Love Is a Many Trousered Thing

by Louise Rennison

  I said, “Aah yes, I was just…thinking I’d see what your garden looked like from up here. And yep, yep, it looks very, very nice indeed. Full of stuff. Growing and so on.”

  What am I talking about?

  five minutes later

  Jas’s dad is sensationally nice, or insane, it’s hard to tell. He let Angus carry his newspaper into the house, and didn’t even seem to mind when he ate it.

  in jas’s bedroom

  I managed to dig Jas out from underneath her owls. How many stuffed owls can one person collect? A LOT is the answer in her case. What is the matter with her? Also, she was vair vair grumpy when I woke her up with a kiss. It was only on her cheek, but you would think she had been attacked by hordes of lesbians in cowboy outfits. Blimey. She looks very odd in the mornings and her fringe was akimbo to the max. She looked like a startled earwig in jimjams.

  I said, “So, so? What happened?”

  She looked at me and started early morning fiddling with her fringe. Vair annoying.

  She said, “You just ran off like a fool.”

  I said, “Yes, I know, I was there.”

  “Yes, you say that, but you weren’t there, that is the whole point. And everyone was going, ‘What’s Georgia doing, has she gone mad?’ and so on.”

  “Jas, if I get you a little cup of tea and a snack-let, will you try to be normal and tell me everything that happened? It is a matter of life and death. YOUR life and YOUR death.”

  ten minutes later

  It’s quite nice and cozy tucked up in bed with Jas and snacksies. Except that I think I have an owl’s beak up my bum-oley. Jas was munching and rambling.

  “Well, first of all, after you had run off like a ninny. By the way, you run in a really weird way in those high heels. You looked like Nauseating P. Green when she’s playing hockey. Her legs go all spazzy and—”

  I hit her with snowy owl.

  She almost choked on her toast.

  I said, “Jas, get on with it, I have only got about fifty more years to live.”

  “Well, first of all, the boys did that boy thing with Robbie.”

  “What boy thing?”

  “You know, slapping each other on the shoulders, shaking hands and so on.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jas went on, “Robbie was saying hello to a lot of people and Masimo got his jacket on. You were just approaching the park by then, we could still see you. Masimo said to Tom, ‘She asked me about footie results. Then she ran away. Is she normal?’”

  Ohmygiddygod. I said to Jas, “What did Tom say?”

  “Well he stood up for you, of course.”

  “I love Hunky very much, as you know, Jazzy Spazzy.”

  “Yes, he said you were quite often normal. He had seen you being normal once or twice himself. Usually when you were asleep.”

  Marvelous.

  Apparently after I had run off to “catch my train,” Masimo had gone home with the band, and just after he’d gone, Wet Lindsay had come stropping back looking for him. Jas said her no forehead was all crinkly and mad and her hair extensions were swishing around in a nervy b. central way. Then she had seen Robbie and was all over him like a rash and they had gone off together.

  What, what???

  I said, “Wet Lindsay went off with the Sex God?”

  “Well, they did go out together once, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, Jas, I know, I was heartbroken. Do you remember? “

  “I mean, maybe he still likes her, I don’t know, maybe he has had a secret thing for her, some people like lanky girls.”

  “Jas, shut up now.”

  “Well, I am just saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder and so on. It’s an ill wind that—”

  “Jas, that is not shutting up, that is rambling on and on about rubbish.”

  She was chomping away on her Jammy Dodger like Wise Mabel of the Forest. I really, really wanted to shove it down her throat, but I knew it would take another million years to get the end of the story if I did, so I just said, “Jas, you know when you were going on and on about ‘maybe something good will happen,’ and I didn’t want to go to the gig in the first place, but you persuaded me, well, did you know that Robbie was going to be there?”

  “Well, I sort of thought he might. I knew he was coming home because he rang Tom and said that he had booked his ticket. And that he would be back in time for the gig.”

  “But did he say why he was coming home?”

  “Erm, no, not exactly no.”

  Oh noooooo. I have left the cakeshop of luuurve thinking I have accidentally bought two cakes and found out that I may have only got one cake. And I might have already eaten that. I may in fact be cakeless.

  I said to Jas, “We must call an emergency ace gang meeting.”

  “Well, I thought I might go to the river with Tom and—”

  “No, Jas, you thought wrong.”

  park

  midday

  Angus is still trailing me around like Inspector Morse in a furry coat. (And on all fours.)

  on the swings

  Rosie said, “I hope this is worth it, Sven and me were going to practice artificial respiration on each other in case anyone chokes on the vats of mead at our wedding.”

  Even the ace gang has no sense of community these days. Jas bleating on about missing Tom, Jools wanting to go hang around Rollo whilst he played footie, Rosie banging on about Sven, half reindeer half fool, and Ellen…well, Ellen just being Ellen.

  five minutes later

  Ellen, Rosie, Jools, Mabs, Jas and me are all swinging on the swings. Not backward and forward like normal people enjoying a day in the park, but sideways so that the Blunderboys can’t see anything. Life is not easy. The Blunderboys are in the bushes watching us on the swings. They think we don’t know they are there; it’s pathetic. They are so noisy and keep falling over things and fighting with each other.

  five minutes later

  Now the Blunderboys are lying down on the ground, hoping they might see up our skirts. I can see their beaky eyes blinking under the branches. If they do happen to see our knickers, they will think we are doing it on purpose to attract them. Dear God.

  one minute later

  Just then a Pekingese dog came hurtling by, dragging its lead behind it, followed by Angus. Oh no. He loves Pekingese. A LOT. I hope it is a fast runner.

  Anyway, I haven’t got the time to worry about everything. If careless people will let their small dogs loll around in parks they are asking for trouble. It’s a cat-eat-dog world.

  twenty minutes later

  The general mood of the gang is that I should play it cool until I know what is really going on. Although what Ellen knows about cool I really don’t know. She had a massive ditherspaz trying to describe how Dave the Laugh had said good night to her at the Stiff Dylans gig. Apparently, and I know this because I heard it about a zillion times, “Er. Well, then he well, and I didn’t know, what, he meant, but then well he just said…he just said to me…he said…”

  I shouted, “WHAT, what in the name of heaven, Ellen, WHAT, WHAT did he say?”

  And I didn’t even want to know, I just wanted to get to the bits about what happened after I left and what did people say about me and so on, but you know what people are like, it’s just me, me, me with them.

  Ellen went even more divvyish. Good grief.

  “He said, ‘Well good night then, Ellen, never eat anything bigger than your head.’”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  No one did.

  fifteen minutes later

  Anyway, the nub and the gist is that the ace gang are useless and don’t know anything more than I do. It seems they all watched me run off like a loon (to catch my train) and then lolloped home. Useless.

  However, I decided to forgive them.

  They are, after all, my besties.

  And if I don’t forgive them I will never find out anything. And also never go out again, and stay in my house with my parents
.

  So, grasping the bull by its whatsits, I said to the gang, “In order to make a full and frank decision boyfriendwise, I have to know the intentions of the prospective snoggees.”

  Ellen said, “Er, what are they, I mean who, what is, like a snoggee?”

  “Ellen, keep up, the pro snogs are Masimo and Robbie. Masimo said that he was single and free for me, but on the other hand did not come running after me and stop me getting on my train. And Robbie only had time to say hello and then not long after went off with Wet Lindsay. Soooo, did Robbie come to the gig to see me, or does he just want to be friends with me? Why has he come home?”

  Rosie said, “Someone must go underground and subtly find out what Robbie’s intentions are. Shall I ask Sven? He could wear his camouflage flares.”

  I said, “No.”

  Jools said, “What about asking Dave the Laugh to find out?”

  Ellen nearly fell over with pleasure. “Oh yes, well I mean, I could, well maybe I could like, go with him or something. Be like his assistant? But maybe that would be like too forward or something. What do you think, or something?”

  I said, “No, Ellen, it has to be this year, really.”

  Jas had gone off into Jasland. She was fiddling with her fringe and I could tell she had Tom and voles on her mind.

  I said, “There is someone here, isn’t there, who knows Robbie’s brother quite well, shall we say, and who could use subtlety and casualosity to find out stuff. Isn’t there, Jas?”

  Jas looked up like a dog when she heard her own name. “What do you mean, what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to find out about Robbie by asking Tom a few casual questions.”

  Jas said, “Oh OK. Can we go now?”

  “The key word here, Jas, is ‘casualosity.’ Casualosity. Can you say that, Jas?”

  Jas got into her huffmobile.

  “I know how to be casual, Georgia.”

  “Wrong.”

  5:00 p.m.

  In bed. I am absolutely full of exhaustosity. How difficult can it be to be casual? Four hours we have been coaching Jas. It was like talking to a lemming in a skirt.

  First of all, we tried it her way. Always a mistake, in my humble (but right) opinion. Her idea of casualosity essentially means that she says: “Does Robbie fancy Georgia? Or is he normal?”

  I had to use clevernosity to get Jas to do what I wanted in the end. I said, “I’ve got an idea, you know how good you were as Lady MacUseless and everything, Jas?”

  Jas said, “Yes, it took quite a lot out of me, actually. Do you remember the bit when I had the dagger and…”

  Oh no, three million years were going to go by whilst she relived her big moments in the school play.

  I interrupted her by hugging her so hard that her head was buried in my armpit and said, “Yes, yes, now this is my idea.”

  I asked her to act out what she was going to do in an improvised scene like in drama. She loves that sort of thing, as she is such a teacher’s bum-oley kisser.

  Rosie volunteered to be Tom. She said, “I’ve got the legs for it.”

  Incidentally I’m a bit worried that she was able to whip out a false beard from her rucky. I said that to her, I said, “Rosie, do you carry a beard around with you at all times?”

  And she said, “Well, you never know.”

  The Viking bride to be gets madder and madder. We are definitely entering the Valley of the Unwell. Anyway Jas was mincing around like a mincing thing, warming up. Flicking her fringe at Tom (or Rosie in a beard, as we know him). It was incredibly irritating. I was on the edge of a mega nervy b. and supertizz as it was. I said, “Jas, what in the name of arse are you doing?”

  And she said huffily, “I am getting into character.”

  I said, “But you are being you.”

  She looked at me like I had fallen out of her nose.

  “I am finding the inner me.”

  Good grief. Her “inner me” is bound to be an owl.

  Eventually she was ready and came pratting girlishly up to Rosie and twittered, “Oh Tom, I found some vole spore down by the woods.”

  Tom/Rosie said (in a French accent, for no apparent reason…it must be the beard), “Ah, did you, my liddle pussycat? Would you like to, how you say, kiss my beard?”

  Jas actually blushed and said, “Well, you know I would, Tom…but maybe, you know, in private, not in front of everyone.”

  I had to put a stop to this, it was like watching some pervy film, like Two Go Mad in Bearded Lezzie Land. I said, “Will you get on with it!”

  Jas predictably lost her rag immediately over the slightest thing and said, “I was just getting in the mood, actually, and anyway this is stupid, practicing to be casual, I know how to be casual.”

  I said, “Well, why don’t you BE casual then?”

  She gave me her worst look, but eventually after Mabs gave her a midget gem they started again.

  Jas said to Rosie, who now had a pipe, “Tommy-wommy.”

  “Oui.”

  “Well, I was just, you know, thinking about Robbie, it’s nice he’s back, isn’t it?”

  “Mais oui—très très magnifique.”

  It was pointless objecting about the Froggyland language, especially as Ro Ro was now plaiting her beard.

  Jassy said, “Did he come back, you know, because he missed England and his mates? Do you think he will join the Stiff Dylans again?”

  I looked at Jas in amazement. She had asked an almost good question in a quite subtle way and not mentioned me. Blimey.

  And it only took four-and-a-half hours of torture. We had to leave it there because Sven came along yodeling through the trees (no, I am not kidding).

  5:30 p.m.

  When would be a good time to call Radio Jas? Surely she must have had time to talk to Tom by now? I should exercise discipline and patience, of course.

  5:31 p.m.

  Phoned Jas.

  “Jas.”

  “What?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Oh well, this is me, too.”

  “Jas, don’t start.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  “Well, I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  And I put the phone down. That will teach her.

  two minutes later

  “Jas, what have you found out?”

  “I’ve found out that I am having scrambly eggs for tea. Byeeee.”

  And she put the phone down.

  Damn.

  I have my pride, thank goodness, no one can take that away from me. I won’t be bothering Jas again, not whilst she is so busy stuffing her gob with eggy.

  6:00 p.m.

  This is torture, but I will never give in. Never, never. The Eggy One will never get the better of me.

  6:10 p.m.

  Phoned Rosie. I’ll get her to phone Eggy and casually ask her, but not on my behalf.

  6:20 p.m.

  Rosie is out with Sven at the “pictures,” her mum says. Oh yeah, as if. And the film they are watching is Number Seven on the Snogging Scale.

  I daren’t ask Ellen, Jools or Mabs to phone Jas, as they are bound to spill the beans to Eggy. The tragedy is that all three of them are such crap liars, it’s a curse, really.

  7:30 p.m.

  She is soooooo annoying, she will never phone me if she has got the hump.

  7:35 p.m.

  Masimo hasn’t called or anything. Maybe he really does think I am insane. Or maybe he thinks I caught the train from the shopping mall and have gone away for a few days. In which case he is insane.

  If I have an early night I can do skin care, cleanse and tone and get everything ready for tomorrow just in case I have a chance encounter with one of my many maybe boyfriends on the way to Stalag 14.

  8:15 p.m.

  Blimey, I look about two and a half, I am so shiny-faced and clean. Also, I am nice and baldy everywhere, except on my head, of course, I do not want to have an Uncle Eddie
hairstyle.

  Actually my hair is a bit of a boring color. It hasn’t got je ne sais quoi and umph.

  bathroom

  five minutes later

  Ahaha, Mum has got some hair dye. Warm chocolate. That would be nice and groovy. I could just put a couple of streaks in the front, like highlights, or is it lowlights…hi-lo-it lights anyway, which is all that counts.

  Got the dye and went into the front room. Oh how I wish I hadn’t. Mum and Dad were all over each other on the sofa watching some old film with crying in it and blokes in tights and an Uncle Eddie bloke in a frock. Mum said, “Come and watch Robin Hood, it’s good.”

  I said, “Mum, I’m just going to use your hair dye for a bit.”

  “No.”

  “Er, Mum, I think you are being a bit negative.”

  “No.”

  “But I—”

  “No.”

  “Look at the color of my hair, it’s crap. I might as well be the Invisible Mouse.”

  “No.”

  “But I…”

  Then Vati joined in.

  “Georgia, no, no, no and thrice no. And also no.”

  “Vati, I am not asking you, actually, I am asking my dear dear mum about her hair dye.”

  “It’s not her hair dye, it’s mine.”

  What??? What fresh hell? HIS hair dye? My Vati, not content with growing small badgers on his chin and wearing leather trousers and having a clown car, was now trying to be Lady Cliff Richard. Or Lady Paul McCartney.

  “Please say you are not serious.”

  Vati said, “I am very serious, I am a man in his prime, as your mother knows.”

  And he did that disgusting thing of grabbing one of her nungas, squeezing it and going, “Honk honk!!!”

  Mum didn’t even hit him, she just went all girlie and said, “Stop it, you big boy.”

  Vati was still in Madland, however, and said, “Yes, I thought I’d get down with the youth, you know, dye my hair, get the old leathers on and maybe check out a few clubs. Which one would you recommend?”

  I nearly fainted.

  Imagine bumping into my dad and his sad mates down at the Buddha Lounge!!!

  Any chance I had of having a Sex God or a Luuurve God or even Spotty Norman would be well and truly up the pictures without a paddle. My dad’s impression of Mick Jagger dancing could reduce people to tears, and not of admiration.