A Midsummer Tight's Dream (9 page)

Now all of them looked at me.

Flossie said, “Cain licked your face? He LICKED your face … he licked your FACE?”

I’ve got my new timetable. There’s all sorts on it that I have no idea about. What is “Theater of the Absurd”? My love life probably. Not that I’ve got one yet.

I can’t even read my letter from Dream Boy because I left it under my pillow in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

We finished at four o’clock after jazz dance and went into the café to have a drink. It’s nearly dark already. I’m going to need a torch soon to get home.

Flossie said, “Anyone fancy going down to the studios? We could make Bob let us play around doing some singing. If we pretend we really like Zep Lepplin or whoever it is he …”

At that point Bob walked into the café with a sign, which he hung on the wall by the door.

The sign read:
Don’t bathe until further notice. Rat in tank
.

As he waddled off he hung the hammer in the back of his belt and we could definitely see his bottom crack. Flossie said, “I’ve sort of gone off going down to the studio.”

Jo got up and said, “I think I’m going to go and … you know … read.”

And she went off.

Vaisey said, “She’s upset about Phil not being at the tree.”

When I got back to Dandelion Cottage, I was so tired that I had my supper and went to bed even before the lunatic twins. They were making a dog out of washing-up liquid bottles and said, “For oo.”

So in my bed it’s me, Mr. Fevver man, and Sudsy the dog.

How many days is it until Alex the Good will be here?

I don’t know what day he wrote his letter, but he said in a couple of weeks. And you would come home on a Friday, wouldn’t you? So I think it will be the weekend after next.

I’m going to start my “normal topics” list. For things that are normal to talk to boys about.

I will tell you what is on the not-normal topic list.

Knees
.

Spontaneous Irish dancing
.

Face-licking
.

Lavinia
.

I know she only wants to be pretend friends with me because she likes Alex.

So what is normal?

I can’t mention my home life.

Oh, I know, I can read my
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and then I could talk to him about that. I could even drop in a line casually mentioning my doing the play and how it would be good to get his ideas.

Right, here we are.

In the SparkNotes about the play it says the major themes are love’s difficulty, magic, and dreams.

Spooky.

That’s me and Alex.

I woke suddenly when it was still dark because I’d fallen asleep and had a nightmare. Harold had knitted me some tights and I had them on when Charlie walked into my squirrel room and said, “I’ve got a girlfriend. Do you want to see her?”

And he got a small blond girlfriend out of his pocket. Then Dr. Lightowler flew in, onto the top of the wardrobe, and said, “Look at her uncontrollable legs.”

Then Cain and Alex came through the window and Cain said, “Show us the knees, soft lass, I feel like licking them.”

I shouted, “I can dance! I can dance!”

And I tried to dance and found that Harold had knitted the legs of my tights together.

I
MUST HAVE DRIFTED
off to sleep properly because suddenly it was gone eight and I had to race around to get to Dother Hall in time. I put on my new yellow lacy corker holder and a yellow jumper that Georgia helped me to get.

The jummie is quite clingy.

Good. That’s good. And my hair is bouncy and perky. And shiny. If I wear a skirt with dark tights it makes my legs look almost normal length. I made sure my tights weren’t knitted together.

I thought everyone had gone when I went downstairs because it was all quiet. I made for the door with my breakfast banana. (I don’t mean the banana was walking along with me, I just mean … anyway, it wasn’t a walking banana.)

But then Dibdobs popped out unexpectedly from the cupboard under the stairs.

She beamed at me.

Her beaming can be quite alarming first thing in the morning.

She blinked at me through her glasses. She is the smiliest, oddest person I have ever met. I like her though. Sadly she wasn’t on her own in the cupboard.

She smiled and said, “Great news, Lullah. We started to knit the Christmas hats last night. We are hoping the whole village can have one. The twins are modeling theirs.”

Max and Sam came out of the cupboard in their knitted antler hats. As she pulled them out of the door, Dibdobs said, “What color would you like, Lullah?”

I was a bit late as I ran across the green. It was overcast and looked like rain. Ruby was just setting off up the hill to her school with Matilda. Matilda had a rain hat on. Ruby saw me running and yelled over, “Ay, Loobylullah, you really jiggle when you run! Ta-ra, see you later.”

I waved at her and crossed the bridge and then jogged into the woodland lane that led to Dother Hall. Or “Dither Hall” as Mr. Barraclough calls it. I am surprised that the vandal who changed
Skipley, Home of the West Riding Otter
to
Skipley, Home of the West Riding Botty
hadn’t had a go at our sign.

Despite the Charlie thing, I have a song in my heart and my song is “Woo-hoo-hoo-hooo. I’ve got corkers and I got a letter from a Dream Boy. Wooo-hooo-hooo, the jiggler is back in town!!!”

First thing we changed into our dance gear and went straight into the dance studio and Blaise Fox was there. She has had her hair cut into a crew cut and dyed white blond. She was dressed in silver leggings and enormous shorts.

I said to the others, “Oh no, she’s got her drum.”

She shouted, “Here you are again, you little minxes. And here I am, the minx mistress. And yes, you will notice I have my drum!!!!”

Monty came rushing in, well, as quickly as he could in his leotard. He was carrying a megaphone. Blaise said, “Now, girls, I know it’s the second day back and we need to ease our way into things gently so we are going to do an improvised free-form version of
Jaws
.”

We looked at each other.
Jaws
. The film about a killer shark that is mostly underwater? And …

Monty put some seaweedy-looking stuff on his head.

Blaise shouted, “Right, girls. It’s a calm day and you are the sea. Feel the sea. Find your inner sea. BE the sea!”

Monty was encouraging us by scampering around in his leotard. With his seaweed head.

Jo said, “Is he a sea anemone? Or a jellyfish?”

Actually, in his pink leotard he looks more like a jellybaby.

Monty was doing a bit of light leaping. And singing, “Wish, swish, wish, swish.”

Flossie started swishing backward and forward, throwing her arms above her head. She said, “That’s my foam.”

Oh, well, in for a penny, in for a pound, the rest of us started doing a sort of giant hokey cokey. Pulsing in and pulsing out.

It was quite soothing. I could have done it all day. Backward and forward. Swishy swish swish. Other girls were rushing backward and forward, flapping their arms around. I didn’t know that waves could do skipping, but what do I know, I was doing the hokey cokey.

Then Blaise started beating her drum.

Softly at first.
Bang-bangity-bang-bang
.

She pointed at Milly and her mates and said, “Now then, this group here, you be little children playing around in the lovely waves. Splashy splashy. Laughy laughy laughy. In amongst the swishy swishy.”

This was all very pleasant and soothing for first thing in the morning.

The drumbeat started getting louder and faster.

Blaise shouted, “Tallulah, you be the shark.”

What? How do you be a shark?

Blaise shouted through her megaphone, “Flossie, Vaisey, you are the boat, and Jo, you are the madman in charge. The drunken insane captain.”

Flossie and Vaisey started being the boat, and Blaise was yelling through the megaphone: “Splice the mainbrace!!! Clean the poop deck!!! MORE RUM!”

I started doing breaststroke.

Blaise said, “Oy, shark, look, no, don’t look because you can’t see, SNIFF …”

I started doing sniffing and breaststroke. Jo nearly fell overboard she was laughing so much.

Blaise said, “There’s some children playing in the shallows. Start sharking toward them. Children, keep playing around and splashing, you’ve nothing to think about except what kind of ice cream you will have … la la-la, la la-la … You don’t see the sharky yet.”

Blaise was yelling at me. “You’re getting a bit peckish and looking for snacks.”

She and Monty started a joint impro of the theme to
Jaws
on megaphone and drum.

“Der der … der der … Come on, shark, circle nearer … der der, der der … oooooh, look at those little legs waving about … der der, der der … ooooh, one of the children has seen your fin!!!!!! They are all trying to swim and make for the shore. One of them is swimming out to sea. Quickly, quickly, your supper is escaping!!!”

I don’t know what I was doing. I think it was mainly fast crawl and teeth baring.

Monty got carried away, flung down his drum, and tried to be a heroic surfer diving in to save the little children. But I gradually dismembered him. I have to say, he made an absolute meal of the whole thing. (Tee-hee, must put that in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.)

I had to sit on him in the end. Which is quite clever for a shark, I think. People say that sharks have brains the size of a walnut. Corker size, in fact, but …

I couldn’t think anymore because Blaise was shouting at me: “Rear up and bite his head off!!! Eat the boat, eat the boat!!!”

Two hours of it.

I’m exhausted. Everyone’s exhausted. I think Monty ripped his leotard.

And also I have a big bruise on my bum where Jo as the mad old captain stuck a mime harpoon in me.

Jo said, “Sorry about that, Tallulah—too much rum.”

She doesn’t know her own strength.

I’m so hot that my hair is sticking to my head. Flossie fell over a fire bucket because her fringe had glued itself to her glasses. I can’t tell you how red Vaisey was. Even her curls have gone droopy.

When we staggered into the loos I glanced into the mirror—a red-faced orangutan stared back at me. Its hair plastered down to its skull. It was panting.

It was me. Mr. Sharky. Thank goodness Alex the Good can’t see me now. As I supported myself against the sink, I realized I am surrounded on every side by notices from Bob.

Listen up, Dudes, forget the towel.

The towel is yesterday.

Shake your hands about a bit.

And even by the (switched-off) radiators:

Cold? You will be if the Ice Age comes again.

After I had shaken my head around to dry my hair I went into the loo. On the loo door it said:

Couldn’t you hang on for a bit?

Oh phew. I was certainly feeling the bleeding slippers of fame. And maybe even the bleeding bottom of fame. I’m going to just have a look to see if I have got a bruise on my …

Flossie shouted, “Lullah, where are you? We are going to the sacred tree again to eat our lunch.”

I said through the door, “I’m just having a little private …”

Flossie looked at me from under the door.

“Poo?”

“Er, no. I’m just …”

Then Jo’s head popped up over the next cubicle.

“Come on. You’re being selfish, just looking at your own bottom. I want to talk about me and whether Phil might be at the tree today.”