‘Dancing in my nuddy-pants!’. Louise Rennison

mon petit pal, but I love you.”

      “Don’t start.”

      “Anyway, we will have to wear sunglasses with glove animal if it snows, to prevent…snow blindness!!”

      She didn’t get it, though. I have to keep the comedy levels up at school all by myself.

      Assembly 9:20 a.m.

      I told the rest of the Ace Gang about the glove animal and snow blindness hilariosity and they gave me the special Klingon salute. Then I got the ferret-eye from Hawkeye and had to pretend to listen to our large and glorious leader, Slim. Her feet are so fat that you can’t actually see any shoe at all. It is only a question of time before she explodes.

      Slim was rambling on about the splendour of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an allegory for modern times.

      For once she is right. Shakespeare is not just some really old boring bloke in tights, because after all it was he who said, “To snog or not to snog, that is the question.”

      How true, Bill.

      Break

      Our new pastime to fill in the long hours before we are allowed to go home is called “Let’s go down the disco”. Anytime any one of the Ace Gang says it, we all have to do manic disco dancing from the 70s (excess head shaking and arm waggling). Even if I do say it myself, it is a piece of resistance.

      German

      We disco danced at our desks pretty much all the way through German while Herr Kamyer wrote ludicrous things on the board about Herr Koch. As I said to him when we were leaving class, “Vas is der point?”

      Lunchtime

      Very nippy noodles shivering around outside. What harm have we ever done to anyone?

      I said that to the gang, “What harm have we ever done to anyone that we are made to go outside in Antarctic conditions?”

      Rosie, Ellen, Jools and Mabs all said, “None, we have never done anything.”

      But Jas, who seems to have turned into Wise Woman of the Forest, said, “Well, there was the locust thing, and the dropping of the blodge lab skeleton on to Mr Attwood’s head and…”

      Honestly, if I wasn’t the girlfriend of a Sex God I would have had to duff Jas up, she is so ludicrously “thoughtful” these days. I think I liked her better when she was all depressed and didn’t have a boyfriend. Regular snogging has brought out the worst in her.

      The Bummers came by all tarted up. Jackie wears even more make-up than those scary circus people. You know when you go to the circus and you accidentally see a trapeze artist close up and they are orange.

      Alison Bummer, unusually spot free, just the one gigantic boil on her neck, shouted over to us as they headed for the back fields and town, “Bye, bye, little girls, have a nice time doing your lessons.”

      I said, “Honestly, I don’t know how they get away with it. They turn up for register, hang around torturing P. Green for a bit, have fifty fags in the loos and then bog off to town at lunchtime, to see their lardy boyfriends.”

      We had a tutting outbreak as we shared our last snacks.

      Rosie was shivering. “It is vair vair nippy noodles. I think I have got frostbite of the bum-oley.”

      Eventually, in between Nazi patrols led by Wet Lindsay (who may be head girl, but is still: a) wet and b) boyfriendless), we managed to sneak into the science block.

      Science block On our usual radiator

      Ellen said, “It was a groovy fish party, wasn’t it?”

      Rosie said, “Magnifique. I found bits of fishfinger everywhere, though. Sven got a bit carried away.”

      I said, “He should be.”

      Jas said to Ellen, “What happened at the end? With you and Dave the Laugh, you know, when he walked you home?”

      Ellen went all red and girlish. “Oh, you know.”

      I was prepared to leave it at that, but not old Nosey Knickers. She rambled on. “Did you and Dave the Laugh…do anything?”

      Ellen shifted around on the knicker toasting-rack (radiator) and said, “Well…”

      I said, “Look, if Ellen wants to have some personal space, well…”

      But Ellen was keen as le moutarde (keener) to talk about my dumpee. “He did, er, walk me home and…”

      The Ace Gang were all agog as two gogs, apart from me. I was ungogged. In fact, I was doing my impression of a cucumber (and no, I do not mean I was lying on some salad…I mean I was being cool).

      They all said, “Yes…AND???”

      “Well, he, you know, well he, well…”

      God’s shortie pyjamas, I was going to be a hundred and fifty at this rate.

      Ellen went red and started playing with her piggies (very annoying) and went on. “It was cool, actually. We got, well, we sort of got to Number Three and a bit.”

      What is “sort of Number Three and a bit” on the snogging scale? Perhaps I should “sort of” give her a good slapping to make her talk some sense. But no, no, no, why did I care? I was a mirage of glaciosity.

      As the bell went for resumption of abnormal cruelty (maths), Ellen said to me, “Dave does this really groovy thing, it’s like, er…lip nibbling.”

      He had nip libbled with her!! The bloody snake in the tight blue jeans had nip libbled her. How dare he??

      Ellen was rambling on. “We should add lip nibbling to our snogging scale.”

      Jas said, “We already have, it’s Six and a Quarter.”

      Ellen said to Jas, “Oh, have you done lip nibbling, then? With Tom?”

      Jas went off into the dreamworld that she calls her brain. “No, because Tom really respects me and knows that I want to be a prefect, but Georgia has done it. And she’s done ear snogging.”

      Then they all started. “Is that what the Sex God does?” “Does it make you go deaf?” and so on. Triple merde.

      As we went into maths, Ellen said, “You know when we played that game and you were supposed to snog Dave, well…did you?”

      I went, “Hahahahahahahahahahaha.” Like a hyena in a skirt. And that seemed to satisfy her.

      Once again I am in a state of confusiosity. In fact, I can feel my bottom throbbing again when I get a picture of Dave the Laugh nibbling my lips.

      And now Ellen’s.

      He is a serial nip libbler. I am better off without him.

      French

      Mon Dieu. Fabulosity all round. We are going on a school trip to le gay Paree next term. We were yelling, “Zut alors!” and “Mon Dieu!” and “Magnifique!!!” until Madame Slack threw a complete nervy strop. The fabby news is that Gorgey Henri is going to take us. The unfabby news is that Madame Slack and Herr Kamyer, dithering champion for the German nation, are also going. Still, that will be a bit of light relief. Herr Kamyer is almost bound to fall in the Seine at some time over the weekend.

      I wrote a note to Rosie: How much do you bet we can do the famous “Taking a souvenir photograph” of Herr Kamyer on the banks of the seine and he falls in when we say, “Just step back a bit, Herr kamyer, I haven’t quite got your lederhosen in yet.”?