Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas

by Louise Rennison

  9:35 a.m.

  I walked really, really slowly along to Elvis’s hut. At least if I took ages to find Elvis I might miss most of English. Sadly, that is when I saw his flat hat bobbling around. Not on its own, unfortunately; he was underneath it. Pushing his wheelbarrow along. I walked up quietly behind him and said really enthusiastically, “MR. ATTWOOD. HELLO!!!”

  He leapt up like a perv in overalls (which he is). “What do YOU want?”

  “Mr. Attwood, it’s me!!!”

  “I know who you are all right. Why are you shouting?”

  “I thought you might have gone deaf.”

  “Well, I haven’t.”

  “Well you might have. You see, I know what it’s like at your stage of life—my grandad is deaf. And he’s got bandy legs.”

  “Well, I’m not deaf. What do you want? I’m still not right, you know. My knee gives me awful gyp.”

  “Slim…er…Miss Simpson said I had to come and apologize.”

  “Yes, well, quite right, too.” He was SO annoying. And a bit pingy pongoes when you got down-wind of him.

  I said, “So then. See you around.”

  He said, “Just a minute—you haven’t said you are sorry yet.”

  “I have. I just told you I had to come and apologize.”

  “I know, but you haven’t.”

  I said patiently, “Well, why am I here then? Am I a mirage?”

  “No, you’re not a mirage; you’re a bloody nuisance.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Clear off. And you should behave a bit more like a young lady. In my day you would have—”

  I interrupted him politely. “Mr. Attwood, interesting though the Stone Age is, I really haven’t got time to discuss your childhood. I’ll just say au revoir and if I don’t see you again in this life, best of luck in that great caretakers’ home in the sky.”

  He was muttering and adjusting his trousers (erlack!), but he shambled off. He daren’t say too much to me because he suspects I have seen his nuddy mags, which I have.

  lunchtime

  Hours and hours of boredom followed by a cheese sandwich. That is what my morning has been like. And I wish Nauseating P. Green would stop ogling me. Blinking at me through her thick glas ses like a goldfish in a uniform. Since I saved her from being duffed up by the Bummers last term she follows me round like a Nauseating P. Green on a string.

  Rosie said to me, “She loves you.”

  Good Lord.

  1:30 p.m.

  Nauseating P. Green even followed me into the loos. As I was drying my hands she said, “Georgia, would you…would you…like to see some photos of my hamster? He’s called Hammy.”

  Oh right, that’s top of my list, photos of a hamster. I was going to say no, but she looked so blinky that I couldn’t.

  “P. Green.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hammy has got about ten babies around him.”

  “I know; he’s just had them.”

  Well, at least someone is going to be astonished by Miss Wilson’s sex talk.

  2:35 p.m.

  Madame Slack was so overjoyed to see me that she made me sit right at the front next to Nauseating P. Green and Slack Alice, both of whom can only see the board if it’s an inch away from their glasses. Jas and Ellen (Jas’s bestest new lezzie mate) and the rest of the gang sat together at the back.

  On the plus side, Madame Slack told us we are going to have a student teacher next week. That is usually très amusant. A bit of a light in a dark world.

  4:00 p.m.

  Bell rang.

  At last escape from this hellhole. Jas and me were walking out of the gates when we saw Tom waiting for her. She went red as two short red things because she hadn’t rolled her skirt over. She managed to pout though. Tom gave me a kiss on the cheek. Mais oui!! Très continental for someone who works part-time in a vegetable shop. He said, “Welcome back. You missed a cracking night at the cinema the other night. What did you get up to in Och Aye land?”

  “I hung around a twenty-four-hour supermarket.”

  “Is that the groovy thing to do up there then?”

  “No, it’s the ONLY thing to do.”

  5:00 p.m.

  Talk about being Queen of the Goosegogs. I had to walk along with Jas and Tom holding hands. (I don’t mean we were all holding hands, although that would have been funnier.) I am giving Jas the cold shoulder as well as Ellen because of going to the cinema as a gang without the essential ingredient: me.

  However, my shoulders are making little impression on anyone.

  7:15 p.m.

  Jas phoned.

  “Gee.”

  “Yes, who is that?” (Even though I knew who it was.)

  “It’s me, Jas.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, you could have come to the cinema with us, but you were in Och Aye land.”

  “Huh.”

  “And, well, it was just, you know, couples, and well, I don’t think Robbie would have wanted to come. He doesn’t really hang out with Tom much. You know Robbie’s got his mates from The Stiff Dylans and because he’s got the band and…”

  She dribbled on for ages.

  midnight

  The nub and gist of Jas’s pathetic apology is that I am going out with an older Sex God. We came to an understanding. The understanding is that she has to show her remorse; she has to be my slavey girl for three days. And do everything I say.

  tuesday november 2nd

  lunchtime

  I made slavey girl give me a piggyback to the loos. Hawkeye said we were “being ridiculous.”

  8:00 p.m.

  The Sex God was waiting for me outside school!!! And he was in his cool car. Fortunately I had abstained from doing anything ridiculous with my beret. So I was able to get into his car only having to concentrate on not letting my nostrils flare too much…or knocking him out with my nunga-nungas. SHUT UP, BRAIN!!!

  10:00 p.m.

  I must stop being jelloid woman every time I see the Sex God. Why oh why did I say “I’m away laughing on a fast camel” instead of good-bye? What is the matter with me?

  However, on the whole, taking things by and large…Yessssssss!!!!!

  I live at Snogging Headquarters. My address is:

  Georgia Nicolson

  Snogging Headquarters

  Snog Lane

  Snoggington

  10:15 p.m.

  Phoned Jas.

  “Jas, I’ve done car snogging. Have you done that?”

  “No…. I’ve done bike snogging.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “It’s just not the same.”

  “It is.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Well, there are still four wheels involved.”

  Good grief.

  11:00 p.m.

  In the car this afternoon Robbie put his head on my knee and sang me one of his songs. It was called “I’m Not There.” I didn’t tell Radio Jas that bit.

  I never really know what to do with myself when he does his song singing. Maybe nod my head in time to the rhythm? How attractive is that from upside down? And also if you were passing the car as an innocent passerby you would just see my head bobbling round.

  1:00 a.m.

  Libby woke me up when she pattered and clanked into my room. When she had got everybody into my bed she said, in between little sobs, “Ohh, there was a big bad man, big uggy man.”

  She snuggled up really tightly and wrapped her legs round me. I gave her a big cuddle and said, “It’s OK, Libbs, it was just a dream. Let’s think about something nice. What shall we dream about?”

  She said, “Porridge.”

  She can be so sweet. I gave her a little kiss on her cheek and she smiled at me (scary). Then she ripped the pillow from underneath my head so that Pantalitzer and scuba-diving Barbie could be comfy.

  wednesday november 3rd

  7:00 a.m.

  Woke up with a crick in my ne
ck and a sort of air-tank shape in my cheek where scuba-diving Barbie had been.

  Dad came into the kitchen in a suit. Blimey. No one said anything. Apart from Libby, who growled at him. It turns out that it wasn’t a nightmare she had last night. She just woke up and caught sight of Dad in his jimjams. Mum was in her usual morning dreamworld. As she came out of her bedroom getting ready for work, she was wearing her bra and skirt and nothing else. I said, “Mum, please, I’m trying to eat.”

  In the bathroom I checked the back of my head and profile. (There’s a cabinet that has two mirrors on it. You can look through one and angle the other one so that you can look at the reflection of yourself sideways.) Then I put Mum’s magnifying mirror underneath and looked down at myself, because say the Sex God had been lying on my knees sort of looking up at me adoringly and singing (which he had). Well, I wanted to know what that looked like.

  I wish I hadn’t bothered for two reasons: Firstly, when I looked down at the mirror I realized that my nose is GIGANTIC. It must have grown overnight. I look like Gerard Depardieu. Which is not a plus if you are not a forty-eight-year-old French bloke.

  Secondly, you can definitely see my lurker from underneath.

  8:18 a.m.

  Jas was waiting for me at her gate. I was a bit aloof and full of maturiosity. Slavey girl said, “I’ve brought you a Jammy Dodger all to yourself.”

  “You can’t treat me badly and then bribe me with a Jammy Dodger, Jas.”

  She can, though, because I was soon munching away.

  On the way up the road I said to Jas, “Do you think my nose is larger than it was yesterday?”

  She said, “Don’t be silly. Noses don’t grow.”

  “Well, everything else does—hair, legs, arms…nunga-nungas. Why should your nose be left out?”

  She wasn’t a bit interested. I went on, “And also can you see I have a lurker up my left nostril?”

  She said, “No.”

  “But say you were sort of looking up my nose, from underneath.”

  She hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. She has the imagination of a pea. Half a pea. We were just passing through the park and I tried to explain. “Well, say I was singing. And you were the Sex God and you were lying with your head in my lap. Looking up adoringly. Marveling at my enormous talent. Waiting for the appropriate moment to leap on me and snog me to within an inch of my life.”

  She still didn’t get it, so I dragged her over to a bench to illustrate my point. I made her put her head on my lap. I said, “So…what do you think?”

  She looked up and said, “I can’t hear you singing.”

  “That’s because I’m not.”

  “But you said what if you were singing.”

  Oh for Goodness O’Reilly’s trouser’s sake!!! To placate her I sang a bit—the only thing that came into my head was “Goldfinger.” It brought back horrible memories because Dad and Uncle Eddie had sung it the night Dad came home from Kiwi-a-gogo. They were both drunk and both wearing leather trousers, as Uncle Eddie said, “to impress the ladies.” How sad and tragic is that?

  Anyway, I was singing “Goldfinger” and Jas had her head on my lap looking up at my ever-expanding nostrils.

  I said, “Can you see my lurker up there?”

  Then we heard someone behind us having a fit. We leapt up. Well, I did. Jas crashed to the ground. It was Dave the Laugh, absolutely beside himself with laughing.

  I said, “Er…I was just…”

  Jas was going, “I was just looking up…Georgia’s nose for…a…bit…”

  Dave the L said, “Of course you were. Please don’t explain. It will only spoil it for me.” He walked along with us. I couldn’t help remembering snogging him. And using him as a Red Herring. But he was funny. And he wasn’t snidey. Just laughing a lot. In a Dave-the-Laugh way.

  After he went off I said to Jas, “He seems to have forgiven me for being a callous minx, doesn’t he? He is quite groovy-looking, isn’t he?”

  Uh-oh. I hope I am not becoming a nymphowhatsit. It is true though. I did think he looked quite cool. And a laugh. He’s going to The Stiff Dylans gig this weekend. I said to Jas, “Do you think that he is going with Ellen?”

  Why do I care? I am the girlfriend of a Sex God.

  Still, I wonder if he is going with Ellen.

  german

  11:15 a.m.

  To fill in the time whilst Herr Kamyer was writing something pointless on the blackboard about Helga and Helmut—Helga and Helmut are the HILARIOUS twins from our German language book called interestingly (NOT) Helga and Helmut. By the way, how many sausages can one person eat? Helmut is always stuffing one in his face. His lederhosen are probably as huge as Jas’s pants. Anyway, as I say, to fill in the endless hours I gave Rosie a tattoo on her arm (in pen) of a lockjaw germ dancing. It was excellent. However, Jas (Mrs. Dense Knickers) said, “What is it?” My artistic talents are wasted on her. Also, and even more alarmingly, Jas seemed to be really interested in what happened to Helga and Helmut when they went shopping. I said to her, “They’re not real, you know, Jas. They are German.”

  hockey

  3:00 p.m.

  Adolfa (Sports Oberführer and part-time lesbian) has been relatively quiet this term. She had extravagantly big shorts on today. As we got changed I said to Jas, “It’s you she wants, Jas. I know because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Look at the size of her shorts. They are JUST like your knickers.”

  Jas hit me. Slavey girl is getting a bit uppity.

  6:00 p.m.

  Doing homework (peanut butter sandwich–making and hairstyling) with Ellen, Jas and Rosie. I casually found out that Ellen is meeting Dave the Laugh at the gig.

  I said, “Oh, are you a sort of item then?”

  She went a bit girlish. “Well, you know, he said, ‘Are you going to the gig?’ and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘See you there then.’”

  Rosie said, “Yes, but does he mean ‘If you are going, I’ll see you there because you will be like THERE to see’? Or does he mean ‘See you there,’ like in see YOU there?”

  Ellen didn’t know. She was in a state of confusosity. Join the club, I say.

  As I wandered home I was thinking, one thing is true. He is not making the effort to meet her before the gig. Hahahahaha.

  7:00 p.m.

  Hang on a minute, though. Robbie has not arranged to meet me before the gig either. Is he expecting me to just turn up because I am, like, his official girlfriend? Oh well, it’s only Wednesday. He’ll call me and sort it out. Probably.

  7:30 p.m.

  Uh oh. Angus went on a kamikaze mission (kattikaze mission) to his beloved sex kitten. When he was let into the garden for his constitutional poo parlor division he burrowed under the fence. Pausing only to eat the Prat Poodles’ supper and trap some voles, he went over to Mr. and Mrs. Across the Road’s house. On to their roof.

  He must have lurked up there until Mr. Across the Road came out to mow his lawn, and then dropped his love gifts (two voles and a half-eaten ham sandwich) onto Mr. Across the Road’s head. Taking advantage of Mr. Across the Road’s mo mentary blindness, he leapt into the house to be reunited with his beloved. Unfortunately, he was an unwelcome houseguest and in the ensuing struggle there was some incident with the cockatiel. From what I can gather from Mr. Across the Road’s shouting, it may never speak again. Which would be a plus in my book, as it only ever said, “Who’s a pretty boy?”

  10:00 p.m.

  No call from Robbie.

  I started softening up Dad for Saturday. “Vati, you know how hard I have been working at school…? Well…”

  He interrupted me. “Georgia, if this is leading up to any suggestion of quids leaping out of my pocket into your purse…forget it.”

  What an old miser.

  “Vati, it’s not to do with money. It’s just that my friends and I are going to a gig on Saturday night and—”

  “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

  “
It’s alright, Dad. I’ll just, you know, come home with the rest of the gang and…”

  He’s going to pick me up at midnight. It’s hardly worth going out. I made him promise me that he’d crouch down behind the wheel and not get out of the car.

  midnight

  SG hasn’t called me. How often should he call me? How often would I call him? About every five minutes seems right.

  Maybe that’s too keen. It implies I haven’t got any sort of life.

  12:05 a.m.

  I haven’t.

  1:00 a.m.

  OK, every quarter of an hour.

  1:15 a.m.

  It says in my Men Are from Mars book that boys don’t need to talk as much as girls. The bloke that wrote it has obviously never met my uncle Eddie. When he came round the other day he didn’t shut up for about five million years. He ruffles my hair. I am fourteen years old. Full of maturiosity. And snoggosity. I would ruffle HIS hair to show him how crap it is. But he hasn’t got any.

  thursday november 4th

  operation glove animal

  8:30 a.m.

  This is GA Day (Glove Animal Day). Everyone is going to turn up with ears in place today. Jas was grumbling and groaning about getting a reprimand. I said, “Jas, please put your ears on as a smack in the gob often offends.”

  Even she got into the swing of it once her ears were in place. It was, it has to be said, quite funny. Jas looked hilarious bobbing along with her glove ears. She even did a bit of improvising with her teeth, making them stick out and doing nibbly movements with them like a squirrel. We did a detour through the back alleyway near the Science block. Elvis was in his hut reading his newspaper. We just stood there in our glove animal way looking in at him through the window. He sensed we were there and looked up. We stared back at him. His glasses were a bit steamed up, so maybe he really thought we were some woodland creatures. Woodland creatures who had decided to go to school and get ourselves out of our woodland poverty trap…But then he started shouting and raving on, “Clear off and learn something instead of messing about. And make yourselves look normal!!!”

  Oh, wise advice from the looniest-looking person in the universe.