‘Luuurve is a many trousered thing…’. Louise Rennison

Jazzy Spazzy.”

      “Yes, he said you were quite often normal. He had seen you being normal once or twice himself. Usually when you were asleep.”

      Marvellous.

      Apparently after I had run off to “catch my train”, Masimo had gone home with the band, and just after he’d gone Wet Lindsay had come stropping back looking for him. Jas said her no-forehead was all crinkly and mad and her hair extensions were swishing around in a Nervy B. Central way. Then she had seen Robbie and was all over him like a rash and they had gone off together.

      What, what???

      I said, “Wet Lindsay went off with the Sex God?”

      “Well, they did go out together once, didn’t they?”

      “Yes, Jas, I know, I was heartbroken. Do you remember?”

      “I mean, maybe he still likes her. I don’t know, maybe he has had a secret thing for her. Some people like lanky girls.”

      “Jas, shut up now.”

      “Well, I am just saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and so on. It’s an ill wind that—”

      “Jas, that is not shutting up, that is rambling on and on about rubbish.”

      She was chomping away on her Jammy Dodger like Wise Mabel of the Forest. I really, really wanted to shove it down her throat, but I knew it would take another million years to get the end of the story if I did, so I just said, “Jas, you know when you were going on and on about ‘maybe something good will happen’, and I didn’t want to go to the gig in the first place but you persuaded me? Well, did you know that Robbie was going to be there?”

      “Well, I sort of thought he might. I knew he was coming home because he rang Tom and said that he had booked his ticket. And that he would be back in time for the gig.”

      “But did he say why he was coming home?”

      “Erm, no, not exactly, no.”

      Oh noooooo. I have left the cake shop of luuurve thinking I have accidentally bought two cakes and found out that I may have only got one cake. And I might have already eaten that. I may in fact be cakeless.

      I said to Jas, “We must call an emergency Ace Gang meeting.”

      “Well, I thought I might go to the river with Tom and—”

      “No, Jas, you thought wrong.”

      Park

      Midday

      Angus is still trailing me around like Inspector Morse in a furry coat (and on all fours).

      On the swings

      Rosie said, “I hope this is worth it. Sven and me were going to practise artificial respiration on each other in case anyone chokes on the vats of mead at our wedding.”

      Even the Ace Gang has no sense of community these days. Jas bleating on about missing Tom, Jools wanting to go hang around Rollo while he played footie, Rosie banging on about Sven – half-reindeer, half-fool – and Ellen… well, Ellen just being Ellen.

      Five minutes later

      Ellen, Rosie, Jools, Mabs, Jas and me are all swinging on the swings. Not backwards and forwards like normal people enjoying a day in the park, but sideways so that the Blunder Boys can’t see anything. Life is not easy. The Blunder Boys are in the bushes watching us on the swings. They think we don’t know they are there; it’s pathetic. They are so noisy and keep falling over things and fighting with each other.

      Five minutes later

      Now the Blunder Boys are lying down on the ground, hoping they might see up our skirts. I can see their beaky eyes blinking under the branches. If they do happen to see our knickers they will think we are doing it on purpose to attract them. Dear God.

      One minute later

      Just then a Pekingese dog came hurtling by dragging its lead behind it, followed by Angus. Oh no. He loves Pekingese. A LOT. I hope it is a fast runner.

      Anyway, I haven’t got the time to worry about everything. If careless people will let their small dogs loll around in parks they are asking for trouble. It’s a cat-eat-dog world.

      Twenty minutes later

      The general mood of the gang is that I should play it cool until I know what is really going on. Although what Ellen knows about cool I really don’t know. She had a massive ditherspaz trying to describe how Dave the Laugh had said good night to her at the Stiff Dylans gig. Apparently, and I know this because I heard it about a zillion times, “Er, well… then he, well… and I didn’t know what he meant, but then, well, he just said… he just said to me… he said…”

      I shouted, “WHAT? What in the name of heaven, Ellen? WHAT, WHAT did he say?”

      And I didn’t even want to know; I just wanted to get to the bits about what happened after I left and what did people say about me and so on. But you know what people are like, it’s just me, me, me with them.

      Ellen went even more divvyish. Good grief. “He said, ‘Well, good night then, Ellen, never eat anything bigger than your head.’”

      I didn’t know what to say.

      No one did.

      Fifteen minutes later

      Anyway, the nub and the gist is that the Ace Gang are useless and don’t know anything more than I do. It seems they all watched me run off like a loon (to catch my train) and then lolloped home. Useless.

      However, I decided to forgive them. They are, after all, my besties.

      And if I don’t forgive them I will never find out anything. And also never go out again and stay in my house with my parents. So, grasping the bull by its whatsits, I said to the gang, “In order to make a full and frank decision boyfriendwise, I have to know the intentions of the prospective snoggees.”

      Ellen said, “Er, what are they? I mean who, what is, like, a snoggee?”

      “Ellen, keep up, the prospeccy snoggees are Masimo and Robbie. Masimo said that he was single and free for me, but on the other hand did not come running after me and stop me getting on my train. And Robbie only had time to say hello and then not long after went off with Wet Lindsay. Soooo, did Robbie come to the gig to see me, or does he just want to be friends with me? Why has he come home?”

      Rosie said, “Someone must go underground and subtly find out what Robbie’s intentions are. Shall I ask Sven? He could wear his camouflage flares.”

      I said, “No.”

      Jools said, “What about asking Dave the Laugh to find out?”

      Ellen nearly fell over with pleasure. “Oh, yes, well, I mean, I could, well, maybe I could, like, go with him or something. Be, like, his assistant? But maybe that would be, like, too forward or something. What do you think… or something?”

      I said, “No, Ellen, it has to be this year, really.”

      Jas had gone off into Jasland. She was fiddling with her fringe and I could tell she had Tom and voles on her mind.

      I said, “There is someone here, isn’t there, who knows Robbie’s brother quite well, shall we say, and who could use subtlety and casualosity to find out stuff? Isn’t there, Jas?”

      Jas looked up like a dog when she heard her own name. “What do you mean? What do you want me to do?”

      “I want you to find out about Robbie