Outside Jas’s gate
8:40 p.m.
I said, “The facts are a) she doesn’t wear her ring when she is out with him, so that makes it clear that she says they are engaged but they are not, and b) he doesn’t really rate her because he didn’t do full-frontal with her.”
Jas undid her gate. “Yes. Right, see you tomorrow. Don’t forget to fix the sleepover.”
Midnight
So... the plot thickens. All I have to do is get rid of Lindsay, convince Robbie I am the woman of his dreams, stop Mum splitting up the home, grow bigger breasts and have plastic surgery on my nose and I have cracked it...
Thursday April 29th
6:30 p.m.
Phone rang and I answered it. A strange voice said, “G’day, is that Georgie?” I was a bit formal – it might be a dirty phone call. (I had had one of those from a phone box in Glasgow. This bloke with a Scottish accent kept saying, “What colour pa—?” and then the pips would go and I’d say, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” and then he’d start again. “What colour panties...?” pip pip pip. Eventually he managed to say, “What colour panties have you got on?” and then the line went dead. So you can’t be too careful.)
This strange, echoey voice said, “It’s your dad, I’m calling from Whangamata.”
I was a bit surprised and I said, “Oh-er-hello-Dad.”
He was all enthusiastic and keen. “How’s school?”
“Oh, you know... school.”
“Is everyone all right?”
“Yes. Angus got next door’s guinea pig.”
“Did he give it back?”
“He did when I hit him with my tennis racquet.”
“And Libby?”
“She can say ‘tosser’ now.”
“Who the hell taught her that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you should take better care of her.”
“She’s not my bloody daughter.”
“Don’t swear at me.”
“I only said bloody.”
“That’s swear— look, look, get your mum on the phone, this is costing me one pound a minute.”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“Oh, I don’t know, she’s always out.”
“Well, tell her I called.”
“OK.”
There was a bit of silence then. His voice sounded even weirder when he spoke again. “I wish you were all here, I miss you.”
I just went, “Hmmmpgh.”
I wish parents wouldn’t do that, you know, make you feel like crying and hitting them at the same time.
Tuesday May 4th
8:10 a.m.
Felt a bit sort of down in the dumps when I woke up. I’d had a dream that my dad had grown a Rolf Harris beard but it wasn’t a beard really, it was Angus clinging to his chin.
Assembly. Maths. Physics... there is not one part of today that is worth being alive for.
4:30 p.m.
Home, exhausted from laughing. My ribs hurt. Slim has made me be on cloakroom duty for the next term but I don’t care, it was worth it.
Well... here is what happened. It was during double physics and it was just one of those afternoons when you can’t stop laughing and you feel a bit hysterical. For most of the lesson I had been yelling, “Jawohl, Herr Kommandant!” and clicking my heels together every time Herr Kamyer asked if we understood what he had been explaining. We were doing the molecular structure of atoms and how they vibrate.
Herr Kamyer was illustrating his point with the aid of some billiard balls on a tea towel on his desk. It was giving me the giggles anyway, and then I put my hand up because I had thought of a good joke. I put my hand up with the finger pointing forward, like in “Who ate all the pies?” and when Herr Kamyer said, “Yes?” I said, “Herr Kamyer, what part does the tea towel play in the molecular structure?”
That is when Herr Kamyer made his fateful mistake – he said, “Ach, no, I merely use the tea towel to keep my balls still.” It was pandemonium. I could not stop laughing. You know when you really, really should stop laughing because you will get into dreadful trouble if you don’t? But you still can’t stop? Well, I had that. I had to be practically carried to Slim’s office. Outside her office I did my best to get a grip and I thought I had just about stopped and was under control when I knocked on the door and she said, “Come.”
In my head I was thinking, Please, please don’t ask me anything about it. Just let it go. Please talk about something else, just don’t ask me about it. Please please.
Slim was all trembly and jelloid. “Can you tell me, Georgia, what is quite so amusing about Herr Kamyer’s experiment on the vibration of atoms?”
I tried. God knows, I tried. “Well, Miss Simpson, it’s just that he used a tea towel... he used a tea towel...”
“Yes?”
“He used a tea towel to... keep his balls still.” And then I was off again.
Midnight
Bloody funny, though.
Thursday May 27th
Tennis tournament
2:30 p.m.
Through to the semifinals. Beautiful sunny day. I think I will be a Wimbledon champion after all. White suits me. All the gang are cheering me on and this is very freaky deaky and karmic and weird but... if I win my semi against Kirsty Walsh (upper fifth) I will play Lindsay in the final. How weird is that? Pretty weird, that’s what. Lindsay is such a boring player, I’m sure I could beat her. She plays by the book... baseline follow through to the net, but she hasn’t met Mighty Lob (me) yet.
OK, if I beat her that must mean I am meant to have Robbie. Lindsay has white frilly knickers on under her tennis skirt. (Not the thong, thank goodness, otherwise Miss Stamp might have had an outburst of lesbian lust and put me off my game.) I think my shorts are much more stylish. They look like I’ve just remembered I’m playing in a tennis final and I’ve just grabbed something and thrown it on in an attractive way.
3:30 p.m.
I won the first set and now I’m serving for the second and the match.
I feel pretty good. I’m a bit hot but I feel confident about my serve. Rosie and Ellen and Jools and Jas and all of my year are going mental. Chanting my name and “Easy, easy.” Hawkeye keeps telling them to be quiet. (She is the umpire, worse luck.)
But even she can’t make me lose. Hahahaha. I am ruler of the universe. Robbie is mine for the plucking.
First serve – an ACE!!! Yes! Yes! Yesssss!! Hawkeye says, “Fifteen-love.”
Second serve – a brief rally and then a cunning, slicing cross-court forehand from me. Hawkeye says, “Thirty-love.”
Third service. Whizzzz. Oh yes, another ace!! Kirsty was nowhere. What a Slack Alice. C’mon if you think you’re hard enough!!!!