Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

by Louise Rennison

  “He’s called that because he likes a laugh, and well, to be frank, Ellen, you are a bit lacking vis-à-vis the laughometer scale.”

  9:00 p.m.

  I wish when I am speaking complete and utter bollocks people would not take me seriously. It’s not my fault that I have advised Ellen to develop an infectious laugh, is it? Oh, I am so tired.

  9:30 p.m.

  By the time the Circus family came home, I was tucked up in my bed with the lights off. Not that it makes any difference whatsoever.

  Sure enough, it was tramp, tramp up the stairs. Open door, blinding light as Mutti switched it on. Swiss Family Mad came and sat on my bed. Angus now had the goggles on and a scarf round his neck.

  Mutti said, “Oh, it was really good fun, Georgie.”

  Libby got in bed with me and started prodding my lurker, going “Spottie bottie boy.”

  Then Vati came in. Into my bedroom. He was looking at me and I was only wearing my pajamas.

  I said, “Did anyone notice that my light was off and that I was asleep? Did anyone get that?”

  But they just went on chattering and giggling and Vati was playing tickly bears with Libby and Mutti.

  Please save me.

  thursday march 10th

  maths

  I am going to have to kill Rosie—she is soo overexcited about the return of Sven. Every time Miss Stamp turns round she does mad disco dancing. Miss Stamp turned round a bit sharpish and caught Rosie nodding her head like a loon. She said, “Rosemary Mees, what are you doing?”

  Rosie said, “I was agreeing with your excellent point on the roundness of circles.”

  She got a bad conduct mark for cheek, but she is still as mad as a hen.

  She sent me a note: “What swings round and round a cathedral wrapped in cellophane?”

  I tried to ignore her but she kept looking and raising her eyebrows until I thought she would have a nervy spaz. So I mouthed back “What?” and she sent another note.

  “The lunchpack of Notre Dame.”

  Dear God, am I never to be free?

  english

  Oh rave on, rave on. Not content with boring us to death with MacUsless, we are also doing two more books. Wuthering Heights, or Blithering Heights, as we call it, and Samuel Pepys’s Diary. About this horrifically boring bloke called Samuel Pepys. He quite literally, from what I can gather, peeps about. He just looks up ladies’ skirts most of the time and says “Prithee.” Still, we all have to accept he is a genius. On the plus side, the dirty bits will make Miss Wilson go completely spazoid.

  4:30 p.m.

  Walking home with Jas and Rosie when we saw Dave the Laugh and Rollo and Tom. Jas went ludicrously girlish, even though she has been seeing Hunky for about a zillion years. I should know—I am like that bloke, Pepys’s mate…Boswell, who had to write down all the boring stuff that Pepys did because he was his secretary or something.

  I could write a diary about Jas.

  “Prithee it bee Thursdayee and Missee Jas gotte uppee this morning and puttee on her pantee forsooth and lack a day, her bottom I declareth groweth by the minutee.”

  I had a bit of a nervy spaz when I saw Dave. He was all cool. Rats. He said, “Easy girls, don’t be selfish, there’s more than enough of me to go around.”

  I gave him my glacial look but he just winked at me. I couldn’t smile even if I wanted to because I had got so much lurker eradicator (panstick) on that I couldn’t move my face.

  Rosie said, “Are you coming to Sven’s teenage werewolf party on Saturday? There will be snacks.”

  Rollo said, “It’s not fish fingers, is it?”

  Rosie looked pityingly at him. “Rollo, keep up, this is a teenage werewolf party.”

  Dave the Laugh said, “Babies’ tiny heads then, is it?”

  Rosie said, “Now you are ignoring the sophisticosity of the occasion; it is of course sausages with lashings of tomato ketchup.”

  Dave said, “Of course it is. See you later, chicklets. And Georgia, it is useless trying to ignore me—it just gives me the Mega-Horn.”

  And he and the lads went off whistling the theme from The Italian Job.

  4:45 p.m.

  How annoying is that?

  I could kill him.

  He completely ignored my glaciosity.

  Rosie and Jas were looking at me in a looking-at-me sort of way. Which I hate. Tom walked along with us. Jas was wittering on to him and holding his hand.

  “I’ve found this stuff in the library about different kind of fungi you can eat. You know, for our wilderness thing. Well, if we got lost away from the others in the group we could eat it and not starve.”

  I said, “Forgive me if I’m right, but are you talking about mushrooms?”

  Jas got all huffy. “Well. All you are interested in is Dave the Laugh.”

  I tried to look as bewildered as a bee who finds itself in an eggcup hat.

  “I am not at all interested in Dave the Stupid Laugh—it’s just that I am even less interested in gray shapeless things that lurk about the woods.”

  They were all looking at me still.

  I tried again. “Oh come on, get real…Dave the Laugh, I—me—I mean…”

  Tom said, “So you do like him then?”

  Jas said meaningfully, “Yes well, SOME people know SOMETHING about SOMETHING.”

  Oh good point, well made. Not.

  I wanted to kill her and make her eat her fringe. And her knickers.

  Rosie, who had been practicing being blind and using me as her guide dog, said, “I’ve got an uncle in Yorkshire who eats cow udder as a treat.”

  That can’t be true.

  Can it?

  5:00 p.m.

  Walking home all alone.

  I let myself in when I got to our house.

  I opened the door and yelled out, “Hello Georgia darling, take your coat off and come and warm yourself by this blazing fire! I’ve made a nourishing stew for you, and when your father comes home from being really masculine and rich we can talk about the four hundred pounds a week you need for a decent pad in London.”

  As if.

  6:00 p.m.

  Mum is out tossing herself around a room full of red-faced loons in leotards. Again. Who knows where Dad is. Out in his clown car causing havoc.

  Brrr, it is so nippy noodles and dark.

  Got into bed it was so chilly bananas.

  Oh I am so cold and bored.

  7:00 p.m.

  Phone rang. It was Ellen.

  “I heard you saw Dave on the way home and he’s definitely coming on Saturday because he said he was and that means he is. Do you think?”

  I said, “Put it this way, there will be snacks and Sven possibly in a Viking outfit, of course Dave the Laugh will be there.”

  And then Ellen started doing this thing. I thought she was having a fit at first. She was snorting and going “Hnnurknurk hhhh nuuu uuurkkk.”

  “Ellen, what are you doing?”

  “I’m practicing my infectious laugh.”

  Good grief.

  bedroom

  I am so depressed and bored I may even have to do some homework.

  in mutti’s bedroom

  7:15 p.m.

  I wonder if Mutti has got anything new I could wear to the party.

  Ho hum.

  I have squirted my lurker with her Opium. I think it might be retreating to where it came from. Although with my luck it will probably reemerge on the end of my nose, giving me that two-nosed look that is so popular amongst the very very ugly.

  7:30 p.m.

  I haven’t even got the heart to write to the Sex God, otherwise known as Marsupial Man. He’ll probably be lying in a river somewhere anyway.

  7:40 p.m.

  My new address is;

  Georgia Nicolson

  Crap House

  Crapton-on-sea

  Crapshire

  Crapland

  7:45 p.m.

  What is this book that Mutti has hidden in her
knickers drawer?

  How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You.

  8:00 p.m

  This is amazing.

  8:30 p.m.

  Phoned Rosie.

  “Rosie.”

  “Quoi?”

  “Do you know how to make anyone fall in love with you?”

  “Well, in Sven’s case I reel him in with snacks and snogging.”

  I’ve seen the two of them snogging and eating snacks at the same time, so I didn’t really want to talk about it much.

  I went on, “My mutti has got a secret book and it tells you how to make anyone fall in love with you, even normal boys, boys who are not Svens.”

  friday march 11th

  Odds bodkin, what is the matter with grown-ups, they are all mad as hens (madder). Usually when you do plays you just read them out in the order and so on. Not at this hellhole. Miss Wilson decided we had to “get into” our parts by improvising. How crap is that? Very, very very and thrice very crap.

  Off we all lolloped to the gym, where we had to “be” different colors to music. Rosie, who as we know is not entirely normal at the best of times, almost hung herself with one of the gym ropes when she was being purple.

  All of the ace gang (apart from swotty knickers) got a bad conduct mark when Miss Wilson spotted that we were doing “Let’s go down the disco” dance to every color.

  Nauseating P. Green is loving it, though. Tottering and blundering around. When we had to be “very very tiny,” she crept round barging into benches and gym mats. Sadly, then we had to do “very big,” and it was only quick thinking by Ellen that prevented P. Green from destroying the cassette player with her elephantine feet.

  If the safety inspector had popped in, the school would have been closed down. But then the next worst thing happened—Mr. Attwood came bonkering around. He came into the gym with his flat hat on and his ridiculous overalls that he only wears to keep his fags in. We were being items of food (I was being an egg and Rosie was being a sausage). Anyway, Elvis said, “This area is for the use of physical education as stated on the schedule.”

  Miss Wilson tried to explain. “We’re improvising Shakespeare, Mr. Attwood.”

  Mr. Attwood was not impressed. He said, “That’s as may be, Miss, but it’s not on the schedule and the gym mats are in a state of disarray.”

  He went harrumphing around, complaining and muttering and holding his back as he moved around.

  Oh, how we will miss his jolly cheerful ways when he leaves. Not.

  Still, he had got us out of being bits of food.

  I patted him on the back as I went by.

  He went sensationally ballistic, even for him.

  “I’ve seen you, prancing around like a fool. I know what you’re up to. I’ve locked my hut.”

  Quite, quite scarily mad. As we loped slowly back to the classroom, I said to Jas, “Mr. Attwood is being unusually insane, isn’t he? He will be going to the insane caretakers home when he retires. Do you think he’s got senile dyslexia like my grandad?”

  Jas was a bit flustered and red because, sadly, she had enjoyed the workshop. Her hair was all stuck-up on end. She said, “You mean senile dementia.”

  “Whatever, Jas, you are getting very picky, which is a shame because your fringe is all stickyuppy.”

  She dashed off to the loos to wet it down, just in case she sees Hunky on the way home. She is very vain.

  6:00 p.m.

  I have decided that life has to go on and I have an obligation to the ace gang to force myself to go to the teenage wolf party.

  6:30 p.m.

  Also, I want to show Dave the Laugh that I am not remotely interested in him.

  8:00 p.m.

  What is it with parents?

  Usually they don’t take any notice of you, always saying “Be quiet” or “Go to your room,” etc. When you want to be quiet and go to your room with your mates, they won’t leave you alone.

  Ellen, Jools, Rosie, Mabs, Jas and me were trying out different makeup techniques and hair-styles and then it was tap tap tap on the door—a door which, by the way, had a clear notice attached to it that said, politely, “Go away, everyone, and that means you Mutti and Vati in particular but also Libby and Angus.” I know Libby and Angus can’t read yet, so I had pinned a photo of Libby, looking particularly attractive in the nuddy-pants but wearing a pan on her head, and I had put a line through it, and for Angus I just did a big paw mark with a cross though it.

  Vati barged in and we all started screaming.

  He said, “Hi girlies, do you want a little spin in my new car?”

  I said to him, “Vati: a) you are banned from my room and b) do I look like the sort of person who is stupid and mad?”

  Unfortunately we were all having egg masks at the time, so we did look like the stupid and mad.

  8:30 p.m.

  I put the chest of drawers against the door so that no one can get in.

  I said, “I am going for the sophisticated werewolf look: black, black and just a hint of black, with black lipstick.”

  Ellen said, “Is there anyone going to the party that you fancy?”

  Jas looked at me—she had her fringe in a roller, which made her look even more ridiculisimus than normal—but that didn’t stop her from doing her looking thing.

  I looked back with my very worst look. But it didn’t stop her.

  She went on and on in between mouthfuls of cheesy whatsits. “Yes, Georgia, is there going to be anyone at the party that you might have a LAUGH with?”

  I hate her. I hate her.

  I said, “Well, you never know, do you? I have to try and have a life after SG. I’ve made a little shrine to him; do you want to see it?”

  I’d hidden the shrine under a cloth so that it is a very secret thing. Unfortunately when I took the cloth off, Jesus had come unstuck and crashed over into Buddha and they looked like they were snogging. The photo of Robbie is the one he gave me when I went round to his house for the first snogging extravaganza. It’s one of him lying on his bed just looking into the camera. God, he’s so gorgey and when he looks into the camera it is like he is looking right into my heart. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes.

  The ace gang were really nice to me. Rosie put her arm round me and said, “Just think of him surrounded by marsupials.”

  To change the subject in case I did uncontrollable weeping I showed them Mutti’s book, which I have sneaked into my room.

  They all sat down on my bed and I started to read stuff out. They were ogling me like goose-gogs.

  I said, “OK, this is really cool, it tells you how to become a boy magnet extraordinaire; there is a list. Number one is, let me see, oh yes…‘Smile broadly.’”

  We practiced smiling broadly. Good grief, how scary Jas is when she smiles broadly. Surely boys don’t like this? Perhaps I read it wrong. Nope, it definitely says that boys like you to smile broadly. Still, there are limits.

  I said to Jas, “Jas, if you don’t mind me saying, your broad smile is a bit scary potatoes.”

  She went all huffy and red.

  “Well, you’ve got some room to talk, Georgia. When you smile broadly your nose is about four feet wide.”

  Oh charming. That is the thanks you get for trying to be a good pal.

  Ellen said, “OK, my face is aching a bit from the smiling thing. What is the next tip?”

  I looked at the book. “‘Throw him darting glances.’”

  We practiced throwing each other darting glances. Easy peasey.

  Number three was dance alone to the music. I put on a CD and we practiced dancing alone to it. Do you know my new taut and all-encompassing nunga-nunga holders really do keep my nungas under control. Even if I leap wildly in the air and jiggle my shoulders around to the music.

  I shouted to Jas above the music, “Is there any evidence of nip nip emergence in this top?”

  She began peering at my nungas really close up. I said, “Stop it, lezzie, I only asked you to glance for ni
p nip emergence. I didn’t ask you to ogle my nungas.”

  She really got the megahump then and tried ignorez-vousing me. She didn’t storm off in a strop, though, because she wanted to know what number four on the list was. I said, “Okeydokey, number four is…‘Look straight at him and flip your hair.’”

  We did excellent hair flipping. Which is what we mostly do all day anyway.

  Number five was “Look at him, look away, toss your head and then look back.”

  There was a lot of tossing and so on until I got a really bad neck cramp.

  Number six was quite hilarious. “Lick your lips and parade close to him with exaggerated hip movements.”

  Rosie started doing it round the room. I said, “Surely boys don’t like this. You look like you’ve got replacement hips.”

  The next one was a bit more sensible. It said you had to do “sticky eyes.” You have to sort of look him in the eyes and then drag your eyes away from his as if they’ve been stuck with warm toffee.

  In my house it is quite likely that you could wake up with toffee in your eyes, but I don’t suppose that is what the author has in mind.

  The girls all crashed off home with plenty of things to think about and practice for tomorrow. I watched them out my window doing the hip thing down the street like elderly hula dancers in overcoats.

  I felt a bit cheered up.

  midnight

  Only nineteen hours till the party.

  12:05 a.m.

  What do I care, though? I have given up boys.

  12:13 a.m.

  How weird is this? There is a bit in the book about different cultural ways of entrancing boys. It says that in Mongolia when the woman is in the mood (i.e., full of red-bottomosity) she puts out a flag. Then when the man comes by, he sees the flag and races off to get his lasso and horse. Then she runs off and he chases her on his horse and lassos her.

  Night-night one and all.

  saturday march 12th

  11:00 a.m.

  Woken up at dawn, even though I should be getting lots of beauty sleep. Mutti was yelling and going ballisticisimus. She was yelling, “You horrible horrible brute!”