Louise Rennison - ‘It’s OK, I’m wearing really big knickers!’

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.