‘… and that’s when it fell off in my hand.’

9:40 a.m

But that would make Him not an impotent all-wise God, that would make Him a really dim God. Who can’t even tell the difference between real and false eyelashes, even though He has been watching someone put them on for the last half an hour.

And I say that with all reverencosity.

Anyway, surely He is looking at the starving millions, not sneaking around in my bedroom.

Intheloo 9:50 a.m.

Is He watching me now? Erlack.

In the street out side my house 10:10 a.m

Quiet, apart from Mr and Mrs Across the Road’s house. As I passed by, there was loads of shouting and yowling. I hope Mr Across the Road is not ill-treating Angus’s children. He looks like a kittykat abuser to me. And he has a very volatile temperament. The least thing sets him off. He’s like my vati. He appeared shouting and yelling at his kitchen door as I went by to God’s house. At first I thought he was wearing a fur coat and hat until I realised the coat and hat were moving. He was completely covered in Angus’s offspring.

Naomi as usual is not taking a blind bit of notice. She is a bit of a slutty mother: mostly she just lolls around in the kitchen window enticing Angus with her bottom antics.

Last week the kittykats, who are ADORABLE, if a bit on the bonkers side, burrowed their way under the fence and were larking around in Mr and Mrs Next Door’s ornamental pond.

I said to Mutti, “I didn’t know the Next Doors had flying fish in their pond.”

And she said, “They haven’t.”

The flying fish turned out to be goldfish that the kittykats were biffing about in the air. When the mad old next-door loons noticed and came raging out of the house, the kittykats cleared off back under the fence. I don’t know what the fuss is about: they got the boring old goldfish back into the pond. Even the one caught in the hedge. Anyway, as punishment, the kitties were caged up in the rabbit run. Not for long it seems.

Mr Across the Road was trying to get the kittykats off him, but they had dug their claws in. They are sooo clever.

He shouted at me, “They’re going, you know. They are going.”

Rave on, rave on. I bet he loves them really.

Church

Call-me-Arnold was alarmingly glad to see me. He kept calling me his child. Which I am clearly not. My vati is an embarrassment in the extreme, but he is not an albino. Call-me-Arnold is so blondy that his head is practically transparent

I really gave up the will to carry on when Call-me-Arnold got his guitar out to sing some incredibly crap song about the seasons. Why can’t we just sing something depressing like we do at school and get on with it? I even had to shake hands with people. But I must remember this is God’s house and also that I am asking for a cosmic favour.

At the end, after most people had filed out, I noticed that some people were going to a side chapel and lighting a candle and then praying.

That must be the cosmic request shop. Fab! I would go light a candle and plead for mine and Robbie’s love.

I went up and got my candle and lit it, ready for action, but an elderly lady was kneeling right in front of the display thing. I could hear her mumbling. She had a headscarf on. On and on she went, mumble mumble. Bit greedy, really. She must have had a whole list of stuff to ask for.

Ho hum, pig’s bum.

I knelt down behind her because I was feeling a bit exhausted. I had, after all, been up since the crack of dawn. (Well, eight fifteen.)

I was holding my candle and thinking and thinking about the Sex God and our love that knew no bounds and stretched across the Pacific Ocean. Or was it the Australian Bite? Anyway, our love was stretching across some big watery thing.

I think I might actually have nodded off for a little zizz, because I came round to see a small inferno ablaze in front of me. Oh hell’s teeth, I had accidentally set fire to an elderly pensioner! The end of her headscarf was blazing merrily and she hadn’t even noticed.

I started beating the flames out with my handbag. I was trying to help, but she started hitting me back with her handbag. Before I knew it, I was in a handbag fight.

11:45 a.m.

I did try to point out that long dangly scarves on the very elderly could be considered a health hazard around naked flames. But Call-me-Arnold wasn’t calling me his child any more and he didn’t ask if he would see me next week.

Which he won’t.

Lunchtime

I am exhausted by trying to get along with the Lord.

Monday March 7th Back to Stalag 14

As a mark of my widowosity, I wore dark glasses and a black armband. Also I found a black feather from Mutti’s sad feather boa that she wears if I don’t spot her first. I stuck that in the side of my beret, which I pulled down right over my ears.

I was walking along with Jas and I said, “Even in the depths of my sadnosity I think I have a touch of the Jacqueline Onassis about me.”

She said, “Why? Did she look like a prat as well?”

A quick duffing up showed her the error of her ways.

Oh God, oh Goddy God God, a whole day of Stalag 14.

Assembly

Our revered and amazingly porky Headmistress Slim rambled on about exams and achievement and said wisely, “Now, in conclusion, girls, I would say, it’s not all about winning, it’s how you play the game.”

What game? What in the name of Ethelred the Unready’s pantyhose is she talking about? As we filed off to the science block, Hawkeye was in a super-duper strop for some reason. She made me remove my armband and she was marching up and down looking at people like a Doberman, only much taller. And not a dog. She alarmed a first former so much that the first former fell into a holly bush and had to be fished out and sent to the nurse to calm down.

I said to Rosie, “I think widowhood has toughened me up. If Hawkeye gets on my case I am going to say to her, ‘Hawkeye, sir, when you have suffered the torments of love like I have, you will not give a flying pig’s bum about your Latin homework. Romulus and Remus could have been brought up by ostriches for all I care.’”

Rosie said, “Yeah right, well, let’s see what happens when she gives you double detention.”

“Do you know what I saw on TV the other night? Ostriches fall in love with human beings. On ostrich farms they go all gooey and even more dim when humans come to feed them. They try to snog them.”

“Ostriches try to snog humans?”

“Yes.”

“Non.”

“Mais oui, mon petit idiot, c’est vrai. It is very very vrai.”

“How can they snog when they have beaks?”

“You are being a bit beakist, Rosie.”

Lunchtime

The Ace Gang are going on and on about the teenage werewolf party. Jas said, “Tom and I are going to wear matching false ears!” And then she had an uncontrollable laughing spaz.

I said, “Jas, when was the last time you saw a teenage werewolf with false ears?”

That made her stop snorting like a fool. She was all shuffily on the knicker toaster (radiator). “Well… it’s, well… I mean…”

Rosie – who is in an alarmingly good mood now that Sven is winging his way home on his sleigh – slapped me on the back and said, “What do you get when you cross a mouse with an elephant?”

We all just looked at her and she put her glasses on sideways and said, “Massive holes in the skirting board!”

I feel like a bean in a bikini, tossed around on the sea of life. Set apart from my mates because of heartbreakosity. I love them but how childish they seem, chatting on about false eyebrows. I may never wear extra body hair ever again.

3:00 a.m.

We should be having Hawkeye for English but she is too busy torturing people, so Miss Wilson will be taking most of our lessons this term. She is a tremendous div, so English will be more or less a free period.

Oh, what larks! We are doing Macbeth as our set play. Although Miss Wilson says we are not allowed to say its name: we have to call it “The Scottish Play”, because it’s bad luck to say its name. As I said to Rosie and Jools, “Hurrah! A play about blokes in tights talking in Och Aye language for a thousand years.”

We’ve all been dished out parts and, tragically, Jas is going to be Lady MacScottishplay. Rosie, Jools and Ellen are the three witches and I am some complete twit in tights called Macduff. Nauseating P. Green is my wife, Lady Macduff. She is thrilled and keeps mooning over at me.

I don’t see how I am supposed to be a bloke, because they are – as we all know – a complete mystery.

4:15 p.m.

On the way home Jas was looking at her hand and going, “Out damn spot.”

I said, “It’s not the spot on your hand you have to worry about, Jas, it’s the huge lurker lurking on your chin.”

That shut her up and got her feeling about.

Actually, she hasn’t got a lurker on her chin, but if she goes on fingering it long enough she will have.

Home (ha)5:00 p.m.

Oh brilliant, Angus has gone into my wardrobe and found some of my knickers to attack. He was ambling out of my room with his head through one of the legs like some sort of Arab sheikh. I kicked at him but he dodged out of the way. He was purring really loudly; he loves it when you get rough with him. He is a good example of the benefits of rough love. I should really give him a good kicking every day.

Kitche 5:30 pm

Oh yum yum and quelle surprise, we are having les delicieuses fish fingers and frozen peas for our tea! I am sure that I am developing rickets: my legs look distinctly bendy. Vati came in in a hilariously good mood. He kissed me on the head even though I tried to dodge him. I said, “Father, I need my own space and frankly you are in it.”

He just laughed and said, “I’ve just seen Colin and he and Sandy are having a Lord of the Rings party and we’re all invited.”

Mutti said, “What a hoot.”

I said with great meaningosity, “Vati, I will never – and I repeat, never – be wearing an elf’s outfit in this lifetime, and for the sake of any sensitive people on the planet – that is, me – I beg you not to consider green tights.”

He just smiled and said, “I know you are secretly very thrilled, Georgia.”

He and Mutti laughed. And Libby joined in with a very alarming sort of laughing. Like a mad Santa Claus and pig combined. “Hohohogoggyhoggyhog.”

I don’t know what they teach her at nursery school, but it’s not how to be normal.

Only 6:30 pm

I wonder what time it is in Kiwi-a-gogo land? They are twenty-four hours ahead of us and it’s Monday here, so it must be Tuesday there.

6:35 p.m.

Does that mean that SG knows what I will be wearing for the teenage werewolf party before I do?

Not that I will be going.

Will I?

I will be the last to know as usual.

Oh Baby Jesus and your cohorts, please make something really great happen. Otherwise I am going to bed. But I will wait for half an hour because I trust in your ultimate goodnosity.

7:35 p.m.

It’s not much to ask, is it? But oh no, Baby Jesus is just too busy to make anything interesting happen. Maybe he is holding the pensioner inferno against me.

In the loo

Sitting in the loo of life contemplating my navel.

My navel sticks out a bit. Is it supposed to do that? I hope it’s not unravelling. That would be the final straw.

Vati keeps books in the loo. How disgusting is that? Pooing and reading. What is he reading? It’s called Live and Let Die. How true.

8:3O p.m.

No one has bothered to ring me. I wonder why Dave the Laugh hasn’t phoned me? I could phone him, but that would mean he might think I am keen on him.

Which I am not.

8:45 p.m.

Vati’s book is about James Bond, who is a sort of specialagent-type thing. Vati probably thinks he is like James Bond. Which he would be, if James Bond was a porky bloke with a badger attachment.

9:00 p.m.

I am in the prime of my womanhood, nunga-nungas poised and trembling (attractively). Lips puckered up and in peak condition for a snogging fest.

And I am in bed.

At nine p.m.

9:05 p.m

Not alone for long, because my sister is now in bed with me. She has got her bedtime book for me to read to her. Heidi. About some girl who goes up a mountain in Swisscheeseland to live with some elderly mad bloke in lederhosen, who sadly for her is her grandfather.

I know how she feels. At least my grandad doesn’t wear leather shorts. Yet.

9:15 p.m.

So far Heidi and Old Mr Mad of the Mountains have herded up goats and eaten a lot of cheese. A LOT. They are constantly eating cheese.

9:20 p.m.

Even Libby was so bored by the cheese extravaganza that she nodded off to sleep, so I slipped downstairs to phone Jas. I did it quietly because there will only be the usual tutting explosion from Vati about me using the phone if he hears me.

I whispered, “Jas?”

Oh, it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve got my jimmyjams on and I was reading my book about the wilderness course that Tom and I are going to go on.”

“Oh I am sooooooo sorry, Jas, soooo sorry to interrupt your twig work just because I am all on my own without the comfort of human company and my life is ebbing away.”

There was silence at the other end of the phone.

“Jas, are you still there?”

Her voice sounded a bit distant. “Yes.”

I said, “What is that cracking noise?”

“Er…”

“You are actually playing with twigs, aren’t you?”

“Well… I…”

How pathetico.

She said all swottily, “Look, I have to go. I’ve got my German homework to do.”

“Don’t bother learning their language, they are obsessed with goats.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lederhosen-a-gogo-land people are obsessed with goats… and cheese.”

“Who says so?”

“It’s in a book I am reading about them.”

“What book?”

“It’s called Heidi. It is utterly crap.”

“Heidi?”

“Jah.”

Mrs Picky Knickers sounded all swotty and know-it-all. “Heidi is a children’s book about a girl who lives in the Alps in Switzerland.”

“Yes, and your point is?”

“That’s not Germany.”

“It’s very near.”

“You might as well say that Italy and France are the same because they are very near.”

“I do say that.”

“Or Italy and Greece.”

“I say that as well.”

“You talk rubbish.”

“Yeah but I don’t play with twigs like a… like a fringey thrush.”

She slammed the phone down on me.

Well. She is so annoying.

But on the other hand, no one else is around to talk to.

Phoned her back.

“Jas, I’m sorry, you always hurt the one you love.”

“Don’t start the love thing.”

“OK, but night-night.”

“Night.”

10:00 p.m.

Oh, I am so restless and bored. I think my mouth may be sealing over because of lack of snogging. Or shrinking. I wonder if that can happen? They say “Use It or Lose It” on all those really scary posters in the doctor’s surgery, mainly for very very old people who are too lazy to walk about, and then their legs shrink, possibly. But it may be the same for lips.

10:05 p.m.

No sign of any shrinkage on the basooma front.

In the loo 11:00 p.m.

In Dad’s James Bond book it says, “Bond came and stood close against her. He put a hand over each breast. But still she looked away from him out of the window. ‘Not now,’ she said in a low voice.”

Now I am completely baffled. What in the name of arse does that mean?

A hand over each nunga?

Like a human nunga-nunga holder.

Do boys do that?

Wednesday March 9th

No letters from the Sex God.

And I haven’t heard anything from Dave the Laugh either.

Still, what do I care, I am full of glaciosity for him.

I wonder if he will go to the party on Saturday. Not that I am interested, as I will be at home embroidering toilet roll holders or whatever very sad spinsters do.

Bathroom 7:30 a.m.

Oh fabulous, I have a lurking lurker on my cheek. The painters are due in this week and that is probably why I am feeling so moody.

That and the fact that my life is utterly crap.

Still, a really heavy period should cheer me up.

Maybe if I disguise the lurker with some eye pencil it will look like a beauty spot.

Breakfast

Mutti said, “Georgia, why don’t you just hang a sign on your head that says, ‘Have you noticed I’ve got a spot, everybody?’”

I tried to think of something clever to say to her but I am too tired.

8:20 a.m.

I was dragging myself out the door to another day of unnatural torture (school) when the postman arrived. It takes him about a year to get up our driveway because he tries to dodge Angus. Angus loves him. He is his little postie pal. The postie, who is not what you would call blessed in the looks department, was furtively looking around and shuffling about. I said helpfully, “Angus is off on his morning constitutional, so I am afraid you can’t play with him.”

The postie said, “I know what I would like to do with him and it involves a sack and a river. Here you are.”

And he shoved a letter at me. Not ideal behaviour from a servant of the people I don’t think.

Then I noticed it was an aerogram-type letter. For me. From Kiwi-agogo land. From the Sex God.

Oh joy joy joy joyitty joy joy.

And also thrice joy.

I looked at the writing. So Sex-Goddy. And it said “Georgia Nicolson” on it.

That was me.

And on the back it said:

From Robbie Jennings

R.D. 4

Pookaka lane (honestly)

Whakatane

New Zealand

That was him. The Sex God. I started skipping down the street until unfortunately I saw Mark Big Gob and his lardy mates. He doesn’t even bother to look at my face, he just talks to my nungas.

Mark was leery like a leering thing and he said, “Careful, Georgia, you don’t want to knock yourself out with your jugs.” And they all laughed.

Thank goodness I had worn my special sports nunga holder, or my “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”, as Rosie calls it. At least my basoomas were nicely encased. Anyway, ha di hahahaha to Mark Big Gob – nothing could upset me today because I was filled with the joyosity of young love.

I did stop skipping though, and walked off with a dignity-at-all-times sort of walk.

But Mark still hadn’t had his day; he shouted after me, “I’ll carry them to school for you if you like!”

He is disgusting. And a midget lover. I don’t know how I could have ever snogged him.

8:35 a.m.

Jas was stamping around outside her house going, “Oh brrrrr, it is so nippy noodles, brr!”

She had a sort of furry bonnet over her beret. I said, “You look like a crap teddy bear.”

She just went on shivering and said, “Do you think we will get let off hockey because of Antarctic conditions?”

“Jas, you live, as I have always said, in the land of the terminally deluded and criminally insane. Nothing gets us off hockey. We are at the mercy of a Storm Trooper and part-time lesbian. Miss Stamp LOVES Antarctic conditions. You can see her moustache bristling with delight when it snows.”

If Jas has to wear a furry bonnet in cold weather, I don’t think much of her chances of survival on her survival-type course.

Still, that is life.

Or in her case, death.

She was still going “Brrr brr,” but I didn’t let it spoil my peachy mood.

“Jas, guess what? Something très très magnifique has happened at last.”

“Brrr.”

“Shut up brrring, Jas.”

I got out my aerogram.

“Look, it’s from SG.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t opened it yet, I am savouring it.”

“It’s not a pie.”

“I know that, Jas. Please don’t annoy me. I don’t want to have to beat you within an inch of your life so early in the day.”

I tucked the aerogram down the front of my shirt for safe keepies as we trudged up the hill to Stalag 14. But I had a song in my heart.

“Jas, I have a song in my heart, and do you know what it is?”

But she just ran off into the cloakroom to sit on the knicker toaster for a few minutes to thaw out.

Still, I did have a song in my heart called “I Have a Letter from a Sex God in my Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder”.

Assembly

Slim told us exciting news this morning. Elvis Attwood, the most bonkers man in Christendom and part-time caretaker, is retiring. We started cheering but had to change our cheering into a sort of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” thing because Hawkeye was giving us her ferret eye. Slim was rambling on in her jelloid way, chins shaking like billyo.