Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? (6 page)

Suddenly, I know what I was born to do.

I start to move to the beat.

I raise my arms and
WHOOOOSH
!

Flame dance to the right, flame dance to the left.

Whoosh whoosh.

The ace gang look at one another, and smiling shyly, they too mount the stage (I said leave it).

They acknowledge the crowd with a quick huddly duddly and then they join in with the dancing…

We do a compilation of our greatest hits, flame to the right, flame to the left.

Whoosh whoosh.

Bogey dangle, bogey dangle.

Eyes shut for nighttime Viking paddling.

Paddle, paddle to the right and to the left.

Then interweaving paddling.

And then, in a grand finale, we fall to our knees with a shout of HOOOORRRRN!!!!

As the crowd goes wild, Wet Lindsay gets her coat. A beam of light from the stage illuminates her lack of forehead. She beckons to Robbie and he shakes his head. She storms off.

The Luuurve God helps me to my feet and shakes his head in admiration. I know what he is thinking (telepathically). “Aaaaah, beauty-io and talent-io all in one package-io.”

He kisses my hand and then all up my arm. And then he starts on my neck.

Thank goodness he didn’t start at my ankles otherwise we would have been there all night.

As he gets to my ears, I see Dave the Laugh in quite a cool suit. He is just looking at me sadly, then he says to Emma, “Get your face on, love, we’re leaving.”

He looks angry and upset.

Hang on a minute, how did Dave the Laugh get in this? And also why is he such a downer??

I sat up in bed. He’s spoiled my fantasy now,
stropping around in the Humpty Dumpty.

For no reason at all. Ish.

Boo.

two minutes later

I should have told him about the Titches’ tribute to him when they broke the loo seat. That would have cheered him up. It’s not like him to be moody. He’s not an Italian Stallion.

In fact, that’s one of the best things about him, that he is Dave the Laugh.

The key word being “Laugh.”

one minute later

I wonder who Jas likes best out of Dave the Laugh and Masimo?

She’s never said.

I might phone her and ask her.

Not that I am bothered.

in the hall

9:00 p.m.

I can hear the “grown-ups” giggling like fools. I glanced into the front room to see Dad crawling through Mum’s friend Big Beryl’s legs. He had a
balloon in his mouth. It is very disturbing.

I went to use the phone and Mum came mumming out.

I said to her, “Mum, this is not some sort of wife-swapping party, is it? Because if it is, can I not have Big Beryl as my new mum?”

Mum said, “Don’t call her Big Beryl.”

I said, “You do.”

And she said, “Yeah, but not in front of her.”

That is sooo typical of the lax morals she has.

thirty seconds later

Rang Jas.

Jas’s mum, who is practically a saint in human form in my opinion, answered the phone. She even sounded glad to hear my voice—that is how nice she is. When I asked for Jas, she said, “I’ll get her. She is just making an aquarium with Tom.”

For politenessnosity I said, “Are you doing anything nice this evening?”

And she said, “Well, yes, Dad and I are jam-making actually.”

I said, “I hope you’ve got your aprons on.”

And she said, “Oh yes, dear.”

And I know she does not lie.

As Mum passed again, staggering under the weight of wine and lager, I said, “Jas’s mum and dad are making jam.”

She said, “Why is your face all slimy?”

Jas came on the phone all breathless and excited.

“Hi, hi, we’ve just put the gravel in and the miniature Ferris wheel. There’s going to be a grotto area and…”

“Jas, fish don’t go on Ferris wheels.”

“Oh, I know that. It’s for the crabs.”

I didn’t know what to say.

She went rambling on because she has little real idea of how mad she is.

“Anyway, what do you want? Have you decided what to wear? I’ve started learning my Juliet part. It’s terribly sad.”

You’re not kidding, matey.

For friendlies sake, I pretended to be interested.

“Have you got to ‘hark what pants through yonder windows break’? I like that bit—it’s my fave.”

She was, as usual, being Mrs. Fussy Knickers.

“It’s Romeo who says that and it isn’t ‘pants,’ it’s ‘light’…”

“Light, pants, owls…what difference does it make? I can’t stand here discussing pants with you all night. I want to ask you a vair important question.”

“What?”

“Who would you go out with? The Luuurve God or Dave the Laugh?”

“Oh nooooooooooooo, no, no, no and no. I am not answering that. You’ll blame me for choosing the wrong one whichever one I pick, and, anyway, it’s nothing to do with me.”

“Come on, Jazzy, I just want to know. I won’t blame you or anything. I love you.”

“Don’t start that again.”

“Come on, Jas.”

“You promise you don’t mind and you just want me to be honest? From my point of view?”

“Yep, as simple as that.”

“Hmmmm.”

There was a silence.

Apart from what sounded like chewing.

What was she chewing?

I bet it was her fringe.

I said, “Hello, what are you doing? Look, just be spontaneous!!! It’s a simple, harmless question.
Who would you choose? There’s no pressure, JUST CHOOSE!!!!”

She said, “Well…Dave the Laugh of course.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Dave the Laugh.”

“But I’m going out with the Luuurve God. You know, the grooviest, most good-looking Pizza-a-gogo dreamboat.”

“I know, but I personally and hypothetically would choose Dave the Laugh.”

“Why?”

“He’s a laugh.”

“Masimo’s a laugh.”

“When?”

“Jas, me and him have LOADS of laughs when we are alone. We are practically laughing the whole time.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m just saying that I have seen you have a laugh with Dave the Laugh, but I haven’t seen you have a laugh with Masimo. He’s not called Masimo the Laugh, is he?”

I said, “Well, I have to go now, Jas. Good-bye.”

“You’ve not got the hump, have you?”

“Of course I have not got the hump, I assure you.”

Why did she say Dave the Laugh?

10:30 p.m.

I can’t get to sleep now.

I know why Jas chose Dave the Laugh. It’s because she’s frightened of doing anything unconventional. She probably thinks that Masimo is not really English.

He isn’t.

11:00 p.m.

If she had parents like mine, she’d probably choose someone a bit different.

11:10 p.m.

Anyway, Dave is the “different” one. You wouldn’t get Masimo doing run run leap.

11:15 p.m.

Or swearing in German.

11:16 p.m.

Or doing mad twisting.

11:24 p.m.

Or nip libbling.

Right, that’s it. I am going to sleep. I am giving my brain an official warning.

I know what, I will distract myself by reading through my part in
Rom and Jul
. I suppose I will have to learn it sometime.

I may as well get into the mood to be Mercutio.

I will climb into the tights of life.

Right, here we go…

ten minutes later

Crikey. Miss Wilson said that Mercutio was the comedy part. He is supposed to be a laugh, but frankly, he’s what I would call an “unlaugh.” I may have to improvise some comedy moments with fake blood….

When I say “Ay ay a scratch, marry; ’tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon” after I am stabbed to death, I could make fake blood spurt all over the page and they would be bound to have the ditherspaz and possibly fall off the stage.

Yes, I am beginning to see the possibilities of Billy Shakespeare’s renowned comedy…Zzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

saturday september 24th

I feel much better and excited about seeing the Luuurve God again and impressing him with my sophisticosity.

I feel cool as a cucumber that has been lying around in a fridge reading books on coolness.

phone rang

It was Jas.

“Where shall we meet? Hey, guess what? There’s going to be an international band management type person coming tonight. If the Stiffs go on world tour, would you give up your education to go with them?”

“No, of course not. What is pleasure and travel and luuurve, compared to knowing how to say ‘I have broken my glasses’ in French?”

in my bedroom

The only blot on the landscape of luuurvenosity
is sneaking Mum’s shoes out of her wardrobe without being thrashed to within an inch of my life.

I must not arouse her temperosity in any way. She has been in such a bad mood since the balloon party thing last night. I don’t know what Dad has done, but she doesn’t like it. I don’t like it and I don’t even know what it is.

Anyway, I must be like the wily fox.

Foxy and wily.

Here I go as a foxy-wily thing.

in the kitchen

I said, “Do you want a cup of tea, Mum?”

Foxy wily, foxy wily.

She looked at me.

“Have you got my perfume on?”

I resisted the temptation to strop off and said, “No, it’s just that well…I’m really excited about tonight, you know, making it up with Masimo and…”

She smiled at me.

“It’s lovely being so into someone, isn’t it? I remember when your dad used to…”

Oh no, she is going to talk about her feelings
for Dad. I must stop her, and also get her to go out so I can get her shoes.

two minutes later

In a fit of hysterical madness, I have found myself agreeing to go to the Wild Park with her tomorrow.

How did that happen?

I just said, “You need to go out more.” Now I’m going out with her.

I meant to get her shoes.

in my bedroom

I have given myself a French manicure because that is vair vair European. And also because I don’t know what an Italian manicure is.

phone rang

Dad yelled up, “Georgia, it’s another of your mates again. I am trying to work out a new dance routine with the magnificent baldy-o-gram and am constantly interrupted.”

I didn’t bother to reply.

He is wearing shorts around the house.

What if a normal person unexpectedly pops round?

He has leg hair that stops at his knees.

How grotesque.

I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for Mum.

It was Rosie.

“Sven has just cooked me a Viking snack.”

“What is it?”

“Deep-fried Mars bar. I could paddle for miles now and still do a spot of raping and pillaging at the end of it.”

Just to check that my lecture on sophisticosity had got through to the ace gang I said, “What are you wearing tonight? There is no beard involved, is there?”

Rosie laughed, but not in a reassuring way.

“Toodle pip, see you at seven thirty.”

6:00 p.m.

Mum and Dad and Bibbs and Uncle Eddie have popped out to get a pizza in the loonmobile. I’ve just heard the roar of its massive quarter-horsepower engine
phut phut
off into the distance.

Before they went, I could hear Mum having a go at Dad in the driveway just under my window. She is deffo at No. 8, the quarter humpty (evils), on the Having the Hump Scale. Bordering on No. 9, the half humpty dumpty (evils and withdrawal of all
snacks). This started because he didn’t open the car door for her. She said, “Jim across the road has lovely manners—he opens doors for me.”

Dad said, “Come on, love, you’re a big woman, a very big woman. You can manage a little door. You could open it easily with one of your nungas.”

I didn’t hear the rest of it, but it was mostly Mum shouting and Libby yelling, “Bum bum, arsey ARSEEEEEEEY!”

Lovely.

7:15 p.m.

Got Mum’s shoes, although they are not what you would call comfortable. They are what you would call agonizing.

I’ll wear my ballet pumps till I get there.

Oh, I am so nervy. I nearly stuck the mascara brush up my nose. Oh God, I may be turning into Ellen. She’s only phoned me eight times to tell me that she is soooo excited about seeing Declan. I think that is what she said. Or something. What do you think? Or something? Shut up!!!!!!

met the ace gang at hennes

My worst fears are realized. Rosie is wearing a lurex catsuit….

She saw me looking and said, “Yes, it’s groovy, isn’t it?”

As we walked along, I said, “Please tell me that Sven has not got a matching catsuit.”

She just winked at me.

Oh no, I bet he has.

And I bet it is snug.

Round the trouser snake area.

Oh noooooooo.

As we walked, I gave the gang the pep talk.

“Don’t forget the plan. The key note here is nicenosity and glaciosity. You have to be around me at all times, making me look vair popular…. Smiling is good, but no ad hoc, full-on snorting and capering sort of laughing.”

sugar club

9:00 p.m.

We’re going in.

It’s an amazing place. It’s got a sort of “chill out” room. I know that because it says so on a notice. Ellen was going, “Is it like…if when…you know, you’re hot or something and…”

Ellen should really live in that room. She is so dithery at seeing her “boyfriend” that she can hardly keep her head on.

in the tarts’ wardrobe

I said, “I’ve got this new stay-on lipstick so even if someone had a wire brush, they couldn’t get it off.”

Rosie said, “Oh yeah, you say that but you should get Sven to test it. If anyone is a human wire brush, it’s him. The gorgeous big brute.”

I said, “Where is the gorgeous big brute?”

Rosie said, “With the lads. They are having a pre-club game of footie in the park.”

It’s dark.

Why?

ten minutes later

OK, big breaths (yeth, I thertainly have got big breaths).

I’ve got my stilettos on. I am full to the tippy-topmost of sophisticosity and
je ne sais quoi
.

Except in the knicker department, which has a touch of the jelloid about it.

What if Masimo has had second thoughts and he just comes over and says, “Face it, love, you’re dumped”? Although he of course would say “dump-io-ed.”

10:00 p.m.

The Blunderboys came lurgying in. Mark Big Gob
had his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and some tiny fool hanging off his arm. His mouth is practically bigger than she is. As he passed by us, he said, “There’s a party in my trousers and you’re all invited.”

And the Blunderers were going, “Oh yeah. Cool.”

And laughing like constipated hyenas.

Prats.

10:30 p.m.

Oooh, this is agony, this hanging around pretending not to be hanging around. Where is he?

Then I saw him. He came out of the backstage area and he was wearing an electric blue suit with a blue shirt. Blimey, he looked so cool. And he’s so sort of blokey. He’s got a bit of designer stubble and his hair is a bit longer.

Every bit of me is separately jelloid. Now I know how Slim feels when all her chins are moving in a different rhythm.

He was talking to a group of St. Pat’s boys and then two tarts I vaguely knew from St. Mary’s came up, thrusting themselves at him. And giggling, like hens that had eaten too many worms and were
having a worm rush. If you know what I mean and I think you do.

Mabs said, “You’d better move about a bit, Gee, otherwise he won’t know you’re here.”

Jools said, “Look, there’s a spare table. Let’s go and sit down at it and then he will see us walking across.”

Good point well made.

We started to walk over to the table.

Bloody hell, Mum’s shoes were high. I’d better walk slowly. Oh, and do the flicky hair, hip to the right, hip to the left thing that boys are supposed to like. I don’t know why they like girls who look like they have got false hips, but there you are. The whole bloody thing is a mystery.

two minutes later

It is amazing, though, boys really do like it. At last I reached the table and put my hand on it to steady myself. I’m exhausted. I may have to have a little lie down under the table and…

“
Ciao,
Georgia.”

I looked up and there he was. Looking at me with those dreamy eyes. They looked amazingly yellow. It must be the blue suit, but they were sort
of like Angus’s eyes. Not insane, clearly, but the color was the same. And his skin is sort of olive, and his mouth, well, blimey is all I can say.

thirty seconds later

So much for our plan of light sophisticated talk…the ace gang were WUBBISH. They were just giggling and twittering on.

“Ooohhh, look at your nice shirt…”

“Oooh, hahaha.”

“Ooohhh, I like your hair long, it’s…Ooohhh.”

Etc. like a bunch of mad doves.

Masimo said to me, “Miss Georgia, maybe at the end of the gig, I could walk you home.”

Oh, thank God. He still liked me, at least a little bit.

I smiled at him (a contained smile, making sure that my nose didn’t spread all over my face). I just smiled enigmatically and kept tight control over my nostrils. I wanted to say something, but I had lost all control of my bits and pieces.

My brain felt quite literally like a bag of wet mice.

He came and stood close to me and touched my face. He said, “Tonight there is, how you say,
the men for management…they are wanting to speak with me in the break. So,
mi dispiace
, I will not be having you for myself until later…. Sorry,
cara…Molto regrettio
.”

Then he kissed me softly on the hand and then behind the ear, and then two little kisses on my neck and then he looked me in the eyes—I was melting, I was melting—and put his mouth on mine. When he stopped, I came back to earth and saw the ace gang just looking at us. Masimo didn’t seem to notice them. He stroked my hair and said,
“Cara,”
and squeezed my bottom slightly as he left.

The gang were just silent after he had gone.

Then Rosie said, “Phwoooaar.”

Jools, Mabs and Hons went, “Whoooooo-ooaaaaaaaah.”

Jas said, “Cor.”

And Ellen said, “He…that was…your ear…and er…so on.”

I had to sit down quickly as the bottom part of me had turned into a jellyfish.

ten minutes later

Jas tried to pretend that she had only said “Cor” because she was finding her inner passion
as Juliet. Oh yeah.

As Billy Shakespeare would have said, “Prithee, lackaday and also WHATEVERS!!!!!”

I couldn’t help saying to her, “Don’t forget, you chose Dave the Laugh not the Luuurve God that you have just said ‘Cor’ to.”

Jas went sensationally red.

“I knew this would happen. You said you hadn’t got the hump, but you had. And I knew you would get it. I do not have the big red bottom for either of them. Hunky is my one and only.”

I said, “Calm down, Jas. It’s only the hypothetical red botty that you have got.”

“I have not got the hypothetical red bottom. I haven’t got the red bottom at all.”

She has, though.

As the band were tuning up and messing about with their equipment…oo-er (leave it), I tried to keep the conversation light and frothy so that I could tinkle with laughter and Masimo could see me out of the corner of his eye.

I said to Jas, “Speaking of
Rom and Jul,
has Miss Wilson found a Rom yet? Why can’t we just have a bloke?”

Jas was glad to get back into boring rambling
on about being a thespian. She said, “Miss Wilson says that in Shakespearean times there would be no women in the plays and so Juliet would have been played by a boy. And in our production, all the parts will be played by girls. She thinks it’s an interesting reversal.”

“Yes. But she is wrong. Anything she says is interesting is not. Think of the ‘making our own musical instruments’ fiasco. I had runner beans down my nick-nacks for weeks.”

Rosie said, “Nauseating P. Green would make a cracking Romeo. She’s got the glasses for it.”

Jas went very red (tee-hee) and said, “Nauseating P. Green is one of the townspeople.”

I said, “She could be all of the townspeople for all I care. The question is, who is going to be your boyfriend?”

Jas went even redder. She can never lie.

I said, “You KNOW, don’t you, Jazzy? You know who your boyfriend is going to be!!!! Come on, tell.”

She was getting redder and redder.

At that moment, Wet Lindsay and her silly “mates” came in. She went scampering over to the side of the stage and called Robbie to her. I don’t
think he really wanted to go. He is, of course, only human. I feel really sorry for him.

Astonishingly Dim Monica is not well known for her fashion sense (the puffball skirt) but tonight she had outdone herself. Culottes are a bit of a risk, anyway, but especially if your legs are only half a meter long. And your botty is a bit loomy. In fact, ADM looked like my vati in his shorts.

Jas was looking at them and manically fiddling with her fringe and suddenly it dawned on me.

I said, “It’s not Astonishingly Dim Monica, is it? Oh, top!! Thank you, Baby Jesus!!!!!”

Jas was really red. She said, “No, don’t be stupid. Of course it’s not her!”

Then her eyes sort of swiveled to the stage.

Ohmygiddygodspajamas.

No.

We all said, “No!”

But yes. Wet Lindsay.

Jas said, “It was Miss Wilson’s idea.”

I said, “Well, that’s as may be, but you must tell her that you cannot do it. It is against the European Code of Human Rights.”

Jas said, “I did! I tried! I said, I said, I didn’t
want to be Juliet in that case, but then she was going to tell Slim and…”

As she was dithering and rambling on, Wet Lindsay came over to our table and said, “Hi, Jas, great news about the play. I can only manage a few of the general rehearsals, but we ought to get together at mine for extras.”