Louise Rennison - ‘Knocked out by my nunga-nungas.’

Mutti rambled on, although she makes very little sense since Vati got home.

“It’s your own fault, you antagonise him and now you are paying the price.”

Yeah yeah, rave on.

Phoned Jas.

“Jas.”

“Oh, hi Gee.”

“Why didn’t you phone me?”

“You’re phoning me. I would have got the engaged tone.”

“Jas, please don’t annoy me, I’ve only been speaking to you for two seconds.”

“I’m not annoying you.”

“Wrong.”

“Well, I’ve only said about two words to you.”

“That’s enough.”

Silence.

“Jas?”

Silence.

“Jas … what are you doing?”

“I’m not annoying you.”

She drives me to the brink of madnosity. Still, I really needed to speak to her, so I went on. “It’s really crap at home. I almost wish I hadn’t been banned from school. How was Stalag 14? Any goss?”

“No, just the usual. Nauseating P. Green smashed a chair to smithereens and back.”

“Really?! Was she fighting with it?”

“No, she was sitting on it having her lunch. It was the jumbo-sized Mars bar that did it. The Bummer Twins started singing “Who ate all the pies?” to her but Slim, our beloved headmistress, heard them and gave us a lecture about mocking the unfortunate.”

“Were her chins going all jelloid?”

“Yeah. In fact it was Chin City.”

“Fantastic. Are you all missing me? Did anyone talk about me or anything?”

“No, not really.”

Charming. Jas has a lot of good qualities though, qualities you need in a bestest pal. Qualities like, for instance, going out with the brother of a Sex God. I said, “Has Hunky – I mean, Tom – mentioned anything that Robbie has said about me?”

“Erm … let me think.”

Then there was this slurp slurp noise.

She was making slurping noises.

“Jas, what are you eating?”

“I’m sucking my pen top so I can think better.”

Bloody sacré bleu, I have got le idiot for a pal. Forty-nine centuries of pen-sucking later she said, “No, he hasn’t said anything.”

Why hasn’t Robbie mentioned me? Hasn’t he got snogging withdrawal?

I can hear Vati singing “If I Ruled the World”. Good Lord. I have only just recovered from a very bad bout of pretend lurgy. He has no consideration for others.

The worsterosity of it is that the Loonleader (my vati) has returned from Kiwi-a-gogo land and I thought he would be there for ages. But sadly life was against me and he has returned. Not content with that he has insisted we all go to Och-aye land to “bond” on a family holiday.

But … na-na-na-na-na and who-gives-two-short-flying-pigs’-botties? because I live in Love Heaven.

Lalalalalalala.

I am the girlfriend of a Sex God!!!

Yesss!!! Result!!!!

The Sex God said I should phone him from Scotland when I go up there. But there is a fly in his ointment … I am not going to Scotland!!!

My plan is this: everyone else goes to Scotland and … I don’t!

Simple enough, I think, for anyone to understand.

The Olds were slumped in front of the TV canoodling and drinking wine. They are so childish. I had to leave the room in the end because Dad did this really disgusting thing. It makes me feel sick even thinking about it. He got hold of Mum’s nip-nips(!) through her sweater and then sort of twiddled them around. He was going, “Calling all cars, calling all cars, are you receiving me?”

Like he was tuning a radio or something. With her basoomas.

Mum said, “Stop it, Bob, what are you like!”

But then they both were laughing and grappling about on the sofa. Libby was there as well. Laughing along. It can’t be healthy for a toddler to be exposed to porn. I’m sure other people’s parents don’t do this sort of thing. In fact, some of my mates are lucky enough to have parents that are split up.

I’ve never really seen Jas’s dad. He is usually upstairs or in his shed doing some DIY. He just appears now and again to give Jas her pocket money.

That is a proper dad.

Before I went to bed I explained to the elderly snoggers (from outside the door, just in case they were touching each other) that I will not in a zillion years be going on the family excursion to Scotland tomorrow and said goodnight.

I have come on holiday by mistake.

This is the gorgeous diary of my fantastic family holiday in Och-aye land.

Five hundred years driving with a madman at the wheel (Dad) and another two mad things in a basket (Angus and Libby). After two hours of trying to find the cottage and listening to Vati ramble on about the “wonderful countryside” I was ready to pull Dad’s head off, steal the car and drive, drive like the wind back home. The fact that I can’t drive stopped me, but actually I’m sure that, once behind the wheel, I could pick it up. How difficult can it be, anyway? All Dad does is swear at other cars and put his foot down on some pedal thing.

Finally arrived at some crap cottage in the middle of nowhere. The nearest shop is twelve hundred miles away (well, a fifteen-minute walk).

The only person younger than one hundred and eighty is a half-witted boy (Jock McThick) who hangs around the village on his pushbike(l).

In the end, out of sheer desperadoes, I went outside after supper and asked Jock McThick what him and his mates did at nights. (Even though I couldn’t give two short flying sporrans.)

He said, “Och.” (Honestly, he said that.) “We go awa’ doon to Alldays, you ken.” (I don’t know why he called me Ken but that is the mystery of the Scottish folk.)

It was like being in that film Braveheart. In fact, in order to inject a bit of hilariosity into an otherwise tragic situation, I said, when we first saw the cottage, “You can tak’ our lives, but you cannae tak’ our freedom!!”

It’s a nightmare of noise in this place: hooting, yowling, snuffling … and that’s just Vati! No, it’s the great Scottish wildlife. Bats and badgers and so on … Haven’t they got homes to go to? Why do creatures wake up at night? Do they do it deliberately to annoy me? At least Angus is happy here though, now he is not under house arrest. It was about one a.m. before he came in and curled up in his luxurious cat headquarters (my bed).

Vati back as Loonleader with a vengeance. He came barging into “my” (hahahahahaha) room at pre-dawn, waggling his new beard about. I was sleeping with cucumber slices on my eyes for beautosity purposes so at first I thought I had gone blind in the night. I nearly did go blind when he ripped open my curtains and said, “Gidday gidday, me little darlin’!” in a ludicrous Kiwi-a-gogo twang.

I wonder if he has finally snapped? He was very nearly bonkers before he went to Kiwi-a-gogo land and having his shoes blown off by a rogue bore can’t have helped.

But hey, El Beardo is, after all, my vati and that also makes him Vati of the girlfriend of a Sex God. So I said quite kindly, “Guten morgan, Vati, could you please go away now? Thank you.”