Читать книгу Are these my basoomas I see before me? - Louise Rennison - Страница 7

Monday September 19th Woke up from a dream where Dave had come up to me and said, “I didn’t even mention pants and he went ballisticisimus.”

And Dave had a pair of pants on his head.

And they weren’t small.

8:15 a.m. A bit earlier than usual. I want to make sure Jas doesn’t get to Stalag 14 without me.

I want to know how Jazzy Spazzy is going to carry on her campaign of ignorez-vousing me when I refuse to be ignorez-voused.

8:25 a.m. Thar she blows! She senses I am here and she is putting a bit of speed on.

8:29 a.m. Aaaah, I have got her in my sights. Her bottom is waggling away only just in front of me. I am going to do my world-renowned speedwalking.

8:32 a.m. My nose is practically on the back of her beret.

She is still pretending I am invisible girlie, but she must be able to hear me panting.

I pulled out a Jammy Dodger and held it in front of her face. She loves a Jammy Dodger.

8:55 a.m. Even when I ate the Jammy Dodger walking backwards in front of her she didn’t slow down.

OK, I am going in.

I leaped on her unexpectedly and pulled her beret right down over her eyes. But even then she kept marching on like nothing had happened. It was only when she crashed into the postman, who was bending over filling his sack, that she had to stop and take her beret off.

The postman went bonkers and shouted at her to “stop playing silly beggars!!!!”.

I have said this before and I will say it again, how come anyone who puts a badge on goes immediately insane?

And anyway, why do they need a badge?

A badge that says “postman” or “caretaker”.

Don’t they know who they are?

I took advantage of the brouhaha and stepped in front of Jas. Eyeball to eyeball.

I said, “Jazzy, it’s me, your old pally.”

She was all red and her fringe looked like a tumble-dried ferret.

She said, “I know it’s you. I know it’s you because every time anything bad happens or someone is shouting, you’ll be around.”

I said, “That’s not fair. What about the time I helped you get off with Hunky by pretending that you were normal and popular?”

She shrugged and said, “Yeah, well…”

“And remember the puffball skirt incident?”

That got her.

She said, “It looked nice.”

“Wrong, Jas. You looked like you had a little elepoon in your nick-nacks, didn’t you?”

She shrugged, but she knew I was right really because Astonishingly Dim Monica had worn a puffball skirt to the school play and Rosie started singing, “Nellie the elephant packed her PANTS and said goodbye to the circus”!!

I had her on the ropes now and said, “Come on, little pally, think of all the larfs we’ve had. Come on, I need you…I need you because you are so vair vair wise. You are tip-top to the toppimost full of wisdomosity…and I am a fool.”

Jas was flicking her stupid fringe, but I didn’t strike her. She said, “You bring it on yourself.”

I put my arm round her and held her arm down so she would stop the fringe-fiddling business. I said, “I know, Jazzy, but that is because I am full of je ne sais quoi.”

Stalag 14 At least Jas and me are besties again. Hurrah!

Well, until she begins to annoy me again. In about a minute.

RE What is it with Miss Wilson? She’s obsessed with rudey-dudeyness. Since the camping trip when she, I think deliberately, exposed herself to Herr Kamyer in the shower, she’s gone sex mad.

I said to Rosie, “Is she wearing lippy? Or has she just eaten a strawberry Mivvy?”

Rosie was making a little beard for her pencil case so she was a bit “busy,” but she took the trouble to look up and said, “Most people wear lippy on their lips, not on their nostrils and chin. But at least she is giving it a go.”

I wish she wasn’t “giving it a go”.

We were having to discuss the Song of Songs from the Bible. It’s about some old ancienty bloke who was a king and a ye olde handmaiden-type person. I think it’s mostly about snogging, but not as we know it. I said to Jools, “What does ‘he put his hand on my lock’ mean when it’s at home?”

Jools said, “Ask her.”

I had nothing else to do, and Miss Wilson would go boring on if I didn’t interrupt her. And I had done all I could to pass the time, even my toenails, sooo…

I put my hand up. Well, actually, I put them both up as a sort of novelty. Like an orangutan.

I said, “Miss Wilson, if we translated ye olde Bible into modern language-you know, that made sense-well, what number on the Snogging Scale would ‘he put his hand on my lock’ be?”

Miss Wilson went sensationally red, nearly as red as her nostrils and chin.

“Well, Georgia, erm, yes, that is interesting…yes, making a connection between biblical love and rituals and so forth, and, erm, modern vocabulary, erm…”

Rosie put aside her beard because we sensed a comedy opportunity. We all stared at Miss Wilson’s bob.

We were not disappointed. The bob was in full bob.

German It’s not often that we get two comedy opportunities for the price of one, but happy days here we are.

Herr Kamyer had hardly had time to adjust his knitted tie before Rosie started.

She said, “Herr Kamyer, we have just had a sehr interesting talk with Miss Wilson.”

Herr Kamyer was blinking through his glasses in a kindly and interested way. It’s tragic really. He said, “Oh ja?”

Rosie said, “Ja, it is sehr sehr interesting. It was from the Bible. In der German Bible vas ist…”

Herr Kamyer said, “Der word für Bible in German is…”

Rosie said, “Vat ever. In der German Bible vas ist der translation für ‘he put his handchen on my lock’?”

Herr Kamyer looked like a goldfish in a knitted tie. He said, “I’m afraid I do not know dis expression.”

I said, “It is int der Bible, Herr Kamyer, int der Song of Songen. It ist about der Knutschen!”

Rosie was in her own German snogging world by now.

She said, “Would it be Abscheidskuss?”

I said, “Or perhaps AUF GANZE GEHEN!!!!!!!”

4:30 p.m. Walking home with the gang.

Funnily enough, I sort of forgot about the Luuurve God for a while. But after the others had gone I felt really miz.

I let myself in to my “home”.

No one in.

Do you know, Jas even knows what she is going to have for supper most nights.

More to the point, she GETS some supper.

Still, as long as my mum can waggle her enormous basoomas around in the swimming pool with her mates.

That’s what counts.

Two minutes later Had a bowl of Shreddies. The milk was past its sell-by date so with my luck I’ll get milkytosis. Which will make my nostrils flare up to twice their size, and I will start eating grass.

In the front room Libby, my charming but insane little sister, has christened the budgie Bum-ty.

Bum-ty doesn’t look very chirpy.

Who would with two cats staring at you.

Have they been there all day?

5:30 p.m. Ooooh, I am so vair bored. And depressed at the same time.

6:00 p.m. The Family Mad have come in.

And Uncle Eddie is here. Hurray!!!

They caught me by surprise so I couldn’t barricade myself in my room.

Uncle Eddie larged in first.

He said, “I’ve got one for you. Two nuns driving along at night on a lonely forest road and a vampire leaps out and on to the bonnet. The nun who’s driving says to the other nun, ‘Quick, show him your cross!’ and the second nun shouts, ‘Get off the bloody bonnet!’!!!!!”

And he went wheezing and cackling off into the kitchen.

Grown women pay money to see him taking his clothes off to music.

I don’t know what to say.

Yes I do.

I would pay him not to take his clothes off.

In fact, I might go along one night to one of his baldyman gigs and shout, “Get ’em on!!!”

No. I won’t do that.

I may as well go and get my jimjams on. When you are visiting the cakeshop of agony, they don’t mind what you wear in there. Most of their customers are in their jimjams. With big swollen eyes. And covered in dribble.

God, I am really depressed now.

In the lounge in my jimjams Vati came in with a pork pie. Taking his health seriously then.

He said, “What’s the matter with you?”

Not that he cares.

I said, “I’m depressed actually.”

He said, “Depressed, at your age? You’ll be saying you’re bored next.”

“That is what I was going to say next.”

Vati looked at me and sat down. He patted my knee with his pork-pie-free hand.

Oh dear God, he had touched my jimjams.

He said, “Do you know what my mum used to say when I was bored?”

Oh, this would be good. It was bound to be something to do with making hats out of eggboxes.

I was about to say, “I’m bored enough as it is without you telling me about prehistoric hats.”

But he was rambling on.

“She used to say, ‘I’ll tell you what…bang your head against a wall and that will take your mind off it.’”

Charming.

In bed 7:00 p.m. I can hear Libby trying to teach Bum-ty the words to “Dancing Bean”.

I think Bum-ty might not be long for this world. He’s got two cats staring at him night and day and now a mad toddler is shoving a sausage through the cage and singing.

Three pairs of mad eyes looking at you.

7:30 p.m. Was that a scooter coming near?

7:32 p.m. No.

Oh, good. Now I’m having hallucinations.

Of the earhole.

Ear-lucinations.

7:55 p.m. No.

Oh yes.

Oh my God.

It IS a scooter coming up the road.

I looked through the window.

It was Masimo!!!!

Oh merde.

I hadn’t got time to do anything.

I was in my jimjams.

I had plaited all my hair because I was so bored and depressed.

I ran down to the front room and said, “Mum, quick, I need you.”

For once, Mum did what I asked her.

I told her to tell Masimo that I was out.

As the scooter came to a halt outside, I was scarpering up the stairs and I whispered to her, “Don’t start a conversation with him, will you? Don’t tell him about yourself.”

She said, “Don’t make me change my mind.”

And at the top of the stairs I said, “Don’t let him see Dad in his leisure trousers. Please.”

Then the doorbell rang.

I bobbed down and looked through the banisters. I could only see the bottom bit of the open door.

I heard Masimo’s voice. He said, “Ciao.”

I had thought I might never hear “ciao” again. Oh, what was he here for???

Mum said, “Masimo, what a lovely surprise. You look, er…lovely.”

Oh nooooo, she was talking to him like he was a boy and she was a girl! Did she have her cardigan buttoned up? I couldn’t remember…

Masimo said, “Er, I have come, scusi for my English, I have come for to give Georgia…”

Mum interrupted. “I’m afraid she had to stay late for, erm, hockey.”

Masimo said, “Ah yes, she is good for hockey, I think…but I come for to give her…a letter. Grazie mille.”

And he was gone.

I crouched down by my window and looked out. Masimo accelerated away down the street. He was wearing a leather coat. My heart skipped a beat to see him.

In a way, I didn’t want to go down and get the letter.

What if it said, “Ciao, bella… you are…how you say in English…dumped.”

Mum came rushing up to my room.

She handed me the letter and said, “What does it say?”

I said, “It says, ‘What fine weather we are having for this time of year…’ Mum, I DON’T KNOW what it says because I haven’t opened it yet. I am waiting to open it privately. Do you see?”

She slammed out of the room saying, “Sorry for being interested in your life.”

I daren’t read it.

Five minutes later I’ve tried to psychically feel what it might say.

It’s not very nice to dump someone by post, is it?

Just because they had a bit of a twist with Dave the Whatsit.

Two minutes later Ripped it open.

Three minutes later Well, the nub and the gist is…

I think…

That Masimo says he thinks that he was a bit out of order. And that Dave had been to see him and said that we were just mates having a laugh.

But (and this is the worrying bit) Masimo said he thought that maybe I wanted just to have fun with my mates. And that maybe I am too young for a relationship with him.

He doesn’t know.

He is thinking.

He wants me to think too.

And that we can meet at the Stiff Dylans gig on Saturday, and then we will talk.

He just signed it “Masimo”.

No kisses.

Not a “I am missing you and want to snog you within an inch of your life.”

Hmmm. So am I semi-dumped?

Fifteen minutes later The one person I would like to talk to about this is the Hornmeister.

But I can’t.

I had to make do with Jazzy Spazzy.

Phoned Jas I told her about the note.

“I think what the note means is that I have got another chance. To show that I want to be with him. And that I am not a twisting fool. I am, in fact, a sophisticate wise beyond my years. And so on.”

She just went, “Hmmmmm.”

“He is, in fact, asking me to reveal my inner maturiosity, of which I have got bloody bucketfuls as it happens. And he is requesting me to put away my inner fool. That is what I think.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

What does she mean, “Hmmmmmmmmmmm”?

Midnight “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm” does not mean “Yes yes, I agree with you.”

It means “Hmmmmmmmmmmm”.

Anyway she can “hmmmm” away. I am going to start my campaign of maturiosity tomorrow.