‘Stop in the name of pants!’

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The only thing that is really thrusting itself forward proudly is my nose. Even Dave mentioned it.

One minute later

Perhaps it has grown bigger and bigger in Masimo’s imagination in the week he has been away. He hasn’t even got a photo of me to remind him that I am more than just a nose on legs.

Five minutes later

Perhaps because he is foreign he is a bit psychic. Perhaps he has a touch of the Mystic Meg about him and he knows about the Dave the Laugh incident.

One minute later

Jas has probably sent a message via an owl to let him know. Just because she has got the hump with me. AGAIN. About the stupid tent business.

Lying on my bed of pain

8:00 p.m.

And I mean that quite literally because my cat Angus (also known as a killing machine) is pretending my foot is a rabbit. In a sock. If I even move it slightly, he leaps on it and starts biting it.

Also, ouch and double ouch. I can’t get into a comfy position to take the pressure off my bum-oley. I think I may have actually broken something in my bottom. I don’t know what there is to break, but I may have broken it. I wonder if it is swollen up?

Then I heard the phut phut of the mighty throbbing engine that is my vati’s crap car. Carefully easing my broken bottom off the bed and slapping at Angus, I went downstairs. Angus was still clinging to my sock-rabbit-foot even though his head was bonking against the stairs.

As I got to the hall I heard the front door being kicked. Oh good, it was my delightful little sister.

“Gingey, Gingey, let me in!!! Let me in, poo sister.”

Then there was squealing, like a pig was being pushed through the letter box.

Thirty seconds later

It wasn’t a pig being pushed through the letter box, it was Gordy, cross-eyed son of Angus. I could see his ginger ears poking through.

Oh, bloody hell.

I said, “Libby, don’t put Gordy though the letter box. I’m opening the door.”

She yelled, “He laaikes it.”

When I got the door open, it was to find Libby in Wellington boots and a bikini. Gordy was struggling and yowling in her little fat arms and finally squirmed free and leaped off into the garden sneezing and shaking.

Libby was laughing. “Funny pussy. Hnk hnk.” Then she came up to me and started hugging my knees and kissing them. In between snogging, Libby was murmuring, “I lobe my Gingey.”

Mutti came up the steps in a really short dress, very tight round the nungas. So very sad. She gave me a hug, which can be quite frightening seeing her enormous basoomas looming towards your head. She said, “Hello, Gee, did you have a larf camping?”

I said, “Oh yes, it was brillopads. We made instruments out of dried beans and Herr Kamyer did impressions of crap stuff with his hands that no one could get except Jas. And, as a pièce de résistance, I fell in a pond and was attacked by great toasted newts.”

She wasn’t even listening as usual, off in her own Muttiland.

“We went to see Uncle Eddie’s gig at The Ambassador last night. It was like an orgy; one of the women got so carried away she stole his feather codpiece.”

Is that really the sort of thing a growing, sensitive girl should have to listen to? It was like earporn.

One minute later

I watched her bustling about making our delicious supper (i.e. opening a tin of tomato soup). She was so full of herself burbling on and on.

“Honestly, you should have been there, it was a hoot.”

I said, “Oooooooh yeah, it would have been great to have been there. Really great.” But she didn’t get it.

Libby was still kissing my knees and giggling. She had forgotten that they were my knees; they were now just her replacement friends for Josh. But then she had a lovers’ tiff with her knee-friends, biffed me on the knee quite hard and went off into the garden, yelling for Gordy.

I said, “Mum, you didn’t take Libby with you to the baldy-o-gram fiasco, did you?”

“Don’t be silly, Georgia, I’m not a complete fool.”

I said, “Well, actually, you are as it happens.”

She said, “Don’t be so rude.”

I said, “Where’s Dad? Have you managed to shake him off at last?”

And then Vati came in. In his leather trousers. Oh, I might be sick. Not content with the horrificnosity of the trousers, he kissed me on my hair. Urgh, he had touched my hair; now I would have to wash it.

He was grinning like a loon and taking his jacket off.

“Hello, no camping injuries then. No vole bites. You didn’t slip into a newt pond or anything?”

I looked at him suspiciously. I hoped he wasn’t turning into Mystic Meg as well in his old age. I said, “Dad, are you wearing a woman’s blouse?”

He went completely ballisticisimus. “Don’t be so bloody cheeky! This is an original sixties Mod shirt. I will probably wear it when I go clubbing. Any gigs coming up?”

Mum said, “Have you heard anything from the Italian Stallion?”

Dad had his head in the fridge and I could see his enormous leather-clad bum leering at me. I had an overwhelming urge to kick it, but I wasn’t whelmed because I knew he would probably ban me from going out for life.

I gave Mum my worst look and nodded over at the fridge. I needn’t have worried, though, because Dad had found a Popsicle in the freezer and was as thrilled as it is possible for a fat bloke in constraining leather trousers to be. He went chomping off into the front room.

Mum was adjusting her over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder and looking at me.

I said, “What?”

And she said, “So… have you heard anything?”

I don’t know why I told her, but it just came tumbling out.

“Mum, why do boys do that ‘see you later’ thing and then just not see you later? Even though you don’t even know when later is.”

“He hasn’t got in touch then?”

“No.”

She sat down and looked thoughtful, which was a bit alarming. She said slowly, “Hmm – well, I think it’s because – they’re like sort of nervous gazelles in trousers, aren’t they?”

I looked at her. “Mum, are you saying that Masimo is a leaping furry animal who also plays in a band and rides a scooter? And snogs?”

She said, “He snogs, does he?”

Damn, drat, damnity dratty damn. And also merde. I had broken my rule about never speaking about snognosity questions with old mad people.

I said quickly, “Anyway, what do you mean about the gazelle business?”

“Well, I think that boys are more nervous than you think. He wants to make sure that you like him before he makes a big deal about it. How many days is it since he went?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been counting the days actually, I’m not that sad.”

She looked at me. “How many hours then?”

“One hundred and forty.”

We were interrupted by Gordy and Angus both trying to get through the cat flap at once. Quickly followed by Libby.

In my bedroom

8:45 p.m.

I can hear Mum and Dad arguing downstairs because he hasn’t taken the rubbish out. And never does. On and on.

I will never behave like this when I am married. Mind you, I will not be marrying a loon in tight trousers who thinks Rolf Harris is a really good artist.

Who will I be marrying at this rate? I haven’t been out of my room for years and the phone hasn’t rung since it was invented.

Why is no one phoning me? Not even the Ace Gang. I’ve been home for hours and hours. Don’t they care?

The trouble with today is that everyone is so obsessed with themselves. They just have no time for me.

Five minutes later

At last, a bit of peace to contemplate my broken bum. Oh no, here they go again. They are so childish. Mum shouted out, “Bob, you know that sort of wooden thing in the bedroom, in the corner? Well, it’s called a set of drawers and some people, people who are grown up and no longer have their mummy wiping their botties, well those sort of people put their clothes in the drawers. So that other people don’t have to spend their precious time falling over knickers and so on.”

Uh-oh. Fight, fight!!

Then I could hear him shambling into their bedroom and singing, “One little sock in the drawer, two socks in the drawer and two pairs of attractive undercrackers on the head then into the drawer, yesssss!!”

How amazing. I shouted down, “Mum, is Dad on some kind of medication? Or have his trousers cut off the circulation to his head?”

That did it. Vati hit number seven on the losing it scale (complete ditherspaz). He yelled up, “Georgia… this isn’t anything to do with you!”

I said, “Oh, that’s nice. I thought we were supposed to be a lovely family and do stuff together.”

He just said, “Anyway, where is your sister? Is she up there with you?”

Why am I Libby’s so-called nanny? Haven’t I got enough trouble with my own life? I am not my sister’s keeper, as Baby Jesus said. Or was it Robin Hood? I don’t know. Some bloke in a skirt anyway.

I said, “No. Have you tried the airing cupboard or the cat basket?”

Five minutes later

Things have got worse. While Mum went hunting for Bibbsy, Dad unfortunately decided to check the phone messages. He heard Mum’s mate’s message. I could hear him tutting. And then it was Josh’s mum’s message.

He had the nervy spaz of all nervy spazzes, shouting and carrying on. “What is it with this family??? Why did Libby have a bread knife in her bedroom? Probably because you are too busy pratting around with your so-called mates to bother looking after your children!”

That did it for Mum. She shouted back, “How dare you! They’re MY children, are they? If you took some notice of them, that would be a miracle. You care more about that ridiculous bloody three-wheeled clown car.”

Mum had called his car a clown car. Tee-hee.

Dad had really lost it. “That car is an antique.”

I shouted, “It’s not the only one.”

Mum laughed, but Dad said, “Right, that’s it, I’m off. Don’t wait up.”

Mum shouted, “Don’t worry, I won’t.” The door slammed and there was silence.

Then there was the sound of the clown car being driven off at high speed (two miles an hour) down the driveway.

And silence again as it whirred away into the distance.

Then a little voice said, “Mummy, my bottom is stuck in the bucket.”

9:30 p.m.

Dear God, what a nightmare. This has taken my mind off the oven of luuurve situation.

Libby has wedged herself into the outdoor metal bucket. We pulled her and wiggled her about but we can’t get it off.

Mum said, “Go and get me some butter from the fridge. We can smear it on her and sort of slide her out.”

Of course, we didn’t have any butter; we had about a teaspoon of cottage cheese but Mum said it wasn’t the same.

Twenty-five minutes later

In the end Mum made me go across the road and ask Mr Across the Road if we could borrow some butter. She said I could lie better.

Mr Across the Road was wearing a short nightshirt and I kept not looking anywhere below his chin. He was all nosey about the late-night butter scenario though.

“Doing a bit of baking, are you?”