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

“Yes, I could read his thoughts today too when he was looking at you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it was quite clear he was thinking, Hey, I’ve accidentally got a prat for a girlfriend .”

I’m not speaking to Jas. She is vair violent. I may have to go to a support group for victims of friends’ violence. UNPAL (United Kingdom’s Network for Protection Against Loonies).

I am at the far end of the Ace Gang lineup next to Rosie. Not in my usual position next to Mad Dog Jas. She has given Ellen, Jools, Mabs and Ro Ro Midget Gems from her secret stash, but I don’t care because I am giving her my cold shoulders. She’s only got a boyfriend in the first place because of my excellent stalking skills. If it wasn’t for me, she would still be Mrs Sad on the shelf of life.

Like me.

Oh God.

Even Rosie doing her shoulder disco dancing during “Jerusalem” failed to work its usual magic. Although when she sang, “And was Jerusalem builded here amongst these dark satanic pants”, I did snap and join in with the laughing attack the Ace Gang had. We had to be shuussshed by the Hitler Youth.

Slim, our beloved elephantine headmistress, was in full jelloid mode. She was wearing an unusually attractive jumper in canary yellow. It must have taken at least ten sheep to make it. When she loses her rag she trembles all over. But each bit trembles independently. Chins, jowls, basoomas. If there was such a thing as jelly wrestling, she would be top at it.

Oh, drone on. Yawn yawn. What was she talking about?

“…No loitering without intent in the loos… In my day you were lucky to get a shoe to live in… Only nineteen more days to go till our production of Macbeth – I hope you’re all telling your parents about it…” Blah blah blah. As if.

Then through the dark mists of boredom like a hearing-eye dog I heard my name mentioned. As I drifted back into consciousness I heard her say, “Georgia Nicolson and Rosie Mees to see me in my office immediately after assembly.”

Oh dear God, what fresh hell?

I looked at Rosie and she looked back. I shrugged my shoulders, she shrugged back. I looked at the Ace Gang and shrugged my shoulders and they shrugged back. (The Ace Gang, I mean, not my shoulders. I don’t mean my shoulders have a shrugging life of their own.)

What have we done?

As we were walking out in a Winter Wonderland of shrugging, Hawkeye appeared from nowhere like the Bride of Dracula and barked out, “Stop that shrugging!”

I said to Rosie, “Now shrugging is a capital offence, apparently. Don’t accidentally shake your head, for God’s sake.”

In the waiting room of fear there are Rosie and I and a couple of scaredy first formers playing with their pigtails. Oo-er. Ro Ro said, “Do you remember when the Bummer twins had a pigtail-cutting extravaganza?”

Ah, the Bummers. Jackie and Alison. They had taken bullying to new heights before they were expelled for shoplifting. There was for instance their famous using of first formers as armchairs. And in a particularly inspired moment they had actually superglued one of the little titches to a bench. In their pigtail campaign they used to snip off bits of first formers’ pigtails as they passed by and then hang them on their havvies like scalps.

Rosie said, “I wonder what has happened to the Bummers?”

I said, “Prison with a bit of luck.”

Slim had the scaredy little ones in first. They came out about five minutes later all red and crying and hiccupping. I gave one of them a snot rag and asked, “What did you do?”

Ginger titch said, “We… we… drew a picture of a vole with a… a… bra on… on the blackboard in… in… blodge.”

I said, “Well done, girls, keep up the good work; we are relying on you.”

Rosie slapped them both on their backs, a bit hard actually. I thought their lungs might shoot out. She said, “Goodus workus, smallus idiotus.” And they went off looking really pleased.

I said, “I like to think they look up to us as examples of womanhood.”

And Rosie said, “Yes, but what you have to keep in mind is that you are bonkers.”

Then we heard our beloved leader shout out, “Come.”

Here we go. A duffing up for something that we quite clearly have not done. Whatever it is.

Slim was scribbling away at her desk. The chair she must have been sitting on (unless she was levitating) was completely hidden from view by her jelloidness. I wonder if she has a specially reinforced chair? There is probably a specialist circus furniture shop where she gets her requirements. Imagine the size of her bath! Oh nooooo, now I’ve got a nuddy-pants Slim in my head!

Slim finally looked up.

What had we done?

“I am returning these to you.”

Wow, this was a turn up for the book! And she handed me a bag. It was the bison horns!!! The return of the bison horns! Yesss! The horns brought back especially from Hamburger-a-gogo land for the Ace Gang. I fondled the horns and thought back to when I had first worn them riding a bucking-bronco bar stool in Gaylords while Rawhide played. Let no one say that the Hamburgese have given us no culture besides Elvis. In fact, as I have said many times to those who will listen (i. e., no one), we have a lot to thank our tiny American chums for – mostly things beginning with “h”: hamburgers, hillbillies, howdy doody, er… horns and so on.

Slim was still rambling on. “Now I like a joke as much as the next person, but there is a time and a place, and wearing bison horns during German is not the place. Ironically, you two are quite bright girls, but you waste your talents on silliness. You won’t get a job as a silly person, you know.”

I didn’t say “Miss Wilson has” because, as Slim says, there is a time and a place for everything and time waits for nomads, etc.

I was pleased to have the horns back and it made me think quite kindly about Slim. She isn’t such a bad old huge elephantine thing, really. When we got to her door to go, I did think about pretending to be a hilarious alien like in Doctor Who and saying, “I offer you my mandible in peace.” But then I thought, er, no.

Herr Kamyer seems to have accidentally come to work dressed as a twit. His trousers are so short they are bordering on the Bermuda shorts area of legwear. And there is never an excuse for wearing a sleeveless jerkin with diamond patterns all over it. Even if you have been brought up on a diet of spangleferkel .

I stared at him. He was quite literally a sight for sore eyes. If you looked at him, he gave you sore eyes. He can always be relied on to come up trumps in the twit arena. He blinked back at me. “ Guten morgen, Georgia and Rosie.”

We clicked our heels together and said, “ Jawohl Kommandant .”

I sat next to Rosie in our comfy seats on the back row. In some of our lessons we are not allowed to sit together for some mad reason that escapes me. Something to do with attention deficit disorder. I got out my chuddie and settled down on my arms to have a little zizz. But I could feel mad beadies looking at me. I opened my eyes. It was Jas. Just looking at me. Look all you want, Miss Looking at Me Person. She soooo wanted to know why we had been to Duffing Up Headquarters and come back looking so pleased. But she will be the last to know anything about me now.