Withering Tights with Bonus Material Read online

  And I uncrossed my legs and unfortunately kicked Flossie in the back of her head. She nearly choked on her tuna surprise.

  Jo said, “Lullah, are you starting to grow up from the waist down? Your legs are about a million feet long.”

  I said, “I know, I really hate my legs.”

  Jo sat up. “You’ve got cracking legs, really long. Look at mine.”

  We looked at hers. I thought they were nice legs, actually, with dimples in her knees. Not long—well, short, to be frank.

  Vaisey said, “Look at my bum, look how it sticks out. And if I jump up and down and shake at the same time, it waggles about.”

  Jo said, “I think it’s horrid how everything is to do with looks and it doesn’t count if you are a nice person. Why should it matter what your legs are like?”

  I said, “I agree with you, but . . . look at these!”

  I rolled up my trousers and let my legs be free and wild in the summer air.

  They looked at them

  Flossie said, “My cousin Jenet has legs like yours, and my auntie took her to a doctor.”

  I said, “Am I going to like this story?”

  Flossie said, “Shhh, I’m talking. Anyway, the doctor said Jenet was like a racehorse.”

  I said, “What, she had four really long, thin legs?”

  Flossie came and sat on me. I think she is what is known in showbiz as “violent.”

  She said, “No, what he meant was that she will grow into her legs. And you will grow into yours and then that will be good. And you will stop moaning.”

  Vaisey was pulling at her hair, which, and I don’t mean this unkindly, did look like a really badly knitted hat.

  She said, “And you’ve got very attractive hair, not like mine.”

  I know I should have said, “No, no, no, no you’ve got lovely hair!” But really I wanted to hear more about mine first. So I said, “How do you mean ‘attractive hair’?”

  Flossie said, “You know very well what she means. She means you’ve got very attractive hair.”

  I said, in a shy surprised voice, “Have I?”

  Flossie said, “Yes, you have, but you’ve got very bad acting skills. You KNOW that your hair is all glossy and black as a hearth.”

  I couldn’t help doing a secret tee-hee.

  And Jo said, “And you’ve got green eyes. If you wanted, you could be like a traffic light or something, they are so green.”

  I felt a bit cheered up.

  I said, in a fit of general loving the worldness, “I think we are all very, very lovely.”

  Honey came and sat with us. She walks slowly and softly, so that you don’t notice her coming. Not in a creepy “I’m going to rob your handbag” way, just in a softy way. It’s nice.

  Honey seems just like her name. Sort of golden and smoothy. Her skin is golden and her hair is thick and gold. And she has quite big corkers. And she’s sweet, just like honey made by bees. Except that that kind of honey doesn’t have a lisp.

  “I know I have a lithp. I lithp and I like it. And boyth theem to like it too!”

  Vaisey had got interested now. She said, “Honey, do you know about boys? Have you got a boyfriend?”

  Honey said, “Oh yeth, I’ve got two on the go, actually. Thafety in numberth, my mum thayth. I don’t think I can go a whole thummer without boyth.”

  After lunch, we walked off toward Heckmondwhite. Vaisey, Jo, Flossie, and I were slightly ahead of the others. Flossie said, “Oooh, look, a couple of jolly farmers in their fields. One of them is cheerily waving his stick at us. Would it be a stick or a crook? It’s not a gun, is it?”

  I said, “Oh, what larks, it’s the grumpy bloke I accidentally kicked on the train.”

  As we ambled along, Jo said, “Do you think that Honey really has got two boyfriends?”

  Vaisey said, “She seems a bit more ‘mature’ than us, more experienced, don’t you think?”

  I said, “I’ve had my bottom felt.”

  Flossie said, “Who by? Not your mum?”

  I said, “No, it was an actual boy.”

  Vaisey said, “Was it nice?”

  I said, “Well, not really, because he pretended it wasn’t his hand, it was his kitbag.”

  Jo said, “I’ve had my bra undone through my T-shirt.”

  I said, “Great balls of fire, who did that?” Jo said, “I don’t know which one, because they all bombed off on their bikes before I could see.”

  Vaisey said, “My cousin put an ice cube down the front of my T-shirt and then offered to get it out for me.”

  I said, “Is that it then? A maybe fondling of a bum, a hit-and-run undone thing, and an ice cube incident?”

  Flossie said, “No, not quite . . .”

  We turned to look at her.

  She said, “Well, this is how it happened. It was a hot steamy night, you know, those kind of nights when you feel restless. You want something to happen and you don’t quite know what? Like you were in a play set in Mississippi and you can hear the damn crickets. Going on and on.”

  Jo said, “They don’t play cricket in Mississippi.”

  Flossie said, “Someone kill her while I carry on.”

  We stopped walking.

  Flossie took off her glasses. And loosened her hair and tossed it about. Then she stretched her arms above her head and sighed and went on in a sort of Texan drawl. “Now y’all know how damn hoooooottttt it can get in high summer. To get some air, I decided to peg out some washing. My smalls, actually. Although I hadn’t washed them in dirty bathwater. What a fool I feel now.”

  I said, “Will you get on with it?”

  Flossie went on in a quiet voice. “I was peggin’ out some of my pants when I saw a couple of young fellas watchin’ me. One of them was quite handsome. When I turned round, he ducked behind a bush. I thought, ah, he’s kinda shy. So I kinda half smiled in the direction of the bush and set off, slowly into the house.”

  Flossie mimed picking up a washing basket and sashaying down the road. “Then I heard a rustlin’ behind me. Aah, I thought, now he will say ‘Miss Flossie, you are so goddam beautiful.’ But the rustlin’ was followed by pingin’ and one of those boys was wearin’ my smalls on his head. And ran off wearin’ them.”

  When we got to Heckmondwhite it took us the usual minute and a half to go round the village. Some of the girls pretended to be interested in the cards in the post office. But it is very hard to be interested in ten copies of a card that has a picture of that fat bloke from Little Britain on the front. And you open it and it says, “I want that one.”

  Vaisey wanted to go home and go to bed and start dreaming on whatever our assignment is. Which I think is slightly cheating because it’s only six o’clock. The other girls had to be back at Dother Hall for tea, so I slumped off home to the Dobbinses’ house.

  I am exhausted. I could hardly eat my ham sandwiches. And trifle. And Eccles cake. The Dobbinses were on rope-weaving duty and so they went out after tea. Dibdobs gave me a little huglet as she went.

  “Come and do a bit of weaving, Tallulah, it’s fun! Mr. Barraclough often brings us ginger beer and does impressions. He did a very funny one of a ferret up his trouser leg last time.”

  I said I would pass.

  In my squirrel room, I’m glad I’m not in the dorm with a blanket over my head. It’s hot and sticky, even though it’s after nine o’clock. Maybe there’s going to be a violent thunderstorm. I’ve done my corkies-rubbing exercises and I can’t say I can see any difference yet. Although my arms look slightly bigger.

  Right, I am going to open my envelope to find out about the assignment for tomorrow:

  Tomorrow we begin our big adventure. Be

  prepared. Sleep. Bring comfortable workout

  clothes.

  And now . . . think of a word, or words, that

  sum you up.

  Dream on it.

  Bring it to the college tomorrow.

  A word or words that sum me up?

  I
lay in the squirrel bed thinking.

  Nobbly?

  Long?

  Corkieless?

  Oh, that’s attractive, isn’t it? In conclusion, I am a long, nobbly person with no corkers.

  Help!

  Everything is so different here. And even though the girls are only messing about, I know for a fact that Honey plays the piano, and so does Vaisey. And Vaisey has been a suicidal nun.

  Should I drop that thing that Cousin Georgia said about Norwegian art into the conversation? What did she say it was called? Sled-werk.

  There must be something I am good at. Besides being able to get stuff down from the top shelf.

  I can’t sleep, it’s no use. I’m too hot. And I’m too worried (and nobbly and long).

  I’ll think about something else. What, though?

  Oh, I know. Dad sent me a book through the post from wherever he is. Anyway, it turns out to be a James Bond book. In his note, Dad said I would learn a lot from it. He says he did.

  I’ll just open it randomly.

  Oh, here’s some stuff about boy things. James Bond and Honeychile. Ooh, that’s funny, isn’t it? Being a bit like Honey.

  It was unbearably hot in the hotel bedroom in Jamaica. Outside, the geckos and parakeets were settling down noisily for the night.

  I’ll just have to try and imagine the noise of the parakeets above the baaing and grunting outside my window.

  Honeychile got up from the bed and took off all her clothes. She went and stood next to the window.

  Crumbs.

  Bond went across to her and took a breast in each hand. But still she looked away from him out the window.

  “Not now,” she said in a low voice.

  Is that what you’re supposed to do?

  I went to the open window. And when I looked down I saw a boy and girl, um, snogging. The girl had her back to me and her arms wrapped round the boy’s neck. I couldn’t see his face. I wondered if it was like in the James Bond book and he was holding one of her breasts in each hand?

  If he was, she would turn her head away in a minute and say, “Not now.” I couldn’t see because of the angle. . . . And that’s when she snuggled into his shoulder and he looked up at my window.

  He looked at me.

  I looked at him.

  I was like a rabbit in a headlight.

  Maybe I can pretend I’m just drawing the curtains.

  There aren’t any curtains.

  Perhaps I could pretend to be cleaning the windows.

  I haven’t got a duster.

  I could use the sleeve of my jimjams.

  Good. Good idea.

  Creative.

  Improvise cleaning a window.

  He was still looking at me as I started cleaning the window with my sleeve.

  Then he winked at me.

  How disgusting.

  To be snogging one girl and winking at another.

  What sort of person did that?

  He is like a wild animal. A winking, snogging, wild animal.

  Then the girl said, “Oy, Cain, what are you looking at?”

  I shut the window quickly.

  Cain. Why is he always underneath my window?

  We first learn to fill our tights

  I WOKE UP EARLY THE NEXT DAY. I’d been dreaming that I had a bra made out of soap. It slipped off when I did my special audition dance and everyone laughed.

  I am going to tie my hair up and wear a hat. Cain won’t recognize me again out of my jimjams, will he?

  Oh Lord, he has seen me in my jimjams. Watching him snog.

  I went down to breakfast and the Dobbinses were all as cheerful as people who hadn’t been caught in their jimjams in the middle of the night. Pretending to clean windows. But really watching people snog.

  The twins were ready for an action-packed day of being really odd. Dibdobs said in her beamy way, “Morning, Tallulah! Say morning, boys. To Tallulah.”

  They looked at me.

  Sam said, “Oo been seeping?”

  Dibdobs laughed, “Yes, clever boy, Tallulah has been sleeping and now she’s awake and going to school. Hurrah!!!”

  But I don’t think Sam meant had I been sleeping. I think he meant had I been seeping. Because then he said, “I been seeping a lot.”

  Dobbs said, “Yes, clever boy, you’ve been sleeping too. Like Tallulah. You’ve been sleeping in your beddy-byes and now you are up and dressed!”

  Max said, “No! Lady!!! He not seeped in his beddybyes, he seeped in his pants!”

  I had to go.

  I met Vaisey by the post office. She had her hair in a plait so it didn’t stick out.

  She said, “Ruby plaited it for me. Do you think it looks all right?”

  I said, “Yes, it looks nice.”

  I think she is wearing a bra, she seems more stickyouty somehow. I didn’t ask her, but I might sneak a look later on.

  I do like her, she’s so friendly. And she seems all excited and happy.

  She said, “Did you do your assignment? What words did you come up with?”

  Before I could tell her she went on. “At first I was thinking about what people said about me, you know . . . nice. Bit young. Mad red hair, sticky-out bottom. But somehow, ‘nice, young, red hair, big bum’ didn’t make me feel good. And then I thought the words that sum me up are ‘Black Beauty.’”

  I said, “Um, that’s a horse.”

  As we walked through the woods she said, “Black Beauty was my all-time top favorite book when I was little.”

  I said, “Yes, but you didn’t want to BE a horse, did you? You wanted to HAVE a horse.”

  Vaisey said, “No, I wanted to be the horse. I was Black Beauty.”

  “You were Black Beauty?”

  “Yes, you know, free and galloping and so on. With black hair like yours. Not red hair. Sometimes just trotting along. Or cantering in high spirits. Look, I can even do dressage.”

  As we went up the lane to Dother Hall she started lifting one leg really high, and leaving it there for a second, and then hopping onto the other one and lifting that really high. And then crisscrossing her legs to the side.

  She said, “I used to ride as Black Beauty to school.”

  She trotted the rest of the way to college. Occasionally when she veered off toward Woolfe Academy, I shouted, “Black Beauty, steady!”

  I told her that when I went to school, I rode an imaginary Harley-Davidson motorbike.

  As we reached the gates Vaisey reined herself in and said, “What words did you think of to describe you?”

  And I said, “Um, it’s a surprise.”

  And I wasn’t fibbing because I haven’t thought of anything.

  When we arrived at the entrance hall other girls, older than us, were dashing in saying stuff like, “Hello, darling, I saw the BEST Beckett the other day. I wept it was soooo good,” and “Hi hi, one and all. God, nobody can lend me any panstick, can they? I completely forgot mine this morning after London.”

  They must be the permanent students. I wonder if I will ever be like them.

  Gudrun was there to greet us.

  “Guten Tag, Fräulein!!! Wunderbar!!”

  And she actually got hold of Vaisey’s cheek and shook it between her fingers. She was still going, “Oooooohhhh, look at you!”

  I’m glad she didn’t do it to me because I am easily startled.

  Our little group gathered together feeling a bit shy and lost. Gudrun shepherded us into the main hall, her bun waving about wildly. She said, “Ms. Beaver wants you to go straight up on the stage, so that she can introduce you to the rest of the college.”

  We shuffled up and sat down on the chairs there. I looked out over the sea of faces. Were the faces looking at my knees? I had done my best to play the knees down by wearing black trousers. I curled my legs under the chair.

  Everyone in the auditorium was chatting away, looking relaxed and cool. Vaisey looked at me and gave me a little thumbs-up. Then, from the side of the hall, Gudrun sounded
a big gong and Sidone Beaver entered stage left. All of the girls stood up, so we did too.

  Sidone wafted backward and forward. She was doing her world-renowned “filling the stage” thing.

  Looking round, she smiled and then swept a hand across her body toward us.

  “Girls of Dother Hall, I present fresh blood. I present to you these embryos. Will they grow into infants of theater, dance, music, art? Perhaps one or two of them will be giants of mime, or others medium-sized players of harps, others tiny but perfectly formed backstage scene shifters. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the playing, the taking part in this wonderful adventure.”

  Sidone went on. “I want you to welcome our new little embryos into the bosoms of the Mother ship or Dother ship.”

  Sidone laughed in a tinkling way.

  She said, “Did you see what I did there, girls?”

  There was almost universal nodding from the audience.

  Sidone said, “And to introduce themselves I have asked our new shipmates to come up with a word or words that sum them up. So now I ask you, new little friends, to tell us your words. And then, this is the bit you didn’t know, I want you to improvise a movement or dance to go with the word or words.”

  What?

  That hadn’t been in our note.

  We all looked at one another.

  A dance?

  Oh, Holy Mother of Mercy.

  I hadn’t even thought of any words! Perhaps I could just faint and that would be good. Then I’d be dragged offstage and taken. . . .

  Sidone pointed to the end of the line.

  “Let’s start here. What is your outside name? Your pre–magic of theater name.”

  She was pointing at Jo.

  Jo looked like an astonished (tiny) rabbit. She stood up.

  You couldn’t say she hadn’t got pluck. You could say she was insane, but you couldn’t say that she wasn’t plucky. Anyway, she said, “My name is Jo.”

  Sidone beamed at her.

  “Jo . . . Jooooooo . . . say it loud, Joooooo.”

  Jo said it loud. “JOOOOOOOOOO!!”

  She’s got a loud voice for a short person.

  Sidone stepped away from her a little and then went on. “And what was your descriptive word or phrase, Jooooo?”