat was lurking around by the dustbins and she caught his eye. Angus went ballisticisimus when he saw Manky and tried to bite through his straps…I started pushing the pushchair really quickly. Naomi is an appalling tart, she just lay down in the road and started squiggling around on her back, letting her womanly parts run wild and free.

  How disgusting. I said to Jas, “Put your hand over Angus’s eyes.”

  Jas said, “Er, no, because I’m not mad and I don’t want it bitten off.”

  It’s awful, really. Poor crippled Angus seeing his woman offering herself to other (and manky) men.

  I started jogging along with the pushchair but I hadn’t got my specially reinforced sports nunga-nunga holder on, so I had to stop as there was a bit of a danger of uncontrollable bounce basooma wise.

  four minutes later

  We ambled along toward the park. It was quite a nice day. I put a sunbonnet on Angus because there are some baldy patches on his head where the stitches are and he might get sunburn. I thought he looked quite cute but he didn’t and was trying to biff me with his big paw.

  When he was under his blankin’ and with his hat over his face, you couldn’t really tell he was a cat. I said to Jas, “It would be quite funny if people actually thought he was a baby. Then they might bend down to say, ‘Aaaahhh,’ and see his mad furry face staring out at them. And that would be a hoot and a half.”

  Jas said, “Yeah, groovy.”

  But she didn’t mean it because I could tell she was practicing doing wiggle wiggle hip hip flicky hair flicky hair. Fall off pavement, etc.

  In the end, Angus was making so much racket and the bonnet had fallen down over his eyes, so I took it off. I told Jas she could wear it to keep her fringe in check but she didn’t want to. She is quite literally a fun-free zone.

  I said to Jas, “I bet you that the teachers are actually looking forward to going back to Stalag 14. Because they have no lives. I bet Slim already has her knickers laid out ready to go. Hawkeye will be practicing shouting.”

  Jas said, “Oh, I meant to tell you something. Tom told me goss about Robbie and Wet Lindsay.”

  “Jas, I told you not to do any earwigging vis-à-vis Droopy Knickers.”

  “I didn’t do earwigging. Tom just brought it up. Apparently Wet Lindsay goes round to Tom’s mum and dad’s all the time. Even when neither of the boys are there. She just goes and hangs out with the parents. How sad is that? And they really get on well. So Tom asked Robbie what was going on, was she like the official girlfriend, etc., and Robbie said, and I quote, ‘Well, it’s nice to have someone who is sort of ordinary around and who really likes me.’ Oh, and he also said that she bakes him cakes.”

  I just looked at Jas. “What sort of person bakes cakes for boys?”

  Jas said, “Well, I made a lemon drizzle cake for Tom when we went camping and—”

  “OK, let me put this another way, what sort of twit besides your good self makes cakes for boys? It is tremendously sad and odd. It doesn’t say one word about cake baking in my ‘How to make any twit fall in love with you’ book and it says some pretty bloody strange things, I can tell you.”

  Of course for no apparent reason Jas hit No. 8 on the having the hump scale. (No. 8 is of course the quarter humpty, one of Jas’s specialities…and is the combination walking on ahead, head tossing, cold shoulderosity and pretend deafnosity, but no obvious violence.)

  I said, “Jazzy, don’t be silly, I bet Tom luuurved your drizzley cake, it’s just odd for Wet Lindsay to do it, isn’t it? She’s not exactly a domestic, is she? It’s not like her to do anything for anyone else, is it? Is it, little pally? I bet even Tommy wommy said that it was a bit odd, didn’t he?”

  Jas didn’t want to say, but she couldn’t help it. She said, “Well, actually he did say he thought that she was like a bit insincere and that she was trapping Robbie by being nice.”

  Hmmm. That has made me feel a bit guilty about Robbie. If he was on the rebound because I had eschewed him with a firm hand, I had sort of made him go back out with the octopussy prat of the century. It was bad enough having him cry in front of me, but for him to then be driven into her no-forehead world was awful. I wouldn’t want him to be with Lindsay because of me. Maybe I would have to save him from her somehow.

  twelve minutes later

  We were wheeling Angus along in the park singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” quite loudly to cheer Angus up. He was yowling along to the chorus (I like to think) when round the corner of the loos came Dave the Laugh and Emma, and Tom and a friend of Emma’s called Nancy. They were laughing together.

  Dave saw us first and he came over and bent down to look at Angus.

  “Wow, you dancer! Attaboy. You’re de man!!!”

  He said it in a sort of admiring way and I felt really proud of Angus. He had come back from the edge of the heavenly cat basket in the sky like super-cat. And it was nice to see Dave. He looked very cool in a class shirt and he looked up and winked at me—then spoiled the moment by saying, “Emma, come and have a look at Angus, he is the kiddie.”

  Emma came trolling across all girlie.

  “Ooooh, isn’t he cute.”

  I should have warned her not to put her face too near Angus but, well, that is the law of nature. It’s only cat spit, after all, you would have thought that it was viper juice, the way she carried on. She went scampering off into the ladies’ loos and Nancy went with her.

  Jas had not said a word since she saw Tom. She had gone very, very red, even for her, that is how red she was.

  Tom said, “I just bumped into Dave and the girls at the snooker hall—”

  Jas said, “Tom, what you do is re
ally your business. Come on, Gee, we don’t want to keep the gang waiting.”

  And she actually said to Tom, “S’laters. Maybe bell you sometime.”

  Has she finally snapped?

  I followed after her with the pushchair, leaving Tom and Dave looking at us.

  When we got round the corner, Jas burst into tears.

  “How can he just go and get off with some other girl, just like that? It’s only half an hour since I said he could be free.”

  I said, “Well, it says in my ‘How to make any twit fall in love with you’ book that boys don’t like feeling bad, so they get another girl really quickly.”

  Jas said, “That’s awful, what’s the point of seeing anyone then or caring about boys at all?”

  I said, “Well, there is some good news.”

  She said, “What?”

  “Well, it says that they get another girl really quickly and it is usually disaster. And they remain frozen emotionally for the rest of their lives, so that’s good, isn’t it?”

  But she didn’t cheer up as such.

  saturday september 3rd

  9:00 a.m.

  Jas phoned.

  She said, “Tom came round and said that there was nothing going on with Nancy. He just bumped into them and they had a bit of a kick around with the other lads in the park and the girls watched. And, anyway, Nancy has got a boyfriend. She is just like Emma’s best mate.”

  I said, “What did you say?”

  “Well, I remembered, you know, about the glaciosity and so on. And I said, ‘I suppose that when you are having space you can’t always ask what someone is doing and so on but we can be friendly to each other.’”

  I was amazed. I said, “Jas, my little matey, that is almost quite good tactics. You are not only displaying glaciosity, you are also incidentally displaying maturiosity as well. Muchos buenos, as our Pizza-a-gogo friends might say.”

  Then she spoiled it.

  “I miss him, though.”

  I said, “Go cuddle your owls and be brave.”

  She said, “Am I allowed to snog him if he comes round?”

  I said, “No, he has to go off and then ping back. You can’t do the pinging first, it is not in the book.”