‘It’s OK, I’m wearing really big knickers!’

The Sex God has landed…and, er, taken off again

Sunday July 18th

My room

6:00 p.m.

Staring out of my bedroom window at other people having a nice life.

Who would have thought things could be so unbelievably pooey? I’m only fourteen and my life is over because of the selfishosity of so-called grown-ups. I said to Mum, “You are ruining my life. Just because yours is practically over there is no reason to take it out on me.”

But as usual when I say something sensible and meaningful she just tutted and adjusted her bra like a Russian roulette player. (Or do I mean disco thrower? I don’t know and, what’s more, I don’t care.) If I counted up the number of times I’ve been tutted at…I could open a tutting shop. It’s just SO not fair…How can my parents take me away from my mates and make me go to New Zealand? Who goes to New Zealand?

In the end, when I pointed out how utterly useless as a mum she was, she lost her rag and SHOUTED at me.

“Go to your room right now!”

I said, “All right, I’ll go to my ROOM!! I WILL go to my room!! And do you know what I’ll be doing in my room? No you don’t, so I’ll tell you! I’ll be just BEING in my room. That’s all. Because there is nothing else to do!!!!!!”

Then I just slammed off. Left her there. To think about what she has done.

Unfortunately it means that I am in my bed and it is only six o’clock.

7:00 p.m.

Oh Robbie, where are you now? Well, I know where you are now actually, but is this any time to go away on a footie trip?

On the bright side I am now the girlfriend of a Sex God.

7:15 p.m.

On the dark side, the Sex God doesn’t know his new girlfriend is going to be forced to go to the other (useless) side of the universe in a week’s time.

7:18 p.m.

I can’t believe that after all the time it has taken to trap the SG, all the make-up I have had to buy, the trailing about, popping up unexpectedly when he was out anywhere…all the planning…all the dreaming– it’s gone to waste. I finally get him to snog me (number six) and he says, “Let’s see each other but keep it quiet for a bit.” And at that moment, with classic poo timing, Mutti says, “We’re off to New Zealand next week.”

My eyes are all swollen up like mice eyes from crying. Even my nose is swollen. It’s not small at the best of times, but now it looks like I’ve got three cheeks. Marvellous. Thank you, God.

9:00 p.m.

I’ll never get over this.

9:10 p.m.

Time goes very slowly when you are suicidal.

9:15 p.m.

I put sunglasses on to hide my tiny mincers. They are new ones that Mum bought me in a pathetic attempt to interest me in going to Kiwi-a-gogo land. They looked quite cool, actually. I looked a bit like one of those French actresses who smoke Gauloise and cry a lot in between snogging Gerard Depardieu. I tried a husky French accent in the mirror.

“And zen when I was, how you say? Une teen-ager, mes parents, mes treès, treès horriblement parents, take me to Nouvelle Zelande. Ahh merde!”

At which point I heard Mum coming up the stairs and had to leap into bed. She popped her head round the door and said, “Georgie…are you asleep?”

I didn’t say anything. That would teach her.

As she left she said, “I wouldn’t sleep in the sunglasses if I were you, they might get embedded in your head.”

What kind of parenting was that? Mum’s medical knowledge was about as good as Dad’s DIY. And we had all seen his idea of a shed. Before it fell down on Uncle Eddie.

Eventually I was drifting off into a tragic snooze when I heard shouting coming from next door’s garden. Mr and Mrs Next Door were out there, banging and shouting and throwing things about. Is this really the time for noisy gardening? They have no consideration for those who might want to sleep because they have tragedy in their life. I felt like opening the window and shouting, “Garden more quietly, you loons!”

But then I couldn’t be bothered getting out of my snuggly bed of pain.

Police raid

Mucho excitemondo

12:10 a.m.

When the doorbell rang I shot out of bed and looked down the stairs. Mum had opened the door wearing a nightdress that you could quite easily see through! Even if you didn’t want to. Which I didn’t. She has no pride. There were a couple of policemen standing at the door. The bigger one was holding a sack up in front of him at arm’s length and his trousers were shredded round the ankles.

“Is this your bloody cat?” he enquired, not very politely for a public servant.

Mum said, “Well, I…er.”

I ran down the stairs and went to the door.

“Good evening, constable. This cat, is it about the size of a small Labrador?”

He said, “Yes.”

I nodded encouragingly and went on. “And has it got tabby fur and a bit of its ear missing?”

PC Plod said, “Er…yes.”

And I said, “No, it’s not him then, sorry.”

Which I thought was very funny indeed. The policeman didn’t.

“This is a serious business, young lady.”

Mum was doing her tutting thing again, and combining it with head shaking and basooma adjusting. Deeply unattractive. I thought the policeman might be distracted by her and say, “Go and put some clothes on, madam,” but he didn’t, he just kept going on at me.

“This thing has had your neighbours penned up in their greenhouse for an hour. They managed to dash into the house eventually but then it rounded up their poodles.”

“Yes, he does that. He is half Scottish wildcat. He hears the call of the wilds sometimes and then he…”

“You should keep better control of it.”

He went moaning on in a police many way for hours and hours. I said, as patiently as I could, although I had enough things to think about as it was, “Look, I’m being made to go to Whangamata by my parents. It is at the other, more useless, side of the universe. It is in New Zealand. Have you seen Neighbours? Is there nothing you can do for me?”

My mum gave me her worst look and said, “Don’t start, Georgia, I’m not in the mood.”

The policeman didn’t seem “in the mood” either. He said, “This is a serious warning. You keep this thing under control otherwise we will be forced to take sterner measures.”

Mum was hopeless as per usual. She started smiling and fiddling with her hair.

“I’m really sorry to have troubled you, inspector. Would you like to come in and have a nightcap or something?”

It was so EMBARRASSING. He probably thought we ran a brothel in our spare time. The “inspector” was all smiling and he said, “That’s very kind of you, madam, but we have to get on. Protecting the public from vicious criminals, dangerous moggies, and so on.”

I didn’t say anything as I took the wiggling sack, I just looked ironically at his chewed trousers.

Mum went BERSERK about Angus. She said, “He’ll have to go.”

I said, “Oh yes, perfect, just take everything that I love and destroy it. Just think of your own self and make me go halfway round the universe and lose the only boy I love. You can’t just leave Sex Gods, you know, they have to be kept under constant surveillance and…”

She had gone into her bedroom.

Angus strolled out of the bag and strutted around the kitchen looking for a snack. He was purring like two tanks. Libby wandered in all sleepy with her blankin’. Her night-time nappy was bulging round her knees. The last thing I needed was a poo explosion at this time of night so I said, “Go tell Mummy about your pooey nap-naps, Libby.”

But she just said, “Shhh, bad boy,” and went over to Angus. She kissed him on the nose and then sucked it before she dragged him off to bed.

I don’t know why he lets her do anything she likes with him. He almost had my hand off the other day when I tried to take his plate away and he hadn’t quite finished.

Monday July 19th

11:00 a.m.

I am feeling sheer desperadoes. It’s a day and a half now since I snogged the Sex God. I think I have snog withdrawal. My lips keep puckering up.

I HAVE to find a way of not going to Kiwi-a-gogo land. I went on hunger-strike this morning. Well, apart from a Jammy Dodger.

2:00 p.m.

Phone rang.

Mum yelled up at me, “Gee, will you get that, love? I’m in the bath.”

I yelled back, “You can wash the outside clean, but you can’t wash the inside!”

She yelled again, “Georgia!!!”

Dragged myself up from my bed of pain and went all the way downstairs and picked up the phone.

“I said, “Hello, Heartbreak Hotel here,” and all I could hear was just crackle, crackle, surf, swish, swish. So I shouted really loudly, “HELLO, HELLO, HELLO!!!!” and this faraway voice said, “Bloody hell!”

It was my father, or Vati as I call him. Phoning from New Zealand. He was, as usual, in a bad mood for no reason.

“Why did you shout down the phone? My ears are all ringing now.”

I said, reasonably enough, “Because you didn’t say anything.”

“I did, I said hello.”

“Well I didn’t hear you.”

“Well you can’t have been listening properly.”

“How can I not listen properly when I am answering the phone?”

“I don’t know, but if anyone can manage it, you can.”

Oh, play the old record again, it’s always me that does things wrong. I said, “Mum’s in the bath.”

He said, “Just a minute, don’t you want to know how I am?”

“Er, let me guess…funny moustache, bit bulky round the bottom department?”

“Don’t be so bloody cheeky! Get your mum. I give up on you. I don’t know what you learn at that school besides how to put on lipstick and be cheeky.”

I put the phone down because he can grumble on like that for centuries if you let him. I shouted, “Mutti, there is a man on the phone. He claims to be my dear vati but I don’t think he is because he was quite surly with me.”

Mum came out of the bathroom with her hair all wet and dripping and in just a bra and pants. She really has got the most gigantic basoomas, I’m surprised she doesn’t topple over. Good Lord.

I said, “I am at a very impressionable age, you know.”

She just gave me her worst look and grabbed the phone. As I went through the door I could hear her saying, “Hello, darling. What? I know. Oh I know. You needn’t tell me that…I have her all the time. It’s a nightmare.”

That’s nice talk, isn’t it?

As I point out to anyone who will listen (i.e. no one), I didn’t ask to be born. I am only here because she and Vati…urgh…anyway, I won’t go down that road.

My room

2:10 p.m.

I could hear her rambling on to Dad, going, “Hmmm– well I know. Bob…I know…Uh huh…I KNOW…I know. Yes, I know…”

In the name of pantyhose, what are grown-ups like? I shouted down to her, “Break the news to him gently that I’m definitely not in a TRILLION years coming.”

He must have heard me because even upstairs I could hear muffled shouting from down the other end of the phone. I wasn’t amazed by the shouting as my vati is prone to violence. Once I poured aftershave into his lager and lime when he was out of the room. For a merry joke. But he didn’t get the joke. When he stopped choking he went all ballisticisimus and shouted, “You complete IDIOT!!!” really loudly at me. It’s the kind of thing that will cost me hundreds of pounds in therapy fees in later life. (Should I have a life, which I don’t.)

2:30 p.m.

Playing sad songs in my bedroom, still in my jimjams.

Mutti came into my room and said, “Can I come in?”

I said, “No.”

But that didn’t put her off.

She came and sat on the edge of my bed and put her hand on my foot. I said, “Owww!!!”

She said, “Look, love, I know this is all a bit complicated, especially at your age, but this is a really big opportunity for us. Your dad thinks he has a real chance to make something of himself over in Whangamata.”

I said, “what’s wrong with the way he is now? Quite a few people like fat blokes with ridiculous moustaches. You do.”

She came on all parenty then. “Georgia, don’t think that rudeness is funny because it isn’t.”

“It can be.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Well you laughed when Libby called Mr Next Door’nice tosser’.”

“Well Libby is only three and she thinks that tosser is like Bill or Dad or something. Can’t you see this trip as an exciting adventure?”

“What, like when you are on your way to school and then suddenly you get run over by a bus and have to go to hospital, or something?”

“Yes, like when…NO!! Come on, Georgie, try to be a pal, just for me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You know that your dad can’t get a job here. What else is he supposed to do? He’s only trying to look after us all.”

After a bit she sighed and went out.

Life is treès merde and double bum. Why doesn’t Mutti understand I can’t leave now? She can be ludicrously dim. It’s not her that I get my intelligence from. It is certainly no thanks to her that I came top in…er…well anyway, it’s nothing to do with her what I do. I am just the unfortunate recipient of some of her genes. The orang-utan eyebrow gene, for instance. She has to do a lot of plucking to keep her eyebrows apart and she has selfishly passed it on to me. Since I shaved mine off by mistake last term they seem to have gone even more haywire and akimbo. The shaving has encouraged them to grow about a metre a week. If I left them alone I’d be blind by October. Jas has got ordinary eyebrows, why can’t I?

Also, while I am on the subject, the worst news of all is that I think I have inherited her breast genes. My basoomas are definitely growing. I am very worried that I may end up with huge breasts like hers. Everyone notices hers.

Once, when we were on the ferry to France, Dad said to Mum, “Don’t stand too near to the edge, Connie, otherwise your chest might be declared a danger to shipping.”

5:00 p.m.

I’ve just had a flash of whatsit!! It’s so obvious, I am indeed a genius! Simple pimple. I’ll just tell Mum that I’ll stay behind and…LOOK AFTER THE HOUSE!! The house can’t just be left empty for months because…er…squatters might come in and take it over. Anarchists who will paint everything black, including, probably, Mr and Mrs Next Door’s poodles. They’ll be begging for Angus to come back.

Excellent, brilliant fabulosa idea!! Mum will definitely see the sense of it.

I’ll promise to be really mature and grown-up and responsible. I mainly want to stay in England because of the terrifically good education system. That is how I will sell it to Mutti.

“Mutti,” I will say, “this is a crucial time in my schooldays. I think I may be picked for the hockey team.”

Thank goodness I didn’t bother Mum with my school report from last term. I saved her the trouble of reading it by signing it myself.

5:05 p.m.

You would think that Hawkeye could think of something more imaginative to write than, Hopelessly childish attitude in class. Just because she caught me doing my (excellent) impression of a lockjaw germ.

5:10 p.m.

I could have groovy parties that everyone would really want to come to. I’m going to make a list of all the people I will ask to the parties:

First– Sex Gods

Robbie…er, that’s it.

Second– the Ace Crew

Rosie, Jools, Ellen and, I suppose, Jas if she pulls her pants up and makes a bit more effort with me. She has been a bit of a Slack Alice on the pal front since she got Tom.

Third– close casuals

Mabs, Sarah, Abbie, Phebes, Hattie, Bella…people I like for a laugh but wouldn’t necessarily lend my mum’s leather jacket to…then acquaintances and fanciable brothers.

5:20 p.m.

I may even allow crap dancers like Sven to come if they have pleasing or amusing personalities (and gifts).

5:23 p.m.

I tell you who I won’t be asking– Nauseating P. Green, that’s who. She is definitely banned. If I am made to sit next to her again next term I will definitely kill myself. Why is she so boring? She does it deliberately to annoy me. She breeds hamsters. What is the matter with her?

Who else will be on the exclusion list? Wet Lindsay, Robbie’s ex. It would be cruel to invite her and let her see Robbie and me being so happy and snogging in front of her, etc. Also she would kill me and that would spoil the party atmosphere.

Who else? Oh, I know, Jackie and Alison, otherwise known as the Bummer Twins. They can’t come because they are too common.

9:10 p.m.

Looking out of my window. I can see Mark, the boy with the biggest gob in the universe, going off to town with his mates. People are out there having fun. I hate that. I haven’t got any real friends– as soon as a boy comes along they just forget about me, it’s pathetic.

I could never be that shallow.

I wonder if the Sex God is having second thoughts about me because of my nose?

9:15 p.m.

Jas phoned. Tearing herself away from Tom for a second. She said, “Have you told her you are not going, yet?”

“No, I try but she takes no notice. I told her that it is a very important time for me as I am fourteen and poised on the brink of womanhood.”

“On the what?”

Jas can be like half girl, half turnip. I said, “Do you remember what our revered headmistress, Slim, said at the end of summer term? She said, ‘Girls, you are poised on the brink of womanhood, which is why I want to see no more false freckles painted on noses. It is silly and it isn’t funny or dignified.’”

“False freckles are funny.”

“I know.”

“Well why would Slim say they weren’t?”

“Jas.”

“What?”

“Shut up now.”

9:30 p.m.

I’ve got Libby, her scuba-diving Barbie doll, which has arms like steel forks, and her Thomas the Tank Engine, all in my bed. It’s like sleeping in a toy box only not so comfortable. Plus Libby has been making me play Eskimo kissing; it has made my nose really sore. I said, “Libby, that’s enough Eskimo now,” but she just said, “Kwigglkwoggleugug,” which I suppose she thinks is Eskimo.

What is the matter with my life? Why is it so deeply unfab?

10:00 p.m.

Looking at the sky outside my window and all the stars. I thought of all the people in history and so on who have been sad and have asked God for help. I fell to my knees (which was a bit painful as I landed on a plate of jam sandwiches I had left by my bed). Through my tears I prayed, “Please, God, let the phone ring and let it be Robbie. I promise I will go to church all the time if he rings. Thank you.”

Midnight

So much for Our Vati in Heaven. What on earth is the point of asking God for something if you don’t get it?

Decided to buy a Buddha tomorrow.

1:00 a.m.

As time is short it might be all right to ask Buddha for something before I actually invest in a statue of him.

I don’t really know how to speak to Buddha. I hope he understands English. I expect, like most deities, it’s more a sort of reading your thoughts job.

1:30 a.m.

Because I haven’t been a practising Buddhist for long (half an hour) I’ll restrict my requests to the essentials.