Withering Tights

  One of the other girls said, “It’s theatre in the round.”

  I didn’t like to ask what that was. Only round people are allowed to be in it? Probably.

  The girl who had said “theatre in the round” was the big girl who Jo had fallen into the lap of. So perhaps that is why she was so au fait with theatre in the round. She had thick-framed glasses on and dark hair in a ponytail with a big, clunky fringe. So that you couldn’t see if she had eyebrows or not. She was looking at me.

  I don’t know why, I had my knees covered up.

  I looked back. I was trying not to blink.

  She didn’t blink either.

  I had accidentally entered a no blinking competition. On my first day at performing arts college. Things were hotting up.

  Then the girl made her eyes go upwards so you could just see the white bits. Like in Night of the Zombies. It made me laugh. And that was the official end of the no blinking competition. We shook hands and she said, “Hello. You’ve got green eyes.”

  I said, “I know.”

  She said, “I know you know, but now I know.”

  And I said, “I know.”

  Two minutes later it seemed that everyone was chatting to each other. The zombie girl is called Florence, although her mates call her Flossie and she is from Blackpool.

  I said, “Do you go on the pier and get candy, Flossie?”

  She said, “Do you do that a lot?”

  I said, “What?”

  And she said, “Make really, really crap jokes?”

  Jo and Vaisey said, “Yes.”

  And she said, “I think I might like you quite a lot.”

  A few people were doing handstands against the wall and the volume had gone up by a million when the door banged open to reveal a fat bloke. (I say things as I see things, and I couldn’t see the door any more, so I know I am right about the fatness.)

  The bloke had little roundy cheeks, you know, the ones that look like there is a snack concealed in each one, for later. He was wearing a suit with a waistcoat. And a bow-tie. And he had tiny sort of piggy eyes. Or maybe they weren’t really piggy eyes, they were just squashed up by his cheeks.

  He clapped his pudgy hands together. “Mes enfants, mes enfants!! Tranquil! Tranquil!”

  Everyone did go quiet, but I don’t think it was because he had said ‘be quiet’ in French. I think it was the sheer size of his trousers.

  He said, “I am Monty de Courcy, I have the privilege and the honour to teach you the wonders of theatre.

  The magic of the-atre.

  The language of the-a-tre.

  You and I shall eat live breathe the the-a-tre. Let’s to work!”

  CHAPTER 4

  I don’t think I can go a whole thummer without boyth

  Where is Martin and his tiny instrument?

  In the afternoon we were told that we could have the rest of the day to explore, but first we would be given our assignment for tomorrow. We were to gather in the entrance hall in twenty minutes.

  When we arrived, Sidone was playing a cello dressed in a velvet trouser suit. Sidone, not the cello.

  Monty de Courcy entered wearing a top hat and stopped in front of us.

  Was he wearing eye-liner?

  He took the top hat off and put his finger to his lips.

  Then he shook the hat.

  Had he got a rabbit in there?

  He beckoned to us, so we shuffled over.

  And stood in front of the hat. Looking at the hat.

  After about twenty seconds, Monty started shaking the hat and nodding his head.

  Jo said, “Sir, shall we take—”

  Monty shook his head and put his finger over his lips again.

  Jo said very quietly, “But, Sir, shall we take—”

  Again Monty shook his hat, raising his eyebrows like he had had a tremendous surprise.

  Then he started winking and tapping his nose and raising his eyebrows all at the same time.

  Then, he came over to me and pointed a finger into the hat. Oh…there were envelopes in there.

  Vaisey looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back. We all shrugged.

  Finally Monty lost his rag silently and handed the envelopes out himself.

  On the front of the envelope it said: Open me just before you go to sleep. Dream on the contents.

  We walked past Sidone, still playing the cello, and as we passed she said in a whispering voice, “Girls, my girls…soft, soft, what dreams are these?”

  She looked at us.

  And raised her eyebrows.

  I have no idea. What dreams? What soft?

  We popped to the loos to find that Bob had pinned a notice up in there, it said:

  Listen up, dudes, Dother Hall is seriously green.

  THINK: Finished your bath? Wait! Why not rinse

  out your smalls in the bathwater? Bob

  Vaisey went red because Bob had written ‘smalls’.

  We all got together on the grass to eat our sandwiches. I was lying on my back with one leg over the other, looking up at the sky. I’m beginning to feel really great now. New friends, freedom and everything. I am ready to start filling my tights. I’m not a little girl any more. I am trembling on the edge of womanhood. As the rest of them were chomping away, I said, “I feel like I’m really growing up now.”

  And I uncrossed my legs and unfortunately kicked Flossie in the back of her head. She nearly choked on her tuna surprise.

  Jo said, “Lullah, are you starting to grow up from the waist down? Your legs are about a million feet long.”

  I said, “I know, I really hate my legs.”

  Jo sat up. “You’ve got cracking legs, really long. Look at mine.”

  We looked at hers. I thought they were nice legs, actually, with dimples in her knees. Not long – well, short, to be frank.

  Vaisey said, “Look at my bum, look how it sticks out. And if I jump up and down and shake at the same time, it waggles about.”

  Jo said, “I think it’s horrid how everything is to do with looks and it doesn’t count if you are a nice person. Why should it matter what your legs are like?”

  I said, “I agree with you, but…look at these!”

  I rolled up my trousers and let my legs be free and wild in the summer air.

  They looked at them.

  Flossie said, “My cousin Jenet has legs like yours, and my auntie took her to a doctor.”

  I said, “Am I going to like this story?”

  Flossie said, “Shhh, I’m talking. Anyway, the doctor said Jenet was like a race horse.”

  I said, “What, she had four really long, thin legs?”

  Flossie came and sat on me. I think she is what is known in showbiz as ‘violent’.

  She said, “No, what he meant was that she will grow into her legs. And you will grow into yours and then that will be good. And you will stop moaning.”

  Vaisey was pulling at her hair, which, and I don’t mean this unkindly, did look like a really badly knitted hat.

  She said, “And you’ve got very attractive hair, not like mine.”

  I know I should have said, ‘No, no, no, no you’ve got lovely hair!’ But really I wanted to hear more about mine first. So I said, “How do you mean ‘attractive hair’?”

  Flossie said, “You know very well what she means. She means you’ve got very attractive hair.”

  I said, in a shy surprised voice, “Have I?”

  Flossie said, “Yes, you have, but you’ve got very bad acting skills. You KNOW that your hair is all glossy and black as a hearth.”

  I couldn’t help doing a secret tee hee.

  And Jo said, “And you’ve got green eyes. If you wanted, you could be like a traffic light or something, they are so green.”

  I felt a bit cheered up.

  I said, in a fit of general loving the world-ness, “I think we are all very, very lovely.”

  Honey came and sat with us. She walks slowly and softly, so that you don’t notice her coming
. Not in a creepy ‘I’m going to rob your handbag’ way, just in a softy way. It’s nice.

  Honey seems just like her name. Sort of golden and smoothy. Her skin is golden and her hair is thick and gold. And she has quite big corkers. And she’s sweet, just like honey made by bees. Except that that kind of honey doesn’t have a lisp.

  Honey said, “Theth no thign of any boyth, awound?”

  I said, “No boyth?”

  She said, “Yeth.”

  Vaisey had got interested now. She said, “Honey, do you know about boys? Have you got a boyfriend?”

  Honey said, “Oh yeth, I’ve got two on the go, actually. Thafety in numbeth, my mum thayth. I don’t think I can go a whole thummer without boyth.”

  After lunch, we walked off towards Heckmondwhite. Vaisey, Jo, Flossie and I were slightly ahead of the others. Flossie said, “Oooh, look, a couple of jolly farmers in their fields. One of them is cheerily waving his stick at us. Would it be a stick or a crook? It’s not a gun, is it?”

  I said, “Oh, what larks, it’s the grumpy bloke I accidentally kicked on the train.”

  As we ambled along, Jo said, “Do you think that Honey really has got two boyfriends?”

  Vaisey said, “She seems a bit more ‘mature’ than us, more experienced, don’t you think?”

  I said, “I’ve had my bottom felt.”

  Flossie said, “Who by? Not your mum?”

  I said, “No, it was an actual boy.”

  Vaisey said, “Was it nice?”

  I said, “Well, not really, because he pretended it wasn’t his hand, it was his kitbag.”

  Jo said, “I’ve had my bra undone through my T-shirt.”

  I said, “Great balls of fire, who did that?”

  Jo said, “I don’t know which one, because they all bombed off on their bikes before I could see.”

  Vaisey said, “My cousin put an ice cube down the front of my T-shirt and then offered to get it out for me.”

  I said, “Is that it then? A maybe fondling of a bum, a hit-and-run undone thing, and an ice cube incident?”

  Flossie said, “No, not quite…”

  We turned to look at her.

  She said, “Well, this is how it happened. It was a hot steamy night, you know, those kind of nights when you feel restless. You want something to happen and you don’t quite know what? Like you were in a play set in Mississippi and you can hear the damn crickets. Going on and on.”

  Jo said, “They don’t play cricket in Mississippi.”

  Flossie said, “Someone kill her while I carry on.”

  We stopped walking.

  Flossie took off her glasses. And loosened her hair and tossed it about. Then she stretched her arms above her head and sighed and went on in a sort of Texan drawl. “Now y’all know how damn hoooooottttt it can get in high summer. To get some air, I decided to peg out some washing. My smalls, actually. Although I hadn’t washed them in dirty bathwater. What a fool I feel now.”

  I said, “Will you get on with it?”

  Flossie went on in a quiet voice. “I was peggin’ out some of my pants when I saw a couple of young fellas watchin’ me. One of them was quite handsome. When I turned round, he ducked behind a bush. I thought, ah, he’s kinda shy. So I kinda half-smiled in the direction of the bush and set off, slowly into the house.”

  Flossie mimed picking up a washing basket and sashaying down the road. “Then I heard a rustlin’ behind me. Aah, I thought, now he will say ‘Miss Flossie, you are so goddam beautiful’. But the rustlin’ was followed by pingin’ and one of those boys was wearin’ my pants on his head. And ran off wearin’ them.”

  When we got to Heckmondwhite it took us the usual minute and a half to go round the village. Some of the girls pretended to be interested in the cards in the post office. But it is very hard to be interested in ten copies of a card that has a picture of that fat bloke from Little Britain on the front. And you open it and it says, “I want that one.”

  Vaisey wanted to go home and go to bed and start dreaming on whatever our assignment is. Which I think is slightly cheating because it’s only six o’clock. The other girls had to be back at Dother Hall for tea, so I slumped off home to the Dobbins’ house.

  I am exhausted. I could hardly eat my ham sandwiches. And trifle. And Eccles cake. The Dobbins were on rope-weaving duty and so they went out after tea. Dibdobs gave me a little huglet as she went.

  “Come and do a bit of weaving, Tallulah, it’s fun! Mr Barraclough often brings us ginger beer and does impressions. He did a very funny one of a ferret up his trouser leg last time.”

  I said I would pass.

  In my squirrel room, I looked out across the moorlands. Some of the pigs are being herded down the path at the back. The boy who was driving them along looked familiar, sort of wild and dark. As he passed by, two of the piglets charged off and he went after them with a stick to prod them. He shouted, “Ay up, Smoky and Streaky, get tha sens back on to path.”

  Smoky and Streaky.

  How mean was that?

  Everything is so different here. And even though the girls are only messing about, I know for a fact that Honey plays the piano, and so does Vaisey. And Vaisey has been a suicidal nun.

  Should I drop that thing that cousin Georgia said about Norwegian art into the conversation? What did she say it was called? Sled-werk.

  There must be something I am good at. Besides being able to get stuff down from the top shelf.

  Maybe there’s going to be a violent thunderstorm. I’m glad I’m not in the dorm with a blanket over my head. It’s hot and sticky, even though it’s after nine o’clock. I’ve done my corkies-rubbing exercises and I can’t say I can see any difference yet. Although my arms look slightly bigger.

  Right, I am going to open my envelope to find out about the assignment for tomorrow:

  Tomorrow we begin our big adventure. Be prepared. Sleep.

  Bring comfortable workout clothes.

  And now…think of a word, or words, that sum you up.

  Dream on it.

  Bring it to the college tomorrow.

  A word or words that sum me up?

  I lay in the squirrel bed thinking.

  Nobbly?

  Long?

  Corkie-less?

  Oh, that’s attractive, isn’t it? In conclusion, I am a long, nobbly person with no corkers.

  Help!

  I can’t sleep, it’s no use. I’m too hot. And I’m too worried (and nobbly and long).

  I’ll think about something else. What though?

  Oh, I know. Dad sent me a book through the post from wherever he is. Anyway, it turns out to be a James Bond book. In his note, Dad said I would learn a lot from it. He says he did.

  I’ll just open it randomly.

  Oh, here’s some stuff about boy things. James Bond and Honeychile. Ooh, that’s funny, isn’t it? Being a bit like Honey.

  It was unbearably hot in the hotel bedroom in Jamaica. Outside, the geckos and parakeets were settling down noisily for the night.

  I’ll just have to try and imagine the noise of the parakeets above the baa-ing and grunting outside my window.

  Honeychile got up from the bed and took off all her clothes. She went and stood next to the window.

  Crumbs.

  Bond went across to her and took a breast in each hand. But still she looked away from him out of the window.

  “Not now,” she said in a low voice.

  Is that what you’re supposed to do?

  I went to the open window. And when I looked down I saw a boy and girl, um, snogging. The girl had her back to me and her arms wrapped round the boy’s neck. I couldn’t see his face. I wondered if it was like in the James Bond book and he was holding one of her breasts in each hand?

  If he was, she would turn her head away in a minute and say, “Not now”. I couldn’t see because of the angle…And that’s when she snuggled into his shoulder and he looked up at my window.

  He looked at me.

&
nbsp; I looked at him.

  I was like a rabbit in a headlight.

  Maybe I can pretend I’m just drawing the curtains.

  There aren’t any curtains.

  Perhaps I could pretend to be cleaning the windows.

  I haven’t got a duster.

  I could use the sleeve of my jim-jams.

  Good. Good idea.

  Creative.

  Improvise cleaning a window.

  He was still looking at me.

  As I started cleaning the window with my sleeve.

  Then he winked at me.

  How disgusting.

  To be snogging one girl and winking at another.

  What sort of person did that?

  He is like a wild animal.

  A winking, snogging, wild animal.

  Then the girl said, “Oy Cain, what are you looking at?”

  I shut the window quickly.

  Cain. Why is he always underneath my window?

  CHAPTER 5

  Into the bosoms of the Dother ship

  We first learn to fill our tights

  I woke up early the next day. I’d been dreaming that I had a bra made out of soap. It slipped off when I did my special audition dance and everyone laughed.

  I am going to tie my hair up and wear a hat. Cain won’t recognise me again out of my jim-jams, will he?

  Oh Lord, he has seen me in my jim-jams. Watching him snog.

  I went down to breakfast and the Dobbins were all as cheerful as people who hadn’t been caught in their jim-jams in the middle of the night. Pretending to clean windows. But really watching people snog.

  The twins were ready for an action-packed day of being really odd. Dibdobs said in her beamy way, “Morning, Tallulah! Say morning, boys. To Tallulah.”

  They looked at me.