Vaisey climbed over it, and me and Flossie walked straight through. Bob’s not around anyway. Probably gone off to comb his bob. We had a look on the roof but apart from a flapping tarpaulin held down with bricks there was nothing up there. It was chilly and lonely. Leaning over the parapet, I could just about see the dark outline of Woolfe Academy. I thought about Charlie over there. Not thinking about the thing that he wants us to forget about.
Oh yes, I am sure he wants to forget about the thing.
Forget about snogging a person and … and leading that person on. And pretending to like a person’s knees.
Well, I don’t think I can be friends with a boy like that.
Whoever he is.
I forget.
As we went back down into the dorm, Flossie pointed at the ceiling and said to me, “That tarpaulin is the only thing between us and the sky. Vaisey found a dead pigeon on her bedside table last night, didn’t you, Vaisey?”
Vaisey shook her curls around and said cheerfully, “Yeah, but it was just the one and it looked a bit depressed.”
Flossie said, “Well, it would be depressed, it was dead.”
Vaisey said, “No, but before that, you know, it looked like it didn’t have any mates.”
I said, “Let me get this right, Vaisey, are you saying that a pigeon committed suicide?”
Vaisey went a bit red. “Well, it looked upset.”
“Did you find a suicide note in its beak?”
Then we noticed that the curtain round Jo’s bed was drawn. We had a little peak through and Jo was lying on her bed looking at some letters. I bet they are from Phil. She looked up with her mouth all turned down like Matilda. I did my best smile, but she looked down at her letters again. Oh dear.
Flossie was rummaging through her drawers and said, “This will cheer you up, Jo. I’ve got some cheeky new corker holders.”
She held up a polka-dot lacy bra to show me and Vaisey.
It looked a bit on the large side. We went and poked our heads through Jo’s curtain. Flossie was dangling her corker holder in front of Jo. She said, “Look at these beauties.”
I was still looking at Flossie’s corker holder and said, “Flossie, is that the right size for you? Are you sure it fits? Isn’t it a bit on the, er, large side?”
Flossie had her Deep South accent on again and said, “Oh, it fits all right, Talllluuuuulah Casey. It fits REAL fine. Real snug! I’ll show you.” And she went off and swished the curtain round her bed.
I sat on Vaisey’s bed next to Jo’s curtain and said, “Are you okeydokey, my little friendette, do you want to arm wrestle or something? You like that.”
There was a pause and then Jo’s voice came through sounding like she was under a blanket. She said, “What if I never see him again? He’s the first boy I’ve ever kissed.”
Then from behind her curtain Flossie said, “Why, sometimes on hoooottttt nights, I’m just a-setting on the stoop to get some air … or is it stooping on the set? I can’t rightly say. I don’t know what ah do, it’s so goddam hooootttttt. Hey, open a window, y’all.”
Fat chance. It was about minus fifty, and anyway, you can’t open the windows because mostly there aren’t any. It’s just frames covered in clingfilm. Another Bob DIY job to cut costs. This whole place is falling down.
Jo said from behind her curtain, “I knew he was too short in the first place. When I first saw him, I said, didn’t I? I should never have trusted him. You can’t trust short people. Look at clowns.”
I was going to have to be firm to be kind with her.
I went and pulled back the curtain.
I said, “Look, Jo, well, not to, you know, upset your applecart and so on, but you yourself are quite … you are quite, you know.”
I patted her head.
She said, “Why are you patting my head?”
I looked down at her as she looked up at me. I said, “Well, you know, because I can.”
Her face went all dark and red. I stepped back.
She said, “Are you saying I’m short?”
I said, “Well, no, I’m just saying that shortness is not a reason not to trust people. There’re lots of other reasons not to trust them, but …”
Jo wasn’t listening, she was just getting redder. She stood up on her bed and looked me in the eyes and said, “Maybe I am a normal size and you are a giant girl with … with … big nobbly legs!!”
Oh, that was a bit mean.
Jo drew the curtains around her bed again really violently. Huh.
Vaisey had been lying down kicking her legs about when she sat up and said, “I think Jack might like me still, don’t you? He smiled at me a lot, didn’t he, and said ‘see you at the gig’? And he gave me the thumbs-up when I waved the plectrum, didn’t he? It was a proper smile, wasn’t it? Crinkly. You’ll come to The Jones’s gig with me on Saturday, won’t you, Lullah?”
I said, “Well, I—”
Flossie flung back her curtain and came cavorting out in her new bra and pants.
Crikey and yikes!
She walked up and down in front of Vaisey and me, swinging her hips around and shaking her corker holder. Still speaking in her ridiculous Southern drawl.
“Phew. It just gets so damn hooooottttttt in October in Yorkshire that I often walk about in mah underwear … just like those goddam Brontë sisters.”
Vaisey said, “If Bob comes in now his bob will fall off.”
I said, “Flossie. Have you got stuff in that bra that’s not you?”
She said, “Why, Miss Lullah, you just talk so much silly talk.”
Vaisey said, “You do seem much more sticky-outy than you did before you went behind the curtain.”
Flossie said, “Well, it’s the goddam heat, it just makes everything grow like crazee.”
I went and pulled out two pairs of tights from her corker holder.
Flossie said, “Well, I never, how in God’s name did they git in there?”
It made us laugh. Well, most of us.
I said, “Jo, come and look at this!”
There was silence from behind Jo’s curtain.
And a tiny soft snuffling.
And then more snuffling.
Oh no.
I looked at the others, then I said through the curtain, “Jo, do you remember that Phil said you were a cracking snogger?”
Jo’s muffled voice said, “So?”
I said, “Well, my cousy said that if you have excellent snogging skills, it’s like … human glue.”
No, she hadn’t said that.
Where had “human glue” come from?
I am a genius. I must write “human glue” in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.
After a bit of silence, Jo said, “What do you mean, human glue?”
Ah.
Well.
Good point.
I didn’t have a clue what I meant by human glue.
But, hellfire, I was on the brink of a showbiz career. I’d been a shark this morning. I had the scars to prove it. I could improvise. “Aaah, I’m glad you brought that up.”
Vaisey and Flossie looked at me. Flossie started dancing with her teddy-bear pajama case and Vaisey got out her plectrum.
Jo drew back her curtain and looked at me.
I shook my hair dramatically and said, “Because when you are a good snogging match, everything works out all right in the end. Because you are sort of glued at the mouth.”
Jo smiled and said, “Really?”
Crikey.
Back in my squirrel room I wrote in my Damson Diary:
Human glue.
I tried to remember what Cousin Georgia had said about the snogging scale. Had she said anything about glue? I know Number 1 was “holding hands,” Number 2 was “arm around,” Number 3 was “good-night kiss.” What was Number 4 then?
Oh, I know, “a kiss lasting three minutes without a break.”
But where did tongues come in? Number 5? Number 6? When bat boy Ben attacked me with his to
ngue, we definitely hadn’t done a kiss lasting over three minutes without a break. So how come he just plunged in with his bat tongue?
He can’t know the snogging scale.
And Cain hadn’t even bothered with Number 1 before he …
Oh, I don’t know.
Calf love
HONEY IS ARRIVING TODAY. I’m so excited. She’s lovely and also sort of more experienced. She knows a lot about boys. I wonder what number she’s got to? I was panting a bit because I’d been walking really fast, and so leaned for a minute on the fence by the road that turned off to Woolfe Academy.
When I next see Charlie, I’m going to be very icicle-like with him.
I will be cool friendly, not rude but just cool, and forgetting about “it,” whatever “it” is I am supposed to be forgetting about. I’ve forgotten “it” already.
Then I nearly died of a heart attack because the girls popped out from behind a fence with their umbrellas up, like three mad Mary Poppins.
I shouted, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!!!!!”
And they all laughed. Vaisey said, “Guess who’s here!”
Honey popped up from behind the fence.
She was sooo excited.
“Loobbyyluuuullah!!!! Ooohhhh, it’s WEALLY WEALLY gweat to see you!!!!” And she came over and hugged me. Then we all started hugging. And jumping up and down.
She’s just the same, sooo Honeyish. Not in a sticky way, just smoothy and golden and sweet. So pretty and with lovely golden hair and quite curvy. When she let go of me for a minute I looked at her properly.
She had an amazing mink-colored suede miniskirt and jacket on. And long boots to match. And her hair looked sort of “done.”
I said, “Hey, have you got false eyelashes on?”
She smiled and said, “Yeth, they awe weally natuwal, don’t you think?”
And she blinked a lot so we could all see.
I said, “I’m going to get some.”
Honey said, “Aww, Looby, you don’t need to, your eyeth are all gweeney and like a cat’th eyeth.”
I felt a little smile turning my mouth up at the corners, first the jiggling corkers and now the cat’s eyes. Life was good. Even as a boy reject. I said modestly, “Oh, eyes-smyes, they’re just a bit green, you know. Nothing unusual about that. Loads of people have green eyes.”
Vaisey said, “No, they don’t, it’s mostly brown.”
I said, “Oh really? Yes, I suppose it is. People have, you know, noticed my eyes are quite green. Cat’s eyes they said as well. Yes, there is a boy and he calls me Green Eyes so I suppose that must mean that they really are green and not just … brown.”
Flossie said, “Lullah, have you ever heard the expression ‘Shut up about your eyes’? Yes, they are nice, but just shut up about it now.”
I looked at her and said, “You can’t stop me.”
She said, “I can.”
And I said, “I know.”
She shook my hand.
We linked up as we walked along. Wow, proper friends, I’ve got proper friends. The Tree Sisters. And it has stopped raining. We put our umbies down and Vaisey said, “We’re like the Brontë sisters on a good day.”
I couldn’t help thinking that Chaz, Em, and Anne didn’t ever have good days. Unless you count the day they got an extra turnip, and Em wrote about it in Wuthering Turnips.
Even Jo was leaping up and down like an excitable retriever. It was my pep talk about human glue kissing that did it. I am quite wise in the ways of boys. Even though I don’t know what I am talking about.
Jo was shaking Honey.
“Tell her! Tell Lullah what you told us, tell her the news!! Go on!!!”
Vaisey said, “You won’t believe it, Lullah, you really won’t.”
What was going on?
Flossie said, “It’s incWEDIBLE!! Isn’t it, Honey?”
Honey smiled and said, “Well, actually it weally ith.”
And it really was. Honey has been, what do you call it? Talent spotted!
Vaisey’s curls were bobbing about all over the shop. She said, “By an American-type person. Not from here or anything. A Hollywood-type of person. With a cigar.”
Honey said, “He came to see me in West Side Stowy over the holiday and he weally liketh my thinging and evewything and he wanths me to be in movieth. I don’t weally know why he liketh me tho much, but …”
I gave her a big hug and I said, “It’s because you’ve got a lovely voice and you’re just, you know, lovely all over.”
She hugged me back. And I could feel her corkers against mine. And that made me go a bit red. And tingly.
Honey noticed too because she looked down at my corker area.
I stopped the hugging and folded my arms in front of me.
As we walked on, she said, “Yeth, so I’ll be flying off to do some scween testth.”
I said, “But Honey, why did you come back here at all, why didn’t you just go to Hollywood?”
“I wanted to be with my fwends and to say good-bye PWOPOLY.”
Oooohhhhh. That was so nice. Awwwww. She deserved a hugging for that.
And we all did another spontaneous hug. Holy moly, I have become a multi-spontaneous hugger. I am turning into Dibdobs.
We were still hugging and squealing when suddenly Charlie came out of the undergrowth. His hair was wet and he had a waterproof on. He still managed to look cool though.
Unlike me probably. I hoped my skirt hadn’t ridden up over my tights while I was doing free-form hugging.
Charlie laughed when he saw us and did his smile. He caught my eye but I looked down at the floor.
“Aha, you’re here, the Tree Sisters. Nice to see you, Honey.”
She fluttered her false eyelashes at him and said in her deep honeyed voice, “It’s weally nice to see you ath well, Chawie.”
Charlie looked hypnotized and then quickly said, “I hoped I might find you. Can I join in?”
And Charlie came and leapt into our hugging circle next to me. He had his arm around me and I’m sure it was his hand on my bottom. I’d had a boy’s hand on my bottom before, one of Connor’s mates, but he had pretended it wasn’t his hand, it was him resting his rucksack.
Charlie didn’t have a rucksack.
How am I supposed to do icicle work under these circumstances?
His face was so close to mine I could feel his warm breath on my cheek.
I swished my hair so that it fell down and shielded my face.
He said, “Well, this is cozy, girls.”
Everyone laughed. And he laughed. He’s got a nice laugh. And he smells nice, not like Connor, who mostly smells of socks and hamster. I think that Charlie washes himself. And also he might wear boy perfume. I couldn’t stand the tension of being so near to him. My knees were tensing. Oh no, not Irish dancing.
Then, thank goodness, just before I started leaping around or neighing or something, Honey said, “Chawlie, I’m going to Hollywood!!!”
Charlie let go of me and said to her, “Wow, Honey, how fab is that, you little star.”
And he gave her a big hug. For slightly too long, I thought. Honey didn’t try to get away either.
Charlie just can’t seem to stop hugging. He is a serial hugger.
And then it got worse. If Charlie had been hugging me, especially in front of everyone, I would have either done my spontaneous Irish dancing or Tourette syndrome of the leg as some people might call it. Or gone unconscious.
But Honey didn’t go unconscious. She went femme fatale. I had seen her do it before on Ben and his head had practically dropped off. She looked down and then she looked up and looked Charlie straight in the eyes. And she was slightly smiling. And fluttering her false eyelashes up and down. Crumbs, she was going the whole hog. She touched her lips with her fingers, kissed them, and then she put her fingers that she had kissed on his lips and said softly, “Oh, Chawlie, I’ll mith you.”
It was like being in a French film. Possibly. I don’t know, I’ve
never seen one. But my grandma said the French were “always at it.”
Charlie cleared his throat and leaned down toward her. I thought he was going to snog her! But he kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’ll miss you too, pet.”
I was thinking, “Oh yes, you’ll miss her, if you’ve got time in between all the other girls that you might miss or you’ve got in your pocket or …”
But then he moved away from her and said to all of us, “Look, girls, I would love to stay around hugging with you all day but we’ve got hopping practice. And I actually came to see Jo because I got a phone call from Phil last night.”
We looked at Jo and she went bright red. She looked a bit frightened as well. What next? Charlie went on, “He says can you make it to the public phone in the village, round the corner from The Blind Pig on Saturday at seven?”
Jo stuttered, “Well, I, er … well, I, er …”
As he turned to go off, he looked back at me and said, “Tallulah, we need to talk about stuff.”
And he was gone.
The others looked at me.
Flossie said, “What was that about, Tallulah? What stuff?”
Honey said, “I think he might like you, Tallulah. He ith thooooo gorguth. You should go out with him. I would. Why don’t you?”
I shrugged and was just about to think of something to say when Jo started hitting tree trunks with her bag.
“Oh, it’s all about Tallulah’s knees! Or Tallulah’s corkers. Or talking or something! Shut up about Tallulah, what about me? This is about me! Phil is going to phone me!!!”
And she started doing run-run-leap around us. Then we heard the assembly bell ring in the distance and we all tore off up the drive to Dother Hall.
We went on running through the main doors, into the cloakroom, running on the spot as we took our coats off and then ran straight into the main hall.
I wish I knew why we were running.
We’d just scrabbled to our seats panting and were doing sitting-down running on the spot because we were so excited, when the stage door opened and Dr. Lightowler appeared. I stopped my legs immediately and got them under control.
Dr. Lightowler said, “Settle down, girls,” and swished her cloak about. It was made of black velvet and looked like it had fun fur on the inside.