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

but she kept dodging away from me. She is unusually full of selfishosity for someone who loves me.

      I said, “Thank Cliff Richard’s y-fronts that nobody knows about my accidental snogging incident.”

      “What snogging incident?”

      “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret I’m taking to my grave.”

      Oh sacré bleu. What is the matter with Jas (besides the obvious)?

      When I accidentally told her my secret that I will never tell, even in my grave, she went on and on about how I should be ashamed. She is so annoyingly good, like Mother Teresa with a crap fringe.

      Home

      Mutti in an unusually good mood. She had even bought a pie for us on the way home. Scarily like a real mum – apart from the ludicrously short skirt. She’s not going to tell me that I’m going to have another little brother or sister, is she?

      Still, I can’t think of everyone else. I am not God, I have enough to worry about thinking about myself.

      8:00 p.m.

      I am so worried about school tomorrow. I have so much to do.

      8:10 p.m.

      I can do my nails and foundation and eye stuff during RE – Miss Wilson won’t notice, as she will be sadly rambling on about the Dalai Lama or yaks or whatever it is she does talk about. But I suppose even she might notice if I took my curling tongs into class. I’ll have to do my hair at lunchtime and hope the Bummers don’t decide to put their chewing gum in it for a laugh.

      Looking out of my bedroom window

      I’m amazed to see Naomi the sex kitten lounging around on the roof of our shed, showing off her fat tummy. She has got very little shame to say she is an illegitimate bride. Angus is in the garden below her, blinded by his love. Well, actually he’s mostly blinded by the dirt he’s digging up. He’s got a huge bone from somewhere and he’s burying it. Maybe as a midnight snack. He doesn’t really seem to understand that he is not a dog. I may have to do some diagrams of mice for him and explain.

      I went downstairs to the kitchen to find M and V absolutely all over each other. It’s like living in a porn movie living in our house. Honestly, isn’t she sick of him yet? (I am.) He’s been back about a month; surely by now they must be discussing divorce.

      I said, “Erlack,” in a caring way to let them know I was there. But my finer feelings make no difference to the elderly snoggers. They just started giggling, like…giggling elderly snoggers.

      I said, “Vati, I don’t want to be the person responsible for one of your unreasonable outbursts of rage, but…”

      He said, “OK, as I am in a good mood you can have a fiver, because you did so well on your French test.”

      I was quite literally gobsmacked. For a second. Then I grabbed the fiver.

      “Er, thanks…but, erm, I feel, in all fairness to you, I should let you know that Naomi is on our shed roof and that Angus is not a million miles away from her. In fact, as I left my room, he was licking her bottom.”

      No one went ballisticisimus, because apparently Mr and Mrs Across the Road have worked out that the pedigree boy cat they had over to visit with Naomi must have had more than a few fishy snacks with her.

      Vati said, “either that or she is having a virgin birth.”

      Hey, she might be! She might be having a little furry Baby Jesus (lots of them, in fact). She is due to give birth at Christmas, after all. And God works in mysterious ways, as everyone knows.

      I said to Jas on the phone, “It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

      She was all weird and huffy. “No, what makes me think is this: how come some people, naming no names, but you, Georgia, can tell such porkies to their so-called friends?”

      She was rambling on about Ellen and Dave the Laugh, of course.

      I said with deep meaningosity, “Jas, she who casts the first stone has to cast the logs out of her own knickers first.”

      That made her think. Then she said, “What in the name of frankincense are you talking about?”

      I had to admit she had me there.

      Her trouble is that she has never done anything adventurous, her bottom has never glowed with the red light of…er…red bottomosity.

      I said to her, “Jas, Jas, my little nincompoop, I didn’t MEAN to snog Dave the Laugh. It was an accident. I am a teenager and I can’t always control my bits and pieces.”

      “What bits and pieces?”

      “Well, you know, I have very little control over my nunga-nungas, for instance…and at the fish party with Dave my lips just sort of puckered up.”

      I’m a teenager and I can control my bits and pieces.”

      “What about your fringe?”

      “That is not the same as snogging someone else’s boyfriend.”

      “You are getting very set in your ways, Jas.”

      “I am not.”

      “Well, name an interesting thing that you and Tom have done lately.”

      “We’ve done loads of really interesting, crazy things.”

      “Like what? And don’t tell me about collecting frog spawn.”

      “Well, Tom is going to do ecology and so on…do you know we found some badger footprints in the park near—”

      “Jas, I said name an interesting thing that you and Tom have done lately, not something about badgers.”

      But she had gone off into the twilight world of her brain. “Tom gave me a love bite.”

      “Non.”

      “Oui.”

      “I’ve never seen it.”

      “I know.”

      “Where is it?”

      “On my big toe.”

      9:00 p.m.

      I am worried that in my capacity as the Sex God’s girlfriend I may have to give a celebrity interview about my life and Jas will have to come on it. And she will talk rubbish. And perhaps show her love bite. Or pants.

      9:15 p.m.

      Still, it has taken her mind off the Dave the Laugh fiasco.

      I will have an early night to prepare myself for heavy snogging duties. I want to look all gorgey and marvy for SG and not have those weird little piggy eyes that I get sometimes when I have been kept awake all night by loons (Angus and Libby). Mutti has let Libbs sleep in the cat basket with Angus tonight, so I am safe.

      9:35 p.m.

      Ah…very nice and cosy in bed, although I am having to sleep sitting up because I have rollers in my hair for optimum bounceability.

      9:40 p.m.

      Phone rang. Vati yelled, “Georgia, another one of your little mates on the phone. You’d better hurry, I think it’s an emergency. She might have run out of lip gloss.”

      Vair vair vair amusant, Vati.

      As I came down the stairs, he said, “We mean no harm, take us to your leader,” because of my hair rollers.