And we went mad. Jo was shaking her bum at the tree yelling, “Look at this beauty!”
I was throwing my knees up at the tree yelling, “I’m not a nobbly knee-ed fool, I’m a green-eyed minx! Kiss the knees, kiss the knees!!”
As Charlie walked into the clearing.
Oh no.
Oh yes.
I stopped mid–knee waggle.
Honey smiled at him with her melty smile. “Hello, Chawie, you came to thay good-bye.”
He smiled back at her and gave her a hug. “I was on my way to Dother Hall to give you—well … Me and the lads made you a souvenir to take with you, to remind you of us.”
And he handed her a wooden sausage and said, “We made you this in woodwork. It has a teak finish.”
Honey said, “I’ll weally tweasure it.”
He was on the dash but as he passed me, he said softly, “Tallulah, I really need to talk to you. I’ve been trying to get to the village but I’m on curfew.” And he went off.
The Tree Sisters went, “Ooooooh, Charlie!”
The car came to pick Honey up at lunchtime and the whole of Dother Hall was outside to see her off. Monty had gone through a box of Kleenex. Honey had her boots and short skirt on and she had put her hair up. She really did look like a star.
As we stood outside with her luggage, a sleek black limo swept up the driveway. The driver got out and said, “Good afternoon, madam,” to Honey, and put her luggage in the boot.
And the girls went “Oooooohhh.” They were all so impressed. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like Honey.
Even Bob gave her a hug and said, “Rock on—see you Stateside when I get back to gigging.” Whatever that means.
When it was time for her to go, the four of us clung together. All of the Tree Sisters, crying and hugging. Like there was no tomorrow. Which there isn’t for our little gang. We’ve promised to write to each other. But it was really really sad.
As she got into the backseat, Honey said, “Ooooh, thith ith howwible. I am tho thad. Tallulah, pleathe do me your little Irish dance to cheer me up.”
I wasn’t in the mood and my eyes were all swollen from crying and so I said, “I don’t think I want—”
Flossie blew her nose and said in her Southern accent, “Yes, goddam it, Lullah Mae, let’s give Miss Honey a good ole traditional Texan send-off. One, two, three, four, and hiddly diddly …”
Jo gave me a socking big biff on the arm to encourage me.
And while Vaisey, Flossie, and Jo sang that little-known Irish folk song, “Hiddly Diddly Diddly,” I did my best throwing-my-legs-around jigging ever. My legs had a life of their own. I was just bobbling around on top of them.
I kept it up until the car was out of sight.
Then I panted to the others, “Nothing could feel worse than this, losing one of your first proper chums.”
And I burst into tears.
As we trooped off to French, Dr. Lightowler tapped me on the shoulder.
“You don’t mind making a fool of yourself in public do you, Tallulah Casey? How very interesting. Perhaps there is something you can offer Dother Hall.”
Holy moly, what a miserable day. We read through A Midsummer Night’s Dream in French, I don’t know why. Monty said it would add a certain je ne sais quoi to our understanding. But it’s hard to read properly when you are snuffling.
Monty had his hankie out and sighed, “Honey would have been so right for Titania. That lovely golden hair, that sweet voice we will never hear again.” And he started blubbing.
That set us all off howling.
As I was moping home, Dr. Lightowler appeared at her office door. Had she been looking through the keyhole? Now what? She beckoned me in with one of her thin bony fingers. Was she going to peck me to death?
I went into her nest—I mean, room—and she fixed me with those unblinking eyes. Sort of poo-colored eyes.
“Tut tut … so many girls looooonnnnng to come here to learn the art of theeeeaater, but it is you who are allowed to come here. With your silly legs.”
I looked down at my silly legs.
“I have been thinking about you, and I have an excellent way for you to show how very … very … funny you are.”
I said politely, “Well, you know I don’t think I would go as far as to say that I was, you know, very funny, but well, Ms. Fox did say that I was a comedy genius and …”
Dr. Lightowler said, “Did she indeed? Well, that is good. I too have got a very, very strong sense of humor.”
Crumbs.
“Yes, and I have a very funny idea for you, for when we visit The Blind Pig.”
And she started laughing.
I left the room in a daze. Bottom. She is casting me as Bottom. A thick donkey called Bottom.
Wait till Ted Barraclough and the rough lads from The Blind Pig find out about this.
Wait till the Bottomly sisters find out.
Oh my God, wait till Dream Boy finds out.
This is truly, truly the worst day of my life.
And I am counting when Cain Hinchcliff caught me rubbing my corkers to make them grow.
And the licking the hailstone off my nose.
I went to The Blind Pig to tell Ruby all about it. Ted Barraclough popped up from behind the bar.
“Ay up, young man, have you been playing football today?”
I said, “No, we … er, we don’t play football.”
He doesn’t give up easily. “Would you like an apple? Can I take the opportunity to say how very, very much I am looking forward to you coming to my humble abode again to prat around like twits in tights.”
Before he could go on, I said, “Er, is Ruby in yet?”
He said, “No, she’s out in the back field with Alex.”
Alex?
Oh joy! Perhaps every cloud did indeed have a silver lining. Alex was here!!
Mr. Darcy come to save me.
I walked quickly round the back of the pub. My heart was racing. I couldn’t believe he was here. I’d read my letter from him every day and night for nearly a fortnight.
I took a deep breath and walked slowly up the track at the back. Oh oh oh. There he was! Mr. Darcy, standing with his back to me with Ruby. He wasn’t wearing breeches. I don’t mean he was naked from the waist down. He was wearing jeans, looking toward Grimbottom.
Ruby saw me first and called out, “Lullah!!!”
Then Alex turned round. He smiled his lovely smile. Oh, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, can I just run my hands through your chestnutty hair …
I didn’t say that bit out loud.
He said, “Hey, Lullah!! How are you, my little Green Eyes?”
Green Eyes, he called me his little Green Eyes!
Take that, Dr. Lightowler, he didn’t call me Bottom, he called me Green Eyes.
He looks further than my knees, unlike some people. There is indeed a silver lining to every black cloud.
When I reached him he gave me a hug. Mmmmmm, nice hugging. I remembered to do hypnotic eyes. Blinking and staring at the same time. I bet he is thinking, She is indeed a darkly damson, a plum ripe for plucking, a …
He chucked me under my chin and said, “Aaaah, you look lovely, Lullah, so lovely. You must tell me your news about Dither Hall. But first of all come and meet Candice, she’s at college with me.”
He stopped hugging me.
Why was he making me meet one of his mates from college?
What was this mate in the field for?
Maybe she’d come to collect mushrooms because she liked them, and as she was a mate of his, he’d said …
Then a girl with long blond hair appeared from the field. She had ordinary length legs. He kissed her on the lips.
Every cloud does not have a silver lining. It has another even darker, cloudier lining.
The hamster slippers of life
ONCE AGAIN, BACK IN my squirrel room. Alone with my slippers. They are not golden slippers. They are squirrel-cum-hamster slippers.
I
t’s so dark and miserable outside. And inside come to that.
I wonder what Cousin Georgia would do now? About Alex. She told me that she dyed a piece of her hair blond when she really liked a Sex God–type boy who was older than her. But she used toilet cleaner because her mum wouldn’t give her money to get real hair dye. And then the Sex God came round to see her and the blond streak worked because the Sex God kissed her. But then the Sex God ran his hand through her hair and the blond streak snapped off. In his hand. Like a little hamster.
And he was a bit surprised, but he thought it was funny. And he liked her and snogged her even more because of her quirkiness.
Maybe that is the thing to do, be more quirky. So that Alex will see that I am not just some silly little girl, I am the girl for him.
I don’t think I will do the blond streak thing though.
That might be a quirk too far.
Should I wear a cloak?
Hmmm.
Perhaps not. I don’t want him to think I’m a lunatic, just a bit interesting.
I need to emphasize my good bits.
He likes my eyes.
Maybe I should wear eye makeup.
I’m going to try it.
I went and got my makeup bag. I put black eyeliner on the top of my lids. Hmmmm, quite nice. It does make your eyes stand out. It’s a bit crooked though so I look slightly surprised in one eye.
I’ll even it up.
The lines are quite thick but that might be good.
Honey said you had to use a softer shade on the bottom lid.
So maybe a softy, blurry dark purple line underneath my eye and then joining the black line at the corner.
Like so.
Yes. That is good.
I look about ten years older, I think.
I wonder if my corkers are still on the move. I could do some measuring and …
There was the sound of shouting from outside my window.
It was a girl’s voice. Maybe Beverley Bottomly. Out there. Shouting at me. Tracking me down. When she’s finished shouting, she’s going to climb up the drainpipe to get me.
She’s going to climb up and make me eat my slippers.
No, I mustn’t be silly, she would never be able to get up the drainpipe. Her arms are strong enough, it’s just that there isn’t a drainpipe.
What’s going on?
I pulled back the curtain a little bit and peeked out.
I should have known. Where there’s shouting, there’s Cain. He was leaning against a tree with his boot up against the trunk. And shouting in front of him was Beverley. He’d got his collar up and was patting his dog.
If I just quietly open my window a crack, I will be able to hear what she is saying.
What I hope she’s saying is, “If you don’t get out of town, my mum is going to shoot you.”
I slowly and quietly inched the window open.
Then I could hear properly. Beverley was crying and her voice was all squeaky. “You … you … treat me like nowt.”
Cain snapped, “Beverley, I told thee, I just want a laff, I don’t want a bloody moaning lass following me abaht. It’s depressing.”
Beverley was snuffling. “You said tha luvved me.”
Cain laughed. “I did nowt of the kind. Tha said thee loved me and I said, well, don’t.”
Beverley gulped. “Oh yer bad, you led me on.”
Cain laughed again. “I led thee on? Tha came trailing after me.”
Beverley said, “I want to kill you. You’re bad and mean.”
She went over to him and banged her fists on his chest. He just stood there.
Then he said, “Beverley, why dun’t tha go home, to tha mum and dad. There’s nowt doing here.”
Beverley screamed and ran off into the woods.
Bloody hell.
Cain stayed leaning against the tree. Looking down at his boots.
Then without looking up, he said, “So what dust tha think, lanky lass? What do they want? Lasses? Eh? Whativver it is I can’t give it to them.”
I didn’t say anything. How could he know I was there?
Cain said, “Well, are you going to give me your wise advice? Tell me what you’ve learned at big school.”
Ooooh, he was so up himself.
I stood up and opened the window some more.
“I did happen to overhear you as I was writing my … diary.”
He looked up and leered. “Is that what tha call it ‘writing in your diary,’ like when you had them reight big socks on your hands and you were …”
Oh, how dare he!!!! How dare he??????
He really was an animal.
Alex would never say anything like that.
Cain was kicking at the tree.
I said to him, “At least I don’t spend my whole life making people unhappy and … and … making them leap into rivers.”
Cain looked up at me again.
I looked back down at him.
He said, “You should wesh your face. You look like a bloody panda.”
Oh, typical.
I said, “Are you capable of ever being nice?”
And I was just about to slam the window down on him when he said, “I am being nice, you daft mare. What I’m saying is, tha dun’t need owt on your face. You’ve got a reight naice wild pretty face.”
I blinked.
Was he being nice?
I would certainly write this down for posterity in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary. “The Black Rusty Crow was very nearly not entirely horrible.”
He was kicking at leaves. Then he said, “I know tha thinks I’m a bad un, and mebbe I am, but I’ve got reasons for not trusting wimmen. Anyway I can’t do owt to please ’em. What they want I can’t give ’em. I’m a bad lot and that’s the end of it.”
He did seem truly upset for once.
I tried to think of something to say.
“Well, you’re nice to the owlets, sort of. And your dog.”
Cain laughed.
“Oh, well, there we are then, the solution. I’ll go out with one of the owlets—or me dog.”
The idea was so mad that we both started laughing.
He looks completely different when he laughs.
How strange.
Then he said, “Well, I’d best be off. It’s way past your bedtime.”
Oh yes, he had to spoil it.
I said, “I’m not going to go to bed tonight actually. I often stay up all night if I like. I may be part owl.”
Why had I said that?
What did I mean?
He said, “Ooooooo, you bloody rebel. See thee, nobbly knees. Twit twooo.”
A naturally cracking kisser
IT’S BEEN A WHOLE week since Honey left and a week since Alex came back. I didn’t see him again after the “Candice” kiss thing. I avoided the village until I knew he would have gone back to Liverpool. I’ve tried to busy myself by joining in at Dother Hall and going to every class. And I nearly joined the Dobbinses’ knitting group. But my smiley face has been hiding the tears of a clown.
I didn’t tell the Tree Sisters about Alex and Candice. They’ve all got boys to think about. Flossie wants us to go looking for Seth, but I told her that every time I see the Bottomly sisters they give me the evils.
I wish something would happen. It’s like the calm before a storm somehow. Jo is madly plotting with Phil about how he is going to get himself sent back to Woolfe. There’s been no sign of Charlie, or any of the others from Woolfe—so much for Charlie wanting to talk about “stuff.” We’ve been to the tree quite a few times and they’ve never turned up.
I do love my mates. But I feel lonely. I wonder if anyone, any boy, will ever, ever like me. Maybe they won’t and I’ll remain on my own forever.
And I’ll be found clutching my squirrel/hamster slippers dead in bed.
My squirrel/hamster slippers are my only company.
And my Fevver man, and Mr. Sudsy, whose head has fallen off.
If I wrote a sto
ry based on me, I bet it would be even more depressing than Jane Eyre—at least Jane had some blind bloke who liked her. I’m going to write a bestselling story about my lonely terrible life in the North.
Right, I have begun my epic tragedy. It’s called, The Daughter of Fang.
I haven’t used my own name.
Morag ate a cup of cold fat for her supper that night. She had been saving it, along with a potato that she had wrestled from a pig when she had first escaped from Fang’s lair on Grimbottom.
As she passed a rock pool, she saw her own face reflected in the cold water. She noticed her green eyes staring back at her, surrounded by glossy black hair. As she looked farther down her reflection, she saw the bumps of womanhood poking the sack she was wearing. “Oh oh,” she—
I was interrupted by some pebbles rattling against my windowpane. I pushed up the window and Ruby was jumping up and down on the wall below me. Bobbing around in her bobbly hat. She was shouting, “Guess what, guess what!!!! Guess what’s happened. Guess!!! Go on, go on, guesss!!”
I said, “I—”
“Go on, you’ll nivver, nivver guess!!!”
“I—”
“Nivver ever in a million squillion years. Nivver!!!!”
“I—”
“Hahahahahahaha, nivver, I told you, I told you.”
This was stupid. I stashed away my diary and put my coat and hat on.
I went downstairs and outside. Matilda had a knitted beanie hat on with ear holes, and her ears poking out.
Ruby was still shouting up at my window and dancing around on the wall. “You can’t guess, can you!!!! That’s because you will nivver guess!!!!”
I got hold of her around her waist and said, “Ruby, TELL me what I will never guess.”
She puffed, “Cain Hinchcliff has done it … this … time. He has dumped Beverley … AGAIN and … Mrs. Bottomly is … after him with … a … GUN!!!!”
After Ruby went off for her tea, I was sitting on the wall thinking about the Cain thing. Well, well, well. So life can be fair. Finally he gets what he deserves. You can’t just go around licking people’s noses and destroying outdoor lavatories without paying the price.
I wonder where he is?
Hiding out in the undergrowth like the animal he is. Maybe he’s with Fang up on Grimbottom, in the dog basket of life. Unlikely though since Fang doesn’t exist except in Flossie’s head. (And in my new bestselling novel about the daughter of Fang.)