Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 04 (7 page)

“Oh no, we'll only get bad conduct marks immediately.”

“Yes, but think of the hilariosity of it.”

“But…”

“Jas, if you can't think of the hilariosity, think of the severe duffing you will get if you don't do it.”

monday january 10th

8:30 a.m.

Rendez-vous
ed at the bottom of the hill, where we all clipped on our glove ears under our berets and put on sunglasses. As we bobbled up the hill, Rosie was nearly going to the piddly-diddly department on the spot as she was laughing so much.

8:55 a.m.

Mabs did actually walk into a tree because she couldn't see through her sunglasses. Oh, how we laughed.

As we approached the school gate, we could see Hawkeye lurking. We tucked our ears up under our berets but kept our sunglasses on.

Hawkeye tutted and ferreted at us as we walked by. She said, “What is this nonsense?”

I said, “It's to prevent snow blindness, Mrs. Heaton.”

She said, “It's a pity there's no way to prevent stupidity.” Which I think is quite bad manners for someone who is teaching the youth of today, but I didn't say so.

tuesday january 11th

8:25 a.m.

Sex God back today AND the kittykats have opened their eyes!!! They are soooooo sweet and, as I explained to Jas, “Now they can see to fight properly.”

9:00 p.m.

Robbie came round to see me as soon as he got
back. How cool is that?

When he arrived at the door, Dad called me and then he and Mum spent about a million years raising their eyebrows and looking “wise.” And trying to be modern and to get on with the youth, which is ludicrous.

Vati started to talk about Kiwi-a-gogo land. I said, “Fancy going for a walk, Robbie? I'm a bit…er…hot.”

And Dad said, “It's pitch-black and about minus seven outside.” He was going to go on and on, but then I saw Mutti give him a look, a “modern, understanding mum look,” that said, Come on, Bob, remember when you were that age? Which is a physical impossibility for my dad. How very very embarrassing. Shut up, stop looking, shut up, shut up.

Vati said, “Be back by eleven.”

Oh, how sad and embarrassing.

Robbie took my hand and once we got away from our house into the dark street he snogged me. Yipppppeeeee!

midnight

Cor, bloody nippy noodles out there. But I have
my love to keep me warm (that and the extra pair of knickers I put on).

I must say, I think my puckering exercises have paid off, because I haven't got any aches or pains. Robbie told me about being on tour. He said he wasn't sure that he really liked it. But I'm sure that is just a phase he is going through. Once we are squillionaires he will change his mind.

1:00 a.m.

I wonder why he asked me if I liked the countryside? Maybe he wants us to go and snog in the great outdoors?

wednesday january 12th

8:15 a.m.

Dad brought me a cup of tea in bed this morning! I said, “Vati, why are you waking me up in the middle of the night? Are you on fire?”

I had to pull the sheets up really quickly in case he could see any bits of my body. He hung around after he had put the cup down. He was sort of all red and beardy.

“Georgia, I'm not trying to…well, I know you
have your own mind…and Robbie seems like a really, you know, great bloke…but he's, you know, a big lad and well…well, it's just that…well, don't get too serious too soon.”

What in the name of Buddha's bra is he going on about now?

Then he ruffled my hair (very very annoying) and went out. Robbie's a “big lad.” What does that mean?

I really will have to break the news soon that I am going off on tour to Hamburger-a-gogo land with The Stiff Dylans. Vati obviously doesn't think I am capable of maturiosity. But he is wrong.

Wrongy wrong wrong.

I wonder how much money I will need for
le
gay Paree weekend, for essentials and so on? I might test the water
vis-à-vis
spondulicks for my trip to Hamburger-a-gogo land with a simple enquiry about available finance for Froggyland.

front room
7:30 p.m.

Vati was actually doing a push-up when I came in. I hope he is insured.

“Vati.”

“Urgh.”

“Can I have two hundred and twenty pounds for my weekend in Paris, please?”

I thought I was going to have to use my first-aid skills on Vati. Which would have been a shame as I only know how to force a boiled sweet out of someone if they are choking to death.

saturday january 15th

11:00 a.m.

The snow has melted, thank the Lord. It is so hard on the elderly. However, they can be quite suspicious, the elderly. I offered to go shopping for Mr. and Mrs. Next Door yesterday in case they were frightened of going out. And they were quite surly about it. I said to Mr. Next Door, “I couldn't help noticing that you are even more unsteady than usual on your feet in this kind of weather.” And he told me to go annoy someone else, which is a bit rude, I think.

2:00 p.m.

As everyone is out, SG came round. We snogged for thirty-five minutes without stopping (I timed it
because I could see the clock over Robbie's shoulder). Rosie rang whilst he was here and said they were having an indoor (!) barbecue at her house tonight. The theme is “sausages.” Robbie couldn't make it, though, because he is rehearsing.

Bye-bye, dreamboat.

8:30 p.m.

I didn't go to the sausage extravaganza. Heaven only knows what sausages would bring out in me; I was bad enough at the fish party. I will concentrate on my French vocabulary instead so that I can ask for things in Paris.

9:00 p.m.

Sausage is
saucisson
in French. Shut up, brain.

9:05 p.m.

I am a bit worried because Robbie turned up this afternoon not in his groovy mini, but on a secondhand bike.

11:30 p.m.

I hope he doesn't suggest we go for bike rides
together. It is minus a hundred and eighty degrees, and the last time I rode a bike my skirt got caught in the back wheel and I had to walk home in my knickers.

monday january 17th

stalag 14

quatre
days to our frogland extravaganza french

M'sieur
“Call Me Henri” really is sooo cool and gorgey. He told us what we are going to do on our school trip to
la belle
France and what we should bring. We're going to stay in Hôtel Gare du Nord and visit the Champs Elysées and the Pompidou Centre. Loads of
très bon
stuff. Madame Slack came in and took all our forms that we had to take home for signing—the forms saying that even if we were set fire to by raving French people, the staff are not responsible, etc. She also said, “Girls, on Saturday there will be a choice of excursion in the morning. You can go on a grand tour of the sewage system of Paris with me, go up the Eiffel Tower with M'sieur Hilbert or to the
Louvre with Herr Kamyer. Please come and sign up for your choice.”

As we queued up we argued about which trip to go on as a gang. Jas was the only one who wanted to go down into the sewers. I said to Jas, “What is the point of going down the sewers?”

“Because it is historical and we might learn a lot of stuff we don't know.”

I said, “
Au contraire
, we will learn a lot of things we DO know. We will learn that French sewers are like English sewers, only French.”

Jas looked like a goggle-eyed ferret.

I explained. “It is just tunnels full of French poo—how different can French poo be from English poo?”

So we are all going up the Eiffel Tower with Gorgey Henri.

Ellen said, “I'm looking forward to going and everything, but I will really miss Dave the Laugh….He's such a…”

I said, “Laugh?”

“Yes,” she said, and went all red. Good Lord.

I am, of course, used to being away from the Sex God. He's only been back a week and I'm off to Frogland.

I sometimes wish he was more of a laugh, though. There is a slight danger that underneath his Sex God exterior there lurks a sensible person. He has just bought a bike to save the environment. And it might not stop there…he might possibly buy some waterproofs.

thursday january 20th

Slim gave us her world famous (not) “Representatives of Great Britain abroad” speech. Apparently we have the weight of the reputation of the British Isles on our shoulders.

I said to Jools, “I'm already tired, and we haven't even got on the coach yet.”

midnight

I've managed to whittle down my necessities to one haversack full. Jas and I are doing sharesies on some things to save space. For instance, I am supplying our hair gel for the weekend and she is supplying moisturizer. I will not be sharing knickers with her, though.

 

I said
au revoir
to
mon amour
. He came round on his bike AGAIN, and also (this is the worst bit),
he talked to my dad about Kiwi-a-gogo land…and he didn't shoot himself with boredom. In fact, he even asked questions, which proved he had been listening to Vati raving on about Maoris.
Très
weird.

friday january 21st

aboard
l'esprit
midday

On our way to
la belle
France at last. If we ever get there it will be
le
miracle, because: a) it is a French ferry and b) we have a madman at the helm. When we set off from Newhaven we went in and out of the quay three times, because the captain forgot to cast off.

1:00 p.m.

Zut alors
, we are being tossed about like
les
corks. I may complain to the captain (if he has not been airlifted home to a secure unit) and suggest he stop driving us into eighty-foot waves. Herr Kamyer, dithering champion for the German nation and part-time fool, has just lost his footing and fallen into the ladies' loos.

1:15 p.m.

In the restaurant there is a notice that says,
“Soupe du jour,”
so Rosie said to the French waiter, “Can I have
le soupe du
yesterday, please?” But no one got it.

1:30 p.m.

Staggering around on the decks in gale-force winds.

I could see Captain Mad up in his wheelhouse thing.

1:32 p.m.

The only way to stay upright is to hold the flagpole at the back of the boat.

1:35 p.m.

Why does he keep staring at me? I'm just clinging on to this French flag because I want to live to see Frogland.

 

Just then the boat lurched violently, and that's when it came off in my hand.

2:30 p.m.

Madame Slack, who until then had been attached
to Gorgey Henri for most of the voyage (like a Slack limpet), decided to make a big international thing out of the flag removing incident.

She gibbered in
le
Frog to Captain Mad, who had come down to the deck (hopefully leaving someone who could drive in his place). They did a lot of pointing and shouting and shrugging.

Incidentally, why has Madame Slack got two huge handbags? She keeps Sellotape and a ruler in one and a hankie in the other. Should someone like that be in charge of the youth of today? Is France a nation of handbag fetishists, I wonder? As I said to Jas, “Even Henri has got a little handbag.”

Rosie said, “You are definitely going to have to walk the gangplank.
Au revoir, mon amie.
”

“What makes you think Captain Mad could find a gangplank? I'll be amazed if he can find France.” But I said it quietly. I didn't want to start the shrugging again.

In the end, Madame Slack called me stupid about a zillion times, which could have upset me a lot, but I know I am really full of geniosity.

I had to apologize to Captain Mad. In French.

4:45 p.m.

Still in this sodding boat, bobbing up and down in the Atlantic or wherever it is we are now.

Suddenly Rosie said, “Land! I can see land, thank the Lord!” and got down on her knees. Which was quite funny. It could be Iceland, though, for all we know.

Captain Mad came on the PA system and said, “Ladeez and jentlemen, ve are now approaching Dieppe.”

I said to the gang, “With a bit of luck, he'll manage to dock by tomorrow evening.”

9:00 p.m.

Miraculously survived the ferry journey and caught the train to Paris. I think the driver might have been wearing a beret, but we still managed to arrive at Hôtel Gare du Nord in
le
gay Paree! Right in the middle of everything.

The lady behind the desk said, “Welcome, I will show you to your rrruuuuuuums.” I thought French people were actually being funny when they put on their accent, but they aren't being funny, they are being French. That, as I said to Jas, is why I
aime
them so much.

Gorgey Henri has let the ace gang be in the same room together! How fab is he? Usually we get split up in class, but the six of us are back together again. Yes!!!
Les
girls have arrived. It's a really groovy room as well. I have a bed by the window. I lay down on it and said, “Aaahhh, this is the sort of life I will be leading from now on.”

Rosie said, “What? Sharing a room with five other women? Are you setting up a lezzie farm?” I had to duff her rather savagely over the head with my pillow.

Jas had brought the photo of Tom and her at Seaworld and she put it on the table by the side of her bed.

Ellen tried to sneak a book under her pillow, but I saw it. “What's that?” I asked.

“Oh, it's just a bit of homework I brought with me.”

Rosie fished it out and read out the title. “It's called
Black Lace Shoulder
, a story of passion on the high seas.” Now we know what sort of homework she is doing: snogging research. It was a semi-naughty book. I flicked through it and found a bit to read to the rest of the gang.

“‘He captivated women with his fierce, proud
face, his lean, well-exercised body and his aura of sexuality, wild as that of a stallion.'”

Rosie said, “That's like Sven.”

Jas said, “What, he's like a stallion?”

“Yes.”

I said, “A stallion in loons.”

Rosie said,
“Mais oui.”

“
Quel
number have you got up to now with
le
stallion in loons on the scoring system?” I asked.

“Eight.” Upper-body fondling indoors. All of our eyes drifted towards Rosie's basoomas, which, it has to be said, are not gigantic.

Ellen said, “Is it, does it…I mean, are your, erm, nungas…getting bigger?”

Rosie looked down the front of her T-shirt. “I think they are a bit. Not as much as Georgia's, though.”

Oh no, here we go. I thought my new nunga-nunga holder had stopped this sort of talk. To change the subject I said to Ellen, “What number have you got up to with Dave?”

She went all red. “Oh, well, you know, he's like really a good, well, kisser.”

Yes, as it happens, I do know that he's a really good kisser.

Rosie was all interested now. “Has he touched anything?”

Ellen was about to explode from redness. “Well, he stroked my hair.”

We haven't even bothered to put hair-stroking on our snogging scale. If we had, it would have been minus one.

 

Out of our bedroom window we can see the streets of Paris and the French-type
garçons
. Some of them look quite groovy, but their trousers are a bit too short. Perhaps this is the French way. I said, “Look, people are wearing berets and they're not even going to school. Unless they still go to school at ninety-four.”

saturday january 22nd

saturday in paris
9:30 a.m.

Oh
j'aime
Paris muchly. For brekkie we had hot chocolate and croissants. All the French kids dipped their croissants into their hot chocolate. How cool is that? Yummy scrumboes.

We set off with Gorgey Henri for the Eiffel Tower. I was singing “Fallink in luff again, never
vanted to…” until Rosie pointed out that Marlene Dietrich sang that and she was by no means a French person.

up the eiffel tower
11:00 a.m.

Jas and I got split up somehow from the rest of the gang. Well, mainly because Jas was dithering around making me take a photo of her with some French pigeons. How anyone would know they were French pigeons, I don't know. I said to her, “We will have to draw little stripey T-shirts on them when we get the prints back.”

Anyway, the others had gone on ahead and we got trapped just in front of a group of French schoolboys of about nine years old. They spent the million years it took climbing the steps looking up our skirts.

Jas was OK because she had her holiday knickers on (same gigantic ones as her daywear in England, but with a frilly bit round the gusset). I, however, had normals on, and so I tried to walk up the stairs with my legs together, which is not easy. Every time I looked behind me I could see the little boys ogling like ogles on ogle tablets.

When we eventually got to the top, Jas said, “It's your fault; you should have worn sensible knickers.”

“Jas,
fermez la bouche
or I will
fermer
it for you.”

oo la-la la
gay paree
2:00 p.m.

We walked along the banks of the Seine in the winter sunshine. There were musicians and so on playing, and a bird market. I wanted to take a chaffinch or some lovebirds home with me, but I knew that they'd only last two minutes if Angus got a snack attack in the middle of the night. As we passed a bloke playing a saxophone underneath one of the arches, he put down the sax and started doing a juggling thing with his hands. It was a bit peculiar, though, because, as I said to Jas, “He hasn't got any balls.”

Rosie said, “Ooer…” which set us off on the uncontrollable laughing fandango.

Jas said, “He must be doing a sort of mime thing.” Mime juggling? In the end, unfortunately, we realized he was actually pretending to juggle my breasts. I am the first to admit that I can be
paranoid about my nungas, but in this case it was clear even to Jas that he was a perv. He pointed at my nungas and made a sort of leering, licking smile and then continued his pretend juggling. How disgusting!

Am I never to be free from the tyranny of my basoomas? I buttoned my coat up as tightly as possible.

 

la nuit
extravaganza

Henri took us down
rue
St. Denis in the evening and said, “Zis is where the ladeez of the night ply their trade.”

Jas said, “I can't see any ladies of the night; all I can see are a load of prostitutes.” She astonishes me with her hilarious stupidosity sometimes.

Actually, it should have been called “
rue de
Bummer,” because all the prozzies looked exactly like the Bummer twins. Only less spotty.

It isn't even just Henri who has a handbag, lots of
les français
men have little handbags. And no one laughs. Weird. I may buy one for Dad as a souvenir.

sunday january 23rd

Herr Kamyer has reached dizzying heights of giddiness since he's been in Paris, even going so far as to wear leisure slacks and a cardigan with a koala on it. Jas said kindly, “Perhaps it's a Christmas gift from his mum.” But I don't think so. I think he knitted it himself. And I think he is proud of it.

1:00 p.m.

Jas and Rosie keep nipping off to phone Tom and Sven every five minutes.

I would phone Robbie, but I don't really know what to say to him. What if he asks me what I have been doing? What would I say? “I pulled off a French flag, some boys looked up my skirt and finally a bloke with a saxophone juggled my breasts.” I wouldn't mean to say any of that, but I know I would blurt it out.