Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants

by Louise Rennison

  So we are all going up the Eiffel Tower with Gorgey Henri.

  Ellen said, “I’m looking forward to going and everything, but I will really miss Dave the Laugh….He’s such a…”

  I said, “Laugh?”

  “Yes,” she said, and went all red. Good Lord.

  I am, of course, used to being away from the Sex God. He’s only been back a week and I’m off to Frogland.

  I sometimes wish he was more of a laugh, though. There is a slight danger that underneath his Sex God exterior there lurks a sensible person. He has just bought a bike to save the environment. And it might not stop there…he might possibly buy some waterproofs.

  thursday january 20th

  Slim gave us her world famous (not) “Representatives of Great Britain abroad” speech. Apparently we have the weight of the reputation of the British Isles on our shoulders.

  I said to Jools, “I’m already tired, and we haven’t even got on the coach yet.”

  midnight

  I’ve managed to whittle down my necessities to one haversack full. Jas and I are doing sharesies on some things to save space. For instance, I am supplying our hair gel for the weekend and she is supplying moisturizer. I will not be sharing knickers with her, though.

  I said au revoir to mon amour. He came round on his bike AGAIN, and also (this is the worst bit), he talked to my dad about Kiwi-a-gogo land…and he didn’t shoot himself with boredom. In fact, he even asked questions, which proved he had been listening to Vati raving on about Maoris. Très weird.

  friday january 21st

  aboard l’esprit

  midday

  On our way to la belle France at last. If we ever get there it will be le miracle, because: a) it is a French ferry and b) we have a madman at the helm. When we set off from Newhaven we went in and out of the quay three times, because the captain forgot to cast off.

  1:00 p.m.

  Zut alors, we are being tossed about like les corks. I may complain to the captain (if he has not been airlifted home to a secure unit) and suggest he stop driving us into eighty-foot waves. Herr Kamyer, dithering champion for the German nation and part-time fool, has just lost his footing and fallen into the ladies’ loos.

  1:15 p.m.

  In the restaurant there is a notice that says, “Soupe du jour,” so Rosie said to the French waiter, “Can I have le soupe du yesterday, please?” But no one got it.

  1:30 p.m.

  Staggering around on the decks in gale-force winds.

  I could see Captain Mad up in his wheelhouse thing.

  1:32 p.m.

  The only way to stay upright is to hold the flagpole at the back of the boat.

  1:35 p.m.

  Why does he keep staring at me? I’m just clinging on to this French flag because I want to live to see Frogland.

  Just then the boat lurched violently, and that’s when it came off in my hand.

  2:30 p.m.

  Madame Slack, who until then had been attached to Gorgey Henri for most of the voyage (like a Slack limpet), decided to make a big international thing out of the flag removing incident.

  She gibbered in le Frog to Captain Mad, who had come down to the deck (hopefully leaving someone who could drive in his place). They did a lot of pointing and shouting and shrugging.

  Incidentally, why has Madame Slack got two huge handbags? She keeps Sellotape and a ruler in one and a hankie in the other. Should someone like that be in charge of the youth of today? Is France a nation of handbag fetishists, I wonder? As I said to Jas, “Even Henri has got a little handbag.”

  Rosie said, “You are definitely going to have to walk the gangplank. Au revoir, mon amie.”

  “What makes you think Captain Mad could find a gangplank? I’ll be amazed if he can find France.” But I said it quietly. I didn’t want to start the shrugging again.

  In the end, Madame Slack called me stupid about a zillion times, which could have upset me a lot, but I know I am really full of geniosity.

  I had to apologize to Captain Mad. In French.

  4:45 p.m.

  Still in this sodding boat, bobbing up and down in the Atlantic or wherever it is we are now.

  Suddenly Rosie said, “Land! I can see land, thank the Lord!” and got down on her knees. Which was quite funny. It could be Iceland, though, for all we know.

  Captain Mad came on the PA system and said, “Ladeez and jentlemen, ve are now approaching Dieppe.”

  I said to the gang, “With a bit of luck, he’ll manage to dock by tomorrow evening.”

  9:00 p.m.

  Miraculously survived the ferry journey and caught the train to Paris. I think the driver might have been wearing a beret, but we still managed to arrive at Hôtel Gare du Nord in le gay Paree! Right in the middle of everything.

  The lady behind the desk said, “Welcome, I will show you to your rrruuuuuuums.” I thought French people were actually being funny when they put on their accent, but they aren’t being funny, they are being French. That, as I said to Jas, is why I aime them so much.

  Gorgey Henri has let the ace gang be in the same room together! How fab is he? Usually we get split up in class, but the six of us are back together again. Yes!!! Les girls have arrived. It’s a really groovy room as well. I have a bed by the window. I lay down on it and said, “Aaahhh, this is the sort of life I will be leading from now on.”

  Rosie said, “What? Sharing a room with five other women? Are you setting up a lezzie farm?” I had to duff her rather savagely over the head with my pillow.

  Jas had brought the photo of Tom and her at Seaworld and she put it on the table by the side of her bed.

  Ellen tried to sneak a book under her pillow, but I saw it. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s just a bit of homework I brought with me.”

  Rosie fished it out and read out the title. “It’s called Black Lace Shoulder, a story of passion on the high seas.” Now we know what sort of homework she is doing: snogging research. It was a semi-naughty book. I flicked through it and found a bit to read to the rest of the gang.

  “‘He captivated women with his fierce, proud face, his lean, well-exercised body and his aura of sexuality, wild as that of a stallion.’”

  Rosie said, “That’s like Sven.”

  Jas said, “What, he’s like a stallion?”

  “Yes.”

  I said, “A stallion in loons.”

  Rosie said, “Mais oui.”

  “Quel number have you got up to now with le stallion in loons on the scoring system?” I asked.

  “Eight.” Upper-body fondling indoors. All of our eyes drifted towards Rosie’s basoomas, which, it has to be said, are not gigantic.

  Ellen said, “Is it, does it…I mean, are your, erm, nungas…getting bigger?”

  Rosie looked down the front of her T-shirt. “I think they are a bit. Not as much as Georgia’s, though.”

  Oh no, here we go. I thought my new nunga-nunga holder had stopped this sort of talk. To change the subject I said to Ellen, “What number have you got up to with Dave?”

  She went all red. “Oh, well, you know, he’s like really a good, well, kisser.”

  Yes, as it happens, I do know that he’s a really good kisser.

  Rosie was all interested now. “Has he touched anything?”

  Ellen was about to explode from redness. “Well, he stroked my hair.”

  We haven’t even bothered to put hair-stroking on our snogging scale. If we had, it would have been minus one.

  Out of our bedroom window we can see the streets of Paris and the French-type garçons. Some of them look quite groovy, but their trousers are a bit too short. Perhaps this is the French way. I said, “Look, people are wearing berets and they’re not even going to school. Unless they still go to school at ninety-four.”

  saturday january 22nd

  saturday in paris

  9:30 a.m.

  Oh j’aime Paris muchly. For brekkie we had hot chocolate and croissants. All the French kids
dipped their croissants into their hot chocolate. How cool is that? Yummy scrumboes.

  We set off with Gorgey Henri for the Eiffel Tower. I was singing “Fallink in luff again, never vanted to…” until Rosie pointed out that Marlene Dietrich sang that and she was by no means a French person.

  up the eiffel tower

  11:00 a.m.

  Jas and I got split up somehow from the rest of the gang. Well, mainly because Jas was dithering around making me take a photo of her with some French pigeons. How anyone would know they were French pigeons, I don’t know. I said to her, “We will have to draw little stripey T-shirts on them when we get the prints back.”

  Anyway, the others had gone on ahead and we got trapped just in front of a group of French schoolboys of about nine years old. They spent the million years it took climbing the steps looking up our skirts.

  Jas was OK because she had her holiday knickers on (same gigantic ones as her daywear in England, but with a frilly bit round the gusset). I, however, had normals on, and so I tried to walk up the stairs with my legs together, which is not easy. Every time I looked behind me I could see the little boys ogling like ogles on ogle tablets.

  When we eventually got to the top, Jas said, “It’s your fault; you should have worn sensible knickers.”

  “Jas, fermez la bouche or I will fermer it for you.”

  oo la-la la gay paree

  2:00 p.m.

  We walked along the banks of the Seine in the winter sunshine. There were musicians and so on playing, and a bird market. I wanted to take a chaffinch or some lovebirds home with me, but I knew that they’d only last two minutes if Angus got a snack attack in the middle of the night. As we passed a bloke playing a saxophone underneath one of the arches, he put down the sax and started doing a juggling thing with his hands. It was a bit peculiar, though, because, as I said to Jas, “He hasn’t got any balls.”

  Rosie said, “Ooer…” which set us off on the uncontrollable laughing fandango.

  Jas said, “He must be doing a sort of mime thing.” Mime juggling? In the end, unfortunately, we realized he was actually pretending to juggle my breasts. I am the first to admit that I can be paranoid about my nungas, but in this case it was clear even to Jas that he was a perv. He pointed at my nungas and made a sort of leering, licking smile and then continued his pretend juggling. How disgusting!

  Am I never to be free from the tyranny of my basoomas? I buttoned my coat up as tightly as possible.

  la nuit extravaganza

  Henri took us down rue St. Denis in the evening and said, “Zis is where the ladeez of the night ply their trade.”

  Jas said, “I can’t see any ladies of the night; all I can see are a load of prostitutes.” She astonishes me with her hilarious stupidosity sometimes.

  Actually, it should have been called “rue de Bummer,” because all the prozzies looked exactly like the Bummer twins. Only less spotty.

  It isn’t even just Henri who has a handbag, lots of les français men have little handbags. And no one laughs. Weird. I may buy one for Dad as a souvenir.

  sunday january 23rd

  Herr Kamyer has reached dizzying heights of giddiness since he’s been in Paris, even going so far as to wear leisure slacks and a cardigan with a koala on it. Jas said kindly, “Perhaps it’s a Christmas gift from his mum.” But I don’t think so. I think he knitted it himself. And I think he is proud of it.

  1:00 p.m.

  Jas and Rosie keep nipping off to phone Tom and Sven every five minutes.

  I would phone Robbie, but I don’t really know what to say to him. What if he asks me what I have been doing? What would I say? “I pulled off a French flag, some boys looked up my skirt and finally a bloke with a saxophone juggled my breasts.” I wouldn’t mean to say any of that, but I know I would blurt it out.

  2:15 p.m.

  Herr Kamyer has been showing us how to ask for things in shops. I know how to do this already: all you do is ask Gorgey Henri to go and ask for whatever it is you want in the shop. He does, after all, know the language. However, Herr Kamyer thinks we should learn stuff, so he keeps going up to French people and asking for things, which is hilarious in the extreme as: a) no one has a clue what he is talking about and b) they wouldn’t give him anything anyway, because he is not French.

  Oh, I tell a lie. He did manage to get something. He went into the tourist information center for a map. “I vill be back in a moment, girls, mit der map and ve vill proceed to the Champs Elysées.”

  He came out ten minutes later dithering like a loon with a souvenir walking stick but no map. As I pointed out to Jools, “The tragic thing is that they speak English in the tourist information center.”

  plunging into the seine

  photo opportunity

  We tried the “Just step back a bit, Herr Kamyer, I can’t get all your cardigan in” tactic on the banks of the Seine. But Herr Kamyer looked back before he moved so he did not plunge into the Seine. And now we really do have a photo of Herr Kamyer in his cardigan.

  notre dame

  4:00 p.m.

  Very gothic. No sign of hunchbacks, though. So…with a marvelous display of imaginosity (and also after Herr Kamyer, Henri and Madame Slack had gone into the cathedral) the ace gang got into their hunchback gear (haversacks under coats). We were getting ready, shuffling around and yelling, “The bells, the bells,” but then Jas and I stepped onto a bit of green grass verge to take a photo of the ace gang being hunchbacks against the romantic backdrop of Notre Dame (très historic). Suddenly all hell broke loose. Whistles went off and some absolute loon started yelling through a loudspeaker in French at us. Then we were surrounded by blokes in uniforms. I thought we were going to be taken to the Bastille.

  I said to Jas, “What have we done? Ask one of them.”

  She said, “You came top in French, you ask.” Unfortunately, I had come top in French only to annoy Madame Slack. I had learned twenty-five words and then made sure I answered every question using only those words.

  Just then Henri came running back to save us. He started yelling and shrugging his shoulders, and soon everyone was shrugging shoulders. Even the bloke selling bird food. I don’t know what he had to do with it.

  I turned to the gang. “Wait for a big group shrug and then run like the wind into Notre Dame for sanctuary. We must beg the priests to save us.”

  It all got sorted out in the end. The French loon patrol turned out to be park keepers. Sort of like park Elvises. Apparently you are not allowed to step on their grass, because it drives them insane.

  Madame Slack gave her world famous “Once again a few bad apples have spoilt the reputation of England” lecture and gave us all bad conduct medals. I mean marks.

  I said to Jas, “You would think that she would encourage us to bring history to life, but oh no, au contraire, we are pilloried on the spike of…er…life.”

  9:30 p.m.

  Henri took us out to a restaurant tonight. It was really groovy, apart from some old drunk at the piano who kept moaning on about “Je ne regrette rien.” Ellen asked, “What is he going on about?”

  I said, “He’s saying in French that he doesn’t regret a thing, which he quite clearly should. He should regret having started this song, for one thing.”

  Henri said he was a famous French singer. Good Lord.

  Very very funny evening. There was a notice on our table saying what you could have to eat. It said “Frogs’ legs” at the top. When the waiter came he spoke English (sort of). “Good evening, mademoiselle, what can I get you?”

  I said, “S’cusez moi, have you got frogs’ legs?”

  He smiled. “Yes, m’selle.”

  So I said, “Well, hop off and get me a sandwich, then.”

  We laughed for about a million years. Even the waiter thought it was funny(ish). However, Madame Slack heard what had happened and said we were “giddy.”

  monday january 24th

  last morning in gay paree

  Sitting by mysel
f in a café because the ace gang have gone off to look at some French boys. I even ordered a cup of coffee for myself. And a croissant. Well, actually, it looks more like an egg sandwich (because it is an egg sandwich), but at least it’s not a walking stick.

  pompidou centre

  midday

  You can’t move for white-faced loons in the area around the Centre. Some of them just stand still for ages and ages, painted all white like a statue. Then when you are really bored from looking at them, they slowly move a finger, or lift a leg, and then go back to being still. And people throw coins in their hats for that. I said to Rosie, “What is the point of mime artists? Why don’t they just tell you what they want?”

  Then I noticed that a gorgey garçon was watching me watching the white-faced loons. I kept catching him looking at me. He was cute. Très cute. And his trousers were relatively normal. And he wasn’t wearing a beret. And he was handbag-free.

  He caught my eye and smiled quite a dreamy smile. He was very intense-looking, with incredibly dark curly hair. However, I am a red bottom–free zone and I was just about to ignore him when he went off.

  Ah well. C’est la guerre, as they say here, although what the railway station has to do with anything, I don’t know. (Or is that gâre? Oh, I don’t know. As I say to Madame Slack, French is a foreign language to me.)

  five minutes later

  The gorgey French boy came back and brought me a red rose!! He said, “For the most beeootiful girl,” kissed my hand and then went off into the crowd.

  Honestly.

  The ace gang were dead impressed. We discussed it for ages. It didn’t fit into the snogging scale anywhere. And it wasn’t a “see you later.” Was I supposed to follow him? Should I have done something erotic with the rose?

  As I have said with huge wisdomosity many times, boys the world over are a bloody mystery.

  au revoir

  We got on the train and said “Auf Wiedersehen” to the city of romance. We have our memories to take home with us. More importantly, we also have our HUGE comedy berets.