And she absolutely pissed herself laughing.
What is the matter with her? Away laughing on a fast camel?
Assembly
9:00 a.m.
Fab news! Slim told us that some nutcase from Tampax the sanitary towel company is coming to talk to us in a few weeks’ time. About “reproduction”. Lord save us.
Slim also said Mrs Tampax would be answering any questions we might have about “growing up and so on”. Hahahahahahaha. Hell could freeze over before I would ask Mrs Tampax about my girlie parts.
After Slim had bored us to death for half an hour everyone else went off to English and I lolloped off slowly to her office for a spot of mental torture. I wasn’t the only one waiting for a duffing: Jackie and Alison, the Bummer Twins, were sitting around in her anteroom. They looked at me when I sat down.
Jackie said, “Oohhhh! What have you been up to, Bignose?”
She must die, she must die.
Then we heard the sound of a distant elephant (Slim) and Jackie stubbed out her fag and popped in a mint.
Slim said, “Come through, Georgia.” Then she sat down at her desk and started writing. I just stood there. How many times had I been in this room for no good reason? Millions.
To pass the time I pretended in my head that I was Parker, Lady Penelope’s chauffeur in that crap puppet show Thunderbirds. Parker is supposed to be driving a car but the puppeteering is so bad that his hands are about two metres above the wheel. Very, very funny in anybody’s language. I was still pretending and slightly waggling my head like a puppet when Slim looked up and said, “Well,” and I said, “Yes, milady?”
She glared at me. “What did you say?”
“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about my English homework assignment, Miss Simpson.”
She trembled in her jelloid way. It was amazing the way each chin could shake at a different rhythm. She said, “Well, it makes a change for you to think of anything serious or useful, Georgia.”
Oh, that is so UNFAIR. What about all the hours I had spent thinking up glove animal?
Slim was raving on: “I hope for a great improvement in your attitude to school and work after your suspension. I hope it has given you pause for thought. But first of all you will go to Mr Attwood and apologise to him for causing his injuries.”
Oh great. Now I had to go and speak to the most bonkers man in the history of bonkerdom.
When I left Slim’s torture chamber Jackie Bummer said, “Did the nasty teacher tell you off and make you scared?” but when Slim shouted, “You two articles in here now!!!” they leaped up like two salmons.
Jas said that the Bummer Twins had arrived this morning, had a fag and then stuck a first year to a bench with superglue.
9:35 a.m.
I walked really really slowly along to Elvis’s hut. At least if I took ages to find Elvis I might miss most of English. Sadly that is when I saw his stupid flat hat bobbling around. Not on its own, unfortunately, he was underneath it. Pushing his wheelbarrow along. I walked up quietly behind him and said really enthusiastically, “MR ATTWOOD, HELLO!!!”
He leaped up like a perv in overalls (which he is). When he saw it was me he had a nervy spaz.
“What do YOU want?”
“Mr Attwood, it’s me!!!”
“I know who you are all right. Why are you shouting?”
“I thought you might have gone deaf.”
“Well I haven’t.”
“Well you might have. You see, I know what it’s like at your stage of life – my grandad is deaf. And he’s got bandy legs.”
“Well I’m not deaf. What do you want? I’m still not right, you know. My knee gives me awful gyp.”
“Slim … er … Miss Simpson said I had to come and apologise.”
“Yes, well, quite right too.”
He was SO annoying. And a bit pingy-pongoes when you got down-wind of him.
I said, “So, then. See you around.”
He said, “Just a minute – you haven’t said you are sorry yet.”
“I have. I just told you I had to come and apologise.”
“I know, but you haven’t.”
I said patiently, “Well, why am I here, then? Am I a mirage?”
“No you’re not a mirage, you’re a bloody nuisance.”
“Thank you.”
“Clear off. And you should behave a bit more like ayoung lady. In my day you would have …”
I interrupted him politely, “Mr Attwood, interesting though the Stone Age is, I really haven’t got time to discuss your childhood. I’ll just say au revoir and if I don’t see you again in this life, best of luck in that great caretakers’ home in the sky.”
He was muttering and adjusting his trousers (erlack!), but he shambled off. He daren’t say too much to me because he suspects I have seen his nuddy mags, which I have.
Lunchtime 12:30 p.m.
Hours and hours of boredom followed by a cheese sandwich, that is what my morning has been like. And I wish Nauseating P. Green would stop ogling me. Blinking at me through her thick glasses like a goldfish in a uniform. Since I saved her from being duffed up by the Bummers last term she follows me around like a Nauseating P. Green on a string.
Rosie said to me, “She loves you.”
Good Lord.
1:30 p.m.
Madame Slack was so overjoyed to see me that she made me sit right at the front next to Nauseating P. Green and Slack Alice, both of whom can only see the board if it’s an inch away from their glasses. Jas and Ellen (Jas’s bestest new lezzie mate) and the rest of the gang sat together at the back.
On the plus side Madame Slack told us we are going to have a student teacher next week. That is usually très amusant. A bit of a light in a dark world.
3:50 p.m.
Bell rang.
At last, escape from this hell-hole. Jas and me were walking out of the gates. I said, “Do you like me the best, Jas?”
“Er … is this a trick question?”
“Do you like me better than Tom?”
She sort of looked like a startled earwig in a beret and went all red.
“Well … well … he’s, well … a boy and you’re … a girl.” I said, “No really? You noticed? Was it the basoomas that blew my cover?”
She got all miffed. “You know what I mean, Gee … I like you best girl-wise and I like him best boy-wise. Just like you like me best girl-wise and you like Robbie best boy-wise.”
I said, “Hmm, well actually, do I like you best girl-wise? That is the question. I mean, sometimes you go off people, don’t you, if they, you know, for instance … are always too busy to see you because of their boyfriends and so on.”
That