Away Laughing on a Fast Camel Read online

  You could see Mr. Attwood squaring his shoulders. “When I was a lad we were given a decent set of rules. I was in bed by eight thirty and up by six thirty to do my chores.”

  I said, “Actually my parents are much the same with me: early to bed, early to rise and so on.”

  There was a crash from behind the loos, as if someone had fallen over.

  I said, “Well, thank you very much for your time, Mr. Attwood. It’s very good to have someone who is like a father figure.”

  Mr. Attwood lit his pipe. “Well…yes, well, anytime. Do you know you’ve made me go back a bit to when we had simple pleasures, for instance, I’ve got a train set I had as a lad, in perfect condition, still in its box…”

  “Gosh is that the bell!! I must get along to English, we are doing Blithering Heights.”

  When I got behind the loos Rosie had her coat buttoned over her head to stop her laughing.

  on the way home

  4:15 p.m.

  Lolloping along with Jas, I said, “It can’t be this easy. It just can’t be.”

  Jas said, “I know, it just can’t be.”

  Four boys from Foxwood came by doing their usual orangutan walk and shouting rubbish at us.

  “Come on, girls, get them out for the lads.”

  I said to the one with terminal acne, “Hey, you’re really nice-looking, would you like to see my nunga-nungas?”

  He stopped doing his orangutan impression. They all stopped.

  He said, “Er…yes.”

  And I said, “Well, I wouldn’t just for anyone, but, well, I’ve noticed you before…meet me by the park loos at seven thirty.”

  And he straightened his tie and said, “Oh yeah, I think I can make that.”

  Unbelievable.

  Absolutely unbloodybelievable.

  Me and Jas just looked at each other.

  tuesday april 26th

  Today is my work experience day at Dr. Clooney’s, so up at the crack of nine.

  Quite groovy to put on makeup and ordinary clothes on a school day.

  Mmmm, I wonder what is suitable wear for a doctor’s surgery.

  Black?

  Yes, I think so.

  Boy entrancers?

  Oh yes, I think so. Even though there will most definitely be no boys to entrance, apart from Dr. Gorgeous, it means I can get my staying-on technique right in the safety of the Valley of the Unwell.

  5:10 p.m.

  Good grief. Said good-bye to Dr. Gorgeous. God Bless Him and all who sail in him, but I will never, ever, be returning to his surgery except on a stretcher and unconscious. It is Hell on Wheels in there.

  Just a load of sick people moaning and sneezing. If I haven’t got scarlet fever or Old Person’s Lurgy, I will be amazed.

  Moaning and moaning on for hours. How can Dr. Gorgeous stand it? And such a terrible pingy pongoes smell. It’s the old men, mostly. I wonder if they get mixed up with their aftershave and mothball liquid. Or Bovril.

  Perhaps there is a perfume called “Old Bloke” that is a big hit with the elderly and sends all the older ladies wild, knitting neckless jumpers and so on.

  Anyway, that is it, there is a career I will never be having. I will not be going to the Congo. Which is just as well, as I haven’t been able to find it on the map.

  5:40 p.m.

  Oh I am soooo happy to be alive and free. Free, free. I felt like scampering and skipping down the road. Plus my boy entrancers had stayed on all day with no suggestion of glue eye.

  I was singing a song in my head and moving my hips in time to the music. Like it said in the book. A car honked its horn as it went by and some boys shouted out to me. Probably moron boys, but it’s a start. Now if I could just add the flicky hair I would be laughing.

  So let’s see…hip, hip, flickyflick, hip, hip flickyflick. Excellent!!! Now for the pièce de whatsit…downy eyes and upsy eyes.

  Hip, hip, flickyflick, uppy, downy, hip, hip.

  Yessssss!!!! Got it. I am a Sex Kitty.

  Once more, with feeling.

  Hip, hip, flickyflick, upsy, downsy eyes…

  “Ciao.”

  Ohgreatballsofordure, Masimo!!!! On his scooter. Saying ciao.

  I looked up. Yes, there he was.

  I said, “Oh, ciao.”

  How cool was that? Very very cool, cooler than that, it was vair vair vair…shut up brain, shut up.

  Masimo was still looking at me, like he thought that at any time I would start closing my eyes and dance off. I said, “How are you?”

  Excellent, normal as Norman Normal. Normaler.

  He looked at me with his fab eyes. It would have been weird if he’d looked at me with anything else, with his ears for instance. Hahahahahahahaha. Oh God, I was doing out of control laughing in my head!!! This was a new and scary development on the nincompoop scale.

  Masimo said, “I am cool.”

  I thought, You can say that again, mister.

  Masimo revved up his engine. “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

  Blimey.

  “I am going to rehearsal. Maybe I could drop you at your home.”

  Oh yes that would be groovy, him dropping me at my house and seeing the Robinmobile, and maybe my mum in her aerobic outfit…or Libby in no outfit…

  I said, “Well, I’m going to my mate’s house. We are hanging out before we go clubbing.”

  What am I talking about??? Clubbing? I will be going clubbing—clubbing myself to death if I keep talking absolute arse-blithering rubbish. Then Masimo smiled at me and I got chocolate body syndrome, which is jelloid knickers with knobs. He gave me his spare helmet; great news, I would have pancake hair when I got to Jas’s and took it off. But I don’t really care.

  I climbed on the back of the seat seat. It felt really groovy, but I would have to think of a good way to get off that didn’t involve a knickers extravaganza. I wasn’t exactly dressed for bike work, as I had my very very short black kilt on. Maybe if I shuffled over and put one foot on the floor and then bent the other knee up and sort of slid…Masimo said, “Hold on to me.”

  And accelerated off quite fast. I put my hands on his waist. He had his parka on and everything, but it was like I got an electric shock touching him. The wind was blowing in my face and making my eyes water. Please don’t let my boy entrancers blow off.

  We sped along. It was really fab and I was feeling full of happiosity and bliss. I couldn’t believe I was actually on the back of a scooter holding on to the Sex Meister.

  Masimo shouted to me, “Please, tell me how to get to your friend’s house.”

  Actually Jas’s house was about five minutes away, but I directed Masimo to go down the High Street even though that is not on the way. When we stopped at the lights I saw Dave the Laugh’s Rachel and a few of the Upper Sixth going to Luigi’s. They all waved like mad when they saw Masimo, even Rachel…Masimo just raised a gloved hand and we whirled off. I hope everyone recognized me under my helmet.

  I could have stayed holding on to Masimo and riding round forever, round and round, like that bloke on that doomed phantom boat, The Flying Dutchman. Of course there are differences—he was not on a scooter, and I don’t have a beard and I am not Dutch.

  Eventually I had to point out Jas’s house to Masimo and we pulled up outside. I got off without a police incident but Masimo didn’t turn his engine off. I didn’t think that was a good sign. It meant he wasn’t going to hang around and chat.

  I tried to remember some Italian and said, “Well thanks, er grazias a lot. Thank you a lottio. Thank youio a lottio.”

  Masimo smiled, “I am glad for doing of it. I am, how you say, full of sorrows for my English.”

  I said, “Oh don’t worry, I hardly speakio any myselfio.”

  He laughed and said, “You are funny.”

  Oh brilliant, he thinks I am funny. Not groovy or a Sex Kitty that he must spend the rest of his life worshiping and adoring, but funny.

  Then he said, “I must go to my rehearsal.”
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br />   And he revved up. I said, “Oh yeah, well ciao.” Then I remembered my Horn teacher’s advice so I put on my biggest smile. “It’s really nice that you have come to town and…I…thought you sang très bon.”

  He smiled again. “Good. Thank you. I will see you. Ciao.”

  And he went off. I turned to go into Jas’s gate feeling a bit flat and in the Valley of the Terminally Confused again. Had he just given me a lift out of politeness? Oh damn, damn and damnity damn damn. I hate all this.

  I looked at him as he reached the end of Jas’s street. He could be going to see Wet Lindsay after rehearsals for all I knew. How did she get boys to like her…it was a bloody mystery. Maybe she slipped horse tranquilizer into their Coke? As I was watching him indicating right, he did a big wheelie and curved back up the street very fast toward me. He slowed down in front of me and shouted, “Georgia, do you want to come with me to the cinema?”

  I did my world-famous impression of a cod in a kilt. He turned the bike round again and said, “If you do, I will see you at seven thirty on Friday at the clock tower. Ciao, va bene.”

  Then he sped off.

  I rang on Jas’s bell and eventually she answered it.

  “Have you come to test me on my Froggy assignment?”

  Is she really truly mad? I said, “Jas, be sensible. Let me in, and give me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sugar. I’ve had a shock. Get your secret chocolate stash out and I’ll tell you.”

  As we were munching away in her bedroom, I told her all about it.

  She said, “Blimey. So he’s actually sort of asked you out.”

  “I know, fab isn’t it?”

  “But is he seeing Wet Lindsay as well? Maybe it’s a double date thing and she will come to the cinema as well, and you will have one of those French things.”

  “What French things?”

  “You know, ménage à trois.”

  “Jas, he’s Italian.”

  “Oh well, menagio à trios.”

  8:00 p.m.

  I had to leave because sometimes Jas is so sensationally mad that I feel violence coming on.

  But nothing can alter this fact. Masimo, the best-looking bloke in the universe, a Dream God, has asked me—Georgia Nicolson—to go out to the cinema with him.

  8:30 p.m.

  I might have known there would be a couple of flies in the ointment, one of them quite porky. Mutti and Vati were in a real strop and a half when I got in. Vati started, “Where have you been? And before you start, don’t give me any nonsense about homework club. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

  I felt like saying, “Not unless yesterday was eighty-five years ago.”

  But I didn’t because I love everyone.

  Then Mutti joined in. “You have got be straight with us, Georgia. If you want to be treated like a grown-up, then you have to show us you deserve to be.”

  Vati was still grumbling on, “It’s not like we’ve never been young, but I at least treated my parents with respect and told them the truth.”

  I said to him, “Are you suggesting you want me to tell you the truth at all times?”

  Mutti said, “Of course my darling, we are your parents.”

  I said reasonably, just to clear things up, “Ah yes, but when I said how crap the Robinmobile was and why did we have to have a clown car, Vati went ballisticisimus.”

  They both just looked at me in that sighing looking-at-me way. Still, I was in Cloud Nine land and maybe I would make a point of telling the truth from now on.

  I took a deep breath and said, “OK then I will tell you, I was walking home from Dr. Clooney’s after a hard day with the elderly mad when the new singer with The Stiff Dylans came along and gave me a lift to Jas’s on his scooter.”

  Vati was already a bit huffy. “How old is this ‘lead singer’?”

  I said patiently, “He’s Italian.”

  Vati said, “What?”

  I said, “He’s Italian, isn’t he, Mum?”

  Vati looked at Mum. “So you know all about this then, Connie? What is it with you two? I’m always the last to know anything in this house. I slave away all day and then when I come back…”

  I slipped out whilst he was raving on and went to my room. It doesn’t matter what happens, divorce, orphanosity, it doesn’t mean anything when you have a Sex Meister as your plaything.

  9:00 p.m.

  Libby has made Gordy a pair of cardboard glasses at nursery school. And a hat to hold them on.

  Actually it’s not a hat, it’s a rubber glove, but it holds them on nicely.

  11:00 p.m.

  I haven’t got long to plan my outfit for Friday.

  Should I try to get Mum to buy me something new? Knowing her, she will probably count the new kitten-heeled boots and two skirts and trousers she bought me on Saturday.

  I wonder if I should consult with Dave the Laugh before I go on my date? No, because I don’t want any chance of rogue snogging.

  I’m so excited I am never going to go to sleep again.

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  wednesday april 27th

  breakfast

  Vati gave me a squeeze on the shoulder as I was eating my frosties. And he and Mum seem to be speaking. What fresh hell?

  He said, “Georgia, thank you for telling us the truth. Here is a fiver to get yourself something. Remember, it’s always worth telling the truth to people.”

  I said, “Oh, well; if fivers are involved, I should tell you that I am going to the cinema with Masimo on Friday night.”

  I thought Vati might explode, but sadly he didn’t. He tried to go on being reasonable, which was scary to witness. He was mumbling as he got his flying helmet on, “Right. Good. Right. That’s the sort of thing we mean. Good, right.”

  And then he went off to Flood Headquarters.

  Honesty is definitely going to be my policy from now on.

  break, on the knickers toaster

  I had been going through with the ace gang what I could wear on my date. And also showing them a new celebration dance I had made up for the occasion. There was, I must admit, quite a lot of finger pointing and hip waggling in it, but that is the way with celebration dances.

  Rosie said, “Georgia, you know that you are one of my bestest pals and that the ace gang is one for one and all the way to Tipperary and so on.”

  I said, “Oui.”

  “However, if you go on being such a prat and a fool for much longer, I am afraid I am going to have to kill you.”

  games

  The Upper Sixth were getting changed when we came in to the changing rooms. We are being forced to do a cross-country run by Adolfa. But I don’t mind because it means I will be in tip-top physical condition for my love date on Friday. (Of course it will also mean that tonight I will be in bed by five thirty with severe exhaustion and bottom strain, but c’est la vie.)

  Then I saw Wet Lindsay eyeing me like a Seeing Eye dog and also talking to her astonishingly dim and limp mates about me. I wonder if she knows anything about me and Masimo. Why should she? Still, it gives me the creeps. I feel that we have shared past lives together, and they have all been crap.

  4:20 p.m.

  detention

  Oh God and Gott in Himmel and also Mon Dieu. What is the matter with Hawkeye? She is so unreasonably surly. I went to the loos before Latin and I was just sort of dollydaydreaming about Masimo, so I was a tiny bit late for class.

  Herr Oberführer Grupmeister of the Universe (Hawkeye) said, “You should have been here at three P.M.” and I in a fit of spontaneous combustion and honestosity said, “Why, did something really good happen?”

  I have to write out eight hundred times “Rudeness is a poor substitute for wit.”

  Which is quite literally a pain in the arse. I mean it, I can hardly sit down after our cross-country run. At least I can walk, which is more than can be said for Nauseating P Green. She should never have attempted the water jump in her condition (i.e., ve
ry fat).

  4:25 p.m.

  Hurrah, I have perfected a way of doing lines quickly. I have Sellotaped five pens to a ruler so I can do five lines at once.

  The fifth line looks like a mad woman’s knitting, but you can’t have everything.

  thursday evening april 28th

  Jas is staying behind after school. Hard to believe that a human being can be interested in going around the sports field with the blodge teacher looking for vole droppings, but that’s old Jazzy Knickers for you. The most interesting person since…er…Quasimodo.

  I must say, though, I am relatively impressed vis-à-vis her glaciosity and independentology toward Tom. I think he’s definitely very puzzled about how calm she is being, and he’s not talking so keenly about going anymore.

  once more into the oven of love

  friday april 29th

  lunchtime

  Time is going so slowly.

  I said to Ro Ro, “Do you think I should risk the boy entrancers?”

  She said in between mouthfuls of cold rice pudding, “What if there is a snogging incident? I mean, you know, they might get entangled in something.”

  “Like what?”

  “His mustache.”

  “He hasn’t got a mustache.”

  “I know, but if he had one. I’m just saying you can’t be too careful.”

  Please don’t let me emigrate to Madland just before the best evening of my life.

  I don’t think I will risk the boy entrancers, though.

  4:30 p.m.

  I ran home with gay nunga-nunga abandon. I ran and ran with a Devil-take-the-hindmost attitude and hoped I wouldn’t see anyone I knew. Thank the Lord for once that I didn’t; I can only imagine what I looked like.

  5:35 p.m.

  Bathed and moisturized to within an inch of my life. Face pack on.

  Should I make a list of conversational topics so that I don’t accidentally say anything abnormal?

  6:00 p.m.

  The trouble is, I don’t have anything normal to say. I can’t talk about my family life when my vati has a clown car and my mutti has no moral code. I can’t even begin to go into Libby or Angus and Gordy. Or Grandad.