Louise Rennison - ‘…startled by his furry shorts!’

I’m going mad. I am going to have to phone The Big Knickered One, and hope she doesn’t ramble on about bat droppings.

Phoned Jas.

Jas was so much in Jas ‘n’ Tom land that she didn’t even notice I was in the bakery of pain. She just went on rambling for Europe. “Oooh, it’s so groovy that Tom’s back!

I only saw him briefly yesterday. He is going to bring around his flora collection from Kiwi-a-gogo land in a bit and that will be soo… oh…”

I said, “Indescribably dull?”

She said, “I have to go now.”

“Jazzy Wazzy, can I come and see you? I need your help.”

“No.”

I am lying amongst Jas’s sad collection of stuffed toys, mostly owls, while she ponces around in front of a mirror. What is she doing?

I said, “Jas it’s very distracting trying to tell you stuff, important stuff full of tragicosity about me your very bestest pally, when you keep pouting like a goldfish. What are you doing?”

“I’m practising puckering.”

“What?”

“Puckering. I had, well, a bit of a problem vis-à-vis snogging with Tom last night.”

Despite my world coming apart at the seams, I am always interested in snogging tales. “Tell me.”

“Well, I was quite nervy at first when I was waiting for him.”

“Were you doing your annoying flicky-fringe thing?”

“I don’t know; anyway, when he came in, I was sort of jelloid. But then it was all right because he got his whatsits out.”

“Pardon?”

“His, you know, snapshots from Kiwi-a-gogo land, so we looked at them for a bit. Until I felt calmed down. Actually there was a really cool one of Robbie…”

Oh brilliant. On top of everything else I was now talking about someone I had vowed I would never talk about this side of the grave.

I said, “Was Robbie playing the guitar and dancing with marsupials?”

Jas wasn’t even listening. “Anyway, as we were looking at them Tom got closer to me and put his arm around me. Then we, well… we, you know, started snogging and so on.”

“And so on? Where is ‘and so on’ on the snogging scale? What number did you get to?”

“Er… five and a bit of six. It was really groovy. I felt like I was all melting in to him and then… well… then I had sort of a lip spasm.”

“A LIP SPASM?”

Apparently she had been snogging away when she had suddenly had the lip spaz.

She said, “I got cramp in my lips and they sort of seized up.”

“What does that look like?”

And she showed me. Blimey. You know when you put food in a baby’s mouth and it doesn’t like it, and its eyes go all goggly and then its whole face goes into a spasm and the food comes shooting out of its mouth? Well, even if you don’t know, believe me, I do. Libby could make rice pudding reach the other side of the room.

While Jas was showing me her spazzy face, I said, “If you don’t mind me saying, Jas, that is not very attractive.”

She said, “I expect it was snogging withdrawal. I hadn’t puckered up for ages, so… you know, being out of practice… but it won’t happen again.”

“Good.”

“Because I have an exercise regime now. Shall I show you?

“No.”

“OK. It goes pucker, relax, pucker, relax, pucker, relax. Do you see?”

I didn’t say anything, just lay there staring at her with big starey eyes like the rest of the owls as she pouted her lips and then relaxed them. She looked like a mixture of Mick Jagger and an idiot. Not necessarily in that order.

She was in full ramble mode now. “And then for the pièce de résistance it’s darty tongue, darty tongue.”

God, it was horrible sitting there while her little tongue went in and out like a mad vole. Fortunately I was able to shove a Midget Gem in her gob so that I could tell her the sad tale of my Italian Stallion.

She said (chewy chew), “So you said that he had to be your one and only boyfriend scenario or else that was it? Arrivederci, Masimo ?”

I said, “Yes, but…”

“Well, what in the name of Slim’s outsize pyjamas were you thinking of? Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad, Jas. I just happen to have a friend who looks a lot like you who said, ‘Just be yourself.’”

“What?”

“You said being yourself and genuine was like having a generous nose. Like I have got. The exact words used were: ‘Just because you have a generous nose, don’t go to the nose-disguiser shop; let your own nose run free and wild.’”

“What complete fool said that?”

“YOU did, Jas.”

“Did I? Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean it, did I? Clearly. That was in the sanctity of our own brains, wasn’t it? I mean, we were going to the PRETEND nose-disguiser shop. I didn’t actually mean you should BE yourself. That is just stupid.”

I really really could kill her. In fact, if I attacked her stupid fringe suddenly, she might choke on her stupid Midget Gem, and that would be good.

Sadly, Jas had got interested now. She said, “So let me get this right – he’s choosing between you and Wet Lindsay? Blimey, does she know that? Because if she does, you are dead as a doughnut. Deader.”

Cheers.

The doorbell rang downstairs, and a minute later Tom bounded into the room. He said, “Hey, Georgia… gidday, as our Kiwi pals say! Bonzer to see you!” And he gave me a big, proper boy hug. It felt really nice. Especially as I may never feel another boy’s jumper next to my head in this lifetime, the way things are going.

He sat down on the bed and looked at both of us and said, “OK, what have you two been talking about? Lipstick?”

We both looked offended. Tom went on, “Erm… world peace, the Manchester United attacking four? Snogging?”

I said with dignitosity at all times, “I’ve got a lot more on my mind than boys, Tom. There are other things in the world, you know.”

He said, “So it’s all over with you and the Italian Stallion then?”

“No, well, er maybe… oh, I don’t know.” And I blurted out the whole story because it was so nice to have a boy type to talk to. And, for a boy, Tom is very nearly not quite completely insane.

At the end he lay back on Jas’s stuffed owl family and said, “Wow.”

I looked at him.

He looked at me. “Wowzee wow and wow.”

Jas said, “I know, that’s what I thought.”

What are they, the idiot telepathic twins?

I said to Tom, “What do you think?”

He said, “Well, you know he’s just come out of a big relationship and, well, he’s a fit-looking guy, isn’t he? Not that I’m on the turn or anything. But he is. He could pretty much have any chick he wanted.”

Jas was nodding away like Tom was Dr Ruth, psychiatrist to the Hollywood set, or something. And she shuffled up really close to him. It’s pathetic.

Tom went on talking, “Georgia, you don’t think he’s, you know, well, a bit worried that you might be a bit… well, unusual?”

I said, “Unusual? Like how?”

Tom said, “Well, when he first asked you if you wanted a drink, you went off disco dancing to Rolf Harris’s ‘Two Little Boys’.”

Oh goddygodgod, am I never to be free from my own bonkerosity?

I said, “What else is a person supposed to do when their boy entrancers get stuck together?”

Jas was still doing her nodding along wisely fiasco. She said to Tom, “Yes, yes, I see what you mean. He may be afraid to go out with her, and really who can blame him?”

I was just about to lunge for her throat when her mum knocked on the door and said, “May I come in for a moment, Jas? Dad and I are off to the allotment and then we may pop into the club for a quick game of cards, so I’ve left snacks in the kitchen. I know how you young people eat! Bye.”