Louise Rennison - ‘Stop in the name of pants!’

In addition, Gordy and Angus lolloped in to lick at the leftover butter on her botty. Soooo disgusting. Libby was shouting, “They is ticklin me!!! Heggy heggy ho!!!”

It is like the botty casualty department in here. My bottom, which I have had no time to attend to, is being supported by Libby’s swimming ring and I have a buttered-up child rammed in next to me.

Also, have I got a boyfriend or not?

And I am still thinking about the Dave the Laugh accidental snogging in the forest incident.

Perhaps this is God’s little way of saying, “She who lives by the red bottom gets to lie in a rubber ring.”

Oww oww and double owww!! I think my botty has taken a turn for the worse. I wonder if it is swollen up?

It does look a bit on the swollen side. Oh marvellous. I will have to ask Jas if I can borrow some of her enormous winter pants. She will have got them out of her winter store by now. She starts ironing her school pants about a month before we are forced back to Stalag 14. Which reminds me, we only have about four weeks of holiday left. Sacré bleu and merde .

Libby has already scarpered off to get ready for nursery, so I can just have a little dolly daydream about snogging the Luuurve God. If I make a mental picture of us snogging, I might attract him to me through the psychic ethery stuff.

I can hear the postman coming up the drive. Ah, the postie. It’s a lovely job being a postie; you see it in all ye olde films that ye olde parents watch. Mr Postie coming up the drive with a cheery whistle and a handful of exciting letters for the family. A “Good morning, ma’am” to the mistress of the house and then—

“I’ve got a bloody stick, you furry freak, and I’m not afraid to use it!!!”

Charming. Utterly, utterly charming.

I looked out of the window. Angus was sitting on the dustbin showing off to Naomi, his mad Burmese girlfriend and slag, by taunting the postie – hissing and doing pretend biffing, sticking his claws in and out. The postie had to get by the dustbin to get to the door and he was waving a big stick about in Angus’s direction. Angus loves a stick. The larger the better. He lay down and started purring so loudly I could hear it in my bedroom. I don’t know why he loves sticks so much, but he does. Almost as much as he loves cars.

He thinks cars are like giant stupid mice on wheels. That he can chase after.

He brought a stick home the other day that was so big, it took him half an hour to figure out how to get it through the cat flap. He did it, though, because he is top cat.

It was the same with the ginormous dead pigeon. Angus backed his way through the cat flap dragging the feet first, and then Gordy heave-hoed the head bit through.

It was an amazing double act. Father and son were very impressed with themselves. Although slightly covered in feathers. They even arranged the pigeon so that it was looking towards the door and propped up so Mum could get the full benefit when she came in.

She did get the full benefit and went ballistic, jumping on a chair and screaming etc. Angus and Gordy and the dead pigeon all looked at her.

“Bloody murdering furry thugs!!!” she yelled.

I said, “Look, you are really hurting their feelings.”

And then she threw the washing-up bowl at me. That is the kind of mothering I have to put up with.

The postie has bravely got past Angus and disappeared from view as he posts our letters through the letter box. Angus has disappeared as well. Oh, I know what he is doing!

He is doing his vair vair amusing trick of lurking in the top of the hedge to leap down on the postie’s head as he passes by. Tee-hee. Happy days. I wish I was a cat. At least I would get fed now and again.

I wouldn’t be quite so keen on all the bum-oley licking. Although as mine is so swollen now, it would probably be easier to reach.

Mum yelled up, “Gee, come down and have brekkie and say goodbye to your family.”

I said, “Have I still got one? I thought that Father had left us and would never be back. That is what he promised.”

Dad yelled up, “You think you are so bloody funny, but you won’t when I don’t give you your ten-quid pocket money. Nothing to spend on your eyeliner or nit cream or whatever else it is that you plaster yourself with.”

Nit cream? Has he finally snapped?

Mum said, “Stop it, you two. Oooh look, here is a foreign postcard addressed to Georgia – I wonder who it’s from?”

Oh my giddy god’s pyjamas!!! I leaped downstairs, putting the pain of my bottom behind me. Tee-hee. Oh brilliant, my brain has gone into hysterical clown mode.

Dad had the postcard in his hand and was reading it!!! Noooooo!

He was saying in a really crap Pizza-a-gogo accent, “ Ciao , Georgia, it is smee.”

I tried to get the postcard from him. “Dad, that is private property addressed to me. If it doesn’t say ‘to some mad fat bloke’, it isn’t yours.”

Dad just went on reading it. “I am, how you say, hair in Roma wive my family.”

Finally I ripped it out of his hand and took it upstairs.

Mum said, “You are mean, Bob. You know what she is like.”

Dad said, “Yes, I do. She’s insane like all the other bloody women in this family. Hang on a minute… what the hell happened to my car-washing bucket?”

Mum said, “We had to hit it with a hammer in the end. Libby got her bottom stuck in it.”

Dad said, “I rest my case.”

Oh God, I am sooooo excited, my eyes have gone cross-eyed. What does it say?

Ciao, Georgia,

It is smee. I am, how you say, hair in Roma wive my family. I am hot. (You don’t have to tell me that, mate.) I am playing fun. Are you playing fun? I miss I you me.

I call on the telefono on Tuesday for you. Ciao, bellissima, Masimo xxx

After about three thousand years and a half, the Swiss Family Mad all crashed off to ruin other people’s lives and I could get on the old blower.

I nearly dialled Wise Woman of the Forest before I remembered that she had practically called me the Whore of Babylon. She is so full of suspicionosity. And annoyingnosity. How dare she suggest in front of everyone that I had been up to hanky-panky and rudey-dudeys with Dave the Laugh? She knows very well that I am going out with a Luuurve God. Who is a) hot and b) playing fun.

What in the name of arse does “playing fun” mean?

I must consult with my gang.

But not her.

I am ignorez-vous ing her with a firm hand and it serves her right. I hope she realises that I am ignorez-vous ing her, otherwise it’s all a bit pointless.

I may have to call her and let her know I am ignorez-vous ing her, as she can be a bit on the dense side.