Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 09 (6 page)

9:19 p.m.

I don't know why I didn't realize I was born for the stage before. It is blindingly obvious even to a blind man on blind tablets that I am a backing dancer. That will be my career. I will travel with the band giving the world the benefit of my Viking disco inferno dance and so on. And it is very convenient romance wise because with Masimo as the lead singer of the Stiff Dylans and me as backing dancer, we can travel the globe of luuurve.

friday august 5th

early evening

Masimo hasn't called again. Officially it's my turn to call him on the number he gave me. That is what I would do if he was a girl, which he clearly isn't, even if Dave says he is.

Shut up about Dave. I feel a bit shy about calling Masimo. In one of my mum's mags, it said, “Be a teaser, not a pleaser.” And it said you should never ring a boy; they should always ring you. So essentially, I am once more thrashing about in the tumble dryer of love.

Oooh, what shall I do? Maybe I should send him a postcard.

five minutes later

But if I go out and buy a postcard, he might ring whilst I'm out. I wonder if Mum has one lurking about in her drawers. Oo-er.

in mum's bedroom

Honestly, this house is like living in a tart's handbag. I've found a card but it is of a girl walking by with huge nunga nungas and a bloke on a veg stand holding two melons in front of his chest and the caption is “Phwoar, what a lovely pair of melons.” What is the matter with my parents?

two minutes later

But even if I did manage to send a card, when would I say I was coming? I still haven't managed to steer the conversation around to Mutti and Vati giving me the spondulies for my trip.

one minute later

However, I have more than romance on my mind. Masimo will have to understand that my career comes first sometimes. There is a rehearsal round at Rosie's tonight for our planned dance inferno extravaganza, so I'd better get my dance tights out.

sunday august 7th

Waited for the postie at the gate yesterday, but he didn't have any letters for me. I asked the postie if
he was hiding my mail, but he didn't even bother to reply.

More damned rehearsals for Sven's djing night. I am so vair vair tired. I am a slave to my art.

9:45 p.m.

I am quite tuckered out with dancing. Even though it is still practically the afternoon, I may as well go to bed.

in bed

Sven turned up at Rosie's whilst we were there and snogged the pants off her (oo-er).

We all felt like a basket of goosegogs.

In fact when we were walking home, Jas said, “I felt a bit jealous.”

I tutted.

But actually I felt a bit jealous as well.

in my room
9:50 p.m.

The door slammed and I heard Vati come in. Accompanied by Uncle Eddie, a.k.a. the baldy-o-gram since he took up taking his clothes off for women. They pay him to do it, that is the weird thing.

Dad yelled, “The vati and the baldy-o-gram are home, sensation seekers!”

ten minutes later

I can hear the sound of sizzling from the kitchen and the cats are going bananas. That will be the twenty-five sausages each that Dad and his not very slim bald mate will be having.

Now I can hear the spluttering of cans of lager being opened.

Neither of them will be able to get through the kitchen door at this rate.

five minutes later

They must have chucked a couple of sausages out into the garden for Angus and the pussycat gang because there is a lot of yowling and spitting going on.

And barking.

And yelling.

Oh, here we go now. Mr. Next Door is on the warpath.

I looked carefully through the curtains as I didn't want the finger of shame pointing my way.

Yes, there was Mr. Next Door in his combat
gear (slippers and terry toweling robe), shouting out, “Clear off!!!”

He's a fool, really. Angus will think he wants to play the sausage game with the Prat poodles.

one minute later

Ah, yes. Angus has bounded over the garden wall and he is having a sausage tug-of-war with Whitey. Mr. Next Door has gone for his broom.

I'm not going to look anymore as I may accidentally glimpse Mr. Next Door's exposed bottom in the furor.

10:15 p.m.

Dad and the baldy-o-gram are arsing about laughing and giggling like ninnies in the front room. Then Dad yelled upstairs, “Georgia, my dove, your pater and his friend are engaged in a very serious business matter, would you get another couple of cans from the wine cellar. You may know it as the ‘fridge.' Thank you so much.”

I just shouted down, “Not in a million years, O Portly One.”

He shouted back, “I will give you a fiver.”

Huh, as if bribery is going to make me his slavey girl.

two minutes later

When I went into the front room with the cans of lager, Dad was lying on the sofa like a great bearded whale.

Uncle Eddie winked at me as I came in.

Dad said, “So, Eddie, what is your life like, now that you are a sex symbol?”

Uncle Eddie belched (charming) and said, “Well, Bob, Georgia, it has its ups and downs like most celebrity lives. For instance, last night I got mobbed by women in the chippie after the gig. Which is nice. And I got free chips and a pickled egg, but on the other hand, when I got home I found they had bloody stolen another of my feather codpieces. Which I have to have handmade.”

Oh, how vair vair disgusting. Now I have been exposed to every sort of porn in this house, moldyporn, kittyporn and now baldyporn.

Speaking of kittyporn, where are Angus and Naomi?

And cross-eyed Gordy?

back in my room

It's all gone suspiciously quiet.

I looked out of the window over Next Door's garden.

I can't see the pussycat gang, but I can see Gordy.

four minutes later

I am concerned that Gordy is hanging around with the wrong crowd. He is actually playing with the Prat poodles and, I can hardly believe my eyes, he is chewing on their rubber bonio. It's not right.

It's probably just an adolescent phase he is going through.

11:29 p.m.

I went down to get a drink of water and a jammy dodger to ward off late-night starvation. Mum came in a bit red faced from too much vino tinto, or just sheer embarrassment at being her. She went into the front room where Dad and Uncle Eddie were practicing some sort of dance for Uncle Eddie's act. I couldn't bear to have a look, but I will just say this, the music they were using was “I'm Jake the Peg, diddle diddle diddle dum, with my extra leg,” by Rolf Harris.

Mum slammed off to bed without saying good night.

Dad came out of the front room and said to me, “Uh-oh, women's trouble!”

midnight

I must get away from here. I must get to see the Luuurve God. Dad owes me a fiver for being his slavey girl. So that means I have only 450 pounds to go.

I wonder if he will believe me if I say he said he would give me 50 pounds to get his lager?

monday august 8th

8:30 a.m.

I am still not used to having my bed to myself. Even Angus didn't come in all night, he's probably too bloated with sausage to haul himself up the stairs. I wouldn't say I am exactly missing Libby, but I feel a missing space in my bed where her freezing bottom used to be.

in the kitchen

Oh brilliant, Mutti and Vati are not speaking AGAIN. They are so childish.

Dad yelled from the bedroom, “Connie, have you seen my undercrackers?”

And Mum went on buttering her toast.

There was a long silence and then Dad said, “Er, hello…is there anybody there?”

I looked at Mum and she was chomping away on her toastie.

I said, “Mum, I would like to discuss dates with you about my Italian holiday. Do you remember that we agreed I would go next week? Well, do you think I should travel to Rome on the Friday or the Saturday? It would be better on the Saturday because then Vati could drive me to the airport. It would be best all round, don't you think, that he hired a proper car. For safety and embarrassment reasons.”

Dad yelled again from the bedroom, “Connie, stop playing the giddy goat, I'm going to be late. I cannot find any of my undercrackers.”

Mum said to me, “You don't need to worry about the lift and so on.”

I said, “Fanks, Mum.”

She said, “You don't need to worry about a lift because you are not going anywhere.”

What???

Then Dad came into the kitchen. With a towel wrapped around what he laughingly refers to as his waist. He said to Mum, “Where are all my undercrackers?”

Mum pointed to the kitchen bin.

Dad went ballisticisimus. And a half.

It didn't really seem the right moment to ask him about the lift to the airport. Or the 500 pounds I would need for proper spendies, so I skipped back up to the safety of my room.

fifteen minutes later

Well, it's good that the whole street knows about my dad's undercrackers and my mum's insanity. It makes for a tighter community spirit.

I do think that Dad should learn that, as our revered headmistress Slim says, “Obscene language is the language of those of a limited imagination.”

tuesday august 9th

10:00 p.m.

Jas has driven me insane today with all her Tom talk. I think she is hoping he will just forget about the going to different universities, having their own space fandango.

Well, let sleeping dogs lie, is what I say.

Although it is not what Gordy says. He is worrying me.

I was calling him and tapping his food tin with
a spoon when Mr. Next Door popped his head over the fence. He said that Gordon was sleeping in the Prat brothers' kennel.

I said, “Yeah, you'll never get him out, I'm afraid. They will have to sleep in the house.”

And Mr. Next Door said the weirdest thing.

“Oh, they are in there with him.”

Blimey.

wednesday august 10th

Ok, it's over a week now since I heard from Masimo. So I'm going to send a cool postcard. I've got one of a kitten being fished out of a pan with a ladle covered in spaghetti, and you can't get cooler than that in my humble opinion. So here goes:

Hang on, he might not know what vair means, or fabby, or marvy. Blimey, it's going to take me the rest of my life to write this postcard. I'll do it tomorrow.

thursday august 11th

I keep looking at the number I have got for Masimo. What would I say if I called him? And, anyway, if he likes my eyes so much, why hasn't he got on the phone again?

lunchtime

Even though I am plunged once more into the turbulent washing machine of luuurve, I am quite looking forward to going to Sven's djing gig on Saturday.

We are having rehearsals round at Rosie's for our backing dancing routines. Honor and Sophie, the trainee ace gang members, are getting their big break because they are allowed to join in the rehearsal sessions. Although they won't be doing the real thing as there is not enough room on the stage and not enough earmuffs to go around. But that is showbiz for you.

We are going to do our world-renowned (well, lots of people have seen it at Stalag 14) Viking disco inferno dance. Also as a world premiere in honor of Sven's gig we have come up with a new dance called the Viking hornpipe.

It is a new departure for us as it involves cos
tumes and props. Of course we have used props before—the horns in the Viking and bison extravaganza. And also bubble gum up the nose for the snot dance. (Incidentally we have left out the snot dance from our program for the night as Jools said she thought that prospective snoggees might find it a bit offputting.)

So as I say, we have used props before but we have never toyed with both costumes and props.

at rosie's
evening

In the Viking hornpipe extravaganza we will be wearing earmuffs and mittens, for the vair vair chilly Viking winter nights. And we will also be using small paddles.

Jas is being annoyingly droopy.

Especially as Rosie had traipsed all the way to the fairy dressing-up shop for kiddies in town, to get the muffs. And they had special tinsel and everything. Jas wouldn't wear the earmuffs because she said it was “silly.”

I said, “Jas, if we didn't do stuff just because it was silly, where would we be?”

She was still on her hufty stool and said,
“What are you talking about now?”

It is vair tiring explaining things to the vair dim, but it seems to be more or less my job in life.

“Jas, do you think that German is a silly language?”

She started fiddling with her fringe. (Incidentally another example of “silliness,” but I didn't say.) She was obviously thinking the German thing over.

I said, “Quickly, quickly, Jas.”

“Well, it's a foreign language spoken by foreign people and that can't be silly.”

“Jas, THEY SAY
SPANGELFERKEL
. THE WORD FOR “SNOGGING” IN GERMAN TYPE LANGUAGE IS FRONTAL
KNUTSCHEN
. WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE!!!”

In the end she got her muffs and mittens on.

one hour later

The official Viking hornpipe dance is perfected!!!

(Just a note, costume wise, the earmuffs are worn over the Viking horns. It is imperative that the horns are not removed, otherwise it makes a laughingstock of the whole thing.)

So:

The music starts with a Viking salute. Both paddles are pointed at the horns.

Then a cry of “Thor!!!” and a jump turn to the right.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the right.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the left.

Cry of Thor! Jump turn to the left.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the left and right.

Jump to face the front (grim Viking expression).

Quick paddle right, quick paddle left x4.

Turn to partner.

Cross paddles with partner x2.

Face front and high hornpipe skipping eight times (gay Viking smiling).