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Hang on a minute, some Northern vandal has painted a “b” and a “y” over the otter bit. So now it reads:
I have just got off the showbiz express and now I am getting on the bus of hope. Which will transport me to… The Theatre of Dreams.
I can see the bus driver through the closed door, sitting in the driver’s seat. I recognise him from last term. I wonder if he recognises me?
As I hauled my bag on board up the steps he put the pipe to one side of his mouth and shouted, “Stop messing about and get on if you’re getting on, merry legs. It’s bloody parky with that door open.”
I said, “Why did you call me merry legs?”
He said, “Because you’re lanky and your legs are all over the shop.”
I paid my fare and he said, “Come back to prat around like a fool at Dither Hall again, have you?”
Before I could say, “It’s Dother Hall, actual—” he accelerated off so violently that I shot down to the end of the bus and almost ended up in a small child’s pushchair. Luckily there wasn’t a small child in it, just a pig.
The woman with the pushchair said, “Mind my pig.”
I am huddled up well away from her, but I think I can still smell pig poo.
We bumped along the road to Heckmondwhite. The driver is careering along sounding his horn whenever there is anything in his way on the road. Pedestrians. Bicyclists. A cow pat. But he slowed down behind a lollipop lady who was walking home. With her sign. She tried to let him pass but he cheerily waved her on and drove slowly behind her. Then for no reason when we got to a sharp corner he revved up and blasted his horn and she fell into a hedge. He was laughing so much I thought he might swallow his pipe.
I couldn’t help being excited. This is like a postcard of a winter scene in Yorkshire. There is even some snow on the top of Grimbottom Peak. And I shivered as I thought about Fang up there. Raising his fictitious children as fictitious puppies.
We arrived at the bus stop in Heckmondwhite just as it was getting dark. In my Dother Hall brochure it says, “Heckmondwhite has its own ‘zany’ cosmopolitan atmosphere.”
I don’t know that most people would call a village green and a post office and a pub called The Blind Pig “zany”. Unless you counted the knitted flags over the village hall.
I bet the Dobbins, my substitute parents, have got something to do with that.
Maybe I should just nip quickly over to the pub and see my fun-sized friend Ruby and my four-legged mate Matilda, her bulldog? I could give her the lipstick I’ve bought her. Not Matilda, Ruby. Dogs don’t wear make-up. But what they do wear is the little ballet tutu I have got for her from ‘Pets Party’ shop. I hope it will go round her waist. She is quite porky in the middle.
And anyway, even if Rubes was out I could leave the presents with her older brother Alex. Alex the dream boy. Alex with his long limbs and his longish thick chestnut hair. And his two eyes. And his back and front… and everything. And we could chat about performing arts. He’s gone off to Liverpool to do rep there and I could chat about my performance plans. Maybe discuss my Labradad idea.
Maybe not. I don’t want him to think of me as a bloke with a pipe fetching sticks.
Yes, I could pop to see Ruby. And whilst I was popping about maybe Alex her very gorgeous brother would pop up and that would be poptastic and I could say, “What a surprise, Alex, I was just popping by to…”
“Lullah! Lullah, yoo-hoo, it’s me!!!! And the twins!!!”
Dibdobs. In her Brown Owl uniform, coming towards me. No, not just coming towards me. Skipping towards me.
The twins were wearing knitted yellow knickerbockers.
I bet Mr Dobbins (Harold) knitted them at one of his “inner woman” groups. Harold goes to a men’s group and they try to find their hidden feminine side.
Uuuumph. As I have said before, I am sure Dibdobs has got a “hugging” badge. She’s got badges for everything else, moth conservation, vole watching, pond life, etc.
She almost crushed me to death with her bosom and her badges. And her new whistle.
I couldn’t actually see anything when she was hugging me, but I could feel hugging going on around my knee area as well.
That would be the twins, Max and Sam.
They love my knees.
Probably because that is as far up as their toddler arms can hug.
I don’t get a lot of hugging at home.
My little brother Connor likes kicking mostly. I hugged him when I left and he said, “Don’t be so gay”. Grandma does a lot of patting. But quite often she’s off target with that and thinks she is patting me when actually it’s the cushion next to me.
Dibdobs was talking really loudly and quickly like she does. She’s so keen on everything.
It’s nice really. Just odd.
“Oh, Lullah, it’s sooooooo lovely to have you back. I’ve missed you. We’ve all missed you. Haven’t we, boys?”
The boys stood there blinking from underneath their pudding basin haircuts.
And sucking their dodies.
They don’t get any less odd.
Dibdobs said, “The boys have made something for you. Haven’t you, boys?”
She adores the twins, she thinks they are covering up their cleverness. She thinks they are like tiny little brain surgeons in tiny twits clothing.
Max and Sam blinked at me. And kept on sucking.
Then Max (or Sam) took his dodie out and said, “Sjuuuuge one for ooo.”
I said, “Oh, well, that’s nice I…”
Dibdobs said, “Tell Lullah what you’ve made for her.”
Sam said, “Sjuuuuge.”
Dibdobs started slightly losing her rag. “Yes, yes, it is quite big… but TELL Lullah what it is.”
Sam blinked and looked a bit cross, like he had suddenly realised he had a Brown Owl for a mother. He put his hands on his hips and stamped his foot and said, “SJJJJUUUUGEEE.”
And Max shouted, “BOGIES!!!!”
Dibdobs went even redder.
She bent down so she could look them both in the eyes and said sternly, “Now, that is a silly, silly word, that big boys don’t say any more.”
Max and Sam blinked together and smiled. Great Jumping Jehovah, they look like sock animals when they smile.
Dibdobs took their hands and we all walked back to the house. She was chatting on sixteen to the dozen. But I could still hear Max and Sam softly singing, “Bogie, bogie, bogie, bogie, bogie.”
Dibdobs said, “Harold is so looking forward to seeing you, he’s out tonight with the interknitting group. After the success of the communal skipping rope, you know, the skipathon when the whole village skipped?”
Oh yes, I remembered that.
She was chattering on.
“Well, he’s got big plans for knitting the village together for Christmas. Won’t that be fun?”
When we got back to Dandelion Cottage the twins present turned out to be some bits of feather stuck into a potato.
Max said, “Fevver man for ooo.”
Lovely.
Also there was a postcard addressed to me care of the Dobbins. It was from Honey! It just said:
Dear Tallulah,
Something WEALLY exciting has happened!!!!
See you when I get there on Wednesday and tell you all about it!!!
Honey xxx
It didn’t really say “weally” on the postcard, but I could hear her voice in my head.
I wonder what she means?
Maybe she’s got five boyfriends now?!
I took my luggage (and “Fevver man”) up into my room while Dibdobs went to make some tea.
So here I am back in my old squirrel room. Sitting on my wooden bed with the squirrel carved into the bedhead. With my feather potato. I’ve brought back my squirrel slippers; the ones that Dibdobs gave me when I first came. She said they were to make me feel at home.
Which they would have done, had my home been in an oak tree.
I put the squirrel slippers into the bed for company. Well, one looks like a squirrel and the other one looks like a hamster. My brother, Connor, set fire to one of the tail bits so it’s just a stump.
I looked around at the familiar carved wooden wardrobe (acorn theme) and the wooden dressing table (with the carved squirrel legs) and the wooden, well, everything really. You name it, if it was in the room, it was wooden.
But wood was OK. Everything was OK.
I put my case on the bed and started to unpack. Georgia and her Ace Gang helped me choose cool things to suit my shape. Like dark tights and bright little skirts. And hats. The Ace Gang said I needed to de-emphasise my bad bits (nobbly knees) and emphasise my good bits (catty eyes and nice swishy black hair). Georgia said to distract boys from my knee area I should swish my hair almost constantly. (Although not to fiddle with my fringe, because she personally thought that was a killing offence.)
I hung all my stuff in the wooden wardrobe.
I even have a special underwear drawer. With bras in it. Oh yes!!!
Yes, I now officially wear corker holders.
And what’s more, I have corkers to put in them!!
I’ve got the tiniest corker appliances you can get (30a) but I have high hopes for a growth spurt when I start tap dancing my way to the top of the showbiz ladder. Not that I can tap dance but I could do something on the ladder, I’m sure. It’s just a question of finding it and not falling off the ladder in the meantime. Even though you can’t see the ladder.
I’m putting my new shiny, fruity performance art notebook under my pillow for when I come up with more whizzo creative projects. I can’t wait to see Dr Lightowler’s face when she has to hand me my golden slippers of applause!
She doesn’t like me. I don’t know why. It was after I did my owl laying an egg mime in her class. I think she took against me then.
Maybe she thought I was pretending to be her. She said I was silly, and shouldn’t be at Dother Hall.
She’s in for a surprise when she gets to see how unsilly I can be.
I’m going to put my corker measuring tape in my corker-holder drawer, next to my corker holders.
I wonder if my corkers have grown since I last measured them?
I did a sneaky measuring in the lavatory on the train, which is only about three hours ago, but growing could happen any time, couldn’t it?
It could happen the minute after you took the corker-measuring tape measure away.
Anyway, I am not going to risk doing a measure, it would be just my luck for the lunatic twins to come barging in.
Last term, unfortunately I tried my method in front of the window. And Cain Hinchcliff was out there in the undergrowth, snogging some village girl, and he’d seen me, seen me doing my method. He’d seen me rubbing my corkers with my hiking socks on my hands.
To make them grow.
My corkers not the socks.
The socks were huge.
Best not to think about it.
I shivered at the memory.
Still, that was all in the past.
Dibdobs shouted up, “Tea’s ready!!! Boys!! Tallulah! Split splat!!!”
I shook my hair and gave it a bit of a va-va voom.
When I opened my door, there they were. The twins. Blinking and sucking on their dodies. As if they knew that I had nearly measured my corkers.
Perhaps they have a corker-sensing gene.
Perhaps all boys do.
What a horrific thought.
