Читать книгу The Taming Of The Tights - Louise Rennison - Страница 9

On Monday morning, I struggled against the wind walking over the bridge to Dother Hall. I’m early so I’ll go and stash my stuff in my locker then find the Tree Sisters. If Bob hasn’t burned the lockers as fuel. I hope the money thing is better than it was last term. Or at least we’ve still got a roof. I dread to think what would have happened if Honey’s manager hadn’t come up trumps with cash to keep Dother Hall going.

I miss Honey. She is sooo Honeyish.

And knows such a lot about boys.

Maybe she’ll come back and visit. Or we could visit her!

Yarooo, I feel like a real performing artist. I am one of an elite gang of ‘entertainers’ our sole purpose in life is to give give give of ourselves.

My only worry is that I’m not sure I’ve anything to give.

The rest of the Tree Sisters have special talents. Vaisey can sing and dance and act and Jo can sing and act and Flossie can sing and act and she’s really great at art. And Honey is so good at everything that she’s been taken to Hollywood to be in films, and then there’s me.

Ms Fox (“Just call me Fox. Blaise Fox”) our dance tutor believes in me. She thinks I have my own very special quality. Well, what she actually said was “Watching you perform is like watching someone set fire to their own pants. Strangely riveting.”

So that’s good, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

Dr Lightowler has hated me ever since I accidentally flew off my bicycle and destroyed the backstage area during my Sugar Plum Bikey ballet. Oh and because I did spontaneous Irish dancing in her class. When we were doing a tragic improvisation of the Brontë sisters dying of consumption.

And maybe because I pretend she actually IS an owl.

But this term I’m going to show her and everyone else that I am Tallulah Casey, superstar in the making. Bleeding feet at the ready.

Walking along the woodland path I passed the sign ‘Woolfe Academy for Boys’.

That’s where Charlie goes.

Oh, Charlie. I hope I can be friends with him. The last thing he said to me was, “See you next term, gorgeous.” And he said I was a really good kisser.

It’s just that he’s got a girlfriend.

I can be grown up though. You know, so what if he’s got a girlfriend?

Girls and boys can be mates.

We can be mates.

I might even be mates with his girlfriend. That’s how matey I can be.

I don’t mind tiny people. I like them.

I turned the next corner and saw Dother Hall. With its towering ramparts and cock-eyed spiralling chimneys. High up on the roof, if it wasn’t sleeting, you could see all the way to Grimbottom. And past the woods to the grey brick walls and mullioned windows of Woolfe Academy.

The place where naughty boys were sent. Bad boys like our friends Charlie, Phil, Jack and Ben.

Naughty boys who are watched over by a stern and strict one-legged headmaster.

A man that Charlie says demands and gets their full respect.

A man that he and Phil call ‘Hoppy’.

Which reminds me, Phil, Jo’s boyfriend, is officially back. After serving his time at Woolfe, he was sent off to ordinary school. But it was a short stay because he dug a secret tunnel under the rugby pitch. He was going to unexpectedly pop his head up during a match for a laugh. But sadly the tunnel collapsed and the rugby squad fell into the hole.

Phil had done it for Jo. He said freedom was nothing to him if she wasn’t there, punching him on the arm and shouting at him.

I wish someone felt like that about me.

I wonder if they ever will.

They won’t get a chance if the Bottomleys get to me first.

As soon as I walked through the gates, Jo came running out of the front door. All little and shiny and dark, jumping up and down like a mad terrier, shouting, “Loopy Lullah!!!!”

She gave me the usual dead arm. Violence is her way of showing affection.

She was followed by Flossie, who has such a long fringe that her face really only begins at her glasses. For some reason she often finds herself (in her mind) in Texas.

Flossie was in Texas now.

I knew because she was walking really slowly and fanning her face like it was a thousand degrees, and drawling in a Deep South accent, “Why, Miss Lullabelle, I do declare, it’s too goddam hot. I was axing and axing, ‘Where in the name of hominy grits is Miss Lullabelle?’ And here y’all are!”

Vaisey was at the back, dear Vaisey, with her curls bouncing and her little bottom … er … bouncing as well. She came running to me and threw her arms round me. “Oh, Lulles, Lulles, I’ve missed you.”

And we had our first official Tree Sisters hug. It was so good to be with my pals again. Nothing can go wrong when you have your little girl gang around you. Nothing!!!!

Back in the Theatre of Dreams with my gang!!!!

I started singing “There’s no business like show business, we smile when we are down …”

And doing high skipping. I don’t know why, but my legs got excited.

A voice behind me said, “I might have known. Tallulah Casey. WALK properly, you are not a silly baby.”

Oh, how I remembered that voice. I didn’t have to turn round to see who it was. I could feel beaky eyes staring into the back of me.

Dr Lightowler.

Half woman, half owl, half really, really horrible to me.

Well this term she was going to see a big change in me. She wasn’t dealing with a little kid any more. I had grown and not only in the corker department.

Vaisey whispered, “Don’t say anything to annoy her.”

I stopped and turned round. Blimey, I must say, and this didn’t seem possible, Dr Lightowler looked even more owly. Had she got a new winter cloak?

She glared down her thin nose unblinkingly. I smiled cordially, my legs together.

“Ah, Dr Lightowler how marvellous to see you again. You look rested. The rest has done you good. In fact, you look in beak condition.” (Oh sweet Jesus!) “Er. Hahaha, woopity doodah … peak, PEAK condition.”

The girls were snuffling and putting their heads down to hide their laughter.

Dr Lightowler wasn’t laughing. She was looking and not blinking. She hissed, “It’s a shame that the rest of us aren’t as impressed with you as you are, Tallulah Casey. Remember, I am watching you. And I don’t like what I see.”

And she swished off.

Flossie said, “I think deep down, really deep down, so deep down that she’d have to get a rope and the emergency services to get there, she’s very, very fond of you.”

Vaisey put her arm round me. “It’s so unfair, just because you fell off a bike once she never gives you a chance.”

How right she is.

Jo was jumping up and down. “Oh, shhhh, shhhhh. Don’t let’s start talking about Lullah. I want to snog Phil. He phoned me and said he’d be at our Special Tree!!! So snogs ahoy!!!!”

As we walked into the main hall, Vaisey said shyly, “I got a postcard from Jack. I think he might like me.”

I gave her a hug. “Who doesn’t like you, missy?”

Flossie said, “Fiddle-de-dee, I just want to see some menfolk. LOTS of menfolk. ANY menfolk. It’s this goddam relentless heat.”

I didn’t point out that there was ice on the inside of the windows.

The main hall was full of babbling girls. Milly and Tilly, Honsy, Bibby. It was nice to see everyone again. Groovy to see the ‘showbiz’ crowd.

I was leaning against the stage, queuing up when a posh voice said, “Oh, Tallulah, begorrah, bejesus. Did you have a noice time in your holidays?”

It was Lavinia and her mates, Davinia and Anoushka.

Lav, Dav and Noos.

For some reason, Lavinia pretends she’s Irish like me and treats me like I’m a half-witted five-year-old. I can’t really not like her because she’s so ‘nice’ to me. But it’s only because I know Alex and she rates him.

In fact, as I was thinking that, she said, “We must see that friend of yours again. What was his name … Alex? When he next comes home, to be sure, to be sure.”

She swished her copper hair as she went off.

Flossie said, “SHE loves you as well. There’s a lot of love in the room for you, Tallulah.”

Gudrun, Sidone’s assistant, came onstage with the register. She was covered in knitwear from top to toe, including a knitted beret. Flossie said, “Is she a knitted person?”

Gudrun shouted at us, “Achtung, Fräuleins!!! Bitte!! Achtung! Ve mussen sign the register!!!” (She always gets a bit German when she’s left in charge, it goes to her head.)

We carried on chatting. Gudrun shouted again, “Wilkommen, girls. Danke for your attention. Erm, those girls at the back, will you just come down from the stag’s head? It’s an heirloom and not for sitting on. I don’t know how you got up there in the first place, and we don’t want any accidents …”

At that moment the stag’s head and the girls on it crashed to the floor. We all cheered.

After registration, we went to the loos. It was freezing in there. And when I went to use one of the taps it fell off in my hand. There were no towels, just a notice written by Bob:

No paper towels this term – we are saving the rainforest, dudes .

Remember,

Be a shaker

Not an endangered resource taker.

I had to dry my hands on my leggings.

As we came out, Bob was dragging a big roll of plastic sheeting up the stairs that led to the roof. I said, “Hi, Bob, didn’t recognise you without your horns.”

He said, “Yeah, it’s a bummer because my first love is the band, but hey, you’ve got to earn your bread.”

Flossie said, “What’s the plastic sheeting for?”

Bob said, “There’s been, like, a roof incident.”

Jo said, “What incident?”

Bob said, as he huffed and puffed away, “Well, dudes, it’s essentially blown off.”

I said to the Tree Sisters, “Get your umbrellas out, you’re going to need them when you go to bed.”

The rest of the morning we had tutorials and sorted out rehearsal times and class syllabuses and book lists, so we didn’t see much of each other until lunchtime. Still no sign of Sidone. Apparently, she’s doing some community-work thing.

Jo said, “She thinks the community will try to help keep Dother Hall going.”

We laughed.

At lunchtime bell, we all met in the café. Vaisey is mad keen to go to the Special Tree to see Jack and Jo looks like her head has exploded she is soooo excited about seeing Phil.

Flossie said, “I just want to see some boys. Any boys. Let’s go let’s go let’s go!!!!”

After a bit of lip gloss and hair shaking and a reviving lunch on the run (Cheesy Wotsits), the Tree Sisters were ready to face the boys of Woolfe Academy.

Well, most of us were.

I felt shy about seeing Charlie again. I know he said he was sorry and had handled the whole snogging-me-but-having-a-girlfriend thing badly. And he’d said, “You’re top, Tallulah and don’t let anyone tell you any different.” But that sort of implies that other people WILL tell you different, doesn’t it?

If you say “Don’t let them tell you”, that means they might tell you.

And that … oh, I don’t know.

And also, should I ask about his girlfriend? Like a mate would.

Do I ask politely if she’s still tiny?

Hang on, is that my dream or has he actually said she’s tiny?

I mustn’t say she’s tiny if she isn’t tiny because that would be … tiny-ist.

No one noticed I wasn’t as keen as they were.

Vaisey and Jo were doing very fast walking, crunching through the leaves and bracken to get to Phil and Jack.

Flossie said to me, “So do you think about those Hinchcliff boys, Miss Lullabelle?”

Uh-oh.

I said, “No, I don’t. They’re wild, uncontrollable animals.”

Flossie said, “I know, that’s why I like them so much. I’d like to see that Seth boy again. I wonder where he is.”

I stumped on and said, “In a cave somewhere, I should think. Or prison.”

We reached our secret place, our secret meeting place in the forest. Where we danced around our Special Tree.

The Special Tree where Honey told us we should be proud of every part of ourselves. Flossie’s glasses, Jo’s conker hair, Vaisey’s wiggly bottom, even my knees! Yes, even my knees!

A chill breeze rustled the leaves left on the trees, there were no signs of life. No birds or creatures and certainly no boys.

After five minutes of kicking leaves and hunching her shoulders against the cold, Jo said, “Where are they? Phil promised he’d come to see me on our first day back.”

I was sort of disappointed and relieved at the same time. I said, “Well, they’re not here so …”

Vaisey shouted from behind the tree, “Do sausages grow on trees?”

Flossie said, “Vaisey, is this like ‘why did the sausage cross the road?’ because I’m not interested in sausages, I’m interested in boys. If you’d said ‘do boys grow on trees’ you would have got my attention. But the sausage thing – no.”

That’s when we saw what Vaisey meant. Attached to the back of our Special Tree was a sausage with a ribbon round it and underneath it, an envelope.

Jo grabbed the envelope and ripped it open. Then started jumping up and down saying, “Ohohohoh!”

I said, “What? What? WHAT?!!!”

Jo’s face had gone all pink. Flossie put a hand on her shoulder to hold her down. Jo panted, “It’s from Phil. It’s his writing. He sent me lots of photos of himself over the holidays. In unusual poses.”

Vaisey started to say, “What sort of unusual …” until I shook my head at her.

Jo was in full flow reading out the sausage letter.

“Dear Tree Sisters,

Yes, I do mean you, Vaisey, Jo, Lullah and Flossie, this letter is from us. The lads. The top lads of all time. The bad lads. The lads … sorry, I had to stop there because Charlie got me in a headlock until I stopped writing ‘lads’. What’s he like? He’s such a lad … sorry, another break there, he did it again. Anyway, we can’t be with you because we are on a special bonding workshop all day with no breaks.

Hoppy says it will give us an identity as a group and respect for others. Mostly it’s press-ups and stabbing sacks with sticks.”

Flossie said, “Cor.”

Jo continued.

“I know for a fact you like that sort of thing, you naughty girls. Anyway, we can’t get away till tomorrow so I crept out and left this note and a sausage in case you were peckish.

See you tomorrow.

Phil, Charlie, Jack and Ben.

PS Big snog, Jo, you tiger (that’s me Phil by the way) xx

PPS Charlie here. Hi everybody x

PPPS Cheers, Vaisey, Jack x

PPPPS Hi, everyone and Flossie, very much looking forward to seeing you again. Ben x”

As we walked back to Dother Hall, Jo was jumping around in front of us, telling us about the photos that Phil had sent.

“There was this one of him with a human-sized inflatable banana he’d taken shopping. He bought it some shoes in a shoe shop and …”

Flossie had learned to juggle in the holidays. She said, “I think you’ll find it very entertaining.”

I made the mistake of saying, “I don’t really know how juggling can be – erm – entertaining.”

Flossie put her arm round me, which was a bit alarming. She said, “I’ll illustrate for you, my little chum, how very, VERY entertaining juggling is. Everyone give me your tights.”

I said, “No way, I’m not going to take my tights off – it’s bloody freezing.”

Vaisey and Jo both said no, they wouldn’t either.

Five minutes later, Flossie showed us how she could make our tights into little juggling balls. She juggled our three tights balls with one hand and threw her tights ball up in the air from behind her back. She was doing four-tights ball juggling. After she bowed, we clapped and quickly put our tights back on.

She said, “You see? Do you? How Very Entertaining that was?”

Vaisey said, “Oooooh, I tell you what I did in the holidays, I learned to play the guitar and I used my lucky plectrum that Jack gave me. If The Jones play any gigs soon, maybe I could jam along.”

I could imagine what the Hinchcliffs would say to a girl ‘jamming along’ to one of their songs. I laughed and said, “Yeah, you could ‘jam’ that one Cain wrote especially for Beverley Bottomley when he dumped her, Put your coat on, girl, you’re leaving and the follow-up when he dumped her again, Is it so very wrong to want you dead?”

Jo said, “What’s happened about the Cain thing – is he still on the run, Lullah?”

I went a bit red and quickly said, “I’ve no idea. With a bit of luck Mrs Bottomley will shoot him.”

Flossie said, “Oh, you are sooooo unreasonable, Miss Lullah. Yes, those boys are BAAADDD, but they are so goddam handsome.”

I said huffily, “Yeah, if you like Dark Black … animals in trousers.”

Flossie said, “I do, as it happens.”

Vaisey was trying to be nice. “P’raps they’re just a bit misunderstood.”

I snorted. “Vaisey, do you remember that Cain got Jack to dump you because no girlfriends were allowed in The Jones? He said it was a band rule.”

Vaisey blushed.

Flossie sashayed about. “I am looking forward to seeing that bad Seth Hinchcliff again, oh and Bat boy. He’s not quite so floppy since Honey gave him the snogging lesson.”

I said, “You’re insatiable.”

Flossie said, “I know, but remember what Honey said about boys: ‘alwayth have one ow two on the go. Theth thafety in numbeth.’”

We walked along, thinking about lovely golden Honey in her new golden life in Hollywood. Then Flossie said, “What about you, Miss Tallulah, what did you get up to in your holidays?”

“Well, I was staying with Cousin Georgia and she told me how to do sticky eyes and showed me her snogging scale. It’s from one to ten.”

Go on. Have another look.

Jo said, “Yeah so, are we going to use your cousin’s snogging scale?”

I said, “Well, it doesn’t really fit with my Lulu-Luuuve List so …”

They all looked at me.

Jo said, “What’s your Lulu-Luuuve List then?”

I wanted to tell them about it but not all of it, so I said, “Er, well, I’ve written it down and I was going to bring it in … but I forgot because I got a threatening letter!”

Flossie said, “What? From someone who thinks you should keep your Lulu-Luuuve List to yourself?”

“No, honestly, a real threatening letter saying I was like a bum in a skirt and if I knew what was good for me I would clear off.”

Jo said, “Was it from Dr Lightowler?”

I went red. “No, it was from … from Beverley Bottomley. She said I gallivant around like a tit.”

Flossie said, “Well, she does have a point, Lullah.”

Just then Gudrun came out of the front door of Dother Hall, wildly tinging her hand bell, and shouted, “Go straight to your classes, girls, Ms Beaver has double-booked herself with the Blubberhouses Large Ladies Who Pole Dance For Fun Society, but she will definitely be in to welcome you at some stage today.”

Thankfully, I’d got away with the Lulu-Luuuve List thing for now.

But then Jo said quietly to me as we went in, “Did your Cousin Georgia tell you what number ‘nose-licking’ was on her snogging scale? Is Cain licking your nose on your list?”

She’s like an elephant in a dress.

How on earth could I tell them that nose-licking was quite literally the tip of the … er, the tip of the … nose on the face of the snogging Cain list?

I know I should tell the Tree Sisters everything, and I will.

Soon.