A Midsummer Tight's Dream (16 page)

Vaisey blushed and bobbed her curls around. “Yes, yes … We’re all very much enjoying your playing. Are you liking your new sticks?”

Jack said, “Yeah, did you notice? They’re special ones I got in London and they make the hard hat really ping out.”

Hard hat? Ping? Vaisey was nodding her curls about, and the next thing I knew, she and Jack had gone off “to look around.”

Seth shouted after them, “Don’t do owt I wouldn’t do, Jack. And that leaves you a wide field. You little sinhound.”

Then he said to Flossie, “All right, big lass?”

Flossie adjusted her glasses. Then she went over to him and looked him straight in the eyes. He put some chewing gum in his mouth and chewed on it and then said, “Cor.”

Flossie slapped him on the back quite hard and said, “All right, big lad?”

He choked on his chuddie but as she turned away, he slapped her on her bottom. Jo and I stood closer together. Like the sheep. Now he’d done it.

Flossie stopped and turned round. They were nose to nose, and for a minute we thought she was going to kiss him. Noooooo, she must have gone mad. But then just as he was puckering up, she slapped him hard on his bum.

He shot into the air and said, “Bloody hell. You’ve got a firm hand for a lass, tha might have ruined my singing career.”

As we went back into the gig, he said, “Grrrr.”

And she snarled back, “Grrr.”

I said to her, “What on earth are you doing?”

And she said, “Growling.”

I said, “Why?”

And she said, “I don’t know. I’ve got youthful high spirits. He brings out the animal in me.”

Vaisey came in just before the gig began again. Her hair looked like mad hair and she was all blushy. Flossie said, “What have you been up to?”

Vaisey said, “Well, you know, we, well, Jack was all excited about, well, his sticks and everything, you know.”

Jo said, “Never mind about his sticks, what kind of snogging did you do?”

Vaisey looked even redder.

“Well, we … He held my …”

We all shouted, “WHAT??? Your what??”

I said, “Your corkers, did he hold your corkers? Your bottom, was it your bottom?”

Vaisey said, “No, of course not. He held my hand—”

Jo said, “Aaaah, that’s sweet, he held your hand. How lovely and romantic, holding your hand.”

Vaisey said, “No, no, he held, well, he held my handbag. In case it was … heavy.”

Crikey. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

There was no sign of Honey. I wondered where she was?

Oooh, there she was, over by the bar talking to Ben.

He looked like she had hypnotized him.

The Bottomlys came back into the hall. They were with a big crowd of village girls, gathered round Beverley near the edge of the stage. Beverley looked like she had been crying. Eccles put her arm around Beverley’s shoulders and glared at us.

Why, what had we done?

Eccles was chewing on something (possibly cow heel) and said loudly, “Dun’t take no notice of these posh twits and dun’t take no notice of ’im, he’s a bad un, Beverley, all of them Hinchcliffs are.”

Beverley was snuffling. But she’s got quite a loud voice so we could hear what she was saying. “He said that I was allus moaning on and that he wanted his freedom.”

Eccles said, “Well, give him his bloody freedom then, let him sling his hook.”

Then the lights dimmed and the big lad from The Blind Pig leapt onstage and said, “Once again, it’s them, they’re back. Our very own local boys made good. Well all right, maybe not good, there’s been the odd feighting but here they are, they’re loud, they’re proud, they are … The Jones!!!!!” Jack came on (yes, with his new sticks) and started doing a drum roll, and Ruben came on and took a bow, then Seth, who spat out his chewing gum and took up his guitar. And last Cain ambled on.

He said, “Are you still here?”

I thought he was talking to the audience but realized he was looking straight at Beverley.

He started singing a low really menacing song.

I said to the girls, “Is he singing ‘Put your coat on, girl, you’re leaving’?”

They nodded.

And he was singing it directly to Beverley. She was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

She looked at him and he looked back and then still singing, he went to the edge of the stage and brought on a coat. It was Beverley’s coat that she had on when she came in. He threw it off the stage at her. She caught it and the crowd went, “Ooooohh,” although a boy did call out, “Well held, that big lass!!!” and Beverley rushed sobbing out of the hall.

Hell’s teeth, he was a cad.

I despised him.

Even if Beverley didn’t like me, I don’t think he should be so mean to her.

When The Jones finished, people clapped and cheered. But not the Bottomlys. And not me. I folded my arms. Cain saw me and gave me his twisty smile.

And I gave him my very worst look.

That would teach him.

Folded arms and a worst look.

Then he did this thing, in front of everyone. In the spotlight. He looked straight at me and he put his tongue out and did a licking motion.

Oh my God.

He was doing licking off the hailstone.

The Bottomly sisters turned round. Dil rolled back her sleeves. Her arms are huge.

Flossie said, “I don’t know what that was about, but as Cain said, put your coats on, girls, we’re leaving.”

And that’s what we did.

We walked away from the gig all linked up. And as we looked back, Eccles, Dil, and Chas were standing in the doorway of the village hall. Eccles put two fingers to her eyes and then pointed them at us.

Honey said, “I don’t think they weally like us, those village girls. One of those wough village boyth bought me a dwink and a girl looked at me in a howwid way. Like thith.”

And Honey screwed her face up and wrinkled her nose.

I said, “That is definitely not a liking type of face. In fact it looks like Matilda’s face. It wasn’t Matilda in a frock, was it?”

We walked to where the path to Dother Hall started, and there was no sign of us being followed. Flossie started her Southern belle shenanigans again. “Why, I am sooooooo pooped with the goddam heat an all.”

I said, “It’s beginning to sleet.”

Flossie gave me a casual slap on the back of my head and went on. “And those young men, all gathering around … That Seth boy just a-bothering me with his sly ways.”

I said to Honey, “What were you doing with bat boy?”

Honey said, “He’s quite thweet weally. I was just giving him a bit of twaining.”

We all looked at her.

Flossie said, “What do you mean, twaining?”

Honey said, “Well, itth like Wuby thaid, thome boyth don’t know how to do thingth and tho you have to teach them. I didn’t have much time, but I took him outthide …”

I said, “Is that what you were doing? He looked like he’d been hypnotized.”

Honey said, “Yeth, I used my eyeth on him.”

“Cor,” I said. “You did hypnotic eyes?”

Honey fluttered her eyelashes and said, “Oh yeth. And then I taught him about tongueth tho that he doesn’t do the bat thing again.”

I said, “Did you tell him that I said kissing him was like having a little bat trapped in my mouth?”

Honey shook her golden hair about. “No, thilly, boyth like to know how to be good at thingth. I told him, ‘I will teach you about kithing pwoperly tho that girlth will like you.’”

As they went up the path to Dother Hall I could still hear Jo’s voice echoing amongst the trees.

“Phil likes me, he really, really likes me. He—”

Then Flossie’s voice, “Miss Jo, will you stoooop that goddam racket before you force me to do something that ah will regret.”

Jo shouted, “No!”

There was the sound of a struggle and muffled shouting.

And Vaisey saying, “Flossie, she’ll stretch your cardigan with her head if you don’t let go.”

And finally Flossie singing, “I’m just a girl who cain’t say nooooo, I’m in a terrible fix!”

As their voices faded off, I walked slowly across the green.

It was a full moon and the lights were still on in The Blind Pig. I wonder where Alex is. In his room somewhere in Liverpool.

In his frilly shirt. His frilly nighttime shirt. I’m sure he doesn’t wear pajamas. He’s not a pajama sort of guy, I think.

It would have been nice to have seen him.

Although not when Cain was doing his licking thing.

I wouldn’t have liked to have to tell him about me being ice-cream girl.

Alex would never lick a girl’s nose. Unless it’s something I don’t know about yet. Maybe “nose-licking” is on the snogging scale somewhere. I wish I’d written the bloody thing down now. Maybe “knee-hugging” is on there as well, in which case I’ve been snogged by the lunatic twins as well as everything else.

In my room, I hurried into my jammies because it was cold and snuggled into my bed. I put my hand under my pillow and got out my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

There was Alex’s letter at the back. I opened it again. Mmmmmmmm.

Three kisses, you wouldn’t put three kisses to a mate, would you?

I wonder if Alex ever thinks about me?

He sent me a note so he must remember me. You wouldn’t write a note to someone you didn’t even remember, that would be stupid. If I was like Honey and good at kissing and fluttering my eyelashes and making my eyes hypnotic perhaps he would like me more. Hmmmmm.

I lay in bed listening to all the scurrying and shrieking outside. It was either wild pigs or the Bottomly sisters.

Just before I switched my light off I wrote a note for myself in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

Practice Hypnotic Eyes.

And even though I didn’t mean to, I also wrote:

Ask Honey if I can practice more snogging on the back of her leg before she goes to Hollywood.

She is off to Hollywood on Tuesday. I wonder who she will snog there? Will the American snogging scale be the same as ours?

I bet even they don’t have a number for nose-licking—Eskimos might though.

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING, AS
I went through the big front doors in my welligogs and hung my coat up in the cloakroom, there were loads of girls surging around as usual. I don’t want to leave here. If Dother Hall closes, I will never climb the ladder of showbiz and wear the golden slippers of success. It will be welligogs all the way for me or maybe even lace-ups.

Milly and Tilly came up to me as I took my coat off and said, “What do you think, Lullah? Why did Cain do it?”

And Milly said, “Why did Cain do that weird thing to you? You know, the licking thing? The village girls were all hufty with us after you’d gone. Ecclesiastica gave us a message for you. She said, ‘Tell your gangly posh mate I know where she lives.’”

Oh goodie, what was going to come first: being chucked off the ladder of showbiz or having the golden slippers of applause stuffed up my nose by Eccles?

Then Lav and Dav came sauntering along.

Lavinia smiled her superior smile and said, “Helllllooo, Oirish, did you have a naaaice weekend, to be sure, to be sure. We all went down to London town to see a show, didn’t we, Dav, it was railly something. Kevin Spacey was in it as Richard the Second and he was, like, simply amazing. Railly, you know, lived the character. Amazing. His hump was, like … so alive.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say about a live hump, so I nodded and made for the loos.