On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God Read online

  Jackie looked down at us tied together in our coats and said, “Look, Ali, the little girls are playing a little game. Let’s join in.”

  And then they sat on us.

  And they are not small girls.

  Alison said, “Fancy a fag, Jackie?”

  We heard them light up. We were just trapped there.

  Then Jackie said, “Oooh look, someone has left some cheesy snacks for us. Fancy one, Ali?”

  Me and Jas were the Bummer Twins’ armchair.

  my bedroom

  5:30 p.m.

  No phone calls.

  Mutti came in.

  I said, “Oh come in, Mum, the door is only closed for privacy.” I said it in a meaningful way but she didn’t know what I meant. She was all pink.

  “Dad phoned again; he sends his love, he’s really looking forward to seeing you. He’s got you a present.”

  I said, “Oh goodie, what is it? Sheepskin shorts?”

  She started that tutting thing.

  I don’t think she has asked me one thing about myself for about four centuries. What is the point of having children if you are not going to take any notice of them? You might as well get a hamster and ignore that.

  5:35 p.m.

  Oh yippee.

  This is my gorgeous life:

  (1) I haven’t been kissed for a month; my snogging skills will be gone soon.

  (2) I have a HUGE nose that means I have to live for ever in the Ugly Home. Address:

  Georgia Nicolson

  Ugly Home

  Ugly Kingdom

  Ugly Universe

  (3) My Red Herring plan has failed.

  (4) I am the Bummer Twins’ armchair.

  6:00 p.m.

  Mum called up, “I’m just taking Libbs to the doctors; she needs her ears cleaning out.”

  Oh please. Save me from that thought.

  6:30 p.m.

  Phone rang. If it’s Po moaning on about Hunky I’ll go BERSERK!

  6:45 p.m.

  I’m seeing Dave in the swing park after school on Friday. He got my phone number from Tom through Jas! Good grief. The Red Herring has landed. I’m quite excited, I think.

  Am I?

  He said it would be “groovy” to see me again.

  He also said he hoped it wouldn’t be too nippy noodles in the park. He made me laugh.

  I am still only using him as a Red Herring, though.

  8:00 p.m.

  Mum came back with Libby. I was busily trying to save myself from starving to death by eating cornflakes.

  I said, “The doctor didn’t find my fishnet tights in Libby’s lugholes, did he?”

  Mum seemed to be in even more of a coma than normal. She said, “I borrowed them for salsa dancing with Uncle Eddie.”

  Charming. I’ll have to boil them before I wear them again.

  Mum said, “They’ve got a new doctor at the surgery.”

  Silence.

  “He’s very good.”

  Silence.

  “He was so nice to Libby—even when she shouted down his stethoscope.”

  What is she going on about?

  “He looked a bit like George Clooney.”

  9:40 p.m.

  When I went up to bed she kissed me and said, “You haven’t had your tetanus injection renewed, have you?”

  What is she talking about?

  tuesday october 3rd

  10:30 a.m.

  Rosie said she might go across to Sweden land with Sven in the Chrimbo hols. 1 said, “Are you sure? You’re only fourteen and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Are you sure you want to go to the other side of the world with Sven?”

  She said, “What?”

  I said, “Going to the other side of the world with Sven—is it a good idea?”

  She said, “You don’t know where Sweden is, do you?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  And she said, “Where is it, then?”

  I looked at her. Honestly. As if I don’t know where Sweden is. I said, “It’s up at the top.”

  “Top of what?”

  “The map.”

  And she went, “Hahahahahahahaha.”

  I think she must be a bit hysterical.

  I may forgive her. Because so am I.

  maths

  10:25 a.m.

  Oh good grief, welcome back to the land of the crap. The Bummer Twins sent round a note: Meet in the Fourth Year classroom at 12:30 today. Everyone comes, and that means you, Georgia Nicolson and your lesbian mates.

  I wrote a note to Jas and the others.

  Dear Ace Gang,

  This is it. Things have got sheer desperadoes. We have to put our feet down with firm hands. I for one am no longer prepared to be the Bummer Twins’ armchair! Meet in the Science block at 12:15. Or be square.

  Gee-Gee

  xxxxxxxx

  12:32 p.m.

  Hiding from the Bummer Twins in the science block loos. Jas, Jules, Rosie, Ellen, and me . . . all in one cubicle. We have to keep our feet off the floor so that no one will know we are in here. It’s hard to keep your balance when there are five of you standing on one loo seat.

  Alert, alert!!! Two people came into the loos. I recognized their voices. It was Wet Lindsay and one of her mates, Dismal Sandra.

  Wet Lindsay said, “Honestly, some of the younger girls are so dim. One of them came to see me and asked me if she could get pregnant from sitting on a boy’s knee.”

  Jas mouthed at me, “Can you?” Which I thought was quite funny but I couldn’t laugh otherwise we would end up quite literally down the pan.

  I wanted to look over the top of the cubicle so that Wet Lindsay would know I had seen her in the loo. Seen her removing her thong from her bum-oley!!!

  Then Wet Lindsay’s weedy mate Dismal Sandra said, “What is happening with Robbie?”

  I was full-on attentionwise.

  Wet Lindsay said, “Well he says he doesn’t want to get serious because of college and the band and everything.”

  I nearly yelled out, “It’s not that, W.L.; it is because he doesn’t like you . . .”

  Dismal Sandra said, “So what will you do, then?”

  Lindsay said, “Oh, I’ve got my ways, I’ll charm him back in the end. He’s not seeing anyone else, he says. I expect he’s still upset about us splitting up.”

  Oh yeah, in your dreams, oh Wet one.

  physics

  1:30 p.m.

  Herr Kamyer was twitching about in his sad suit. It’s sort of tight round the neck and short round the ankles. Do normal people wear tartan socks? Anyway, he was adjusting his spectacles and saying, “So zen, girls, ve haf the interesting question about ze physical world. Ver question is (twitch twitch), vich comes first . . . ze chicken or ze eggs?”

  No one knows what he is talking about so we just carried on writing notes to each other or making shopping lists. Ellen was actually painting her toenails. You would think that Herr Kamyer would notice that she had her head underneath the desk, but he didn’t seem to.

  He really does jerk around. He sort of blinks his eyes and screws up his nose and flings his head round all at once. Someone said it was because he has had malaria. Once when he was walking across the playground and it was icy he had such a spasm that he slipped and crashed into the bike shed. Elvis had to restack sixty bikes. He grumbled for about forty years. You would think Elvis would have more sympathy for the afflicted. As he is so afflicted himself.

  Suddenly about ten girls started sneezing really violently. Really violently, like their heads were going to blow off. Their eyes were streaming and they were stumbling for the door. Jackie Bummer managed to say, “Oh we must be . . . ATISHOO . . . ATISHOO . . . allergic to something in the science lab, Herr Kamyer. ATISHOO!”

  They all got sent home in the end.

  I found out later what the Bummer Twins’ meeting was about. They had made everyone put bath crystals up their noses in the middle of physics, and that had brought on the sneezing attacks.
All because the Bummers wanted to go to some club in Manchester, and needed to be home early.

  Good Lord. Three days to my date with the Herring.

  5:00 p.m.

  Jas made me go home with her. She is planning a special celebration for when Tom gets home.

  “It will be one year since we first met on the day he gets back!”

  I just looked at her.

  “And look!” Before I could stop her, she pulled up her skirt and pulled down her voluminous knickers to show me her stupid heart tattoo. “I’ve been washing round it!”

  She went on and on about what she was planning to do. Even though I found some matchsticks and put them over my eyelids so it looked like they were holding my eyes open. Eventually I said, “Look, why don’t you do a nice vegetable display for him?”

  midnight

  Honestly, Jas is so touchy. And violent.

  wednesday october 4th

  4:30 p.m.

  After swimming today Miss Stamp came into the showers to make sure we all went in. She says we pretend to have a shower and that we are unhygienic. That is why she must supervise us. But really it is because she is a lesbian.

  She watched a few of us go through (twirling her mustache). She shouted, “Come on, you silly ninnies, get in and get out!”

  I dashed in in the nuddy-pants and was soaping myself like a maniac in order to get out quickly because Miss Stamp is a lesbian and might . . . well might . . . er . . . look at me. As if that wasn’t bad enough I had to be on even more red alert because Nauseating P. Green lumbered into the shower next to me. What if she accidentally touched me? It’s a sodding nightmare this place, like the Village of the Damned. If P. Green fell against me I would be contaminated with Nauseatingness. She really is a most unfortunate shape. What on earth does she eat? All the pies; that is for sure. In fact, she has no shape; you can only tell which way up she is because of her glasses.

  As I was getting dried I did feel a bit sorry for her because the Bummers had hidden her glasses while she was in the shower. She blundered around in the elephantine nuddy-pants, looking for them. The Bummers (who had managed to get out of games by “having the painters in” again! How many periods can you have in a month?) were singing, “Nellie the elephant packed her bags and said good-bye to the circus.” Then the bell went and the Bummers slouched off.

  After they’d gone I gave P. Green her silly specs. She would have been in the shower rooms for the rest of her life otherwise. I hope she doesn’t think that makes me her mate.

  in my bedroom

  6:00 p.m.

  No phone call from SG. I wonder what Wet Lindsay means about using her charm on him? What kind of charm do owls have? Perhaps she will lay him an egg.

  Ohgodohgod. I’m getting the heebie-jeebies about my Red Herring extravaganza. How do I keep him as a Herring without snogging him?

  In Bliss in the letters page there’s a letter from a girl called Sandy. She didn’t really like a boy and was just using him to get off with someone else. Unfortunately the advice from Agony Jane was not “Carry on and good luck to you.” The advice was “You are a really horrible girl, Sandy. You will never have a happy life, you cow.” (Well, it didn’t exactly say it in those words but that is what the gist and nub was.)

  Decided to put the squeaking dolphins on and do some calming yoga. I used to be quite good at doing the Sun Salute last term until Miss Stamp surprised me in the gym with my bottom sticking up in the air.

  Mmmmmm—much much better. All soothing and flowing. Lalalalala. Lift your arms up to worship the sun . . . breathe in . . . hhmmmmmm, then put your arms down to the floor like in “we are not worthy” in football . . . aahhh, breathe out. Much calmer. Then swing to the right and swing to the left.

  That’s funny . . . if I turned to the right, then the left, a funny noise came out of me. Like a sort of wheezy noise. Could it be the dolphins? I didn’t know they did wheezing.

  Turned the tape off.

  Now then, to the right, to the left. Oh no. Wheeze wheeze. If I went really fast from the right to the left I could hear wheeze wheeze wheeze. Which is not what you want.

  It was really quite loud. Wheeze wheeze.

  I’d probably caught TB from being made to do swimming in freezing conditions.

  Mum came in with a cup of tea for me (without knocking, naturally) and caught me doing my wheezing movements. She said, “Are you dancing?”

  And I said, “No I’m not, I’m wheezing. I think I may have caught TB. It’s not as if I’m in tiptop physical condition, with the kind of diet that we live on.”

  She said, “Don’t be so silly; what is the matter?”

  I didn’t want her to listen to my wheezing but I had really freaked myself out. I let her listen. Side to side, wheeze wheeze.

  She looked worried. (Probably thinking she would be chastised by the local press for child abuse and neglect.) She said, “Look, I think maybe we should pop up to the surgery and see George Cloon—er. . . the doctor—get your coat.”

  Before I could protest she grabbed Libby and we were out of the door. As she started the car I said, “Look, Mum, perhaps if I had a warm bath and you made me a nourishing stew . . . ”

  The next thing I knew I was in the doctors’ waiting room. It was full of the elderly mad, all coughing. If I wasn’t sick now I was soon going to be.

  Libby got up on a table to do a little dance for everyone. It must have been something she had learned at kindergarten. It seemed to be sung to “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

  Libby sang, “Ha ha pag of trifle atishoo atishoo all fall down.” The finale was her throwing up her dress and pulling down her panties.

  Mum hadn’t expected that bit. Who could? There was a lot of muttering from the very old. One woman said, “Disgusting!” which was a bit rich coming from someone wearing a balaclava.

  Eventually we got to see the doc. Mum practically threw herself through the door and I was left dragging Libby because she wanted to do an encore.

  Mum said, “Oh, hello, it’s us again!” in a really odd girly voice. When I had got Libby’s knickers back on I looked at the doctor. He was quite fit-looking actually, not at all the surly red-faced madman that normally treated us. There was a bit of the young George Clooney about this one.

  He smiled (yummm) and said, “Yes, hello again, Connie. (Connie!) Hello, Libby.” Libby gave him one of her very mad smiles.

  Then he looked at me. I gave him my attractive half smile. (Curved lips but no teeth, nose snugly pulled in.)

  He said, “And this must be Georgia. What can I do for you?”

  Mum said, “Tell the doctor, Gee.”

  Reluctantly I said, “Well, when I do this . . .” (and I did the side to side thing) “. . . a wheezy noise comes out of me.”

  The doctor said, “Does it happen any other time?”

  I said, “Er. . . no.”

  And he said, “Only when you go from side to side?”

  And I said, “Yes.”

  And he said, “Well, I wouldn’t go from side to side, then.” And that was it.

  Thanks a lot. So glad that all that money we (well, my parents) paid in taxes for his medical training has not gone to waste. He smiled at me. “When you move like that you force the air out of your lungs and it makes a sort of noise. That’s all. They’re just like bellows, really.”

  I felt like a fool. Two fools. It was Mum’s fault for making me go. And she just hung around the doctor for AGES. Making conversation. Telling him she was learning salsa dancing. Did he like dancing? etc. She kept saying, “Oh, I mustn’t keep you,” and then going on and on. It was only when the nurse knocked on the door and said one of the pensioners had fallen off their chair that Mum pulled herself together.

  In the car going home she said, “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

  I said, “Mum, honestly, have a bit of dignity. You have made your life choice and the large Portly One is on his way home in a few days. It is not a good idea to risk your marriage, and
also incidentally make yourself a laughingstock this late on in life.”

  She said, “Georgia, I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Do I have to worry about every bloody single thing round this place? When do I get a chance to be a selfish teenager? Jas’s mum and dad have aprons and sheds; why do I have to have Mr. and Mrs. “We’ve got lives of our own” as parents?

  thursday october 5th

  11:30 a.m.

  The Bummer Twins have got their knickers in a twist. They saw Nauseating P. Green coming out of a classroom, talking to Wet Lindsay. P. Green was probably telling her something about hamster feed. But the Bummers are saying she is a snitcher because they got in trouble for knocking off school the other day. They call Nauseating P. Green “Snitcher the elephant” now. They stole her Hamsters Weekly. I thought she was going to cry which would have been horrific.

  Rosie sent me a note in maths. It said, I am an equilateral triangle.

  I wrote back and said, Does that mean all your angles are equal? and she wrote, I don’t know. I’m a triangle.

  I looked over at her and pushed my nose back like a pig. She did the same thing back. We could wile away the hours much more amusingly if we could sit together.

  I said that to Slim when she split us up last term. I said, “Miss Simpson, it is a well-known fact that if friends sit together they are encouraged to do more work.” But she just shook in such a jelloid way I thought her chins would drop off.

  She said, “The last time you two sat together, you set the locusts free in the biology lab.”

  Oh honestly; not only has she got legs like an elephant, she has got a memory like one. How many times did we have to explain it was an accident? No one could have imagined they would eat Mr. Attwood’s spare overalls.

  It is R.E. in a couple of hours so I will be able to have a decent chat to my mates instead of wasting time learning about stuff.