Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 06 (17 page)

Miss Wilson told us that the first production of a Shakespants play, in 1613, ended when a cannon used in the production set the thatched roof on fire and the theater burned to the ground. So we can always hope for the best.

3:37 p.m.

Mr. Attwood has got his fire buckets at the ready so there is every chance of a conflagration. It would be a fitting end to his school career to be present when it burned down.

3:50 p.m.

Does anyone remember the world-renowned orange-juggling scene in
MacUseless
? No? Well, there is one in our production. Miss Wilson says it adds color to the play. Hmmmm. How mad is she? It is during the banquet scene, when MacUseless is planning to kill the other MacScottish person. She has got Melanie Griffiths and Mabs (who are trees in the later scene) to do the juggling.

They are vair vair useless at it but she has promised them they can wear false mustaches.

I said to Dave, “I am worried about Melanie's nungas. I hope there is no unfortunate mix-up in the juggling bits.”

You should see Spotty Norman and the other youth hanging around every time she is onstage, pretending to coil up electric cable and so on just so they can ogle her nungas.

Even Dave was watching her as oranges flew everywhere. He said, “That girl certainly has got a couple of areas of outstanding natural beauty. I hope they are adequately protected.”

4:30 p.m.

As we left school Dave the Laugh walked along
with us. He had his arm round me. It felt really, erm, friendly. Although as it was Dave, his hand did sort of casually drift onto my nunga. I had to give him a stern warning.

It obviously affected him because as he went off to his house he gave me a kiss on the mouth (!) and said, “S'later.”

Hmmmmmm.

home

Mum and Vati, Libbs and the furry freaks, have gone out on a clown-car expedition.

Excellent.

Time to phone Masimo.

Put on my lippy gloss and a bit of mascara.

Right, here goes.

Better change out of my school uniform and put something gorgey but casual on.

Right, here goes.

Are boy entrancers going a bit far?

Right, here goes.

“Jas.”

“What?”

“I'm going to phone Masimo.”

“Good. Good-bye.”

 

“Jas.”

“What? Look, it's only twenty-four hours until Tom gets back and I—”

“OK, chocks away, Jas. I'm going in.”

 

Right, this is it. He has asked me out, so that must mean he wants me to go out with him. Unless the number he gave me was a safety-deposit box number or his idea for a lottery number. Uh-oh, my brain has wandered off to Madland. Better get a grip.

Light, cheerful with a hint of Eastern promise—that is what I must be.

Should I break the ice with a joke?

Yes, yes, that is a good idea.

I'll just say, “
Ciao
, Masimo, it's me, Georgia. Hey, what is black and lies on top of the water shouting ‘knickers'?” He will say in his lovely accent. “
Non capisco
, Georgia, what is black and lies on top of the
aqua
shouting ‘knickers'?” And I will say “Crude oil,” and he will laugh and I will laugh and it will be…er…a laughathon.

Good, good, excellent. And I will leave Sparta and Pope Joan out of it completely.

And pants.

 

Phoned the number.

Oh, noooooo, it was ringing. He might answer it. Ohhhhnoooo.

I slammed the phone down.

Calm calm calmy calm calm.

I was just about to try again, when the phone rang.

I picked it up and said, “Look, can you get off the phone? I am just about to make a very important phone call.”

And Masimo said, “Georgia? Have you call me?”

Ohbloodyblimey.

I forgot about telling him the joke and made up some ludicrous story about me just having rung him when the doorbell rang and it was people collecting for Overseas Pants. I don't know why I said that. I just had pants on the brain from Dave the Laugh.

Anyway I don't think he understood me because he still wants to go out with me.

It was gorgey and fabby to speak to him.

He has got a lovely voice on the phone.

He is going to meet me tomorrow at 7:30 at a
little Italian restaurant that he knows.

Biennissimo!!!

tuesday june 14th

The day dragged by. I started my makeup in double French. I could only risk nail varnish because if Madame Slack saw a hint of panstick it would be off to the guillotine for me.

Ran home.

5:00 p.m.

Operation Go on a Date with a Luuurrve God and Not Make a Complete and Utter Prat of Myself.

My feet thankfully seem to be their normal selves again.

Dithering around in my room. The phone has rung about forty million times from the ace gang asking me what I am wearing. “Not much” is the answer because I am too busy answering the phone.

6:30 p.m.

I can't dither around for much longer. For once my hair is quite nearly not useless and I think my boots and skirt look good together. My feet fit into
the boots as well, which is a plus.

I went downstairs as quietly as I could but the mad committee were all there to see me off. All lined up by the door. Even Angus has come in from his canoodling with Naomi. He was in the kitchen coughing and choking and looking like he was being sick. Then I noticed that was because he had a frog in his mouth that he was trying to eat. How disgusting and mad is that? It was still alive as well.

Mum got into her usual position on the table and screamed at Dad to chase him out. Gordy tried to snack on it and Angus just biffed him over the head. I took the opportunity to sneak out.

7:30 p.m.

I was sooooo nervy as I arrived at the restaurant. He was outside waiting for me. He is the best-looking person I have ever seen. Why would he like me? Maybe he feels sorry for me?

Maybe he is a Christian and he thinks I am a bit mentally subnormal.

Yes, that might be it.

He smiled at me when he saw me and suddenly I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world. He
said, “You came, I am so glad and happy.”

He held the door open for me. It was very like what I imagine a grown-up feels like. The owner of the restaurant came over and said, “Good evening, Masimo,
come esta
?”

And they chatted in Italian. Then we went to our table. I sat down without smashing the chair to smithereens, which is a good start.

ten minutes later

We have ordered our food and I think I very nearly haven't said anything too mad. Or maybe it is because Masimo doesn't speak English well enough to know that I am being a fule.

twenty minutes later

Then I inadvertently started the pants scenario again. I am going to have to kill Dave the Laugh. The Pantsmeister. Stopit stopit.

Masimo said, “My home, my family, is Verona. So beautiful, I would like you to see it one day. It is where
Romeo and Juliet
was set.”

I was chomping on pizza as he was talking. I was doing quite well, cutting it up very small so that I didn't have any bits falling out of my mouth,
but then I momentarily broke my vow of sanity and quoted from
Romeo and Juliet
. I said, “Oh, I love Rom and Jul, especially that bit when he compares her to the moon—you know, when he sees her and says ‘But soft, what PANTS through yonder window breaks.'”

And then I started honking and snorting with laughter. Oh nooooooo.

Fortuntely Masimo laughed as well. Not in a “quickly I'll get to the phone and someone keep her talking” sort of way. In a nice way. Like he really likes me.

an hour later

The meal was amazingly alright. I find him really easy to talk to. He is sort of in between Dave and the guitar plucker. I don't tell as many jokes and silliness with him as I do with Dave, but I don't get all tongue-tied and full of ludicrosity like I did with the guitar plucker.

I realized I was having a lovely time. I said a little inward thank-you prayer to Our Lord Sandra.

Then the snoggosity tension began to build. He touched my hand and looked into my eyes. His amber eyes have got little flecky bits of deeper
yellow in them. Oh blimey, we were doing sticky eyes. I could feel my brain trickling out of my head.

He said, “Your eyes, they are like a pussy cat that has drunk
vino tinto
.”

So is that a good or bad thing?

I took it as good and tried to keep any image of cross-eyed Gordy out of my mind.

He paid for our pizzas and then he said, “Would you like to walk? It is a nice night. We could look at the stars together.”

I resisted saying “Twinkle twinkle little PANTS.”

We walked along to the edge of town and onto the back fields. It was a lovely soft evening, and as we walked he said, “Are you freddo…?”

Oh dear God, he wasn't going to talk about elves and hobbits, like boys did, was he? But no then he said, “I am sorry, I mean are you, er, in English, cold?”

I said, “Well, I…”

And he put his arm around me.

I was almost fainting with anticipation. My whole body was on high snog alert. I wondered what he would do next. He said, “Look,
caro
, a shooting star.”

And we saw a shooting star. I wished very hard in my head for world peace, and to get to No. Six.

And it happened!!!

Not world peace, obviously, although you never know.

When I looked up at the shooting star he put his hand on my chin and gently turned my head toward his. Then he kissed me like he did the first time we saw each other. Just a little soft kiss. Like Jas's lezzie aunts kiss. I thought, “Oh no, here we go again onto the rack of love.” But then he kissed me again. A bit harder this time. It was soooo fab and groovy and gorge. I accidentally began singing that famous song from
The Sound of Music
in my brain, “The hills are alive with the sound of PANTS.” Shut up, brain. And get out of my brain, Julie Andrews, you snog people in leather shorts if you like. As my brain was burbling on to itself, Masimo changed his snogging technique. He began kissing my neck with little soft kisses. From the bit near my earlobes right down to near my collar bone and then back to my mouth. Wow and wowzee wowow. I turned into melted-neck girl. I don't know how long we were out there in the field. And for one of the first times in my life my brain
froze. I actually stopped thinking and just felt things. Oo-er. You see now I have started thinking again but I didn't whilst he was kissing me.

He ran his hands through my hair. His lips were really soft and sort of firm at the same time. He was talking softly in Italian to me. And every now and again he would look at me in the eyes. It was a bit like being hypnotised but in a nice way.

We should put sticky eyes on the snogging scale, I think, because it's vair vair nice and groovy and full of the spirit of red bottomosity.

I felt like all the blood had drained out of my body and I would have stayed there all night attached to his mouth. Then he nip libbled!! He could do nip libbling!!! Dave wasn't the only one who could do it. It was so nice and felt so good that I even had the courage to nip libble him, just a little mousey nibble but a nibble nonetheless. And he liked it. He did that moaney thing. Officially, in my
How to Make Any Fool Love You
it is the girl who is supposed to do the moaney stuff, but live and let snog, I say. We didn't bang teeth or anything.

It was like a mouth dance. And I was Missvair-goodatmouthdancing!!! And then it happened…No. 6!

He put just the tip of his tongue in my mouth; it was really sweet. I felt so full of luuurve for him that I put my tongue in his mouth a little bit. And our tongues touched!!! They were snogging as well!!! When you describe it it doesn't sound like it would be very nice, but it is. Perhaps that is why Angus and Gordy put the tips of their tongues out, because they know how sexy tongue-touching can be.

No, on second thoughts, I know that they put their tongues out because they are idiot cats.

I was liking the kissing so much that I didn't even think about breathing. I had acquired David Blaineness. I could very possibly not breathe for weeks if the Luuurve God was kissing me. But then he stopped. Boooooo, stop stopping!!! He said, “Come, Georgia, I must take you home. Your father will like it.”

Bollocks to my vati. I wanted more snogging!!

I said, “What time is it? Er, I mean
Che ora per favore
.”

Masimo gave me a big kiss on my cheek.

“
Grazie mille
for speaking my language.
Dieci ora
.”

I said, “Ah. Good. Er,
buono
. Yes marveloso all round.”

He said, “You don't know what that is in time, do you?”

“No.”

“It is ten o'clock.”

Phwoar, we had been snogging for almost two hours. Yesss!!! I bet we had even outsnogged Rosie and Sven.

I said, “Vati said I didn't really have to be in especially at any time tonight. In fact, he said if I wanted to stay out all night that was fine by him.”

Masimo put his arm round me. It felt fabby to be held by his lovely armio.

“Georgia, I don't think that you are a fibber but maybe…just maybe you are insane.”

Then he laughed.

“Come on, bad girl. I take you home, your papa is pleased, he thinks I am the good guy, then we go out lots more, no?”

We walked home, stopping every few steps for more snogging. Unfortunately we didn't bump into anyone that I knew. Drat!!! Mind you, every girl that we passed gawped at Masimo. Shut up, gawpers, he is mine all mine mineio. I think.

I hadn't mentioned the Wet Lindsay scenario. In fact, I hadn't really asked him anything about
girlfriends even though I am dying to know. He asked me about the guitar plucker though.