Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

by Louise Rennison

  “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 doctors’ 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

  8:30 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.

  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 behavior in a servant of the people I don’t think.

  Then I noticed it was an aerogramme-type letter. For me. From Kiwi-a-gogo 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.

  Mark still hadn’t had his day, though; 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 mustache 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 aerogramme.

  “Look, it’s from SG.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I haven’t opened it yet. I am savoring 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.”

  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 (radiator) 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 Bumbag.”

  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 billio.

  “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 g
ang as we trailed out of Assembly to R.E., “What started out as a schiessenhausen day has turned out to be a groovy gravy day.”

  I am looking forward to R.E. because whilst everyone has their little snooze I can read my letter from the beloved.

  r.e.

  We all snuggled down at the back. Ro Ro is 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 don’t want to have to answer anything, I just want 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 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-a-gogo land.

  Dear Georgia,

  Sorry it has taken me so 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 volcanos 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 backward and forward 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 a.m.

  After R.E. 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.”

  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 is 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 have 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 said to Vati, “Why?”

  He was all preened up and Dadish.

  “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 for a spin.”

  As if.

  Dad started rustling around in the boot and shouted to Mum, “Connie, come on, I’ll take you and Libby for a 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 p.m.

  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 panties 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 marvelous, 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. Yes, why is that?”

  I am being pushed to the limits of my nicosity, but I tried, God knows I tried.