A Midsummer Tight's Dream (13 page)

So I did. Even though I can’t really imagine when I am going to be kissing someone’s calf. But what do I know?

Then Flossie started groaning and going, “Oooooh, that is so damn good. Why I declare, Miss Tallulah, you’re making me feel sooooo goooooood.”

It was horrific.

In the end, I stopped doing it on the back of Flossie’s leg, because she was doing her Texan accent and it made me feel sort of dirty.

It was better with Honey, but she said I was too tickly, I have to practice more even pressure apparently.

Oooooh, I wish my Dream Boy was here to rescue me. I bet I could get my pressure right with him.

I wanted to go straight up to my squirrel room when I got home. I didn’t feel like hugging or eating anything local, so I said to Dibdobs I had homework to do.

She said, “Oooooh, I bet you are going to be a big superstar, with your lovely long legs and your oooooooohhhhh gorgeousness. Isn’t she gorgeous, boys? Isn’t Tallulah gorgeous? With her legs and everything?”

And so I found myself in a hugging extravaganza anyway. And I’ve got a local sausage in each hand.

As I lie here, cuddling my squirrel slipper and Hammy and eating my sausages, I so wish I had a boyfriend to help me and to talk to. Someone sort of older and more, well, more Alex-shaped. I’ve been practicing my signature for the letter I’m going to write to him.

I don’t like to ask Ruby if she knows when Alex will be back. She rolls her eyes if I even mention his name. Maybe I could stroll over there and not mention Dream Boy, just sort of see if I could use my feeling talents, or see if anyone accidentally mentioned him. I may as well.

Dibdobs has gone knitting with the boys. As I passed the village hall, I heard the needles clacking. There’s a notice:
ARE YOU A KNIT WIT? COME ALONG AND KNIT WITH US!
next to the poster for The Jones’s gig.

When I got to The Blind Pig I saw Beverley Bottomly coming out of the shop eating a doughnut. She looked at me and then she pointed two fingers to her eyes, and then pointed the fingers at my eyes and then she went off backward pointing the fingers at her eyes and then mine. Why is she doing that?

As she went off down the road she called out, “Ay, Lady Muck. I’ve got my eyes on you. Think on. Leave our lads alone. Or else.”

Ruby was on her way out to dog obedience classes with Matilda. I’d forgotten she still goes. She’s been going since summer. I can’t say that it seems to make much difference to Matilda’s obedience skills.

Ruby said, “Last week we did ‘heel,’ didn’t we, Matilda? She is right good at it. Tha knows when you say to your dog ‘heel’ and it comes and walks behind thee? Like this. I’ll show thee what we’ve learned. Let’s show Tallulah what you can do, Matilda. Watch, Lullah.”

She took Matilda onto the green and shouted at her, “Right then. Here we go. Heel!! Matilda, heel!”

Ruby slapped her side and shouted, “Heel!!!”

Matilda put her head on one side and looked at Ruby. Ruby said, “Good girl, HEEL!”

And Matilda lay on her tummy with her legs all splayed out. Like a grilled chicken. With fur on. And a collar with a big bow on it. And looked with her moony eyes at us.

Ruby shouted, “You daft lummox, I said ‘heel’ not ‘hoof.’” She stamped her foot and said, “She’s as much use as a chocolate teapot—that’s what she does when she wants a hoofy treat. Come on, Matilda.”

And she went and grumpily picked Matilda up and put her over her shoulder. As she stamped off she called back, “Is tha going to The Jones’s gig? It’s definitely on. I saw that Seth, and he said they were going to do it. Even though Ruben and Cain aren’t talking. I bet it will be brilliant. There might be a reight big fight.”

And she went off whistling.

I couldn’t just hang around without having her as my excuse but as no one was about I had a quick look through the pub door. No sign of Alex. Thank goodness Mr. Barraclough was out because … just as I was thinking that, he appeared in his pinnie.

He said in a “kindly” tone, “Now then, young man, what can I do for thee?”

I said, “Er, well, Mr. Barraclough, I am just—”

“You’ve got very long hair for a lad. What is it you want?”

I said, “I was just looking … around.”

Ted looked at me.

“I know what you’ve come for my lad, well, as it happens I have got a photo, I’ll just get it for thee.”

And he went off into the pub.

How did he know? How did he know I wanted to see a photo of Alex? Had Ruby said something? Oh no.

Mr. Barraclough came back, carrying a photo.

“There you are, my fine fellow me lad, feast your eyes on that beauty.”

And he handed me a publicity shot of his band. The Iron Pies.

There were four of them. And Mr. Barraclough was the smallest. It looked like the drummer would never be able to get out from behind his drums ever again.

They were all in leather and Viking helmets.

There was nothing to do but go back to my squirrel home. Dibdobs and the twins and Harold were on the sofa and they all had their feet in a big woolly thing.

I said, “Um, night-night, I’m off to bed to read
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.”

Harold said, “We’re experimenting with a uni-sock, Lullah, and making earmuffs. But you get about your art,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
aahhhh, ‘To sleep perchance to dream.’”

It had stopped snowing. Now it was raining. The rain was tumbling down so hard, it was rattling the roof and occasionally the black sky lit up with lightning.

I started flicking through
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.

It has to be said, it is a bonkers play. All about fairies and Bottom and love potions. I’m going to write some inspirational quotes in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

I write:

Nay faith, let me not play a woman. I have a beard coming!!!!!

This is a good one:

“Bless thee, Bottom!”

How hilarious to have a character called Bottom.

Oh and this reminds me of what Ted Barraclough said to Ecclesiastica Bottomly, when she was sitting on his wall:

“Methought I was enamored of an ass.”

Tee-hee, imagine being called Bottomly and having such a big bottom.

S
IDONE WAS BACK AT
assembly the next day. She came on in a gold catsuit and began pacing up and down. Like a gold cat. In a suit.

“Let me tell you a story, girls.”

She came to the front of the stage and continued in a sort of softy voice, looking out like she could see something we couldn’t see.

“In the heady days of my youth, I was in a Broadway production. Ealing Broadway. It was just a small part as a tomato in the comedy,
Have You Seen My Tomatoes?

“But I gave it my all. Every night I turned up and I BECAME a tomato. As the show went on for weeks, some of the other girls in the chorus grew tired of being tomatoes, they said the costumes made them look fat, some of them didn’t even bother to dye their heads green. But I always did. Because I cared. I’ve always cared, perhaps I’ve cared just too darned much.”

She looked down for ages, then she shook her shoulders and said, “I even spent most of one afternoon in a greenhouse full of tomatoes to really pick up their tomatoiness. And, girls, my girls, it paid off because one night a producer came along and saw me and plucked me from the vegetable patch and … and the rest is history. I lived my dream and then I came here to let others live their dreams.”

At which point she smiled. That was a bit spooky.

She said, “And let us live the dream while we still can because one of our own little stars has been favored by the gods of showbiz. Has been plucked from the vegetable patch … Honey is off to Hollywood!!!!!!”

Everybody went mad when they heard about Honey. Lifting her up and dancing about with her. Then putting her on the stage. Her golden honey hair was shaking and curling about, and her corkers looked quite jolly as well.

When we stopped clapping and whistling, she looked out at us and said, “Oh, thank you, itth weally thweet of you to be tho glad for me, and even if I do well and they like me I will weally, weally mith you all. I will never forget Dother Hall and my fwends and teachers here. And I will come back and visit and see you all again.”

Everyone clapped up a storm. I felt like crying. Monty was crying. So was Gudrun and even Bob blew his nose on his T-shirt.

Sidone glided across in her catsuit and put her arm around Honey’s shoulders and spoke over the top of the hubbub. “Yes go, Honey, go fly to your dream. Live your dream. These fleeting moments of happiness amidst the interminable agony of grim despair. And loss of dreams. Say farewell, Honey, say farewell to Dother Hall. Because dreams come to an end. And then nightmares become dreams and the dreams that you dreamed are no longer dreams you can dream they are the nightmares that you dreamed were dreams.”

What was she on about?

I said, “Has she snapped?”

As we looked at her everyone went silent. Sidone stretched both arms out to us and said, “My girls, my poor girls … my … poor … girls.” Her shoulders were heaving.

And then she collapsed in a heap.

Monty rushed over to Sidone and was slapping her about the face. Then he started tugging at her arm and Blaise and Bob came on and they took an arm and a leg each and began dragging her to the side of the stage. Like she was some golden fish fingers.

Dr. Lightowler came striding on to the stage and said, “Clear the auditorium, girls. Ms. Beaver has lightly fainted. Move along quickly; she needs peace and quiet.”

We shuffled out. What was going on?

Flossie said, “Madame Frances was carted off to the loony bin last term, now Sidone this term. It’s the curse of Dother Hall.”

I said, “Maybe her catsuit was too tight and it …”

The girls were all looking at me.

“And it cut … off … the blood to her … head.”

As we went out into the front hall the whole school was talking about Sidone fainting. What did she mean about dreams becoming nightmares and “my poor girls, my poor girls”?

Bob was bobbing about taking down one of his environmental notices.

I said, “Has global warming finished then, Bob? I thought it was getting a bit colder.”

He didn’t even look at us, just hitched his jeans up to nearly cover the crack in his bottom and said gloomily, “My next job will be boarding up the windows.”

Vaisey said, “Why would you do that, how would we see out?”

Bob said, “You won’t see out because you won’t be here. If Sidone can’t pay the taxman we’re all out of here. On the road again.”

The atmosphere at Dother Hall was weird for the rest of the week. We saw Sidone, dressed in black, huddled in corners with Monty, Dr. Lightowler, and Gudrun. Looking very serious. Sometimes shaking a sad handkerchief at us as we passed. Even Blaise Fox seemed not her usual self. It didn’t stop her banging her drum though.

We couldn’t believe that Dother Hall might close.

Flossie said, “I’m not leaving. We could chain ourselves to the fence.”

I said, “There isn’t a fence. Bob made it into swords for theatrical fencing class.”

We were all worried though.

On my way home on Friday I was just going out of the front doors of Dother Hall when I bumped into Blaise. She was about to get into her sports car and had enormous goggles on. Which she didn’t remove as I spoke to her. It seems that everyone who stays around here gradually turns into an owl.

I said to her, “Ms. Fox, can I ask you, why did Ms. Beaver faint, and why is Bob saying that if she can’t pay the taxman we won’t be here? Is it true that Dother Hall might close?”

I thought she was going to say, “Shut up, you fool.” But she didn’t.

She said, “Hmmm, well, it’s not looking too good. We are going to know more on Monday, so try not to worry until then. Fling yourself around like a fool, that will cheer you up.”