Читать книгу ‘Stop in the name of pants!’ - Louise Rennison - Страница 22

And I didn’t even know which way the tent was.

The trees looked scary and there was all sorts of snuffling going on. Maybe it was rogue pigs. Pigs who had had enough of the farm life, fed up with just bits of old potato peelings to eat and nowhere to poo in privacy. Maybe these ones wanted a change of menu and had made a bid for freedom by scaling the pigpen fence late at night. Or perhaps they were like the prisoners of war in that old film that Vati’s always rambling on about. The Great Escape. When the prisoners dug a tunnel under the prison fence.

That’s what these pigs must have done. Tunnelled out of the farm to freedom.

There was more snuffling.

Yes, but now they were hungry. Runaways from the farm just waiting to pounce on some food. If they found me, they would think of me like I thought of them. As some chops. Some chops in a skirt. In sopping knickers in my case. Out here in the Wild Woods the trotter was on the other foot.

I could climb up a tree.

Could they climb trees?

Could I climb trees?

Oh God, not death by pig!!!

The scuffling got nearer and then a little black thing scampered out of the undergrowth. It was a vole. How much noise can one stupid little mousey thing make? A LOT is the answer.

I should make friends with it really, because with my luck I will be kidnapped by voles and raised as one of their own. On the plus side, I would never have to face the shame of my red-bottomosity, just spend my years digging and licking my fur and being all aloney on my owney.

Like I am now.

Dave appeared out of the darkness in front of me. I ran over to him and burst into tears. He put his arm around me.

“OK, Kittykat, I’m sorry. Come on, it’s all right. Stop blubbing. Your nose will get all swollen up and you’ll collapse under the weight of your nungas and I can’t carry all of you home.”

It was nice in the forest now. I could see the moon through the trees. And my hiccups had almost gone. As we walked along he smiled at me and stroked my hair. Oooh, he was nice.

He said, “We haven’t done this luuurve business before, so we are bound to be crap at it. I do feel bad about Emma, but that is not your fault. That is my fault. We can put away our Horns and be matey-type mates again. Come on. Cheer up. Be nasty to me again, it’s more normal. I like you and I always have and I always will.”

I sniffed a bit and gave him a brave, quivering but attractive smile. I kept my nostrils fully under control so that they didn’t spread all over my face. As we walked along I could hear little squelching noises coming from the knicker department. With a bit of luck you couldn’t hear it above the noise of rustling voles (also known as my nearly adopted family).

Dave said, “Is that your pants squelching, Gee? You should change them when we get back. You don’t want to get pneumonia of the bum-oley on top of everything else.”

We walked back through the trees in the light of the jolly old big shiny yellow thing, and no, I do not mean an illuminated banana had just appeared, although that would have been good.

Then everything went horrible again; there were some hideous noises coming from the left of us…

“Tom, Tom. over here. I think I’ve found an owl dropping.”

Oh brilliant – Jas, Wild Woman of the Forest, was in the vicinity. Dave took his arm away from my shoulder. I looked up at him, he looked down at me and bent over and kissed me on the mouth really gently.

“Ah well, the end of the line, Kittykat. You go off with your Italian lesbian boyfriend and see how it goes and I’ll try and be a good mate to you. Don’t tell me too much about you and him because I won’t like it – but other than that, let’s keep the accidental outburst of red-bottomosity to ourselves.”

I smiled at him. “Dave, I…”

“Yes?”

“I think I can feel something moving in my undercrackers.”