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.”
tuesday september 6th
Six days to Stalag 14. God help us one and all. But on the bright side the Luuurve God comes back in eight days!!!! I am keeping up my grooming and plucking so that I do not have to do it all in one go. I am ruthless with any stray hairs. Also I am a lurker-free zone. I just wish I could find some tan stuff that makes my legs not so paley. But not orange like last time. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter because we will be back in stockings for school.
4:00 p.m.
Angus went for his first walk today. I put him on top of the dividing wall so that he could see the Prat poodles. They usually give him joie de vivre and so on. His tail is still all bandaged up but his stitches come out next week and he is eating A LOT.
I popped him up there but he seemed still a bit wobbly on his old cat pins. He wobbled up and down once or twice and then crashed off over the wall into Mr. and Mrs. Next Door’s garden. I clambered up and looked down, and he was lying in the cabbage patch. He did that silent miaowing thing and then got to his paws again. He started walking and then careered off into a bush. Then he got up again, walked for a few paces and crashed into the lawn mower. Oh noooo, perhaps he really did have brain damage.
I leapt down into Next Door’s garden to rescue my little pally. The Next Doors were out, so the coast was clear apart from the heavily permed guardey dogs, Snowey and Whitey. They were chained to their kennel probably to stop them larking about and getting their stupid fur all muddy. And they were yapping like billio.
I said in a Liverpool accent, “Calm down, calm down,” and picked up Angus. He didn’t like being picked up and struggled around. As a treat I took him quite near the Prat brothers and he gave them both a big swipe with his paw around the snout.
I took him out through the gate because I didn’t think I could manage the wall and Angus the madcat.
Ooooooh, please don’t let him be a backward cat. I didn’t want him to play with colored string for the rest of his life. I told Mum what had happened and she said why didn’t I ring the vet, Dr. Beardey.
What if he said that Angus was like a turnip cat? Would I look after him even if he was dim and didn’t know how to fight anymore? And started liking the Prat brothers?
five minutes later
Yes, I would. I loved him and I would look after him no matter what happened. He was my furry soul pal.
wednesday september 7th
Amazingly Dad was quite sympathetic vis-à-vis Angus being an idiot cat and said he would drive me to the vet’s when he got back from “work.”
5:30 p.m.
We had an appointment with the vet. He looked all beardey and serious when I told him about Angus crashing about and maybe being backward. He looked in Angus’s ears and eyes and so on. Then he put him up on his table and let him walk about. Angus took two steps and then immediately fell off the table. He tried to leap up onto it again and missed and crash landed into my lap. Which he then fell off.
It was so sad, he had been the king of leaping and balancing. His days of riding the Prat brothers around like little horsies was over. I could feel my eyes filling up.
Dr. Beardey said, “It’s his tail, he can’t balance properly whilst it is all bandaged up. He’ll be OK when the bandage comes off.”
Oh, Allah be praised!!!
(Er, sorry about that, Baby Jesus. I don’t know why I came over a bit Muslim then, but we are all in the same cosmic gang, after all. Clearly I have my favorite, which is Baby Jesus, but generally I am a fan of the whole caboodle. In case any of them are also omnipotent like Big G.)
back home
Angus has just crashed into the cat flap when he was trying to get through it. Oh, I am so happy. I told Jas on the phone.
She went, “Ahuhu ahuh.”
But not in a caring and listening way.
Then she said, “I don’t know how you manage without a boyfriend. Who do you tell stuff to?”
I said, “Jas, I tell stuff to my little pallies. Like you. Anyway, can I stop you before you go off on a Moaning for Britain campaign? I am going to ring round and we can have a joint celebration day for the recovery of Angus and also the reinvention of—glove animal!!!”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“Oh no.”
“Jas, this is lots of fun chatting with you and so on—but we are meeting at mine in half an hour, so you had better dash. Pip pip.”
round at mine
I have made all of the gang coffee and jammy dodgers as we need nourishment to prepare us for the beginning of another term at Stalag 14.
two hours later
My ribs are hurting from laughing. I had forgotten how much fun you can get out of a beret and a pair of gloves—It was Rosie’s impression of Inspector Glove Animal of the Yard that made me laugh the most. She put on the beret and pinned the gloves underneath it as ears, and then popped her beard on and started puffing on her pipe.
It was vair vair amusant. I said, “I think Hawkeye will appreciate the creativitinosity that we have brought to what is in fact a boring old beret.”
Jas said, “She won’t appreciate it. She will just give us immediate detention.”
I looked at her with my eyebrows raised.
“Jas, I hope you are not being the cold bucket of water girl.”
Jas was going on in Rambling mode. “Well, it’s so silly.”
Rosie went over to her and took out her pipe.
“Jas, are you suggesting that I look silly?”
Oh, I laughed.
To release our girlish high spirits we danced around to loud music in my bedroom and then we lay down panting on the sofa.
Ellen is going on a proper second date with Declan, and Rollo bought Jools her very own rattle for supporting him at his footie matches. She is secretly thrilled, I think, although she said she would rather have had chocolates and lip gloss.
sunday september 11th
11:30 p.m.
In bed. And my bedroom is a Libby-free zone. I’ve got Stalag 14 tomorrow and I want to be in tip-top condition to face the Hitler Youth (prefects) and General Fascists (staff) and the Les
bians (Miss Stamp) and other assorted loons (Herr Kamyer, Elvis, Miss Wilson, Slim our beloved huge headmistress and—well, everyone else there, really).
hark, what owl through yonder window breaks
monday september 12th
7:00 a.m.
Oh, I can’t believe the hols are over and it is back to long dark hours of boredom and—er…that’s it. Still it’s now only two days until Masimo gets back. Yarooooo!!!!
in the bathroom
7:25 a.m.
I was just about to wash my face with the special face washing soap when I realized it wasn’t there. How was I supposed to cleanse and tone, etc., if people kept moving my soap? I went into the kitchen and said to Mum, “Have you been using my special soap, which is specially mine especially for me?”
She didn’t even look round. “No.”
I looked in at Angus. He and Gordy were in the same basket and they were both frothing at the mouth.
7:40 a.m.
Why would a cat eat soap? Why?
8:30 a.m.
Walking really, really slowly up the hill toward Hell.
Jas hasn’t phoned Tom and he has phoned her twice and she has pretended that she wasn’t in.
I said, just to check, “Er, Jas, you know how you pretended that you weren’t in? Well, you didn’t answer the phone and say ‘I’m not in,’ did you?”
She hit me over the head with her rucky, which is a bit violent, I think. It is as well I luuurve her.
We are not doing Glove Animal today, we are keeping the element of surprise. Hawkeye and the Hitler Youth will be on high alert at the moment. All full of energy after the summer break. All pepped up for mass brutality and girl hating so we are going to lull them into a false sense of security by being good this week. And then going all out headgear wise next week.
8:38 a.m.
The fascist regime has already started. As we came through the school gates Hawkeye was there like a guard dog and she had a tape measure!! Honestly! She was making sure that our skirts were an inch below the knee. Anyone who had turned over their skirt at the waist was given an immediate reprimand for their trouble. I may write to my MP or the European King or whatever.
Fortunately, I knew Hawkeye would be picking on me (as she has a specially developed hating muscle all for me), so I had pulled my skirt down over my knees once we were in sight of Stalag 14’s perimeter fence.
Melanie Griffiths, world renowned for her enormous out-of-control nungas, was just ahead of me and Hawkeye pounced. Fair enough because Melanie’s skirt was practically up her bum-oley.
Hawkeye had a nervy spaz attack. “Melanie, I would have expected better from you, and frankly with your shape, you would do well to go for the longer look, anyway.”
I said to Jas, “Actually I don’t think that Melanie has rolled her skirt up, I think that her arse has grown and that has lifted the hemline.”
As we shuffled off to hang our coats up I grumbled to the rest of the gang, “I bet they don’t have people measuring bloody skirts in schools in Pizza-a-gogo land, I bet they don’t even wear skirts at schools there, they are so liberal. I bet they wear fur miniskirts or leatherette hotpants.”
Actually I hope they don’t, Masimo might quite like that. Oooohhhh, I can’t wait for him to come back.
assembly
Oh, hello to the wonderful world of mass boredom and merde. Wet Lindsay and her sidefool Astonishingly Dull Monica were lurking around on prefect duty. They love frightening the first formers. Telling them their shoes are wrongly laced up and so on.
Wet Lindsay looked at me and said something to ADM and they both laughed. I didn’t care, though, I have an Italian Luuurve God as a boyfriend. And more importantly I have got a forehead.
We were just queuing up to go through the doors into the main hall and listen to Slim our revered headmistress bore for England when the two Little Titches came bounding up. I haven’t seen the titches, also known as Dave the Laugh’s fan club, since the last Stiff Dylans gig. They were all flushed and excited and the (slightly) less titchy one said to me, “Hello…hello, miss. We’ve got new trainers, we’ll show you them later. And we saw Dave the Laugh yesterday at the shopping center, he went into Boots and we followed him and he was getting some moisturizer and then we asked him for his autograph and he signed my maths book. He put three kisses and a drawing of a monkey.”
Wet Lindsay shouted out, “You two lower-school girls get back in line and stop talking. Georgia Nicolson, take a reprimand for encouraging the younger girls to break school rules.”
What, what? I had got a reprimand for standing in line while some tiny nutcases told me about their new shoes. Where was the justice in that?
God, I hate her. In fact she has made me deffo decide to split her and Robbie up, somehow. It is my civic duty. Also if I can accidentally on purpose bend her stupid bendy stick insecty legs round her neck, I will most certainly take the opportunity.
As we shuffled to our places I whispered to Jas out of the corner of my mouth, “I hate her, she is definitely as dead as a dead thing on dead tablets. Also forgive me if I am right but Dave the Laugh seems to have acquired his own personal stalkers.”
fifteen minutes later
Roro really made me laugh during prayers because she dug me in the ribs and when I looked at her she had on those comedy glasses that have no lenses but do have a false nose with big black eyebrows. I couldn’t stop laughing and then she did it to the rest of the gang, so we had group shoulder heaving. I managed to pull myself together for the final amen.
I could see Wet Lindsay looking over our way, but she could only see Rosie from the side so she didn’t get the full bushy eyebrow effect, otherwise it would have been detention all round. What larks!
Also the hymn was a top opportunity for “pants” work.
The words were “I long for you Lord as the deer PANTS for the rain.”
The volume went up about a million when we sang “pants.”
four minutes later
Oh, go on a bit, why don’t you, Slim. “Blah blah blah, visitors saying girls looked like prostitutes wearing short skirts, makeup, etc., etc…. all girls going to be hung, drawn and quartered if they don’t keep to school dress codes, blah blah. A lady does not show her knickers underneath her skirt.”
Oh, I am so bored. Slim had worked herself up into such a state that I thought her chins were going to drop off. Also vis-à-vis fashion, etc., I am not sure that I would wear an orange dress if I were eighty-four stone. She must get them specially made. By a sadist.
Then she said, “Well, girls, now let us pass on to more pleasant matters. As you know, before the summer holidays the upper fifth were lucky enough to be taken on a camping trip by Herr Kamyer and Miss Wilson. I gather that they had a marvelous time. Is that true, upper fifth?”
Me and Rosie and the gang were murmuring, “Yes, oh yes. Are you mad? Yes, yes, cheese and onion,” and rubbish but so that you couldn’t really hear it. Only Jas and her sad mates were shouting stuff like, “It was great.”
Bloody swotty voley knicker types.
Then Slim asked Herr Kamyer and Miss Wilson to come up to the stage. Miss Wilson looked like she was wearing her pre-Christmas cardigan, I swear, it had reindeers on it. And Herr Kamyer had on a tweed suit and an unusual tie (knitted) and his trousers hovered proudly at ankle level, revealing attractive matching socks.
Good grief. I whispered to Jools, “It’s lovely young love, isn’t it?”
She just looked at me.
Herr Kamyer went first. He said, “Vell, ve had ze very gut time viz the fun and larfs. Didn’t ve, girls?”
We all went, “Whatever, mumble mumble.”
Miss Wilson took over the dithering baton then.
“It was most enjoyable. During the day we drew interesting sketches of the varied wildlife and explored our environs.”
Rosie went “Oo-er,” which nearly made me wet myself but no one els
e heard.
Miss Wilson was back in the exciting world of tents and voles, rambling on. “But the evenings were in many ways the best times, we made our own entertainment.”
Slim interrupted, “Always the most enjoyable.”
Miss Wilson said, “Indeed.”
God, it was like a hideous teacher love-in.
Then Herr Kamyer got the giddy goat and started being enthusiastic. “Yah, ve played some of the games I haf played when I was camping in ze Black Forest. We did the shadow animals game and Miss Vilson sang mit der girls and made ze vair gut spangelferkel.”
Oh dear God, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we were back on the sausage trail.
Actually I didn’t mind idling time away with sausages and mad Germans because we had French first lesson and I wanted to avoid Madame Slack for as long as I could because she hates me.
As Herr Kamyer and Miss Wilson both dithered and fell down the stairs from the stage, Slim said something scary. “Well, I am sure there will be many more expeditions and excitements in the coming terms. Also I think it would be very nice for the whole school to share in the memories of the trip, and so I have suggested that Miss Wilson run an art project with the upper fifth. It will be lovely for them to bring their paintings and sculptures and so on of their feelings and experiences of the camping trip and put them on display here in the main hall.”
Rosie whispered to me, “Will you be bringing your sculpture of your snogging session with Dave the Laugh into the main hall?”
I looked at her cross-eyed and said, “I wonder if Miss Wilson will be reenacting, through the magic of dance, her marvelous standing in a field in the nuddy-pants scenario?”
french
I have dit this many times and I will dite it again, qu’est-ce que le point de français?
I’ve been to le gay Paree, I have experienced le mime, I have danced sur le pont d’Avignon and even (as Jools reminded me) done my world-famous impression of the Hunchback of Notre Dame outside Notre Dame. But I will not be going again.
This is moi point. I go out with an Italian Luuurve God and there is no point in going to France except for cheese. And I do not aime cheese, so there you are.
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