‘…startled by his furry shorts!’

Tom looked at me and then he put his arm around me. “Listen, Georgia, if he doesn’t get you then its his loss. You’re fab; we all know that.”

Jas even had a go at being nice. “Yes, you are, er… fab, and you are so, you know… you. I mean, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t you, would you?”

What was she rambling on about?

Tom was fishing about in his rucky. “I’ve got something to show you, Gee.”

Oh blimey, now he was going to get his newts out or something, at a time like this. He handed me a pile of photos. Oh good, they were of his trip to Kiwi-a-gogo land. How interesting. Not.

I flicked through them. Trees, trees, sheep, trees, Kiwi-a-gogo people in big boots and shorts and funny beards. And the men were just as bad!!! Hahahahahaha. Oh, shutup, brain. More sheep, wombat droppings, rogue bores, more beards, sheep, trees, sheep and… then I saw the photo of you know who. The Original Sex God Heartbreaker. Smiling into the camera. With dreamy dark blue eyes. Suntanned. Standing in a river wearing shorts. Thank goodness I had eschewed him with a firm hand and felt nothing.

One minute later

Corrrrrr. And also phwoar.

Back in my bedroom of pain

7:00 p.m.

I felt like a goosegog extraordinaire round at Jazzy Spazzy’s. All that hand holding and giggling, it’s pathetic. I may as well have been the wife of the Invisible Man. Mrs Invisible Man. It was all kissy kiss kiss, “Oooooohhh, Tom, do you like my new shoes? Oooohhh, Tom, I’ve got a new owl.” Pathetic. I would never do that in front of anyone. I needn’t worry, though, because if Masimo chooses Wet Lindsay, I am going to be living in a lesbian monastery for the rest of my life.

Five minutes later

Life really has gone merde when I can’t even speak to my besty pally because she is so BUSY with her boyfriend.

Well, so be it: if she chooses Tom above me, that is her lookout.

I will be eschewing her with a firm hand.

A LOT.

Like I am eschewing Robbie.

I will not have him in my brain. There is no room for anyone else in the cake shop of agony; it’s crowded enough in there already. And, anyway, Masimo is my one and only one.

Maybe.

Ten minutes later

I hate Jas. My so-called friend and bestie.

But I tell you this for free: she will never know how much she has hurt me. I might be in pain, but at least I have my dignitosity.

That I will never give up for anyone.

One minute later

Phoned Jas.

“Jas, what do you think Masimo will say? Do you think he wants to go out with me? Would you go out with me if you were him?”

“Oy, don’t start that lezzie business again.”

“Jas, I am just asking you to imagine being him and what you would think about me if you were him. I mean, you wouldn’t pick Wet Lindsay over me, would you?”

“She’s got quite nice arms.”

“Jas, that is the wrong answer. The correct answer is, ‘Of course I would choose you every time, Georgia, you gorgey creature.’”

“Well, if you already know the answer, what is the point of asking me the question?”

“And, by the way, what do you mean she has got nice arms? She’s a stick insect, therefore she’s got sticky thin stupid arms. And unusually enough for a stick insect, it doesn’t stop there – she’s got a stupid forehead and stupid feet and—”

“I’ve not seen her feet unclothed. Have you? When did you see her feet?”

“Jas, I don’t know that I have seen her feet, but I know that they are sad. Anyway, stop going on and on about her feet. I’m not interested in her bloody feet.”

“Well, I didn’t start the feet business. I was only being polite.”

I slammed down the phone. I may be having a nervy spaz.

I’d better eat something sweet.

In the kitchen

Nothing to eat, of course.

I must and shall have sugar.

Five minutes later

Never have sugar on bread. It is disgusting.

7:30 p.m.

I had better plan what I’m going to wear the day he comes round to see me. It may be the deciding factor between happinosity and sadnosity.

I must make sure he doesn’t see me in my school uniform. It will only remind him that I go to school.

I think I’ll practise smiling in the mirror.

7:40 p.m.

Oh, what larks, I’m developing a lurker on my chin. Perfect. It should just be nicely ripening into a massive red pus-filled second chin by Friday.

Five minutes later

Typico, I have run out of spot cream. I could squirt some perfume on it; that sometimes works. What does it say in CosmoGIRL! vis-à-vis lurker alerts?

Five minutes later

Apparently you are supposed to lure out the lurker by encouraging it to come to a head. You should steam the area. With a steaming thing.

Ten minutes later

I’ve had my face over a boiling saucepan for the last year and a half, and although my face is bright red and dripping with water, the lurker is still lurking there happily.

In Cosmo’s beauty hints it says you can use a poultice to draw it out. What can I use as a poulticey-type thing? It says a muslin bag with herbs and stuff in it.

In the bathroom

I have just looked in the “medical chest” and it has got some mouldy old oranges, a leg from Libby’s Pantalitzer doll, and some dried cat poo in it. How disgusting.

In Mutti and Vati’s bedroom

I’ve found some corn plasters in a drawer. Maybe they would do as a poultice. I’ll stick one over the lurker.

One minute later

Well, that is attractive. Not.

But who said that love was painless?

One minute later

And who said it involved corn plasters?

8:10 p.m.

God, the lurker is throbbing. I hope the corn plaster poulticey thing isn’t drawing anything else out. I don’t want to wake up with no chin.

Wandering lonely as a clud round the house

8:15 p.m.

I may as well be an orphan, for all the notice my family takes of me. They went out gaily laughing and singing years ago, leaving me with a measly fiver for a whole day. Just out scaring people for hours and hours.

I hate them.

It’s a bit spooky in the house by myself. Even the kittykats are nowhere around. What if an escaped prisoner came in out of the night and broke into the house to get food and so on?

He wouldn’t stay long, I can tell you that.

Ten minutes later

I never thought the day would come when I would be glad to hear the whine of Vati’s half-horsepower clown car, but it has.

I scampered up to my bedroom.

Loony alert

One minute later

Bang bang, crash. Why can no one in my family open a door normally? Crashing around when starving people with two chins are trying to sleep.

Mum came upstairs into my room. I don’t know why she bothers having her own room.

She sat on the bed and looked at me. What am I? A looking at person?

She said, “Could you tell me why you’ve got a corn plaster on your chin?”

I said, “Oh, leave me alone, will you?”

“Georgia, what is the matter with you? Seriously, you seem all worried and upset – what is it?”

And then, I don’t know what happened, but I told her. “I said to the Italian Stallion that I wanted him to be like my proper boyfriend, and he said, ‘Oh, this is a serious thing’, you know, in that really groovy accent-type thing, and then Dave the Laugh said, ‘What if you really liked someone and then you lost them’, and Jas said, ‘Wet Lindsay has got nice feet and he might like that’… maybe they do, the Italians, they are an ancient race and maybe they like feet… and then a lurking lurker situation occurred, so I got out the corn plaster… and he’s going to choose on Friday, that’s five days away… and the coup de whatsit is that the Original Sex God, whose name I will never mention this side of the grave, had his shorts on, in a river, probably showing off to his wombat friends… Oh, what is the point?”

Actually, for a complete fool and someone who tosses her nunga-nungas around with gay abandon, Mum was quite nice. And she seemed to understand.

Which I am surprised at, as I don’t know what I’m saying myself most of the time.

And I’m in my head. Sadly.

10:00 p.m.

Mum gave me a kiss, and I even let her cuddle me. A bit. She said the corn plaster wouldn’t work, but she would get me some cream tomorrow that will dry the lurker up.

She said I should keep myself busy with a list of things to do until Friday so that I don’t have time to go mad.

Good idea. I will start on the list now.

Two minutes later

This is my list:

Practise not being mad.

10:35 p.m.

Mum brought Bibbs into bed with me. She was asleep, still clutching her swimming goggles and snorkel. She was also clutching the statue of Our Lord Jesus, or Sandra, as he is now called in his Barbie frock and make-up. He is Libby’s new best “fwend”. I looked at Bibbs in the half-light in my bedroom. She is so sweet when she is asleep. Her little eyelashes are long and curly and her mouth all pouty and pink. I cuddled up to her, and she turned over in her sleep and put her little arms round me. Ooooohhhhh. I said softly, “Night-night, my little sister. I love you.”

And she said sleepily, “Night-night, Ginger. I lobe you.”

Ooohhh. At least she loves me.

Then she whispered, “Ginger, I poo my jimjams, oh dear.”

Midnight

After emergency removal of my pooey sister, I eventually snuggled down into my bed of pain alone. Not entirely alone because there is a bit of a residual pong and Sandra/Jesus is still in bed with me.

2:00 a.m.

Woke up from a dream.

I dreamt that I had a conversation with Jesus. He had the hump because he didn’t like his frock and he said his lipstick didn’t suit his complexion. It brought out the orange in it.

I wonder if it is a message from my subconscious that I must be more religious?

Monday June 20th

8:00 a.m.

The Portly One (Vati) yelled up, “Georgia, up NOW! You’ve got five minutes to get your bum down here.”

Oh, he is so crude. And how dare he take my bum’s name in vain?

My delightful little sister unexpectedly burst into my room to collect Sandra. She was wearing a see-through plastic Pacamac and some tiny tiny pants that she must have had when she was a baby. Or, more likely, she has nicked them from a poor unfortunate child at playschool. I must tell Mutti to remind the mothers not to leave their toddlers unattended when Libby’s around. She came over, quite slowly because the tiny pants were making her walk with small steps, got into bed with me and grabbed Our Lord and started to cuddle him.

I said, “I’m getting up for school now, Bibbs.”

She said, “Snuggle buggle.”

We had a bit of a cuddle and I kissed the top of her head. Is it normal to be able to snack on Rice Krispies from your little sister’s head?

Mutti came bustling in wearing a costume designed for a teenage prostitute. “Georgia, GET UP! It’s ten past eight. You’ll be late.”

I said, “Late for what? Six hours of misery at Stalag 14 being tortured by the Hitler Youth, followed by twelve hours of extreme boredom and starvation at home?”

She didn’t even listen. She said, “Don’t be so silly. You are such a drama queen.”

Is everyone’s life like this?

Cleaning my tushy pegs

Ten minutes later

I wish it was Friday and I could just get it all over with. Masimo comes round and says, “I am sorry, Georgia, I cannot be your one and only one. How do you say in English language? Ah, yes… so long, loser. Loser, loser, double loser, snap snap get the picture?”

Then I could just go back to being ordinarily bored and depressed.

One minute later

I grabbed a piece of toast from the kitchen to ward off death. Angus was happily chewing on something in his basket. He is better fed than me.

On the way out of the front door I heard Mum screeching like a banshee. “Bob, Bob, that horrible furry thing is eating my tights. Stop him, stop him!!! Trap him with that chair!”

Then I heard some crashing and Dad shouting and cursing. Mum hadn’t finished: “Of course you haven’t broken your leg, Bob. Anyway, never mind about that, get him… Oh bugger, now he’s in the laundry room. Oh dear God, he’s doing a poo in the ironing. That is it! They are going, they are going!!!”

8:40 a.m.

Jas was on her wall with Tom when I puffed up the hill. They were looking at something in a brown paper parcel. Jas was talking in a really silly girly voice that she uses when Hunky is around. I swear to God she will be developing a lisp soon. Pathetic. She went, “Ooooooohhh, Hunky, that is soooooo interesting. Look at this, Georgia.” And she held out the brown paper bag.

There was a newt in the bag. How beyond the Valley of the Really Quite Mad and entering the World of the Certifiably Bonkers is that?

Jas said, “It’s got very unusual markings. I’m taking it into Biology to show Miss Baldwin.”

I said, “Yeah, good idea. Crawler.”

But she didn’t even notice that I’d called her a teacher’s botty-kisser because she was so busy being an idiot around her boyfriend.

Tom left us at the corner to go off to college. As he kissed her on her cheek, Jas was fiddling with her fringe so much that I thought she’d had sudden onset of rampant disco inferno dancing. At last they parted. But only after she had blown kisses at him and then he had to pretend to catch them and blow them back for about two trillion years.

She was completely lost in Jasland. “Oh, it is so so so so nice to have him back.”

I said, “Is it nice to have him back then?”

But she didn’t get it. She just started again. “Oh yes, it is so so so so nice to have him back. I could never not have a boyfriend; it would be so sad. Imagine not having a boyfriend. Oh, actually, I suppose you can imagine not having a boyfriend.”

What a cow she can be. I didn’t hit her because I think violence is wrong, and also she was walking too quickly for me to kick. I just said, “You are a very caring person, Jas. It’s almost uncanny how empathetic you are.”

“I know – do you know what? Sometimes it’s like I can actually read Tom’s thoughts.”

“Really, you mean when he’s looking at you and not saying anything, and yet you know what he is thinking?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Yes, I could read his thoughts today too when he was looking at you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it was quite clear he was thinking, Hey, I’ve accidentally got a prat for a girlfriend.”

Hobbling into Stalag 14

I’m not speaking to Jas. She is vair violent. I may have to go to a support group for victims of friends’ violence. UNPAL (United Kingdom’s Network for Protection Against Loonies).

Assembly

I am at the far end of the Ace Gang lineup next to Rosie. Not in my usual position next to Mad Dog Jas. She has given Ellen, Jools, Mabs and Ro Ro Midget Gems from her secret stash, but I don’t care because I am giving her my cold shoulders. She’s only got a boyfriend in the first place because of my excellent stalking skills. If it wasn’t for me, she would still be Mrs Sad on the shelf of life.

One minute later

Like me.

Oh God.

Even Rosie doing her shoulder disco dancing during “Jerusalem” failed to work its usual magic. Although when she sang, “And was Jerusalem builded here amongst these dark satanic pants”, I did snap and join in with the laughing attack the Ace Gang had. We had to be shuussshed by the Hitler Youth.

Slim, our beloved elephantine headmistress, was in full jelloid mode. She was wearing an unusually attractive jumper in canary yellow. It must have taken at least ten sheep to make it. When she loses her rag she trembles all over. But each bit trembles independently. Chins, jowls, basoomas. If there was such a thing as jelly wrestling, she would be top at it.

One minute later

Oh, drone on. Yawn yawn. What was she talking about?

“…No loitering without intent in the loos… In my day you were lucky to get a shoe to live in… Only nineteen more days to go till our production of Macbeth – I hope you’re all telling your parents about it…” Blah blah blah. As if.

Then through the dark mists of boredom like a hearing-eye dog I heard my name mentioned. As I drifted back into consciousness I heard her say, “Georgia Nicolson and Rosie Mees to see me in my office immediately after assembly.”

Oh dear God, what fresh hell?

I looked at Rosie and she looked back. I shrugged my shoulders, she shrugged back. I looked at the Ace Gang and shrugged my shoulders and they shrugged back. (The Ace Gang, I mean, not my shoulders. I don’t mean my shoulders have a shrugging life of their own.)

What have we done?

As we were walking out in a Winter Wonderland of shrugging, Hawkeye appeared from nowhere like the Bride of Dracula and barked out, “Stop that shrugging!”

I said to Rosie, “Now shrugging is a capital offence, apparently. Don’t accidentally shake your head, for God’s sake.”

Outside Slim’s office

Ten minutes later

In the waiting room of fear there are Rosie and I and a couple of scaredy first formers playing with their pigtails. Oo-er. Ro Ro said, “Do you remember when the Bummer twins had a pigtail-cutting extravaganza?”

Ah, the Bummers. Jackie and Alison. They had taken bullying to new heights before they were expelled for shoplifting. There was for instance their famous using of first formers as armchairs. And in a particularly inspired moment they had actually superglued one of the little titches to a bench. In their pigtail campaign they used to snip off bits of first formers’ pigtails as they passed by and then hang them on their havvies like scalps.

Rosie said, “I wonder what has happened to the Bummers?”

I said, “Prison with a bit of luck.”

Two minutes later

Slim had the scaredy little ones in first. They came out about five minutes later all red and crying and hiccupping. I gave one of them a snot rag and asked, “What did you do?”

Ginger titch said, “We… we… drew a picture of a vole with a… a… bra on… on the blackboard in… in… blodge.”

I said, “Well done, girls, keep up the good work; we are relying on you.”

Rosie slapped them both on their backs, a bit hard actually. I thought their lungs might shoot out. She said, “Goodus workus, smallus idiotus.” And they went off looking really pleased.

I said, “I like to think they look up to us as examples of womanhood.”

And Rosie said, “Yes, but what you have to keep in mind is that you are bonkers.”

Then we heard our beloved leader shout out, “Come.”

Here we go. A duffing up for something that we quite clearly have not done. Whatever it is.

Slim was scribbling away at her desk. The chair she must have been sitting on (unless she was levitating) was completely hidden from view by her jelloidness. I wonder if she has a specially reinforced chair? There is probably a specialist circus furniture shop where she gets her requirements. Imagine the size of her bath! Oh nooooo, now I’ve got a nuddy-pants Slim in my head!

Slim finally looked up.

What had we done?

“I am returning these to you.”

Wow, this was a turn up for the book! And she handed me a bag. It was the bison horns!!! The return of the bison horns! Yesss! The horns brought back especially from Hamburger-a-gogo land for the Ace Gang. I fondled the horns and thought back to when I had first worn them riding a bucking-bronco bar stool in Gaylords while Rawhide played. Let no one say that the Hamburgese have given us no culture besides Elvis. In fact, as I have said many times to those who will listen (i. e., no one), we have a lot to thank our tiny American chums for – mostly things beginning with “h”: hamburgers, hillbillies, howdy doody, er… horns and so on.

Slim was still rambling on. “Now I like a joke as much as the next person, but there is a time and a place, and wearing bison horns during German is not the place. Ironically, you two are quite bright girls, but you waste your talents on silliness. You won’t get a job as a silly person, you know.”

I didn’t say “Miss Wilson has” because, as Slim says, there is a time and a place for everything and time waits for nomads, etc.

I was pleased to have the horns back and it made me think quite kindly about Slim. She isn’t such a bad old huge elephantine thing, really. When we got to her door to go, I did think about pretending to be a hilarious alien like in Doctor Who and saying, “I offer you my mandible in peace.” But then I thought, er, no.

German

Herr Kamyer seems to have accidentally come to work dressed as a twit. His trousers are so short they are bordering on the Bermuda shorts area of legwear. And there is never an excuse for wearing a sleeveless jerkin with diamond patterns all over it. Even if you have been brought up on a diet of spangleferkel.

I stared at him. He was quite literally a sight for sore eyes. If you looked at him, he gave you sore eyes. He can always be relied on to come up trumps in the twit arena. He blinked back at me. “Guten morgen, Georgia and Rosie.”

We clicked our heels together and said, “Jawohl Kommandant.”

I sat next to Rosie in our comfy seats on the back row. In some of our lessons we are not allowed to sit together for some mad reason that escapes me. Something to do with attention deficit disorder. I got out my chuddie and settled down on my arms to have a little zizz. But I could feel mad beadies looking at me. I opened my eyes. It was Jas. Just looking at me. Look all you want, Miss Looking at Me Person. She soooo wanted to know why we had been to Duffing Up Headquarters and come back looking so pleased. But she will be the last to know anything about me now.

Fifteen minutes later

It is impossible to get a decent sleep in German – you just drift off and the shouting begins. It’s all Achtung! or Schnell! and Raus raus! and more Spangleferkel! Cor blimey. I was awake now, so I might as well do something. I got the horns out. I nudged Rosie awake and said, “Look at my lap.”