‘It’s OK, I’m wearing really big knickers!’
Louise Rennison
Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison’s second book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Louise is an international bestselling author and her books can’t fail to make you laugh out loud.What is the matter with my life? Why is it so deeply unfab?• It's a day and a half now since I snogged the Sex God…• I think I have snog withdrawal. My lips keep puckering up…• I tried snogging the back of my hand, but it's no good…• It's been over a week. I wonder if it's my nose…• I have a HUGE nose that means I have to live for ever in the Ugly Home.
Copyright (#ulink_c395d695-64db-500c-bcb1-f8db726d29dd)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollins Children’s Books a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Find out more about Georgia at
www.georgianicolson.com (http://www.georgianicolson.com)
Copyright © Louise Rennison 2000
First published in Great Britain by Piccadilly Press Ltd, 2000
Published by Scholastic Ltd, 2001
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2005
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007218684
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007405763
Version: 2018-12-04
To my dear family: Mutti, Vati, Sophie, Libbs, Hons, Eduardo Delfonso Delgardo, John S, Apee, Francesbirginia and especially Kimbo. Thanks you all for not killing me yet.
Also dedicated to my mates: Salty Dog, Jools, Jedbox, Badger, Elton, Jimjams, Jenks, Phil, Bobbins, Lozzer, the Mogul, Fanny, Dear GeH. MSH, Porky, Morgan, Alan D, Liz G, Tony G, Psychic Sue, Roge the Doge and Barbara D and the Ace Crew from school, Kim and Cock of the North xxxxxx.
An especial thank you to John, the Pope. Where would I have been without your wise advice– “Stop making such a fuss and just get on with it, you silly girl!”?
Heartfelt thanks and sympathy to Brenda, Jude, Emma and all the very fab people at Piccadilly.
And of course to Gillon and Clare– HURRAH!!
Contents
Cover Page (#ua225d718-d9bc-5866-b4bc-3f435797394d)
Title Page (#u12cc19ec-9ac0-5e22-99fa-b271de84d69a)
Copyright (#ucc7f9017-19ff-53de-b6fa-adc3f15a2df7)
The Sex God has landed…and, er, taken off again (#ud045479d-bfce-5a31-a8dc-949cef7875b6)
Snogging withdrawal (#litres_trial_promo)
Operation elastic band (#litres_trial_promo)
Giganticus pantibus (#litres_trial_promo)
Georgia’s Glossary (#litres_trial_promo)
Preview (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson: (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
The Sex God has landed…and, er, taken off again (#ulink_7ce645c4-3085-52ae-8b77-ef27130646f2)
Sunday July 18th
My room
6:00 p.m.
Staring out of my bedroom window at other people having a nice life.
Who would have thought things could be so unbelievably pooey? I’m only fourteen and my life is over because of the selfishosity of so-called grown-ups. I said to Mum, “You are ruining my life. Just because yours is practically over there is no reason to take it out on me.”
But as usual when I say something sensible and meaningful she just tutted and adjusted her bra like a Russian roulette player. (Or do I mean disco thrower? I don’t know and, what’s more, I don’t care.) If I counted up the number of times I’ve been tutted at…I could open a tutting shop. It’s just SO not fair…How can my parents take me away from my mates and make me go to New Zealand? Who goes to New Zealand?
In the end, when I pointed out how utterly useless as a mum she was, she lost her rag and SHOUTED at me.
“Go to your room right now!”
I said, “All right, I’ll go to my ROOM!! I WILL go to my room!! And do you know what I’ll be doing in my room? No you don’t, so I’ll tell you! I’ll be just BEING in my room. That’s all. Because there is nothing else to do!!!!!!”
Then I just slammed off. Left her there. To think about what she has done.
Unfortunately it means that I am in my bed and it is only six o’clock.
7:00 p.m.
Oh Robbie, where are you now? Well, I know where you are now actually, but is this any time to go away on a footie trip?
On the bright side I am now the girlfriend of a Sex God.
7:15 p.m.
On the dark side, the Sex God doesn’t know his new girlfriend is going to be forced to go to the other (useless) side of the universe in a week’s time.
7:18 p.m.
I can’t believe that after all the time it has taken to trap the SG, all the make-up I have had to buy, the trailing about, popping up unexpectedly when he was out anywhere…all the planning…all the dreaming– it’s gone to waste. I finally get him to snog me (number six) and he says, “Let’s see each other but keep it quiet for a bit.” And at that moment, with classic poo timing, Mutti says, “We’re off to New Zealand next week.”
My eyes are all swollen up like mice eyes from crying. Even my nose is swollen. It’s not small at the best of times, but now it looks like I’ve got three cheeks. Marvellous. Thank you, God.
9:00 p.m.
I’ll never get over this.
9:10 p.m.
Time goes very slowly when you are suicidal.
9:15 p.m.
I put sunglasses on to hide my tiny mincers. They are new ones that Mum bought me in a pathetic attempt to interest me in going to Kiwi-a-gogo land. They looked quite cool, actually. I looked a bit like one of those French actresses who smoke Gauloise and cry a lot in between snogging Gerard Depardieu. I tried a husky French accent in the mirror.
“And zen when I was, how you say? Une teen-ager, mes parents, mes treès, treès horriblement parents, take me to Nouvelle Zelande. Ahh merde!”
At which point I heard Mum coming up the stairs and had to leap into bed. She popped her head round the door and said, “Georgie…are you asleep?”
I didn’t say anything. That would teach her.
As she left she said, “I wouldn’t sleep in the sunglasses if I were you, they might get embedded in your head.”
What kind of parenting was that? Mum’s medical knowledge was about as good as Dad’s DIY. And we had all seen his idea of a shed. Before it fell down on Uncle Eddie.
Eventually I was drifting off into a tragic snooze when I heard shouting coming from next door’s garden. Mr and Mrs Next Door were out there, banging and shouting and throwing things about. Is this really the time for noisy gardening? They have no consideration for those who might want to sleep because they have tragedy in their life. I felt like opening the window and shouting, “Garden more quietly, you loons!”
But then I couldn’t be bothered getting out of my snuggly bed of pain.
Police raid
Mucho excitemondo
12:10 a.m.
When the doorbell rang I shot out of bed and looked down the stairs. Mum had opened the door wearing a nightdress that you could quite easily see through! Even if you didn’t want to. Which I didn’t. She has no pride. There were a couple of policemen standing at the door. The bigger one was holding a sack up in front of him at arm’s length and his trousers were shredded round the ankles.
“Is this your bloody cat?” he enquired, not very politely for a public servant.
Mum said, “Well, I…er.”
I ran down the stairs and went to the door.
“Good evening, constable. This cat, is it about the size of a small Labrador?”
He said, “Yes.”
I nodded encouragingly and went on. “And has it got tabby fur and a bit of its ear missing?”
PC Plod said, “Er…yes.”
And I said, “No, it’s not him then, sorry.”
Which I thought was very funny indeed. The policeman didn’t.
“This is a serious business, young lady.”
Mum was doing her tutting thing again, and combining it with head shaking and basooma adjusting. Deeply unattractive. I thought the policeman might be distracted by her and say, “Go and put some clothes on, madam,” but he didn’t, he just kept going on at me.
“This thing has had your neighbours penned up in their greenhouse for an hour. They managed to dash into the house eventually but then it rounded up their poodles.”
“Yes, he does that. He is half Scottish wildcat. He hears the call of the wilds sometimes and then he…”
“You should keep better control of it.”
He went moaning on in a police many way for hours and hours. I said, as patiently as I could, although I had enough things to think about as it was, “Look, I’m being made to go to Whangamata by my parents. It is at the other, more useless, side of the universe. It is in New Zealand. Have you seen Neighbours? Is there nothing you can do for me?”
My mum gave me her worst look and said, “Don’t start, Georgia, I’m not in the mood.”
The policeman didn’t seem “in the mood” either. He said, “This is a serious warning. You keep this thing under control otherwise we will be forced to take sterner measures.”
Mum was hopeless as per usual. She started smiling and fiddling with her hair.
“I’m really sorry to have troubled you, inspector. Would you like to come in and have a nightcap or something?”
It was so EMBARRASSING. He probably thought we ran a brothel in our spare time. The “inspector” was all smiling and he said, “That’s very kind of you, madam, but we have to get on. Protecting the public from vicious criminals, dangerous moggies, and so on.”
I didn’t say anything as I took the wiggling sack, I just looked ironically at his chewed trousers.
Mum went BERSERK about Angus. She said, “He’ll have to go.”
I said, “Oh yes, perfect, just take everything that I love and destroy it. Just think of your own self and make me go halfway round the universe and lose the only boy I love. You can’t just leave Sex Gods, you know, they have to be kept under constant surveillance and…”
She had gone into her bedroom.
Angus strolled out of the bag and strutted around the kitchen looking for a snack. He was purring like two tanks. Libby wandered in all sleepy with her blankin’. Her night-time nappy was bulging round her knees. The last thing I needed was a poo explosion at this time of night so I said, “Go tell Mummy about your pooey nap-naps, Libby.”
But she just said, “Shhh, bad boy,” and went over to Angus. She kissed him on the nose and then sucked it before she dragged him off to bed.
I don’t know why he lets her do anything she likes with him. He almost had my hand off the other day when I tried to take his plate away and he hadn’t quite finished.
Monday July 19th
11:00 a.m.
I am feeling sheer desperadoes. It’s a day and a half now since I snogged the Sex God. I think I have snog withdrawal. My lips keep puckering up.
I HAVE to find a way of not going to Kiwi-a-gogo land. I went on hunger-strike this morning. Well, apart from a Jammy Dodger.
2:00 p.m.
Phone rang.
Mum yelled up at me, “Gee, will you get that, love? I’m in the bath.”
I yelled back, “You can wash the outside clean, but you can’t wash the inside!”
She yelled again, “Georgia!!!”
Dragged myself up from my bed of pain and went all the way downstairs and picked up the phone.
“I said, “Hello, Heartbreak Hotel here,” and all I could hear was just crackle, crackle, surf, swish, swish. So I shouted really loudly, “HELLO, HELLO, HELLO!!!!” and this faraway voice said, “Bloody hell!”
It was my father, or Vati as I call him. Phoning from New Zealand. He was, as usual, in a bad mood for no reason.
“Why did you shout down the phone? My ears are all ringing now.”
I said, reasonably enough, “Because you didn’t say anything.”
“I did, I said hello.”
“Well I didn’t hear you.”
“Well you can’t have been listening properly.”
“How can I not listen properly when I am answering the phone?”
“I don’t know, but if anyone can manage it, you can.”
Oh, play the old record again, it’s always me that does things wrong. I said, “Mum’s in the bath.”
He said, “Just a minute, don’t you want to know how I am?”
“Er, let me guess…funny moustache, bit bulky round the bottom department?”
“Don’t be so bloody cheeky! Get your mum. I give up on you. I don’t know what you learn at that school besides how to put on lipstick and be cheeky.”
I put the phone down because he can grumble on like that for centuries if you let him. I shouted, “Mutti, there is a man on the phone. He claims to be my dear vati but I don’t think he is because he was quite surly with me.”
Mum came out of the bathroom with her hair all wet and dripping and in just a bra and pants. She really has got the most gigantic basoomas, I’m surprised she doesn’t topple over. Good Lord.
I said, “I am at a very impressionable age, you know.”
She just gave me her worst look and grabbed the phone. As I went through the door I could hear her saying, “Hello, darling. What? I know. Oh I know. You needn’t tell me that…I have her all the time. It’s a nightmare.”
That’s nice talk, isn’t it?
As I point out to anyone who will listen (i.e. no one), I didn’t ask to be born. I am only here because she and Vati…urgh…anyway, I won’t go down that road.
My room
2:10 p.m.
I could hear her rambling on to Dad, going, “Hmmm– well I know. Bob…I know…Uh huh…I KNOW…I know. Yes, I know…”
In the name of pantyhose, what are grown-ups like? I shouted down to her, “Break the news to him gently that I’m definitely not in a TRILLION years coming.”
He must have heard me because even upstairs I could hear muffled shouting from down the other end of the phone. I wasn’t amazed by the shouting as my vati is prone to violence. Once I poured aftershave into his lager and lime when he was out of the room. For a merry joke. But he didn’t get the joke. When he stopped choking he went all ballisticisimus and shouted, “You complete IDIOT!!!” really loudly at me. It’s the kind of thing that will cost me hundreds of pounds in therapy fees in later life. (Should I have a life, which I don’t.)
2:30 p.m.
Playing sad songs in my bedroom, still in my jimjams.
Mutti came into my room and said, “Can I come in?”
I said, “No.”
But that didn’t put her off.
She came and sat on the edge of my bed and put her hand on my foot. I said, “Owww!!!”
She said, “Look, love, I know this is all a bit complicated, especially at your age, but this is a really big opportunity for us. Your dad thinks he has a real chance to make something of himself over in Whangamata.”
I said, “what’s wrong with the way he is now? Quite a few people like fat blokes with ridiculous moustaches. You do.”
She came on all parenty then. “Georgia, don’t think that rudeness is funny because it isn’t.”
“It can be.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Well you laughed when Libby called Mr Next Door’nice tosser’.”
“Well Libby is only three and she thinks that tosser is like Bill or Dad or something. Can’t you see this trip as an exciting adventure?”
“What, like when you are on your way to school and then suddenly you get run over by a bus and have to go to hospital, or something?”
“Yes, like when…NO!! Come on, Georgie, try to be a pal, just for me.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You know that your dad can’t get a job here. What else is he supposed to do? He’s only trying to look after us all.”
After a bit she sighed and went out.
Life is treès merde and double bum. Why doesn’t Mutti understand I can’t leave now? She can be ludicrously dim. It’s not her that I get my intelligence from. It is certainly no thanks to her that I came top in…er…well anyway, it’s nothing to do with her what I do. I am just the unfortunate recipient of some of her genes. The orang-utan eyebrow gene, for instance. She has to do a lot of plucking to keep her eyebrows apart and she has selfishly passed it on to me. Since I shaved mine off by mistake last term they seem to have gone even more haywire and akimbo. The shaving has encouraged them to grow about a metre a week. If I left them alone I’d be blind by October. Jas has got ordinary eyebrows, why can’t I?
Also, while I am on the subject, the worst news of all is that I think I have inherited her breast genes. My basoomas are definitely growing. I am very worried that I may end up with huge breasts like hers. Everyone notices hers.
Once, when we were on the ferry to France, Dad said to Mum, “Don’t stand too near to the edge, Connie, otherwise your chest might be declared a danger to shipping.”
5:00 p.m.
I’ve just had a flash of whatsit!! It’s so obvious, I am indeed a genius! Simple pimple. I’ll just tell Mum that I’ll stay behind and…LOOK AFTER THE HOUSE!! The house can’t just be left empty for months because…er…squatters might come in and take it over. Anarchists who will paint everything black, including, probably, Mr and Mrs Next Door’s poodles. They’ll be begging for Angus to come back.
Excellent, brilliant fabulosa idea!! Mum will definitely see the sense of it.
I’ll promise to be really mature and grown-up and responsible. I mainly want to stay in England because of the terrifically good education system. That is how I will sell it to Mutti.
“Mutti,” I will say, “this is a crucial time in my schooldays. I think I may be picked for the hockey team.”
Thank goodness I didn’t bother Mum with my school report from last term. I saved her the trouble of reading it by signing it myself.
5:05 p.m.
You would think that Hawkeye could think of something more imaginative to write than, Hopelessly childish attitude in class. Just because she caught me doing my (excellent) impression of a lockjaw germ.
5:10 p.m.
I could have groovy parties that everyone would really want to come to. I’m going to make a list of all the people I will ask to the parties:
First– Sex Gods
Robbie…er, that’s it.
Second– the Ace Crew
Rosie, Jools, Ellen and, I suppose, Jas if she pulls her pants up and makes a bit more effort with me. She has been a bit of a Slack Alice on the pal front since she got Tom.
Third– close casuals
Mabs, Sarah, Abbie, Phebes, Hattie, Bella…people I like for a laugh but wouldn’t necessarily lend my mum’s leather jacket to…then acquaintances and fanciable brothers.
5:20 p.m.
I may even allow crap dancers like Sven to come if they have pleasing or amusing personalities (and gifts).
5:23 p.m.
I tell you who I won’t be asking– Nauseating P. Green, that’s who. She is definitely banned. If I am made to sit next to her again next term I will definitely kill myself. Why is she so boring? She does it deliberately to annoy me. She breeds hamsters. What is the matter with her?
Who else will be on the exclusion list? Wet Lindsay, Robbie’s ex. It would be cruel to invite her and let her see Robbie and me being so happy and snogging in front of her, etc. Also she would kill me and that would spoil the party atmosphere.
Who else? Oh, I know, Jackie and Alison, otherwise known as the Bummer Twins. They can’t come because they are too common.
9:10 p.m.
Looking out of my window. I can see Mark, the boy with the biggest gob in the universe, going off to town with his mates. People are out there having fun. I hate that. I haven’t got any real friends– as soon as a boy comes along they just forget about me, it’s pathetic.
I could never be that shallow.
I wonder if the Sex God is having second thoughts about me because of my nose?
9:15 p.m.
Jas phoned. Tearing herself away from Tom for a second. She said, “Have you told her you are not going, yet?”
“No, I try but she takes no notice. I told her that it is a very important time for me as I am fourteen and poised on the brink of womanhood.”
“On the what?”
Jas can be like half girl, half turnip. I said, “Do you remember what our revered headmistress, Slim, said at the end of summer term? She said, ‘Girls, you are poised on the brink of womanhood, which is why I want to see no more false freckles painted on noses. It is silly and it isn’t funny or dignified.’”
“False freckles are funny.”
“I know.”
“Well why would Slim say they weren’t?”
“Jas.”
“What?”
“Shut up now.”
9:30 p.m.
I’ve got Libby, her scuba-diving Barbie doll, which has arms like steel forks, and her Thomas the Tank Engine, all in my bed. It’s like sleeping in a toy box only not so comfortable. Plus Libby has been making me play Eskimo kissing; it has made my nose really sore. I said, “Libby, that’s enough Eskimo now,” but she just said, “Kwigglkwoggleugug,” which I suppose she thinks is Eskimo.
What is the matter with my life? Why is it so deeply unfab?
10:00 p.m.
Looking at the sky outside my window and all the stars. I thought of all the people in history and so on who have been sad and have asked God for help. I fell to my knees (which was a bit painful as I landed on a plate of jam sandwiches I had left by my bed). Through my tears I prayed, “Please, God, let the phone ring and let it be Robbie. I promise I will go to church all the time if he rings. Thank you.”
Midnight
So much for Our Vati in Heaven. What on earth is the point of asking God for something if you don’t get it?
Decided to buy a Buddha tomorrow.
1:00 a.m.
As time is short it might be all right to ask Buddha for something before I actually invest in a statue of him.
I don’t really know how to speak to Buddha. I hope he understands English. I expect, like most deities, it’s more a sort of reading your thoughts job.
1:30 a.m.
Because I haven’t been a practising Buddhist for long (half an hour) I’ll restrict my requests to the essentials.
Which are:
1. When I suggest to Mum that she leaves me behind to look after the house, she says, “Of course, my darling.”
2. The SG rings.
1:35 a.m.
I’ll just leave it at that. I won’t go into the nose business (less of it and more sticky up) or breast reduction requests, otherwise I will be here all night and Buddha may think I am a cheeky new Buddhist and that I’m only believing to get things.
Tuesday July 20th
10:00 a.m.
My room…soon to be a shrine to Buddha. Unless God gets his act together. Birds tweeting like birds at a bird party. Lovely sunny day. For some. I can see the sunshine glancing off Mr Next Door’s bald head. He’s playing with his stupid yappy little squirt dogs. Just a minute, I’ve spotted Angus hanging about in the potting shed area. Uh-oh, he looks a bit on the peckish side, like he fancies a poodle sandwich. I’d better go waggle a sausage at him and thereby avert a police incident.
How in the name of Mr Next Door’s gigantic shorts am I supposed to be a Buddhist with these constant interruptions? I bet the Dalai Lama hasn’t got a cat. Or a dad in New Zealand. (I wonder if the Dalai Lama’s father is called the Daddy Lama?…I amaze myself sometimes because even though my life is a facsimile of a sham I can still laugh and joke!!)
10:36 a.m.
What is the point? Mum just laughed when I told her about looking after the house and told me to go and pack.
Midday
Even though it is quite obvious I am really depressed and in bed Mum comes poking around being all efficient and acting as if life is not a tragedy of a sham (which it is). She made me get up and show her what I had packed for Whangamata. She went ballisticisimus. “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, eyelash curlers, two bikinis and a cardigan?!”
“Well I won’t be going out anywhere as I don’t like sheep and my heart is broken.”
“But you might wear your bikini?”
“I’ve only packed that for health reasons.”
“What health reasons?”
“Well, if I can’t eat anything because of my heartache, the sun’s rays may keep me from getting rickets. We did it in biology.”
“It’s winter over there.”
“Typical.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
That’s when all the pain came raging out of me. “I’m being ridiculous!!??? I’m being ridiculous??? I’m not the one who is dragging someone off to the other side of the world for NO good reason!!”
She went all red. “No good reason?! It’s to see your dad!”
“I rest my case.”
“Georgia, you are being horrible!” And she stormed off.
I feel a bit like crying. It’s not my fault if I am horrible. I am under pressure. Why can’t Dad be here? Then I could be horrible to him without feeling so horrible. (And without having to go to the other side of the planet. Most teenagers only have to go into the sitting room to be horrible to their dads.)
It’s not easy having an absent dad, that’s what people don’t realise. I am effectively (apart from my mum and grandparents and my crap cousin James, etc.) an orphan.
1:00 p.m.
Libby crept into my room carrying a saucer of milk really carefully. She was on her tippy toes and purring. I said, “You are nice, Libbs. Just put it down; Angus is out hunting.”
She very slowly and on tippy toes brought the saucer over to me and put it on my desk. She put her little hands on my head and started stroking my hair. My eyes filled up with tears. I said, “If I can’t be happy in my life I can try and see that you have a nice life, Libbs. I will give up all thoughts of happiness myself and be like your Buddhist nurse. For your sake I will wear flat shoes and those really horrible orange robes and…”
Then Libby started pushing my head quite roughly down towards the saucer of milk. “C’mon, Ginger, come on. Milky pops.”
She’ll make me sleep in a cat basket soon. Honestly, I think it’s about time she started kindergarten and mixed with normal children.
It takes twenty-four hours to fly to New Zealand.
6:00 p.m.
Uncle Eddie roared up on his pre-war motorbike. He’s come round to collect Angus. How can I live without the huge furry fool? How can he live without me? No one else knows his special little ways. Who else will know that he likes you to trail his sausages around on a string so that he can pounce on them from behind the curtains? Who else will know about mouse racing? Not Uncle Eddie, that’s for sure. He truly does come from Planet Bonkers. He came in wearing his motorbike leathers, took off his helmet and said, “How’re you diddling?”
What is the matter with him? Why Mum thinks anyone as bald and barmy as him could look after an animal I don’t know. Anyway, it’s irrelevant what anyone thinks as he will never in a zillion years catch Angus and get him in a basket.
6:30 p.m.
I don’t think I could be more sad. We are going to be away for months. I will miss all my friends; I’ll lose the SG. My hockey career will be in ruins. Everyone knows the Maoris don’t play hockey. They play…er…anyway, we haven’t done New Zealand in geoggers yet, so I don’t know what they do. Who cares?
6:35 p.m.
Time ticking away. It’s like waiting to be buried, I should think. Or being in RE.
Phoned Jas. I wanted to know if Tom had heard anything from his gorgeous older brother, the Sex God, but I didn’t want to let Jas know that I wasn’t interested in her life. So I asked her a few questions about her “boyfriend” first.
“Hi, Jas, how are you and Tom getting along?”
She went all girlish and giggly. “Well, do you know, we were just laughing so much because Tom said that he was in the shop the other day and—”
“Jas, did he mention anything, you know, interesting?”
“Oh yeah, loads.”
There was a pause– she drives me INSANE!
I said, “Like what?”
“Well, he was thinking of suggesting that they start selling more dairy products in their shop, because—”
“No, no, Jas I said interesting– not really, really boring. Has he, for instance, mentioned his gorgey older brother?”
Jas was a bit huffy but she said, “Hang on a minute.” Then I heard her shouting, “Tom! Have you spoken to Robbie?”
In the distance I heard Tom shouting, “No, he’s gone away on a footie trip.”
I said to Jas, “I know that.”
Jas shouted again, “She knows that.”
Tom shouted, “Who knows that?”
“Georgia.”
Then I heard Jas’s mum shouting from somewhere, “Why does Georgia want to know about Robbie? Isn’t she off to New Zealand?”
Jas shouted, “Yes, she is. But she’s desperate to see him before she goes.”
I said to Jas urgently, “Jas, Jas, I wanted to find out when he’s back, I didn’t want to discuss it with your street.”
Jas went all huffy. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Well don’t.”
“Well I won’t, then.”
“Good.”
There was a silence. “Jas?”
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not helping.”
I’m going to have to kill her.
“Ask Tom when Robbie is due back.”
“Huh. I don’t see why I should, but I will.”
She shouted out again, “Tom, when is Robbie back?”
Jas’s mum yelled, “I thought he was going out with Lindsay?”
Tom yelled back, “He was, but then Georgia and him got together instead.”
Jas’s mum said, “Well, Lindsay will be very upset.”
This was UNBELIEVABLE.
Tom yelled back again, “Tell Georgia he’s not back again until late Monday.”
Next Monday! Next Monday. By that time I would be being bored half to death by Maoris. I tried to be brave so that I wouldn’t upset Jas. “I know I can joke about it and everything, but I have fancied Robbie for so long. And it’s not just because he is in The Stiff Dylans. You know that. It’s a whole year since I started stalking him. It was so groovy when he kissed me, I thought I would go completely jelloid and start dribbling. Luckily I didn’t. And I think he will forget about that chunk of my hair snapping off, don’t you?”
There was this clanking noise and then Jas said, with her mouth full, “Hello? Hello? What were you saying? I just went and got myself a sandwich while Tom was shouting at you.”
Qu’est ce que le point?
7:30 p.m.
I can’t believe Jas. She is dead to me. Like in the Bible, when somebody goes off and becomes a prostitute or something. She is now the girl who has no name.
9:00 p.m.
Phone rang. I leaped downstairs.
It was Rosie, Ellen, Jools and She Who Has No Name (Jas) calling me from the phone box at the end of our road. Rosie said in a fake Chinese accent, “Bringey selfey to phone boxey.”
I put on some mascara and lippy so that no one would know about my broken heart. Not that it made the slightest difference to Mutti and Uncle Eddie– they were too busy trying to trap Angus.
He’s lurking on top of my wardrobe. I know he’s got a few snacks with him because he dropped a piece of mackerel on my head when I passed. He’ll be happy up there for hours. Serve them right if they can’t find him. Catnappers!
I don’t want to be rude to the afflicted but Uncle Eddie is bald in a way which is the baldest I have ever seen. He looks like a boiled egg in leather trousers. Once he came round and after he and Mum had had their usual vat of wine he fell asleep in the back garden face down. So I drew another face on the back of his head. Very, very funny indeed, especially as I did it in indelible pen. He got his own back, though, by turning up to a school dance on his pre-war motorbike and asking all my mates where I was because he was my new boyfriend.
Still, that is life for you…one minute you are snogging a Sex God and have got up to number six on the snogging scale without crashing teeth. The next minute you are made to go to the other side of the world and hang out with Kiwi-a-gogos. Whose idea of a great time is to sit in mud pools and eat toasted maggots. (This is very, very true as I have been reading a brochure about Kiwi-a-gogo land and it says it in there.) Oh pig’s bum!! Or as our tiny French friends say, Le gran bum de le porker!!!
9:30 p.m.
When I got to the phone box the gang were all in there. They squeezed open the door and Jools said, “Bonsoir, ma petite nincompoop.”
Once I was in we were all squashed up like sardines at a fish party. Rosie managed to get a hand free and give me one of those photobooth photographs.
“We brought you a present to remember us by.”
It was a picture of her, Jools, Ellen and Jas (She Who Has No Name), only they had their noses stuck back at the tip with Sellotape so that it made them look like pigs with hair.
On the back it said, GRUNTINGS from your mates. STY in touch. This is a PIGTURE to remember us by.
It made me a bit tearful, but I put on a brave face. “Cheers, thanks a lot. Goodnight.”
We had to get out of the telephone box because Mark (the boy from up the road with the enormous gob who I went out with for a fortnight but dumped me because this other girl Ella let him “do things to her”) came to use the phone. He just looked at us as we all struggled out. He really has got the biggest mouth I have ever seen. I was lucky to escape from snogging him with my face still in one piece.
BG (Big Gob) said, “All right?” in a way which meant, “All right, you lesbians?”
What do I care, though? My life is over anyway.
We all walked back to my house arm in arm. I wouldn’t link up with Jas though because she has annoyed me. Uncle Eddie must have eventually got Angus into the cat basket because the gardening gloves he was wearing were lying in the driveway with the thumbs torn off.
We all hugged and cried. It was awful. I’d nearly got to the door when Jas sort of threw herself at me. She couldn’t speak because she was crying so much and she said, “Georgia, nothing will be the same without you…I…I love you. I’m sorry I ate my sandwich.”
Wednesday July 21st
Dawn– well, 10:00 a.m.
Phoned my dearest friend Jas who loves me. Huh.
Now that she thinks she has got a “proper” boyfriend she acts like she is one hundred and eighty.
“Look, Gee-gee, I can’t talk really because I am on the dash to meet Tom. Dig you later, though. Ciao for now.”
…Ciao for now? I wonder if she has finally snapped? Nobody really cares about me. No one wants you when you are in trouble; no one is interested when you are not the life and soul of the party. I may have to try to make it up with God again at this rate.
2:30 p.m.
I don’t care what happens. I am not going to New Zealand. Not. Definitely. They will have to carry me on to the plane. Or give me knock-out drugs.
That is it. I am not going.
3:00 p.m.
I am not speaking to Mum but as she has gone out shopping (again) she probably hasn’t noticed.
3:19 p.m.
Sitting by the phone and using telepathy to make it ring. I’ve read about it a lot– it’s where you use your willpower to make something happen. In my head I was saying, “Ring, phone!” and “The phone will ring and it will be Robbie…by the time I count to ten.”
3:21 p.m.
“OK, the phone will ring and it will be Robbie by the time I count to a hundred…”
3:30 p.m.
“…in French. By the time I count to one hundred in French the phone will ring and it will be SG.” (God, or whoever it is that deals with willpower, will respect that I am making a bloody huge effort by counting in a foreign language.)
Everything really is sheer desperadoes and in tins. In two days’ time I will be on the other side of the world and the Sex God will be on this side of the world. And, what is more, I will be a day ahead of him. And upside down.
3:39 p.m.
I’ve got an appalling headache now.
While we are on the subject of French, why in the name of Louise the Fourteenth did Madame Slack (honestly– that is her name) make us learn a song called “Mon Merle a Perdu une Plume’?
My blackbird has lost a feather. That will be a great boon and help if I ever get to go to Paris. I won’t be able to get a sandwich for love nor money but I will be able to chat to le French about my blackbird’s feathers. Not that I have got a blackbird and, if I did have one, believe me it wouldn’t be just the one feather it would lose with Angus around. Not that he is around.
I really miss him already. He is the best cat anyone ever had. I can still imagine his furry head snuggled up in my bed. Bits of feather round his mouth. The way he used to bring me little presents. A vole, or a bit of poodle ear or something.
3:41 p.m.
How do you say my blackbird has had its legs chewed off by my cat? Mon merle a perdu les jambes…
Phone rang
3:45 p.m.
Thank goodness, because I thought I was going to have to count up to a hundred in German and nobody wants that. (And besides, I can’t.)
“It’s me, Jas.”
“Oh…What do YOU want?”
“I’ve just called to see how you are.”
I said, “Dead actually, I died a few hours ago. Goodbye.”
That will teach her. I’m not going to answer the phone if she rings back, either.
5:00 p.m.
She didn’t ring back. Typical.
My room.
In bed
10:30 p.m.
Mum and Libby came back in. When they popped their heads round my door I pretended to be asleep. Libby crept over quietly– well, her idea of creeping quietly, which is the loudest thing I have ever heard.
Mum whispered, “Give your big sister a kiss, Libbs, because she’s upset.”
Then I felt this wet thing sucking on the end of my nose. I shot up in bed. I said, “Does anyone else’s sister kiss like that? Why is she so obsessed with my nose?”
11:15 p.m.
After the nose-sucking incident I am as awake as two awake things. Just gazing out of my bedroom window into the dark night. When you gaze at the stars it makes you feel really small. We have been discussing infinity in Physics: you know, how there is no end to the universe, and so on. Herr Kamyer said there might even be a parallel universe to the one we live on somewhere out there. There might be another Georgia Nicolson sitting in her bedroom, thinking, What on earth is the point?
11:17 p.m.
Another Georgia Nicolson who is being forced to leave a Sex God and all her mates (and this does not include Jas). To go to the other side of the world. Double merde.
11:29 p.m.
I’ve just had a horrible thought. If there is a parallel me, there will be a parallel Wet Lindsay. And a parallel Nauseating P. Green. And two pairs of Mr Next Door’s shorts. Good grief.
Thursday July 22nd
Day before the last day of my life
Hunger protest
2:00 p.m.
Even though it is quite obvious even to the VERY dim that I am not eating. Mum hasn’t noticed. She said, “Do you want some oven chips and beans?”
And I said, “I will never eat again.”
She just said, “OK,” and tucked in with Libbs.
I had to creep into the kitchen and finish off the chips she had left.
4:00 p.m.
In my room. Practising feeling lonely and friendless in preparation for the months ahead.
4:05 p.m.
I haven’t heard from my so-called mates for days. Well, since this morning, anyway. I don’t need to practise. I AM lonely and friendless.
4:10 p.m.
I went into the front room to watch TV. Libby was snoozing but woke up when I sat down. She stood up on her little fat legs and put her arms up to me.
“I love my Georgie, I lobe my Georgie.”
She made it into a little song:
“Haha, I lobe my Georgie,
I love my little Girgie, Gingie, Gingie.
Hahahaha. Ginger, I love Ginger…my Ginger.”
In her tiny mad brain I am half cat, half sister. I picked her up and we snuggled down on the sofa together. At least I have someone who loves me in this family, even if she is bonkers.
Mum came in and said, “You look really sweet together. It only seems a little while ago that you were that size, Georgie. Dad and I used to take you to the park and you used to have a little hat with earflaps that were like cats’ paws. You were such a sweet little girl.”
Oh good Lord, here we go. It will be, “How did my little girl get so big…?”
Sure enough, Mum’s eyes got all watery and she started stroking my hair (very annoying) and doing the “How did my little Georgie get so…” routine.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on where you were sitting) Libby let off the smelliest, loudest fart known to humanity. It came out of her bum-oley with such force that she lifted off my knee– like a hovercraft. Even she looked surprised by what had come out of her.
I pushed her off my knee and leaped up. “Libby, that is disgusting!!!! I blame you, Mum, for the bean extravaganza. It’s not natural, the amount of stuff that comes out of such a little girl.”
Phwoaar…
Grandad farted once when we were out in the street. Really loudly. When he looked around behind him there was a woman walking her dachshund dog. You know, those little sausage dog things. The woman heard Grandad’s fart (who didn’t?) and she said, “Well, really!!”
And Grandad said, “I’m terribly sorry, madam, I seem to have shot the legs off your dog.” Which was possibly the last semi-sane thing he said. I’d still rather stay here with him than go to Kiwi-a-gogo.
I said to Mum, “Well, can I go and live with Grandad, then?”
And she said, “He lives in an old people’s home.”
And I said, “So?”
But she is so mad and unreasonable she wouldn’t even discuss it.
11:30 p.m.
All my mates came and did a candlelit vigil underneath my bedroom window. Sven wore a paper hat. I don’t know why. Does it matter? It was just his Swedish way of saying goodbye. They all sang “Mon Merle a Perdu une Plume” as a tribute. Well, they sang the first verse before Mr and Mrs Next Door came and complained that they were frightening their dogs. Jas said, “I’m going to stay silently here all night.”
But then Sven said, “Chips, now.” And they all went off.
It was so sad.
Friday July 23rd
The day the world ends
Midday
Decided to have to be dragged out of bed by the police so that the world will know how I have been treated. I have tied myself to the bedhead with my dressing-gown sleeves. I can imagine the newspaper headlines: Promising hockey superstar teenager fights attempts to force her to Kiwi-a-gogo land. I’ve put on a hint of make-up just in case, for the photos.
12:10 p.m.
Mum surprised me by bursting into my room all flushed like a pancake.
“Guess what?!!!! We’re not going to New Zealand because your dad is coming home!!!!!”
I said, “What?”
She was hugging me and didn’t seem to notice I was like a rigid hamster in bed.
I was a bit dazed. “Vati, home, coming?”
Great news!!!!!!!!
1:00 p.m.
My dad has had his shoes blown off by a rogue bore!!!!! All this hot steam shot out of something he was fixing and he leaped off and broke his foot. Mum has put her foot down with a firm hand and said she will not take her children to a place where steam shoots out of the ground.
She said to me, “It’s hard enough getting you to get out of bed as it is, I’m not giving you more excuses.” Which is incredibly unfair, but I didn’t say anything, because inside I was saying “Yessssss!!!!!!”
The only fly in the manger is that Vati is going to be coming home when his contract is finished. Still, if it is a choice of going to live in Kiwi-a-gogo land or having to put up with Vati snooping around my bedroom and telling me what it was like in the seventies, I suppose I will choose having the grumpy moustachioed one.
Mum is hideously happy. She won’t stop hugging me. Which I think is on the hypocritical side but I didn’t say anything. I just hugged her back and asked her quickly for a fiver. Which she gave me. Yesss!!!!
Beautiful English summer’s day. Lovely, lovely drizzly rain!!! We don’t have to go to Kiwi-a-gogo!!!
Thank you, God. I will always believe in you. I was only pretending to become a Buddhist.
3:00 p.m.
I put on some really loud music in my room and started to unpack my bikini. Lalalalala…fabbity fab fab. Marvy and double cool with knobs.
Uncle Eddie turned up with a bottle of champagne and Angus in a basket. I noticed Uncle Eddie had put a muzzle on him. What a week. Angus soon had it off and I could see him strolling around his domain. (The dustbins.) When I went downstairs Uncle Eddie had picked up Libby and was dancing around with her. She was singing, “Uncle Eggy, Uncle Eggy,” which is quite funny when you think about it.
4:20 p.m.
My little room. I love you, my little room!!! Lalalalalalala. Fabbity fab fab. Ho-di-hum. Everything is so lovely: my little Reeves and Mortimer poster with them in the nuddy-pants, my little desk, my little bed…my little window overlooking next door’s garden.
5:00 p.m.
Phoned the Ace Crew and they went mental. Just put the phone down when there was a ring on the doorbell. It was Mr Next Door. His glasses were on all sideways. He did not say, “I am so glad you are not going, Georgia.” In fact, he didn’t say anything but just handed over a sweeping brush and stomped off.
Attached to the bottom part of the brush was Angus. He dragged the brush into the kitchen. There was the sound of pots and pans and chairs crashing over. I called out, “Libbs, Angus is back.”
11:00 p.m.
Before I went up to bed I looked into the kitchen. Libbs was feeding Angus cat food by hand. Aaahhh, this was more like it!! Back to normal.
Saturday July 24th
11:00 a.m.
Summer. Birds tweeting. Voles voleing. Poodles poodling. I notice that we have new neighbours across the road. I hope they are a bit more considerate than Mr and Mrs Mad who used to live there.
Oh, they’ve got a cat! It looks like one of those pedigree Burmese ones, all leaping around. In a sort of fenced enclosure. They are very expensive, pedigree Burmese cats. They are the Naomi Campbells of the cat world. Not that they do a lot of modelling. Too furry. And not tall enough. Although they would be really good on the catwalk!!! Hahahahaha. Lalalalala. I think I am a comedy genius. Now if only the SG would phone and say, “I’m coming round now, oh gorgeous one. I didn’t realise how close I came to losing you. I am mesmerised by your beautosity.” Life would be beyond fab and entering the marvy zone.
Midday
Met Jas and we went to the park. I’ve got a spot on my chin but I’ve made it look like a beauty spot with an eyebrow pencil. With my shades on I look a bit like an Italian person. I think Jas was embarrassed about me not going to NZ after what she said. I am too considerate to mention it so I just said, “Do you really love me, Jas?”
She went all red.
As we strolled by the tennis courts we saw Melanie Griffiths sunbathing. I may have mentioned this before but she has got the largest breasts known to humanity. Some lads went by and went “Phwooar!”. One of them pretended to be juggling. Sometimes I feel that boys will always remain a mystery to me. I’ve felt that particularly since BG from up the road rested his hand on my basooma for no particular reason. Mel saw us looking so I said, “Oh, hi Mel!” sincerely.
She said, “Hi!” but I don’t think she meant it.
I said to Jas, “Where does she get her bras from? They must be made by those blokes who built the Forth Bridge, Ted and Mick Forth.” I just made that up; I don’t know what they were called.
We lay down on the grass to sunbathe and Jas said, “Do you think I should get a bra?”
I was thinking what I should wear when I saw Robbie again. I said, “Robbie hasn’t phone yet, you know.”
Jas was silent. I squinted round at her and she was sort of wobbling her shoulders around. I said, “What in the name of pantyhose are you doing?”
She said, “I’m seeing if my basoomas wobble.”
Jas can be spectacularly dim. I think that if I dressed Angus in her school uniform probably no one would notice for days. Unless they tried to take a snack away.
I said, “Do the pencil test. You put a pencil under a breast and if it falls out you are OK. If it stays there, sort of trapped by your basooma, you’re not and you should get help and support in the bra department.”
She was full-on, attention-wise, then. “Really?”
“Yeah. Sadly my mum can get a whole pencil case up there.”
Jas was rummaging about. “I’ve got a pencil in my rucky, I’m going to try it.”
“Jas, Tom hasn’t said anything about Robbie, has he?”
As per usual Jas had gone off into the twilight world in her head. She was fiddling about with a pencil up her T-shirt. She said, “Hahahahaha, it fell out!!! I passed, I passed…you try it.”
I wasn’t interested. “Why would SG snog me and say ‘see you later’ if he didn’t mean ‘see you later’? Do you think he’s worried about me being younger than him? Or do you think it’s my nose?”
You might as well be talking to a duck. Jas was shoving the pencil at me. “Go on, go on…you’re scared.”
“Try it, then.”
“No I’m not. I’m not frightened of a pencil.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake.”
I grabbed the pencil from her and pulled up my top and put the pencil underneath my right basooma. Actually it stuck there, but I jiggled a bit. I said, “Yeah, it falls out.”
Jas said, “You jiggled.”
“I did not.”
“You did. I saw you.”
“I didn’t. You’re a mad biscuit.”
“You did. Look, let me do it, I’ll show you.”
She grabbed the pencil and was trying to put it under my basooma when Jackie and Alison, the Bummer Twins, came round the corner of the tennis courts. Jackie removed the fag from her mouth long enough to say, “Well, well, well, our lezzo friends are out for an afternoon fondle.”
Oh no, here we go again with the lesbian rumours. That will be something to look forward to next term.
Monday July 26th
2:00 p.m.
Phew, what a scorcher!!! Sun shining, birds tweeting. Mr and Mrs Next Door in their garden. They are wearing shorts– again. Mr Next Door’s shorts really are gigantic in the bottom department. You’d think that out of courtesy to others he’d keep out of public view when he was wearing them. What if a very, very old person– even older than him– came along unexpectedly? And what if they weren’t in peak medical condition? The sight of Mr Next Door in his shorts could bring on a dangerous spasm. Still, that is another example of the bottomless (oo-er!) selfishosity of so-called grown-ups for you.
Teatime
4:50 p.m.
Fabulous day…not. Grandad came round. Even he was wearing shorts. As I said to Mum, “There is really no need for that.”
He is so bow-legged that Angus can walk in between his legs with a stick and Grandad doesn’t even notice. Mind you he doesn’t notice much as he lives in the twilight world of the elderly mad. After fiddling in his prehistoric shorts he gave me twenty pence and said, “There you are, don’t spend it all at once.” Then he laughed so much his false teeth shot out. He was wheezing away for so long I thought he’d choke to death and then I’d have to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. Miss Stamp (Sports Kommandant) made us learn it in First Aid. If someone swallows a boiled sweet or something and chokes, you grab them from behind and put your arms round below their breastbone. Then you squeeze them really hard until the sweet shoots out. Apparently some German bloke called Mr Heimlich made it up. Why Germans have to go round grabbing people innocently choking on sweets I don’t know. But they do. That is the mystery of the German people.
8:00 p.m.
Well, that is it. No call from the SG. He must be back. I can’t call him because I have pride. Well actually, I did phone him but there was no reply. I didn’t leave a message. I don’t understand boys. How could you do number six type snogging and then not call someone?
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