Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 08 (13 page)

There was another little pause. And then he stood up and said, “Anyway, I suppose you'd better be off, you've probably got a train to catch.”

At least he smiled when he said that. Which was good because I could feel the old waterworks coming on big-time.

midnight

The long and the long of it is that he is going back to New Zealand. He says there is a girl that likes him there. I stopped myself from saying “Is it Wilma the Wombat,” but it did make me feel a bit
funny to think of him with someone else. And also him going away again.

Oh I don't know. Would I want to go out with him if he was staying?

It's all very well writing books about how to make any twit fall in love with you, but what do you do when you have got them? That should be book two,
What to Do with a Collection of Twits When You Have Accidentally Done What Some Fool in a Book Told You to Do and Now They Are All Hanging About with You.

12:05 a.m.

Rosie and Sven seem happy together. And they are, as we know, planning to marry in eighteen years' time. But will they? They quite clearly have nothing in common, besides snogging, snogging, snacks, mad dancing and snogging. But perhaps that is a good relationship.

Who knows?

And then there is Jas'n'Tom. They have far far too much in common, but they seem happy.

one minute later

The only thing is, to be happy like Jas I would
actually have to be Jas.

No, I just cannot go there.

I have to be me.

And I have to face the fact that I have sounded my cosmic horn and therefore my red bottomosity has led me into the oven of luuurve, onto the rack of pain and out again onto the horns of a whatsit.

Oowwwww.

Well I have made my decision, now I will have to lie on it.

friday july 29th

Mum woke me at 8:30 a.m.

“Gee, can I borrow your leather skirt, you won't be taking it on the camping trip, will you?”

I was blinking in the blinding light because she had ripped my curtains open and was scrabbling through my wardrobe.

“Mum, why would you want to borrow my leather skirt and who are you lending it to? Which incidentally you can't.”

Damn! I had broken my vow of silence!!!

Mum said, “I'm not lending it to anyone, the girls and I are going to another of Uncle Eddie's gigs on Saturday. It's a sort of showcase thing and there will be him as the baldy-o-gram, there's a Viking Thor-o-gram, a Postman Pat–o-gram and there is a—”

“Mum, please stop there, as you know I am very artistic and this could send me over the edge. Are you trying to tell me that you are intending to wear my leather skirt and go watch mad blokes
ponce around in their undercrackers?”

She said, “Oh no…they take those off as well.”

How disgusting!!!

half an hour later

I've let Mum borrow my skirt and she has said that she will talk to me about Pizzaa-a-gogo land when I get back from camping. Yessssss!!!

I accidentally told her about the Robbie thing. And for her she was quite nice about it. I cried again when I told her. And I said I felt like a mean and wormy girl.

She said, “Well, it is true that you are a pain in the bum-oley most of the time. But I suppose as a teenager it's really your job. I think I was the same before I grew up.”

I didn't say,
Are you mad?

Then she went on, “Actually, I am quite proud of you. It's hard to tell the truth sometimes, especially if you don't want to hurt someone. And you did. You said what you feel. And you must do what is right for you, not what other people say is right.”

She gave me a big hug and to my amazement, I gave her a spontaneous kiss. Which surprised both of us.

11:00 a.m.

We have to be at Stalag 14 to meet the coach at 3:00 p.m. I wonder if I just didn't turn up they would bog off without me. I doubt it. I should think they would send out a hanging party led by Mr. Attwood and Wet Lindsay. Ooooh I cannot believe I have to go on this ludicrous camping thing.

It's pointless taking any beauty products because unless I suddenly go mad and start fancying Herr Kamyer, there will be no other males around, apart from Miss Wilson. I am just going to bung some jumpers and jeans in a bag with some essential snacks and hope that I can sleep through the next two days. Maybe I could get one of the ace gang to hit me over the head with something and knock me out and I could wake up smiling on Sunday.

I wonder if Wet Lindsay knows that Robbie is going back to Kiwi-a-gogo land. She will go ballisticisimus. So every cloud has a silver lining.

2:00 p.m.

Lugging my bag up the hill to Stalag 14. Jas has scampered ahead because Tom is helping her carry her things to school. She's only phoned me
four times to tell me how excited she is. I said to her in a moment of lighthearted repartee, “Jas, have you got a special toothbrush mug?”

And she said, “Of course, who hasn't?”

stalag 14

Things have gone horribly wrong already. Herr Kamyer is wearing shorts. That cannot be right. Or even allowed. I tried not to look at his legs. They are incredibly pale and have sort of ginger hair on them. Erlack.

We piled onto the coach and the ace gang secured the back seats. Rosie said, “We could moon the drivers behind us.”

She is a sophisticate and no mistake. Tom waved us off and Jas cried and blew him kisses. What has she got to cry about? She hasn't been in the mangle of love like me.

Miss Wilson is delirious with excitement, her bob is practically dropping off. As we drove off, she stood up and said to us all, “Now then, girls, just to get us in the mood, shall we sing a few songs? What about ten green bottles?”

Is she mad?

But then we discovered that we had a bus-
driving Mr. Attwood at the wheel, because he said to her, “There is no singing on the bus, madam, without the full permission of the vehicle transportation facilitator.”

Miss Wilson said, “Erm, well, when, er, who is the vehicle, erm, facilitator?”

Mr. Grumpy Arse said, “Me.”

And Miss Wilson said, “Well can we, erm, would it be alright for us to sing a few songs to…”

He just said, “No,” and accelerated so hard that Miss Wilson fell over and onto Herr Kamyer's knee.

We all went “Whey hey!!!”

an hour later

I told the ace gang about the Robbie evening.

They were all going “Oh that is so sad” and so on. And it was.

Even Jas put her arm round me. I gave her a little brave smile.

It is quite tough being a boy magnet, actually. More tiring than you would think.

Then Jas said, “Well I hope you have done the right thing. If Masimo decides you are too silly to go out with, you will be on the shelf of life again.”

I didn't even bother replying to her, she is so annoying. I just pulled her stupid outdoors camping hat down over her eyes.

half an hour later

In the middle of nowhere in the middle of a field. What is the point of that? Jas is practically skipping around with excitement. She went off to “explore” in the woods. Or Twig heaven, as some people might call it.

I went to look at the bathroom facilities.

ten minutes later

I said to the ace gang, “I will not be going for a poo for the next two days and that is a fact.”

The “bathroom facilities” are some chemical toilets and a sort of overhead tap that is supposed to be a “shower” in some crap hut thing. I wouldn't be surprised if a pig pops its head up the lavatory pan when you sit down. Not that I will be sitting down.

I said to Miss Wilson, “This is inhumane treatment of youth. I want to make a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, get them on the blower.”

Miss Wilson said, “Well, of course, yes things are rather basic. But that is half the fun of it. I remember when I was a girl, we went camping and there were no toilet facilities at all. We had to take our little spades and dig a hole in the woods for our bowel movements.”

Oh oh, Miss Wilson had mentioned her poo in front of me!!! I feel abused and dirty.

an hour later

Rosie and Jools and I are still trying to put the sodding tent up. I said to Herr Kamyer (who is sitting on a deck chair outside his tent, which even has a sort of awning over the opening), “Herr Kamyer, as you are so gut at putting stuff up, why don't you put ours up?”

And he said, “I zink it vill be more satisfactory for you if you achieve this thing yourself. It is gut for the personality.”

Well he is very very wrong if he thinks that the fact that you can put a tent up is good for your personality. For instance, the people who have put their tents up are him, Miss Wilson and Jas. That speaks volumes in my book.

 

Jas is incredibly irritating, even for her. And that is really saying something. She is scampering around like a fool, and doing her teacher botty kissing thing. She said to Herr Kamyer, “Herr Kamyer, shall I go foraging for firewood for the fire?”

And he said, “Vat a gut idea, Jas. Do you know the right kind of vood to look for?”

Jas said, “Ooh yes, Herr Kamyer, Tom, well, he's my boyfriend, we often have fires when we go out rambling. In fact we went on a special fire-making course, so actually I can make a fire without matches.”

I felt like shouting,
WHO CARES??? JUST PUT OUR BLOODY TENT UP FOR US, YOU TWIGGY TWIT!!!

half an hour later

At last we have got our tent up and are sitting in it. Is this it? Is this what people go on and on about? Sitting in a pokey thing looking at a field?

ten minutes later

God I'm bored. When's tea?

I went over to Jas's tent and knocked on the
flap. Which I thought was amusing. Jas popped her head through the gap.

“What do you want? Your tent looks a bit of a funny shape.”

I said, “Don't start me on things that look a bit of a funny shape, Jas. What are you doing in your tent? What are we supposed to do? Let me see.”

She said, “Well, be careful where you put your big fat feet, it's all nice and organized in here.”

Blimey. They really did have personal toothbrush mugs.

Jas said, “I've already found a great crested newt in one of the pools by the river.”

I looked at her ironically, but she didn't get it.

Babbling on and on like Lord Baden-Powell.

“Miss Wilson took a microscope with us to the pools and there were some hydra around the edge and—”

I interrupted her, “Jas, I believe I may have mentioned that I am not interested in great crusted newts.”

“Crested.”

“Whatever. Crusted, toasted, fried—I am and will always remain a newt-free area. Have you got
any snacks stashed around your person? I'm really peckish.”

I made her give me one of her secret Jammy Dodgers, which she had hidden inside her owl pillowcase. Honestly.

darkness falls on the camping fiasco

As it got toward dusk, Herr Kamyer and Miss Wilson started busily getting pans out and lit a fire.

Miss Wilson said, “Girls, you will notice that Herr Kamyer has made a fire break between the fire and the meadow. One must always be aware of the danger of forest fires in high summer.”

Oh yes indeedy, forest fires are high on my list of worries. Has she any idea what my luuurve life is like?

half an hour later

Actually I hate to say this, but it really is quite good fun sitting round the old campfire eating
spangleferkel
and beans from tin plates. I don't know why, but I felt a rawhide moment coming on.

I said that to Rosie and Jools. “I feel a touch of the cowboy coming on.”

Rosie said, “Oo-er, shall we do a bit of cattle rustling after supps to fill in the long hours until we can get back to civilization and snogging?”

I said, “Alrighty.”

So we are going to skip off and find some cows to rustle after our fruit tarts. Leave it.

fifteen minutes later

Us “campers” were all sitting around the fire as some of the eager beavers, i.e. twits and fools, went to wash the plates in the river. Jas was of course one of them. Laughing and giggling and saying stuff like, “Why, isn't that a meadowlark? And I think I spotted a badger trail. It will be exciting to watch for them tonight.” Absolute tosh. Why is she so happy in the outdoors? Perhaps she has a touch of the wild pig in her gene bank. When everything was stashed away in stashing land, Herr Kamyer said, “Now then, girls, ve haf now the entertainment.”

I said, “Yes, I was wondering where the TV would be plugged in.”

Herr Kamyer said, “
Nein
, we have something
sehr
better, besides which I haf not got any equipment.”

Oh we laughed. I must be giddy with crying and fresh air because I couldn't stop hooting with laughter for ages. Whilst Herr Kamyer just looked at us in bewilderment.

“Vat is the joke about? Why when I say I haf no equipment do you laugh? Anyway, for ze entertainment, Miss Wilson has brought some cocoa tins and we vill fill them with der rice like so.”

He got a tin and filled it with rice and then Miss Wilson started filling other ones. Then the worst thing in the world happened. They started shaking them like maracas and singing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.” By Rolf Harris.

Oh it was awful.

When they tried to get everyone to join in, shaking the tins and so on, I said, “Well I am just going see what the cows are doing on this fine evening.”

Rosie and Jools leapt to their feet saying, “We'll come. We'll come.”

ten minutes later

We couldn't find any cows. Well actually there were some, but the field was about a hundred miles away. Anyway I didn't want to see them
really, I just wanted to rustle them.

There were some dozy-looking sheep nearer, though, so we went into their field. Blimey, sheep poo a lot. Like little pellet things. Angus would love it here, things to chase and annoy, poo, sausages, tiny innocent voley things to massacre. Cat heaven.

Rosie has decided to “improvise” cattle rustling using the sheep and her wedding horns.

eight minutes later

Rosie strapped the bison horns onto a sheep with some of her tights and she is attempting to ride it like a sort of mustang. The sheep stands there in its horns and when Rosie gets nearly on it, just shuffles away a bit. She came at it from its bottom end and managed to stay on it for a second before plunging into some sheep poo. What hilarious country larks we are having.

9:00 p.m.

Surely it must be time for bed now? The sheep were no fun. In the end they just huddled together at the far end of the field. How dim can animals be? We headed back for the campfire because we had nothing else to do. The nearest village is about
an hour away and that is probably full of the elderly insane.

9:12 p.m.

After the excitement of the singing fiasco, the atmosphere really hotted up because for our further “entertainment” Herr Kamyer started doing shadow animals in his tent with a lamp. He said people couldn't get enough of it when he went camping in the Black Forest. Do we know any German comedians? “No” is the answer you are searching for. Anyway, live and let live, I say. Herr Kamyer would make the shape and then we would have to guess what it was. Jas was keen as mustard, she got the rabbit, and the eagle, etc. On and on it went. I don't know how anyone knew what animals they were supposed to be when it was clearly just Herr Kamyer's hands.

9:20 p.m.