Away Laughing on a Fast Camel Read online

  But maybe I have gone completely mad, like Ellen. Maybe I am just delirious with red-bottomosity. He only said it was nice to meet me. To be fair, he didn’t say, “I want you to be my girlfriend.” Or even “Do you want to come out for a cup of coffee?”

  Oh Lord. Perhaps I am just being le grand idiot.

  Speaking of idiots, when we walked into Dr. Clooney’s waiting room Mr. Across the Road was sitting there. He’s really cheered up since the kittykats were cruelly given away. He’s especially cheerful that we have got Gordy. As he said, “Only a complete fool would take him in.”

  He said to Mum, “You’re looking gorgeous as ever, Connie, nothing wrong, I hope?”

  Mum giggled in a horrible way. It’s always like this when she is around men; thank goodness I have a bit more dignitosity than her. I have certainly not learned my boy-entrancing skills from her. She said, “Oh no, I’m fine, thank you, we all are. It’s just that Georgia is thinking of taking up a career in medicine, so we’ve come to talk to the doctor.”

  Mr. Across the Road went, “Oh yeah, hahahahahaha…yeah, good one.”

  But then he realized that Mum was serious and crossed his legs. I don’t know why.

  Mum had her usual dithering attack when we went in to see Dr. Clooney. He is very fit for a medical man. He said to me, “Any more elbow trouble, Georgia?”

  “No.”

  “Lungs not making a peculiar wheezing noise?”

  “No.”

  “So, what is it, eyebrows growing uncontrollably?”

  I started to say, “Well no but if there is a cream that…”

  But Mum was batting her eyelashes and speaking rubbish. “Well…hehehehhe, as you know, Georgia is very interested in science and medicine and so on…aren’t you, Georgia?”

  I said, “Well, I can do an impression of a lockjaw germ.”

  Mum glared at me, but Dr. Clooney said, “Go on then.”

  And I did it.

  Dr. Clooney said, “That is very very lifelike.”

  I was quite flattered and said, “I can also do a hydra wafting plankton into its central vortex with its tentacles—do you want to see it—”

  But old Mrs. Dancing in the nuddy-pants with strange men and calling it aerobics interrupted me.

  “So I was wondering, as she has to do work experience for school, if she could perhaps come into your surgery for the day.”

  Dr. Clooney said, “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I mean it. Nothing. The day that your family walked into my surgery, well…life has not been the same.”

  That is when we noticed that Libby had got a blood pressure bandage thing wrapped round her head like a turban.

  in the clown car

  7:00 p.m.

  I crouched down in the back of the Robinmobile as Mum rambled on.

  “He is so nice, isn’t he? You know, so nice, isn’t he?”

  I didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop her.

  “He said nothing would give him more pleasure…”

  I said, “I bet he has got a proper grown-up’s car and not a clown car.”

  Mum got all defensive. “Your father loves this car, and it is not a clown car, it’s quite stylish.”

  “Mum, if you had your face painted white with a red wig on and a clown nose, nobody would notice; they would think, ‘Oh look, there is a clown driving a clown car,’ and they would be right.”

  “Your dad has to have hobbies.”

  “Yes, but why do they have to be so crap?”

  She started to tell me off when a terrible thing happened. Uncle Eddie came round the corner. Not on his usual very embarrassing prewar motorbike and sidecar, but in another Robinmobile! Oh my God they were breeding. And Dad was sitting next to him. They both had goggles on. They drove along beside us. When we got to traffic lights, they would draw up next to us and then “accelerate” away when the lights changed. Pretending to be a racing car. Libby loved it, but I just kept my head right down. Mum was trying to laugh it off, but I know she was thinking, “How did I end up married to him?”

  home

  I had no idea that Pantalitzer was stuffed with pigeon feathers. It was like a pigeon snowstorm in the front room when we got back. Gordy’s head was just poking out of a pile of feathers.

  Mum went ballisticisimus.

  “This house is a bloody madhouse. He’s worse than Angus!!”

  Angus seemed quite pleased. Then Vati came bounding in and tried to grapple with Mum. She shoved him off and said, “Oh get off, Bob, first it’s bluebottles in the garage from your fishing, now it’s clown cars. I just want—”

  “Him to be more normal?” I said helpfully.

  Mum shouted, “NO!!”

  “More absent?” I tried.

  She turned round at the door and yelled, “I just want to be more…more…ME!!!!”

  Crikey.

  10:00 p.m.

  Anyone who has seen the size of my mutti’s basoomas (which is practically everyone, as she is always revealing them) will not join in with her wish to be more.

  Dad was going, “What did I do?”

  But I have no time to sort out their lives; in fact I wish they would shut up about themselves. On and on they go. They’ve had their chance, and now it is my turn.

  my bedroom

  midnight

  There has been a lot of murmuring and crying downstairs. It’s keeping me awake. Then Dad started singing to Mum a song called “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp.” Which personally wouldn’t have cheered me up.

  It’s disgusting. They are snogging. My parents are snogging, I can hear the lip smackingness from up here. I am going to soundproof my room.

  12:10 a.m.

  I wonder how I can casually bump into Masimo. He is bound to be surrounded by girls at the gig.

  Hmmm.

  thursday april 21st

  Got up early so that I can brush up on my boy skills from Mum’s book.

  8:10 a.m.

  Good Lord. Apparently girls like boys to say stuff like “You are the most beautiful girl in the world,” and boys like you to go “Uummm” or “Oooohhhh.”

  Well, that is useful, because whenever I think about Masimo, my brain goes away on a short holiday to Idiotland, but even I should be able to manage “Uummm.” Is that high-pitched “Uuummm,” or more “Uuermmmm,” lower down?

  You could alternate high and low, just in case.

  midday

  Jas is still giving me her cold shoulders. Pathetico.

  Miss Wilson had the nervy spaz to end all nervy spazzes today in English. We were doing MacUseless and she had already told Rosie and Jools and Ellen off for doing “Let’s go down the disco” during the witches’ dance. Then Banquo (otherwise known as Moira Sanderson) said to the witches, “You should be women yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.”

  And Rosie had a complete and utter laughing attack. It set all of us off. We had just about calmed down when Jas as Lady MacUseless said, “Thou cream-faced loon,” and that set us all off again. I think I may have pulled something.

  8:00 p.m.

  Vati came crashing back from football with the “lads.” I could hear them laughing and cracking open beer. I hope they don’t come up to talk to me. Oh, too late.

  8:05 p.m.

  Vati and Uncle Eddie came trooping up. Laughing like loons. I said, “I would love to chat, but I am doing my English homework.”

  Vati went, “And you are studying How to Make Any Man Fall in Love with You, that well-known novel?”

  Oh merde, I hadn’t hidden the book; now he will definitely be on my case for the next million years. I snatched it away, but fortunately before he could go on, the other lads yelled up the stairs.

  “Bob, come and look at this, Dave can get two legs down one trouser leg.”

  And they went raving off.

  I don’t think much of the Portly One’s fitness regime, supposed to convince Mum that he is a good catch. Uncle Eddie told me that Dad was
sent off tonight at football after twenty minutes for persistently calling the referee, Mr. Lancaster, “Maureen.” Then he comes home and drinks beer.

  If I have “little sense of responsibility,” as Hawkeye says, I know who to thank for it.

  8:30 p.m.

  Mutti came home with Libby, and for a minute I thought I could hear Jas’s voice. I hope Libby isn’t doing impressions now. There was a knock on my door and it really was Jas’s voice.

  “Georgia, it’s me, can I…can I come in, please?”

  Blimey. Jas was forgetting that she had eschewed me with a firm hand. I said in a dignity-at-all-times way, “Come.”

  And she came in all in a ditherspaz, with the piggy eyes that are all too familiar a sight to me. She said, “Tom’s going off for six months to Kiwi-a-gogo land.”

  I said, “Non!”

  Then she started blubbing, “Six whole months, how can he go?? And leave me behind?”

  I started to say, “Ah well, you see, when the Sex God said—”

  But she blubbered on and on, “I mean, how can he just go? How?”

  “Yes, well, that is exactly what happened when I was dumped for marsupials, I said—”

  “I mean, I wouldn’t go and leave him…I wouldn’t.” And she started the uncontrollable blubbing again. I shoved Charlie Horse in her arms and went downstairs for first aid.

  When I went into the kitchen to get the milky coffee and Jammy Dodgers emergency rations, Libby was styling Gordy’s fur into a sort of Elvis quaff with hair gel. Mutti was making her costume for the Lord of the Rings party. I wasn’t aware that there was a prostitute in Lord of the Rings, but as I have never got beyond the first mention of hobbits, I will never know. I said to her, “Dad got sent off for calling the referee ‘Maureen’ and you wonder why I got a bad report. By the way, please forbid Vati to wear green tights for this party, whatever happens.”

  She said, “Your father’s got rather shapely legs.”

  Is she truly insane?

  Then she said, “What is the matter with Jas? She just said it was something awful about Tom.”

  I said, “Hunky is going off to snog sheep in Kiwi-a-gogo land for six months.”

  Mutti said, “Oh dear.”

  And Libby went, “Oh dear oh dear oh deary dear deary dear dear.”

  I’d like to think she was being sympathetic, that is what I would like to think, but I am not stupid enough.

  I said, “I know what it feels like to be dumped for a wombat.”

  At that point Vati came in for another beer and a big hunk of cheese. He winked at us all. “Hi chicks.”

  And went out.

  I looked at Mum. “I know what it is like to be dumped for a wombat, but I don’t know what it is like to be married to one…”

  Mutti said, “Don’t be cheeky. You could have worse dads, you know.”

  There was a bit of a silence then, broken only by the sound of farting from the front room.

  The milk was boiling and I went to make Jas’s emergency milky pops drink. Mum followed me and said, “So, what about Dave the Laugh?”

  I went, “Huh.”

  And she said, “Isn’t there anyone you like?”

  I was a bit distracted, and before I could stop myself I said, “Well, the new singer for The Stiff Dylans is cool, he’s called Masimo and he is half Italian and actually gorgey and fabby.”

  I immediately regretted having told her; in principle I think parents should really only be like sort of human purses, but I sometimes forget.

  I needn’t have worried that Mutti would be at all interested in me; she was rambling on about herself.

  “I had an Italian boyfriend once, I met him in Rimini on a school trip. It used to take him an hour to get his hair right. I was on the beach with him one time and this girl in a bikini bottom and with high heels got on a motorbike and rode off.”

  Even I had to ask, “Do you mean she had only her bikini bottom on?”

  Mum nodded.

  I went on, “Do you mean she had let her nunga-nungas flow free and wild on a motorbike?”

  Mum said, “Yes, and they weren’t small.”

  I said, “Isn’t it a traffic hazard?”

  Mum said, “Well, that is what I said. I said to my boyfriend, ‘Isn’t that a traffic hazard?’ And do you know what he said?”

  I said, “No, what?”

  And Mum said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. He didn’t speak any English.”

  And then she had a laughing spasm that Libby joined in with.

  Is that what it is like in Spaghetti-a-gogo land?

  8:45 p.m.

  A little voice from upstairs went, “Georgia, I’m all alone up here.”

  my bedroom

  Back in Heartbreak Headquarters, Jas and I snuggled up in bed and drank our milky coffee.

  In between snuffling and slurping, Jas said, “How can I stop Tom going away?”

  I could feel a touch of wisdomosity coming on.

  “Well, Jas, there are of course two ways of looking at this.”

  “Are there? You mean the right way and the wrong way?”

  “No, I mean your way and the trouser way.”

  She slurped attentively.

  I went on, “His trousers want to go and see his brother and ferret around with vegetables. And you…er…don’t want them to.”

  Jas said, “So are you saying…I should be more understanding when I say he can’t go?”

  I shook my head sadly. If I had had a beard, I would have twirled it. I went on, “No. What I mean, Jas, is that never the twain shall meet. If you try to stop him, he will have, you know, frustrated trousers.”

  “Frustrated trousers?”

  “Yes, you know, his trousers want to go off on an adventure and you want them to hang around in your wardrobe of life.”

  “They might like it in my wardrobe.”

  “Ah yes, they might at first, but then they might hang in your wardrobe for ages and then be too moth-eaten to wander free.”

  Jas said, “So you think I should let the trousers go, set the trousers free?”

  “Yes, I think you should.”

  She looked thoughtful, which is a bit unusual and scary.

  “OK, but Tom doesn’t have to go as well, does he?”

  Good Lord. I am on the brink of exhaustiosity. What is the point of me thinking up philosophical analogies if Jas thinks we really ARE talking about trousers?

  midnight

  Poor Jasy spazzy has gone home to her bed of pain. On one hand, I am really sorry for her, but on the other foot, I can’t help remembering how she didn’t give a flying fig’s pants when Sex God went to Kiwi-a-gogo.

  12:05 a.m.

  However, to be a jolly good pal (and I sincerely hope that Baby Jesus is not having the night off in Africa or something and is therefore noticing my goodness, and planning a reward in the shape of a gorgey half-Italian half-Hamburger-a-gogo bloke)…anyway, what was I saying before I so rudely interrupted myself…oh yes, to be a jolly good pal I may get her a Curlywhirly and wrap it up in special wrapping paper.

  12:15 a.m.

  Oh, I can’t sleep. I wonder how I can get to Masimo and impress him with my whatsits. Feminine willies. If I wait until the gig, he will be quite literally covered in girls.

  Dom told me he goes to St. Budes art college. I could accidentally on purpose bump into him on my way home.

  The fact that it is on the other side of town is a bit of a logistical problem. I may even have to bunk off school.

  12:20 a.m.

  Which might mean I would miss “gaseous interchange” in blodge, which is a blow.

  12:25 a.m.

  However, as “gaseous interchange” is another term for breathing and farting, I can make up for lost time by being in the same room as my father.

  and that’s when it fell off in my hand

  friday april 22nd

  on the way to stalag 14

  Despite my very wise trouser speech to Ja
s, she has decided to punish Tom by not seeing him or speaking to him.

  I said, “How long has this been going on?”

  And she said, “Well, I didn’t get home till quite late last night, so…”

  “So…you haven’t actually been able to ignore him yet?”

  “No, but when I see him I will.”

  She is still very unstable and sniffly. I gave her my special Curlywhirly gift with its special Christmas gift wrapping. We were just walking up the hill when I handed it over. It didn’t have a very good effect on Jas—she looked at it and then flung her arms around me and started really blubbing and wailing; she was saying, “Oh Gee, you are such a good pal and I’ve been horrid to you…I am sooooo sorry, I really love you. I know you are always asking me to say so and I never will, but I do. I do love you.”

  Crikey. She had gone bananas. I thought she would stop after a minute, but still she went on. I tried to walk on but I ended up sort of shuffling along with her hanging around my neck. I bet it looked like the lezzie version of Blithering Heights. All I needed now was for Masimo to come by. Or some notorious sadists like Wet Lindsay or Hawkeye. Then I thought of the worst-case scenario…Miss Stamp. If Miss Stamp came by now, she would be in Lesbian Heaven. She would ask us round to her place for “tea.” She would offer me extra coaching…oh my Giddy God…

  I pushed Jas off me quite firmly and said sternly, “Jas, remember your Ramblers’ badge—don’t let yourself down, remember the Country Code.”

  What on earth was I talking about?

  It seemed to make some sort of sense to Jas, because she stopped sniffling and adjusted her beret.

  I went on cheerily, “Six months isn’t long…is it? It’s only twenty-four weeks. You could do something really great in twenty-four weeks for when Tom comes back.”

  She said, “Could I…like what?”

  I said, “Well…you could…grow your fringe out and that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? A new you, Jas, imagine it. A new fringeless you.”

  I could see I had got her attention, which is sad really.