On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

by Louise Rennison

  What in the name of pantyhose was I talking about? I’d be the last to know as usual.

  The SG HELD OUT HIS HAND . . . to me!!!! Something I had dreamed of. Do you know what I did? I shook it!!!

  He really laughed then, and grabbed hold of my hand. We walked to the park. Holding hands. In public. Me and a Sex God. I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say. Well I could, but it would only have made sense to dogs. Or my grandad.

  In the park we sat down on the grass, even though it was a bit on the nippy noodles side. Unfortunately I did feel like going to the piddly diddly department, but at least I didn’t say.

  He looked at me for what seemed like ages and ages, and then he kissed me. It was all surf crashing and my insides felt like they were being sucked out. Which you wouldn’t think was very pleasant. But it was. He put his hand on my face and kissed me quite hard. I felt all breathless and hot. It was brilliant. We whizzed through the scoring system for snogging in record time. We got to number four (kiss lasting over three minutes without a break), had a quick breather and then went into five (open mouth kissing) and a hint of six (tongues). Yesss! I had got to number six with the Sex God!

  Eventually we had a bit of a chat. Well, he chatted. I just couldn’t seem to say anything normal. Every time I thought of something to say, it was something like, “Do you want to see my impression of a lockjaw germ?” or “Can I eat your shirt?”

  He had his arm round my shoulder, which was good because then he got profile rather than full-frontal nose. He said, “I haven’t been able to forget you. I’ve tried. I tried to be glad when you started seeing Dave. But it didn’t work. I even wrote a song for you. Do you want to hear it?”

  I managed to say yes without putting on a stupid French accent or something. Then he sort of pulled me backward onto him so that my head was resting on his lap. It was quite nice, but I could see up his nose a bit. Which I didn’t mind, because he is a Sex God and I love him. It’s not like looking up Cousin James’s nose, which would make anyone immediately sick. But then I thought, if he looked down and saw me looking up his nostrils, he might think it was a bit rude. So I settled on closing my eyes and letting a half smile play around my lips.

  Then he started singing me the song he had written for me. There weren’t many words—it was mostly, “And I really had to see her again.” And then melodic humming and yeahing. Unfortunately he was sort of jiggling his knees for the rhythm so my head was bobbling about. I don’t know how attractive that looked.

  4:00 p.m.

  The Sex God has left the arena. He wants us to be, like, official snogging partners after my fifteenth next month. He’s going to tell his parents.

  I am irresistible.

  I am truly a BOY magnet.

  Even in my Teletubby jimjams.

  Even without mascara on.

  Life is fabbity fab fab!!!!

  Yessssss!!!!!! And triple hahahahahaha-di-haha!!!!

  5:00 p.m.

  Mum and Dad eventually got up. I didn’t care because I am in the land of the very fab, in fact beyond the valley of the fab and into the universe of marvy.

  Vati is in a hideously good mood. He keeps looking at things and going, “Aahh-h” and hugging me. I wish he would get back to normal. I wonder how long it will be before he drops this “happy family” nonsense and gets all parenty.

  6:00 p.m.

  An hour, that’s how long.

  I was on the phone when it started. Telling Jas about SG. I said to her, “Yeah, come round and I’ll tell you all about it. It is so FAB. How long will you be? OK. Good. Yeah anyway, he just turned up in his car. He looked BRILLIANT—you know those black jeans he has got, the really cool ones with the raised seam that . . .”

  Vati had gone into the kitchen to get a cup of tea. He came out, stirring it. Jas had just asked me what sort of jacket SG was wearing and I was beginning to tell her when Dad interrupted and said, “Georgia, if Jas is coming round why are you talking to her on the phone? Phones cost money, you know.”

  Oh, I wondered how long it would be before the fascist landed. I said to Jas, “Have to go, Jas; I may already have wasted two pence. See you soon.”

  7:20 p.m.

  In my room, daydreaming about my wedding. Can you wear black as a bride? Dad came up and suggested we have a family “chat.” I know what that means; it means they tell me what they are going to do and expect me to go along with it, and if I don’t they call me a spoiled teenager and send me to my room.

  But I don’t care anymore. I said to Dad politely, “Look, why don’t we just skip the boring middle bit where I have to come all the way downstairs and you tell me what to do and I say no I don’t want to and then you send me straight to my room. Why don’t I just stay in my room?”

  He said, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Come into the front room. And what’s wrong with your eyes? They look all bunged up; have you got a cold?”

  “It’s Vaseline. It makes your eyelashes long.”

  He said, “Can’t you stop messing about with yourself?”

  As I went downstairs I was thinking he should try messing about with himself a bit more. He never had what you might call good dress sense but it’s so much worse since he’s been in Kiwi-a-gogo land. Today he’s wearing tartan slacks which is a crime against humanity in anyone’s language. Also he has clipped his beard so that it is just on the end of his chin. No side bits and no mustache, just a beard thing . . . on the end of his chin.

  Anyway, I don’t care because I am going out with a Sex God and life is fab. I said, “OK, I am sitting comfortably. Rave on, El Beardo.”

  El Beardo said, “Great news!!! I’ve been offered a cottage in Scotland; I thought we would all go there for a week. Spend some quality time together as a family. Mum and Libbs, Grandad, Uncle Eddie, we could even ask Cousin James if you’d like a bit of company your own age. What do you think?”

  Sacré bloody bleu. Merde and Poo!!! is what I think.

  Fortunately the doorbell rang and Mrs. Huge Knickers and me scampered up to my room. My room, which as usual, was full. Libby was in my bed with scuba-diving Barbie, Charlie Horse, Angus, and Naomi.

  I said, “Go play downstairs with Daddy, Libbs.”

  But she just stood up on my bed and started dancing, singing, “Winnie Bag Pool. Winnie Bag Pool.” She got to the bit where she takes off her panties, but I noticed they were suspiciously bulky, so I said, “Stop it, Libbs,” and she said, “Me let my legs grow.”

  “No, leave them on.”

  Too late. I thought Jas was going to faint. She doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to have a little sister. Me and Jas went off to the utility room for a bit of privacy. I was dying to tell her all about my snogging extravaganza, but she went raving on about Tom: “We went to the country.”

  Oh Good Lord. Still I thought I’d better pretend to be interested otherwise I would never get to talk about myself. I said, “What for?”

  “You know, to be on our own in nature.”

  “Why didn’t you just go and sit in your room with some houseplants instead of tramping all the way to the country? You only snog there, anyway.”

  “No we don’t.”

  “Oh yeah? What else do you do?”

  “We looked at things.”

  “What things?”

  “Flora and fauna and so on. Stuff we do in blodge. It was really interesting. Tom knows a lot of things. We found cuckoo spit and followed a badger trail.”

  I clapped my hands together and started skipping round the room. “Cuckoo spit! No! If only I could have come with you! Sadly there was a Sex God I had to snog.”

  Jas got all huffy and pink. It’s hilarious when Jas gets miffed, and a reason in itself to make her irritated. She goes all red and pink apart from the tip of her nose which is white. Very funny, like a sort of pink panda in a short skirt and huge knickers.

  She was all sulky, but then I put my arm round her. She said, “You can stop that.”

  I
said, “I feel a bit sad though, because I’m so lucky and I can’t help thinking about Dave the Laugh. He was a really nice bloke, and you know . . . er. . . a good laugh. It’s sad that I have broken his heart.”

  Jas was poking around in Dad’s fishing bag, which is not a good idea as he sometimes leaves maggots in there which turn into bluebottles. She said, “Oh, I meant to tell you. He’s going out with Ellen. Tom and I are meeting them later at the pictures.”

  midnight

  Bloody sacré bleu. Dave the Laugh was supposed to really like me. How come he is going out with Ellen? How dare she go out with him? He is only just my ex.

  1:00 a.m.

  Still, I am going out with a Sex God. So I should be nice to everyone.

  1:05 a.m.

  Dave was a laugh, though. Even if he didn’t make me go jelloid.

  1:10 a.m.

  I definitely go jelloid with the SG. Mmmmm, dreamy. But he doesn’t make me laugh; he makes me stupid.

  1:15 a.m.

  I wonder if Dave the Laugh did that nibbling thing with Ellen?

  1:20 a.m.

  Looking through the window. Angus and Naomi are lurking about on Mr. and Mrs. Next Door’s garden wall. Angus is just dangling his paw down at the poodles. I hope there is not going to be group sex.

  1:25 a.m.

  Perhaps I could have a jelloid boyfriend and an ordinary one for laughing with.

  1:30 a.m.

  Good grief! What in the name of pantyhose is going to happen next?!?

  Georgia’s Glossary

  aggers • Agony. Like I said, no one has the time to say whole words so aggers is short for agony. The unusually irritating among you might point out that aggers is actually longer than agony. My answer to that is—haven’t you got something else to do besides count letters?

  agony aunt • A woman in a magazine who gives you advice if you are a sad person with no one else to talk to. For instance, Jas might write, “Dear Agony Aunt, My friend Georgia is so much better-looking, cleverer, and an all-round brilliant person that I feel inadequate. What should I do?” And the agony aunt would write back, “Kill yourself.” (Not really; that last bit is a joke.)

  billio • From the Australian outback. A billycan was something Aborigines boiled their goodies up in, or whatever it is they eat. Anyway, billio means boiling things up. Therefore, “my cheeks ached like billio” means—er—very achy. I don’t know why we say it. It’s a mystery, like many things. But that’s the beauty of life.

  Boots • A large drugstore chain selling mostly cosmetics.

  chips • French fries.

  Chrimbo hols • No one has the time to say long words so Chrimbo is Christmas and hols is holidays. As in snog fest (snogging festival).

  coach • Er . . . bus. Oh, I get it. You think that coach is like a trainer type person! Oh, I see now. You thought I meant all the Hollingbury girls got onto a person for ther ride home. No wonder you were on the edge of bamboozlement. You see in England coach means a bus as well as a trainer. It’s a bit confusing. But we are allowed to say what we like because we made up English in the first place.

  conk • Nose. This is very interesting historically. A very long time ago (1066)—even before my grandad was born—a bloke called William the Conqueror (French) came to England and shot our King Harold in the eye. Typical. And people wonder why we don’t like the French much. Anyway William had a big nose and so to get our own back we called him William the Big Conk-erer. If you see what I mean. I hope you do because I am exhausting myself with my hilariosity and historiosity.

  crèche • Kindergarten. Nursery. Playschool. Working muttis leave preschool children so they can “enjoy themselves” making things. A sort of day prison for toddlers.

  crisps • I think you call them potato chips. I don’t know why because we invented chips in England and we all know that they are big fat potatoes deep fried. But have it your own way.

  dalek • In England we had this hilariously crap TV show called Dr. Who where this bloke in a scarf went time traveling. His archenemies were these senselessly violent creatures (no, not Angus surprisingly). They were called daleks. They’re a form of robots. They had weird mechanical voices and a sort of gun sticking out of their head bits. They said “Exterminate, exterminate!” Well, I told you it was crap.

  DIY • Quite literally “Do It Yourself!” Rude when you think about it. Instead of getting someone competent to do things around the house (you know, like a trained electrician or a builder or a plumber), some vatis choose to do DIY. Always with disasterous results. (For example, my bedroom ceiling has footprints in it because my vati decided he would go up on the roof and replace a few tiles. Hopeless.)

  duffing up • Duffing up is the female equivalent of beating up. It is not so violent and usually involves a lot of pushing with the occasional pinch.

  dustbins • Things to put your rubbish in. Or probably as you say in America land, refuse. Or is it garbage? Or junk? In England it is dustbin because we have a lot of dust (possibly).

  fag • In our liberal land fag can mean cigarette as well as homosexual. Hence lighting a fag is not the cruel practice that you Americans might think.

  footie • Soccer.

  form • A form is what we call a class at English secondary schools. It is probably a Latin expression. Probably from the Latin “formus ignoramus.”

  fringe • Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Someone told me that American-type people call them “bangs” but this is so ridiculously strange that it’s not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e., me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it apparently. One of them had a German girlfriend, and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl and the rest is history.

  geoggers • Geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).

  get off with • A romantic term. It means to use your womanly charms to entice a boy into a web of love. Oh, OK then—snogging.

  gob • Gob is an attractive term for someone’s mouth. For example, if you saw Mark (from up the road who has the biggest mouth known to womankind) you could yell politely, “Good Lord, Mark, don’t open your gob, otherwise people may think you are a basking whale in trousers and throw a mackerel at you” or something else full of hilariosity.

  goosegog • Gooseberry. I know you are looking all quizzical now. OK. If there are two people and they want to snog and you keep hanging about saying “Do you fancy some chewing gum?” or “Have you seen my interesting new socks?” you are a gooseberry. Or for short a goosegog, i.e., someone who nobody wants around.

  gorgey • Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvelous).

  Jammy Dodger • Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious (ish).

  jelly rabbit • Jell-O made into a rabbit shape. Children like this sort of thing. You make some Jell-O and pour it into a rabbit-shaped mold. When it is set the child amuses itself by eating its bottom with a spoon. Or scooping out its eyes. Or—in Libby’s case—by placing it in my bed.

  jimjams • Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.

  knickers • Panties you call them (wrongly). Knickers are a particular type of panty—huge and all encompassing. In the olden days (i.e., when Dad was born), all the ladies wore massive knickers that came to their knees. Many, many amusing songs were made up about knicker elastic breaking. This is because, as Slim, our headmistress, points out to anybody interested (i.e., no one), “In the old days people knew how to enjoy themselves with simple pleasures.” Well, I have news for her. We modern people enjoy ourselves with knicker stories, too. We often laugh as we imagine how many homeless people she could house in hers.

  lead • A long leather strap that you attach to a collar and put around animals’ necks. Then you can take them for “walkies” without them running under cars or attacking other animals. However, the exception is Angus. Even before he ate his lead it was more a case of him taking me for walkies, or rather me being dr
agged around behind him up and down hills and under cars as he searched for things to destroy (i.e., poodles.)

  lippy • Oh come on, you know what it is! Lipstick!! Honestly, what are you lot like!!

  loo • Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.

  maths • Mathematics.

  mincers • Cockney-type people in London use rhyming slang so that other (normal) people will not know what they are talking about. I don’t know why—that is the beauty of the Cockneys. Mincers is short for mince pies which rhymes with eyes. Get it?

  nappy • A cloth that goes on babies and toddlers (and sometimes very, very old people) to stop all their poo and other unwanted excretions going on the carpet, etc., and getting on everyone’s shoes. Diaper.

  Neighbours • A really crap daytime soap opera set in a suburb in Australia. Kylie Minogue was in it.

  nub • The heart of the matter. You can also say gist and thrust. This is from the name for the center of a wheel where the spokes come out. Or do I mean hub? Who cares. I feel a dance coming on.

  nuddy-pants • Quite literally nude-colored pants, and you know what nude-colored pants are? They are no pants. So if you are in your nuddy-pants you are in your no pants, i.e., you are naked.

  panstick • Stick of makeup that you use to cover up spots with. Or in my mutti’s case to cover up the ravages of time and a careless attitude to skin care.