Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 05 (8 page)

“Jas, I was sitting down on the wall; anyway, he's twelve.”

She looked all Wise Woman of the Forestish (i.e., stupid).

“Perhaps you were doing internal hip wiggling.”

What is she raving on about?

Still, she is talking to me by mistake and so I win the glaciosity game hahahaha.

7:45 p.m.

I don't know why I have applied makeup to stay in my room.

Mutti and Vati have got Uncle Eddie round and a few of their crap mates. Uncle Eddie popped his head round my door almost blinding me with the glare from his baldiness.

I began to say, “Er, Uncle Eddie, this is a loon-free zone…” but he said, “What has a hundred legs and can't walk?”

“Uncle Eddie, I am sixteen years old, I—”

“Fifty pairs of trousers…hahahahah it's the way I tell 'em!”

And he looned off to the loon gathering.

I cannot have any peace. I am forced out of my own home because of the high loon count.

7:59 p.m.

I crept out of the house into the back garden. I would just see if Mark Big Gob has the audacity to turn up for our “date.” And I can tell him to bugger off.

8:00 p.m.

He's not there. God, even someone I was going to stand up has stood me up before I had a chance to stand them up.

8:02 p.m.

Mark Big Gob came out of the shadows smoking a fag. He really has got the biggest gob known to humanity. He said, “You're keen.”

How annoying is that. I was going to say, well, actually I was just here to tell you to bugger off, when he said, “Fancy a fag?”

Er…

I said, “No thanks, I only smoke cigars.”

What am I talking about?

He held out his hand.

“Come on then.”

I honestly have no control over any part of my body, because even though I had no intention of doing it, I took his hand. Which was a mistake in very many ways, mostly because I had forgotten that I am taller than him and I have long arms. So I had to do the crouchy orangutan thing to keep at the same height as him.

Anyway, we loped off up the hill, it was bloody dark and extremely nippy noodles. I had worn my big cardigan, but I still felt a bit chilly because it only buttoned up halfway. Mark is not a big talker and I couldn't think of a single thing to say to him. We got up to the bit at the top we call the bushes; it's really snog headquarters. There was no one there tonight, though. Mark let go of my hand and put his fag out. Then he alarmed me by putting his hand round the back of my neck and pulling me to
him quite roughly. Blimey. Just as I was deciding what to do he shoved his tongue in my mouth. No warmsy upsies, not even “My your skin is looking nice,” or “What a lovely blouse.” Not even a nodding acquaintance with one two three four on the snogging scale.

It wasn't that nice actually. His tongue had more than a passing similarity to Angus's. Not that I have snogged Angus, but there has been the odd occasion when he has licked my face and the tongue has inadvertently slipped into my gob. I didn't quite know what to do with my tongue or my teeth. My tongue was sort of being forced back to keep out of the way of his. For one horrible moment I wondered if there was something called “tonsil snogging” that no one had told me about. Mark seemed to be enjoying it even if I wasn't. He was sort of groaning and holding me really close. I was just thinking I might try and get my hands free (they were sort of trapped in between us) when Mark did this thing. He stuck his hand (which was freezing) down the front of my T-shirt and into my nunga-nunga holder. Number eight, upper-body fondling!! Actually it gave me such a shock that I jumped back and Mark was left off balance; he
stumbled into the bushes. He came out a minute later covered in twigs. He didn't look pleased.

He said, “What did you do that for?”

I said, “Well. Er, it was all a bit…I don't know that I want you to…”

He lit a fag and said, “What did you come here for…a chat?”

I said, “Well…I…”

What did I come here for? Very good question. Excellent point, well made. Boredom mostly, I suppose. I didn't think I should say that. Mark seemed really angry. He said, “Do you go all the way or not?”

I said, “Well, no I…”

Mark started walking off. “Girls like you make me sick.”

And he was gone. I was left at the top of the hill alone. What had I done now? I felt really weird. And lonely.

I walked back down the hill. When I went through our gate, Angus was lying in wait and pounced on my trousers round the ankle. With a heavy heart and even heavier trousers I dragged him indoors.

midnight

What does Mark mean, “girls like me”?

wednesday march 16th

Walking to school with Jas.

“Jas, what number have you got up to with Hunky?”

She went all red and girlish. “Er…”

“Come on, Jas, I tell you everything.”

Jas said, “I know and I wish you wouldn't.”

“Jas.”

“Well. Er, when we went camping we, you know, had a bit of quality time together.”

“Snogging time you mean?”

“Well yes.. we, er, got up to six and a half.”

“Ear snogging…is that all?”

She got huffy then and started adjusting her knickers. “There is more to life than snogging, you know.”

I said, “Oh yeah like what, going off into the forest snuffling out truffles?”

“Pigs do that.”

“Yeah, and your point is?”

 

Jas said I am being all mean and moody because of Dave the Laugh, but what she doesn't know is that it's not just Dave the Laugh, it's Oscar, and now Mark Big Gob as well. I feel all ashamed somehow. Like I am tainted love.

break

Rosie and I managed to escape the storm troopers (Wet Lindsay and her pathetico pals). Jas wants to read her book about twig houses, so she has gone off to the five's court with the other girlie swots. Hawkeye insists that we have windows open, even in Antarctic conditions. She says it is good for us but she also says reading absolute bollocks is good for us, so I don't trust her. It is, after all, she who thinks that
Blithering Heights
, as we call it, is a “classic.” When in fact it is a load of Yorkshire people hurling themselves around a moor in the wind singing “Heathcliff, it's me Katheeee come home again.” And so on. We've only read three pages and already I want to slit my wrists. Anyway, where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh yes, so because Hawkeye has windows open all over the school, we could get in through the Science block window.

Once we got in, we lit a few Bunsen burners for warmth. Voley is still here in his little pickling jar forever waving at us. I said, “Hello, Voley, my dad fell down a badger hole.”

I thought he would like to know the news from the forest, even though he has been pickled for years.

Rosie was trying to toast a bit of banana over the naked flame of a Bunsen burner. I sensed a burning-down-the-Science-block situation but I didn't want to spoil her girlish high spirits by saying anything. Also I had just got myself all snuggled up in some science overalls. I decided to tell Rosie about Mark Big Gob.

She listened and said, “He is clearly a knob head, but you knew that. Forget it; we have more important things to think about. There is a lot of work to do at school, and this is a very important term.”

I looked at her in amazement. “Rosie, please tell me you are not talking about exams and it's not the way you run the race but the winning that counts.”

She gave me the famous cross-eyed look. “Do not be a twit and a fool and a prat. I'm talking about our plans for Mr. Attwood's leaving do.”

hockey

I did actually cheer up in games. There is nothing like socking a bit of concrete about a pitch and smacking shins with my hockey stick to get the juices flowing. Additionally, Nauseating P. Green was goalie, which is a guaranteed laugh. It is funny enough seeing her lumbering around in huge pads picking the ball out of the back of the net but the
pièce de résistance
was when she fell over on her back and couldn't get up. Like a big tortoise waving her shin pads about. She finally managed to get up after about ten minutes and just as she was on her feet a ball whizzed in and hit her in the tummy and down she went again.

Cruel, but funny.

jas's place
5:00 p.m.

Jas and Hunky are going on this wilderness thing this weekend, so Jas made me go up to her room and look at the stuff she is taking with her. Good grief, the things I do for friendship.

Her room is ludicrously tidy, all her soft toys arranged in size order. Very sad. I said that as I looked around. “Very very sad.”

But the Wild Woman of the Forest was too busy rooting around in her wardrobe. She was all enthusiastic.

“Look at these. They are my special army-issue waterproof trousers; even if I like, accidentally fell into a swamp I would still have dry legs.”

I looked at the hideous yellow things. “Are you sure those are not just massive incontinence knickers, Jas?”

She was just rambling on as if I wasn't there, which actually in my mind I wasn't.

On and on, completely gone off to Jas land.

“You should get yourself a hobby, Gee, and then you wouldn't end up throwing yourself at boys and losing your dignity.”

How annoying is she?

Vair vair and thrice vair annoying.

6:00 p.m.

After about a million years of looking at really dull bits of Wellington boot, etc., I slouched off home.

I am so sick of walking. Walk, walk, walk that's all I ever do. I'll wear my legs out at this rate. To pass the time I did what I used to do as a kid. I pretended to be riding a horse. I galloped along tossing my
head about and saying “Giddyup” and flicking a pretend whip. The bit between the bottom of Jas's road and my house was very quiet, so I really let my horse (Dark Star) have his head. I flicked at his haunches with my whip and felt the wind on my face and the freedom of the hills. “Yes, yes, ride on my beauty!” I pulled Dark Star to a halt so that we could cross the road, which was just as well, as across the road was Cad of the Universe. Dave the Laugh. Oh brilliant. Thank you, God. My head was practically dropping off from redness and I hadn't any lip gloss on because I had given up on boys.

 

I crossed the road and walked past him. I treated him with total glaciosity. He said, “Come on, Georgia, talk to me.”

“What can you possibly have to say to me?”

I walked on. At least I haven't got ginger hair. Although with my luck, I probably have hair that is sticking out at right angles after my galloping fiasco. As usual, though, Dave kept on. He tends to ignore me ignoring him, which is annoying. He put his arm through mine.

“Georgia, look at me, come on, Sex Kitty, don't get the megahump. We weren't going out officially,
were we? You couldn't make your mind up, then I met Rachel and she was keen…well, she is after all only human…”

I looked at him with a “don't even bother” look. He smiled.

“Can't we be friends? We've always had a laugh together.”

I felt my heart melting. He was right really, we hadn't been officially a couple, and he was a laugh to have around. I found myself going for a coffee with him and telling him all about Mark Big Gob. Dave the Laugh said, “He really is an enormous twit of the first water.”

It sort of made it better when he said it. I know that Rosie had said the same, but it seemed different when a boy-type person said it. As we left the coffee bar and walked along arm in arm, he stopped and took my chin in his hand. (I don't mean he snapped it off my face and held it.) He just sort of lifted my face up to his and gave me a little kiss really gently on the lips. I could feel the jelloid knees coming on. Damn!

As I walked off, he called back to me, “Don't worry about Mark Big Gob. I'll have a word.”

home

Oh joy unbounded, Cousin James is coming to stay overnight. I said to Mutti, “Why?”

And she said, “He's family.”

I said reasonably, “Mutti, what does that mean—does it mean that if Hitler was my cousin we would have to have him around?”

She got all parenty. “Now you are being ridiculous. Go and do your homework. Oh, and don't have a bath—Gordy has done a cat poo in there. I'll have to clean it up.”

Gordy has done a cat poo in the bath??!! Why would he scramble all the way up the sides of the bath just to do a poo, when he has his own personal cat poo tray in the outhouse? Anyway, how could he get up the sides of the bath? Either Libby gave him a leg up, or Angus helped him. I bet it was Angus. When I went into my bedroom Angus was curled up on my cardigan cleaning himself. I wish he wouldn't do botty grooming on my things. I said to him, “You are quite literally a crap dad, Angus. You wait until Gordy starts staying out all night creating mayhem; you'll be sorry.”

Angus fell into a light doze as I was telling him
off. Anyway, why would he be worried about Gordy staying out all night creating mayhem? That's what he does himself. It's his job.

9:00 p.m.

Doorbell rang.

No one answered it, of course. Mum and Libby (and I think from the yowling, Angus and Gordy) are all in the bath. I don't know how they can bear to go in there. I personally will never be having another bath in this lifetime, not even if Mum has cleaned it with nitroglycerin.

Ring, ring on the bell.

9:10 p.m.

I shouted out.

“Don't worry, I'll get it, I've only got exams in two weeks, but you just lie around and relax.”

Tramp tramp.

If I get all the way down and it's Cousin James and I have to speak to him I will have a nervy spaz.

9:11 p.m.