him?
In Bliss in the letters page there’s a letter from a girl called Sandy. She didn’t really like a boy and was just using him to get off with someone else. Unfortunately the advice from Agony Jane was not “Carry on and good luck to you”. The advice was “You are a really horrible girl, Sandy. You will never have a happy life, you cow.” (Well, it didn’t exactly say it in those words but that is what the gist and nub was.)
Decided to put the squeaking dolphins on and do some calmingyoga. I used to be quite good at doing the sun salute last term until Miss Stamp surprised me in the gym with my bottom sticking up in the air.
Mmmmmm– much much better. All soothing and flowing. Lalalalala. Lift your arms up to worship the sun…breathe in…hhmmmmmm, then put your arms down to the floor like in “we are not worth” in football…aahhh, breathe out. Much calmer. Then swing to the right and swing to the left.
That’s funny…if I turned to the right, then the left, a funny noise came out of me. Like a sort of wheezy noise. Could it be the dolphins? I didn’t know they did wheezing.
Turned the tape off.
Now then, to the right, to the left. Oh no. Wheeze wheeze. If I went really fast from the right to the left I could hear wheeze wheeze wheeze. Which is not what you want.
It was really quite loud. Wheeze wheeze.
I’d probably caught TB from being made to do swimming in freezing conditions.
Mum came in with a cup of tea for me (without knocking, naturally) and caught me doing my wheezing movements. She said, “Are you dancing?” and I said, “No I’m not, I’m wheezing. I think I may have caught TB. It’s not as if I’m in tiptop physical condition, with the kind of diet that we live on.”
She said, “Don’t be so silly, what is the matter?”
I didn’t want her to listen to my wheezing but I had really freaked myself out. I let her listen. Side to side, wheeze wheeze.
She looked worried. (Probably thinking she would be chastised by the local press for child abuse and neglect.) She said, “Look, I think maybe we should pop up to the surgery and see George Cloon—er…the doctor. Get your coat.”
Before I could protest she grabbed Libby and we were out of the door. As she started the car I said, “Look Mum, perhaps if I had a warm bath and you made me a nourishing stew…”
The next thing I knew I was in the doctors’ waiting room. It was full of the elderly mad, all coughing. If I wasn’t sick now I was soon going to be.
Libby got up on a table to do a little dance for everyone. It must have been something she had learned at kindergarten. It seemed to be sung to “Pop Goes the Weasel”.
Libby sang (loudly and with a lot of actions), “Ha ha pag of trifle atishoo atishoo all fall down.” The finale was her throwing up her dress and pulling down her panties.
Mum hadn’t expected that bit. Who could? There was a lot of muttering from the very old. One woman said, “Disgusting!” which was a bit rich coming from someone wearing a balaclava.
Eventually we got to see the doc. Mum practically threw herself through the surgery door and I was left dragging Libby because she wanted to do an encore.
Mum said, “Oh, hello, it’s us again!” in a really odd girlie voice. When I had got Libby’s knickers back on I looked at the doctor. He was quite fit-looking actually, not at all the surly red-faced madman that normally treated us. There was a bit of the young George Clooney about this one.
He smiled (ummm) and said, “Yes, hello again, Connie. (Connie!) Hello, Libby.” Libby gave him one of her very mad smiles.
Then he looked at me. I gave him my attractive half smile. (Curved lips but no teeth, nose snugly pulled in.)
He said, “And this must be Georgia. What can I do for you?”
Mum said, “Tell the doctor, Gee.”
Reluctantly I said, “Well, when I do this…” (and I did the side to side thing), “…a wheezy noise comes out of me.”
The doctor said, “Does it happen any other time?”
I said, “Er…no.”
And he said, “Only when you go from side to side?”
And I said, “Yes.”
And he said, “Well, I wouldn’t go from side to side, then.” And that was it.
Thanks a lot. All that money we (well, my parents) paid in taxes for his medical training not gone to waste, then!! He smiled at me, “When you move like that you force the air out of your lungs and it makes a sort of noise. That’s all. They’re just like bellows, really.”
I felt like a fool. Two fools. It was Mum’s fault for making me go. And she just hung around the doctor for AGES. Making conversation. Telling him she was learning salsa dancing. Did he like dancing? Etc. She kept saying, “Oh, I mustn’t keep you,” and then going on and on. It was only when the nurse knocked on the door and said one of the pensioners had fallen off their chair that Mum pulled herself together.
It was so embarrassing; Mum was practically dribbling. She has zero pride. Now that my life was not in danger I noticed that even in the emergency of getting me to the doctor she had managed to squeeze herself into a tight top. You could see she was thrusting her “danger to shippings” at him. In a way, and I never thought I would say this, it will be quite a relief when Vati comes home.
In the car going home she said, “He’s nice, isn’t he?”
I said, “Mum, honestly, have a bit of dignity. You have made your life choice and the large Portly One is on his way home in a fortnight. It is not a good idea to risk your marriage, and also incidentally make yourself a laughing stock this late on in life.”
She said, “Georgia, I really don’t know what you are talking about.”
She does though.
Do I have to worry about every bloody single thing round this place? When do I get a chance to be a selfish teenager? Jas’s mum and dad have aprons and sheds, why do I have to have Mr and Mrs “We’ve Got Lives of Our Own” as parents?
Thursday October 7th
11:30 a.m.
The Bummer Twins have both got their knickers in a twist. They saw Nauseating P. Green coming out of a classroom, talking to Wet Lindsay. P. Green was probably telling her something about hamster feed. But the Bummers are saying she is a snitcher because they got done for knocking off school the other day. They call Nauseating P. Green “Snitcher the Elephant” now. They stole her Hamsters Weekly. I thought she was going to cry which would have been horrific.
Rosie sent me a note in Maths; it said, I am an equilateral triangle.
I wrote back and said, Does that mean all your angles are equal? and she wrote, I don’t know, I’m a triangle.
I looked over at her and pushed my nose back like a pig. She did the same thing back. We could while away the hours much more amusingly if we could sit together.
I said that to Slim when she split us up last term. I said, “Miss Simpson, it is a well-known fact that if friends sit together they are encouraged to do more work.” But she just shook in such a jelloid way I thought her chins would drop off.
She said, “The last time you two sat together, you set the locusts free in the Biology lab.”
Oh honestly, not only has she got legs like an elephant, she has got a memory like one. How many times did we have to explain it was an accident? No one could have imagined they would eat Mr Attwood’s spare overalls.
It is RE in a couple of hours so I will be able to have a decent chat to my mates