Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 03 (6 page)

She snuggled up really tightly and wrapped her legs round me. I gave her a big cuddle and said, “It's OK, Libbs, it was just a dream. Let's think about something nice. What shall we dream about?”

She said, “Porridge.”

She can be so sweet. I gave her a little kiss on her cheek and she smiled at me (scary). Then she ripped the pillow from underneath my head so that Pantalitzer and scuba-diving Barbie could be comfy.

wednesday november 3rd

7:00 a.m.

Woke up with a crick in my neck and a sort of air-tank shape in my cheek where scuba-diving Barbie had been.

Dad came into the kitchen in a suit. Blimey. No one said anything. Apart from Libby, who growled at him. It turns out that it wasn't a nightmare she had last night. She just woke up and caught sight of Dad in his jimjams. Mum was in her usual morning dreamworld. As she came out of her bedroom getting ready for work, she was wearing her bra and skirt and nothing else. I said, “Mum, please, I'm trying to eat.”

In the bathroom I checked the back of my head and profile. (There's a cabinet that has two mirrors on it. You can look through one and angle the other one so that you can look at the reflection of yourself sideways.) Then I put Mum's magnifying mirror underneath and looked down at myself, because say the Sex God had been lying on my knees sort of looking up at me adoringly and singing (which he had). Well, I wanted to know what that looked like.

I wish I hadn't bothered for two reasons: Firstly, when I looked down at the mirror I realized that my nose is GIGANTIC. It must have grown overnight. I look like Gerard Depardieu. Which is not a plus if you are not a forty-eight-year-old French bloke.

Secondly, you can definitely see my lurker from underneath.

8:18 a.m.

Jas was waiting for me at her gate. I was a bit aloof and full of maturiosity. Slavey girl said, “I've brought you a Jammy Dodger all to yourself.”

“You can't treat me badly and then bribe me with a Jammy Dodger, Jas.”

She can, though, because I was soon munching away.

On the way up the road I said to Jas, “Do you think my nose is larger than it was yesterday?”

She said, “Don't be silly. Noses don't grow.”

“Well, everything else does—hair, legs, arms…nunga-nungas. Why should your nose be left out?”

She wasn't a bit interested. I went on, “And also can you see I have a lurker up my left nostril?”

She said, “No.”

“But say you were sort of looking up my nose, from underneath.”

She hadn't a clue what I was talking about. She has the imagination of a pea. Half a pea. We were just passing through the park and I tried to explain.
“Well, say I was singing. And you were the Sex God and you were lying with your head in my lap. Looking up adoringly. Marveling at my enormous talent. Waiting for the appropriate moment to leap on me and snog me to within an inch of my life.”

She still didn't get it, so I dragged her over to a bench to illustrate my point. I made her put her head on my lap. I said, “So…what do you think?”

She looked up and said, “I can't hear you singing.”

“That's because I'm not.”

“But you said what if you were singing.”

Oh for Goodness O'Reilly's trouser's sake!!! To placate her I sang a bit—the only thing that came into my head was “Goldfinger.” It brought back horrible memories because Dad and Uncle Eddie had sung it the night Dad came home from Kiwi-a-gogo. They were both drunk and both wearing leather trousers, as Uncle Eddie said, “to impress the ladies.” How sad and tragic is that?

Anyway, I was singing “Goldfinger” and Jas had her head on my lap looking up at my ever-expanding nostrils.

I said, “Can you see my lurker up there?”

Then we heard someone behind us having a fit. We leapt up. Well, I did. Jas crashed to the ground. It was Dave the Laugh, absolutely beside himself with laughing.

I said, “Er…I was just…”

Jas was going, “I was just looking up…Georgia's nose for…a…bit…”

Dave the L said, “Of course you were. Please don't explain. It will only spoil it for me.” He walked along with us. I couldn't help remembering snogging him. And using him as a Red Herring. But he was funny. And he wasn't snidey. Just laughing a lot. In a Dave-the-Laugh way.

After he went off I said to Jas, “He seems to have forgiven me for being a callous minx, doesn't he? He is quite groovy-looking, isn't he?”

Uh-oh. I hope I am not becoming a nymphowhatsit. It is true though. I did think he looked quite cool. And a laugh. He's going to The Stiff Dylans gig this weekend. I said to Jas, “Do you think that he is going with Ellen?”

Why do I care? I am the girlfriend of a Sex God.

Still, I wonder if he is going with Ellen.

german

11:15 a.m.

To fill in the time whilst Herr Kamyer was writing something pointless on the blackboard about Helga and Helmut—Helga and Helmut are the HILARIOUS twins from our German language book called interestingly (NOT)
Helga and Helmut
. By the way, how many sausages can one person eat? Helmut is always stuffing one in his face. His lederhosen are probably as huge as Jas's pants. Anyway, as I say, to fill in the endless hours I gave Rosie a tattoo on her arm (in pen) of a lockjaw germ dancing. It was excellent. However, Jas (Mrs. Dense Knickers) said, “What is it?” My artistic talents are wasted on her. Also, and even more alarmingly, Jas seemed to be really interested in what happened to Helga and Helmut when they went shopping. I said to her, “They're not real, you know, Jas. They are German.”

hockey

3:00 p.m.

Adolfa (Sports Oberführer and part-time lesbian) has been relatively quiet this term. She had extravagantly big shorts on today. As we got changed I
said to Jas, “It's you she wants, Jas. I know because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Look at the size of her shorts. They are JUST like your knickers.”

Jas hit me. Slavey girl is getting a bit uppity.

6:00 p.m.

Doing homework (peanut butter sandwich–making and hairstyling) with Ellen, Jas and Rosie. I casually found out that Ellen is meeting Dave the Laugh at the gig.

I said, “Oh, are you a sort of item then?”

She went a bit girlish. “Well, you know, he said, ‘Are you going to the gig?' and I said, ‘Yeah,' and he said, ‘See you there then.'”

Rosie said, “Yes, but does he mean ‘If you are going, I'll see you there because you will be like THERE to see'? Or does he mean ‘See you there,' like in see YOU there?”

Ellen didn't know. She was in a state of confusosity. Join the club, I say.

As I wandered home I was thinking, one thing is true. He is not making the effort to meet her before the gig. Hahahahaha.

7:00 p.m.

Hang on a minute, though. Robbie has not arranged to meet me before the gig either. Is he expecting me to just turn up because I am, like, his official girlfriend? Oh well, it's only Wednesday. He'll call me and sort it out. Probably.

7:30 p.m.

Uh oh. Angus went on a kamikaze mission (kattikaze mission) to his beloved sex kitten. When he was let into the garden for his constitutional poo parlor division he burrowed under the fence. Pausing only to eat the Prat Poodles' supper and trap some voles, he went over to Mr. and Mrs. Across the Road's house. On to their roof.

He must have lurked up there until Mr. Across the Road came out to mow his lawn, and then dropped his love gifts (two voles and a half-eaten ham sandwich) onto Mr. Across the Road's head. Taking advantage of Mr. Across the Road's mo mentary blindness, he leapt into the house to be reunited with his beloved. Unfortunately, he was an unwelcome houseguest and in the ensuing struggle there was some incident with the cockatiel.
From what I can gather from Mr. Across the Road's shouting, it may never speak again. Which would be a plus in my book, as it only ever said, “Who's a pretty boy?”

10:00 p.m.

No call from Robbie.

I started softening up Dad for Saturday. “Vati, you know how hard I have been working at school…? Well…”

He interrupted me. “Georgia, if this is leading up to any suggestion of quids leaping out of my pocket into your purse…forget it.”

What an old miser.

“Vati, it's not to do with money. It's just that my friends and I are going to a gig on Saturday night and—”

“What time do you want me to pick you up?”

“It's alright, Dad. I'll just, you know, come home with the rest of the gang and…”

He's going to pick me up at midnight. It's hardly worth going out. I made him promise me that he'd crouch down behind the wheel and not get out of the car.

midnight

SG hasn't called me. How often should he call me? How often would I call him? About every five minutes seems right.

Maybe that's too keen. It implies I haven't got any sort of life.

12:05 a.m.

I haven't.

1:00 a.m.

OK, every quarter of an hour.

1:15 a.m.

It says in my
Men Are from Mars
book that boys don't need to talk as much as girls. The bloke that wrote it has obviously never met my uncle Eddie. When he came round the other day he didn't shut up for about five million years. He ruffles my hair. I am fourteen years old. Full of maturiosity. And snoggosity. I would ruffle HIS hair to show him how crap it is. But he hasn't got any.

thursday november 4th
operation glove animal

8:30 a.m.

This is GA Day (Glove Animal Day). Everyone is going to turn up with ears in place today. Jas was grumbling and groaning about getting a reprimand. I said, “Jas, please put your ears on as a smack in the gob often offends.”

Even she got into the swing of it once her ears were in place. It was, it has to be said, quite funny. Jas looked hilarious bobbing along with her glove ears. She even did a bit of improvising with her teeth, making them stick out and doing nibbly movements with them like a squirrel. We did a detour through the back alleyway near the Science block. Elvis was in his hut reading his newspaper. We just stood there in our glove animal way looking in at him through the window. He sensed we were there and looked up. We stared back at him. His glasses were a bit steamed up, so maybe he really thought we were some woodland creatures. Woodland creatures who had decided to go to school and get ourselves out of our woodland poverty trap…But then he started shouting and
raving on, “Clear off and learn something instead of messing about. And make yourselves look normal!!!”

Oh, wise advice from the looniest-looking person in the universe.

Unfortunately, Hawkeye spotted us before we could scuttle into the cloakroom. She went ballistic, unusually enough. I tried to explain that it was a useful way not to lose your gloves but I only got as far as “It's a really sensible way of…” before she snatched them off my ears. She has very little sense of humor.

However, the last laugh was on her because she was so busy telling me and Jas that we were ridiculously childish and ripping our ears off that she didn't see the rest of the ace gang bob into school. It was very, very funny indeed seeing them bob through the gates and across the playground as if they were perfectly normal glove animals.

7:00 p.m.

No call from the SG.

Mrs. Across the Road came over. Mutti had gone to her aerobics class. Surely it can't be
healthy for a woman of her size to hurl herself around a crowded room.

Mrs. Across the Road or “Call me Helen” is OK but a bit on the nimby girlie side. If you hit her with a hockey stick she would probably fall over. She's fluffy and blond (not natural I think).

Vati was acting very peculiarly. He was being almost nice. And laughing a lot. And he got out of his chair. Hmmm. After she'd gone he must have said at least two hundred and fifty times, “She seems very nice, doesn't she? Helen? Very…you know…feminine.”

Oh no.

Also he said that they are going to get a pedigree sort of boyfriend for Naomi. I said, “She won't go out with anyone else. She loves Angus.”

Dad laughed. “You wait, there will be little Naomis running about the place before you can blink. Women are very fickle.”

I said with great dignity, “Vati, different women have different needs.”

He laughed in a most unpleasant way. “No, Georgia, all women have the same needs. They all need locking up.”

Oh,
très, très
grown-up, Portly One.

9:10 p.m.

Pre-gig nervosity. Not helped by the fact that when I went down on to the field to take Angus for his prison recreation period, Mark Big Gob threw a Thunderball firework at me. It exploded right in front of me. Angus didn't even notice, but it nearly blew my lip gloss off. I wonder if Mark is quite normal in the brain department.

Oh God, I've just remembered it's Bonfire Night tomorrow, an excuse for all the sad boys in the world to set fire to themselves with fireworks whilst showing off to their mates.

9:30 p.m.

Mum came in flushed as a loon. I said, “You are looking particularly feminine, Mum.” But Vati didn't get it.

in my room

9:50 p.m.

Vati knocked on my door!!! I said, “I'm sorry, but sadly I'm not in.”

He ignored that (
quelle
surprise!) and came in and sat on the edge of my bed. Oh God, he wasn't
going to ask me if I was happy, was he? Or tell me about his “feelings.”

He was all embarrassed. “Look, Georgia, I know how you feel about Angus….”

“Yes. And?”

“It's just not fair on him, being all cooped up in the house.”