Withering Tights

  He was still reeling from the knee thingy.

  “The knee thingy?”

  I said, “Oh, I…well…they…”

  He was looking at my jeans, where the knees would be (in any ordinary size legs). “What is wrong with your knees?”

  He was looking at me waiting for an answer. And half smiling.

  I said, “It’s just…that…they…are too far…up.”

  He laughed. “Too far up? Let me feel.”

  What????

  I got off the wall and started backing away from him.

  He said, “Go on.”

  I lost control then and said quite loudly, “Forget it. You will never see the knees.”

  And then he laughed and I started laughing as well. It was so ridiculous.

  Just then Lavinia and Dav and Noos came pootling along on their bikes. They stopped when they saw us. Lavinia said, “Hi, Tallulah. Oiright? Top of the morning to you.”

  She looked at Alex properly and you could almost see her eyes going ‘wow’. He did have the ‘wow’ factor.

  Then she said to Alex, “Oh hi. Sorry to interrupt, I don’t think we’ve met.”

  He said, “No, I think I would probably have remembered.”

  And she laughed. And looked at him again. Like Honey said you should. Right in the eyes and also for a bit too long.

  Oh no. She liked him.

  Alex said, “So are you all at Dother Hall? I might be coming up soon, I know Monty and he’s giving me a bit of coaching.”

  Noos clearly impressed said, “Oh, are you an actor, then?”

  Alex said, “I’d like to be, I’ve got a place at Liverpool next year.”

  Lavinia said, “I’m surprised you are talking to us, then.”

  And she smiled, and Alex said, “Are you?” In a sort of strange meaningful way which I didn’t really get.

  Then I got it, because Lavinia said, “Well, come and look for me when you come up to the college. It would be nice to see you.”

  And Alex said, “And it would be nice to see you.”

  And then there was another pause.

  It was like being in Alice in Wonderland again. But I wasn’t Alice. Once more I was the playing card. At the back.

  In my squirrel room I lay on my bed with my squirrel slippers on. It seems like a really mean world, where some people get born with average knees and proper corkers and some people can’t even find a category for their head in a magazine. Like me. That sort of person.

  I am so miserable.

  And alone.

  I heard the door open and a lot of hooting and noise downstairs.

  “Hellllooooo house. Look, look boys, the house is happy to see us. Sam, don’t put your tadpoles on the—Oh dear.”

  The Dobbins are back.

  I heard a lot of running and scampering and then footsteps up the stairs.

  Dibdobs said through the door, “Tallulah…helloooo. We’re back…We’ve got lots of things to show you…The boys wanted to say goodnight to you. Didn’t you, boys?”

  I heard them saying, “Eth.”

  Dibdobs was wearing a special outfit, knitted out of bits of string. I couldn’t help staring at it.

  She sort of blushed. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Unusual.”

  I said, “Yes, it is very unusual.”

  “Harold made me it on his Iron Man weekends.”

  I should have stopped myself, but I said, “What are Iron Man weekends? Does he go ironing, for the weekend?”

  She laughed and snorted, “Lullah is being a silly billy, isn’t she, boys?”

  They blinked at me, Max said, “Shitty billy.”

  Dibdobs went even more red. “No, darling it’s SILLY Billy.”

  Sam said, “SHITTY Billy.”

  Dibdobs manically started stroking his hair down into an even more puddingy style. She said, “No, it’s not an ironing weekend, worse luck!!!! It’s when men go away together to find themselves. In the woods.”

  Men finding themselves in the woods, well, why were they having to do that when they must have gone to the woods in the first place? Apparently it’s something to do with sweat lodges and living off the land. I didn’t want the picture of Harold in a sweat lodge in my head.

  Dibdobs said, “It’s mostly made of leftover bits of string.”

  Lovely.

  I said, “Well, goodnight, boys.”

  And the boys blinked back at me. Max came and hugged one of my knees. I even found myself ruffling his basin head.

  At least he likes my knees.

  Dibdobs said, “Are you alright, Tallulah? Are you missing home a bit?”

  Actually, I suppose I was a bit, but I would still have the same problems there.

  I said, “No, it’s just…you know…”

  She said, “Growing up?”

  Oh great balls of fire, was I growing even more?

  Dibdobs said to me, “You need a big hug.”

  And she gave me one.

  Then she said, “We’re going off to read our book, aren’t we boys? Tell Tallulah who it’s about.”

  “Bogie.”

  Dibdobs went puce.

  “Now boys, we’ve stopped using that silly word, because we are BIG boys now, aren’t we?

  Max said, “Sjuuge boys.”

  Dibdobs laughed nervously. “Alright darling, HUGE boys, and huge boys know that the book we are reading is…Alice in Wonderland, isn’t it?”

  The boys nodded, and Max said, “Wiv a smiley cat!!”

  Dibdobs laughed like he had just built an electricity pylon single-handedly. “Yes, tell Lullah about the Cheshire Cat.”

  And both of them smiled at me in the maddest way you have ever seen. Like their whole heads were one big mouth.

  As she shooed them away, Sam turned round and took his dodie out. “Sjuuge cat, in Bogie bogie in Wunnerlant.”

  About an hour later, I was still tossing and turning and thinking how unfair everything was when there was a knock at my door again. It was my new ‘dad’ this time. Harold had a book in his hand.

  “When I was at the Iron Man camp we did a lot of talking around the campfire. You know, men don’t often get to reveal their softer side. And reading stories to each other as we lay around in the loin cloths we had woven was revealing.”

  Oh nooo. He wasn’t going to come and read a book to me, was he?

  He had a dressing gown on and a pipe.

  He fiddled in his pocket. Oh no, was he going to offer me a pipe as well, like they did round the campfire.

  He brought out a little book and said, “Thought you might be interested in this,” and gave it to me. Then he left.

  I may as well read it a bit.

  I might be able to get some ideas for a performance out of it.

  At least it will stop me thinking about Lavinia and Alex – and Cain. The book was called Heathcliff: Saint or Sinner – really bad or just really upset?

  Oh no. No. This is not going to help me cheer up. I am going to write some of my own stuff in my performance art notebook.

  Hmmmm.

  Two lost travellers are on the moors, near the dreaded Grimbottom, when suddenly a thunderstorm breaks. The rain is pelting down and lightning splits the sky.

  They hear something terrible howling (note to self – is it Dr Lighthowler?) and they start running. The howling gets nearer. One of them falls over and then – Gadzooks and Lordy Lordy – they see lights. And hear a piano.

  The welcoming lights of an old inn. The sign creaks in the howling wind. A flash of lightning illuminates the sign. On it is a piggy in dark glasses with a walking stick.

  They stagger in out of the howling, terrifying storm. Everyone in the bar stops talking and stares at them. The pianist gets his coat and leaves. A clock ticks loudly. A stuffed stag’s head falls off the wall.

  One of the travellers, the one with the nobbly knees (me) says, “Oh – hello, we’ve come to Yorkshire by mistake.”

  And the landlord with two pies in his hands say
s, “You’re not from around here, are thee?”

  The other traveller, the one with fluffy hair and a sticky-up nose (Vaisey) says, “No, no – we are looking for Dother Hall, we are artists.”

  Everyone laughs.

  The landlord says, “But are you mime artists?”

  I nod, twice.

  Vaisey says, “And I do a bit of tap. We mean no harm, we just want to don our tights and tap dance our way to the top.”

  I say, “Yes, yes, we want to live forever, we want to learn how to fly!!”

  Everyone stares at us.

  I say desperately, “Look! We can prove it! We are wearing our new all-in-one dance bodies and leggings underneath our kagouls.”

  The burly landlord says, “Put them in the room with the others.”

  We are led to a door and when it opens we see…the room is full of performance art students. Some in all-in-one body and leggings dancewear.

  A few just in leggings. Some of them are very old.

  Walking to college with Vaisey, I said, “It will be a relief to get back to the Dother ship.” I was wrong.

  Jo was waiting for us by the gates because she’s had a note from Phil, asking her to meet him outside M & Son Wednesday to see a film called Night of the Vampire Bats.

  Jo showed us his note: This film makes Twilight seem like afternoon.

  Jo said, “Look, and this is where you two come in.”

  Bring two others, for my mate, Phil.

  Jo looked at me and Vaisey.

  I said, “No.”

  Jo went on and on all day. It was driving me mad.

  Everywhere I looked she was doing her saddy face.

  When I went to the loo she was there outside the loo door, looking at me like a sad puppy. Not even saying anything.

  The trouble was that Vaisey had said she would go, ‘just for a laugh’, but I think she is hoping that Jack would be going. So it was alright for her. Flossie and Honey are off the hook because they have extra singing that night.

  I finally gave in when Jo gave me an apple with a little crying face carved in it.

  Phil’s note had mysteriously appeared in Jo’s pigeon-hole by the front desk. It must have been hand-delivered.

  Jo said, “How will I get a letter back to him?”

  I said, “You won’t, unless you want to jog over to Woolfe Academy disguised as a sea cadet.”

  She said, “Well that settles it then, you have to come, otherwise his mates will turn up and feel like lemons.”

  And she stomped off like it was a done deal.

  I said to Vaisey, “The fly in her argument is that when she says, ‘they’ will feel like lemons, we don’t know who ‘they’ are. And ‘they’ might BE lemons.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Night of the Vampire Bats

  Surely Phil might have mentioned if one of his mates

  had a trunk…

  Idon’t know why I am so bothered about this ‘date’.

  I’m not even officially on the date.

  We had to go and try and get permission from Sidone to go to the cinema at night time. She was in her inner chamber, um, I mean office. She was lying down on a chaise longue with a cup of tea.

  “Darlings, I am ex-hausted, I had a call from a friend directing Cats and he has bled me dry. I have practically redesigned the whole thing lying on this chaise longue. Sit, sit.”

  We sat, sat.

  “It beggars belief that he would only realise he didn’t have enough cat costumes the day before he opens. They can be an ugly, demanding crowd in Cleckheaton. I know, I gave my Ophelia there and someone called the social services. Sometimes this profession is a tyranny. Still, darlings, you came to see me for something?”

  I said, “We’d like to go to the cinema in Skipley on Wednesday night, because we were thinking that for the lunchtime performance we could, um, use some of the ideas and themes from the film.”

  She was very, very interested. Unfortunately. And swept her hair back. “What are you thinking? What is this germ, this shoot you are nurturing? Is it an interior idea? What is the film?”

  And Jo said, “Well…it’s called…Night of the Vampire Bats.”

  She said, “Yes, and what is it about?”

  Jo said helpfully, “It’s set at night.”

  Sidone was looking into the distance and twirling her earrings. “Ah, the night. The mysterious, shadowy underworld that covers so many, many broken dreams.”

  I thought she was going to start crying she was so moved by her broken dreams.

  Jo stumbled on, “But, but, really I think it’s about…um…an interior darkness.”

  I was just about to say, “That bats must feel because they can’t see much.” But luckily Sidone stood up.

  “Marvellous! I utterly see where you are going with this…it’s the long dark night of the soul, isn’t it?”

  I was inwardly thinking, you can say that again, but outwardly saying, “Um.”

  Anyway, we are allowed to go. Amazingly.

  As we came out of her office, she shouted after us, “Strive, strive for authenticity, my dears. Even when you feel the cold tremors of fear and bleakness tearing and biting at your heels.”

  As we closed the door to her inner sanctum, I said, “I think I can feel my feet beginning to bleed quite a lot.”

  I was exhausted from lying. I’m so useless at it.

  Vaisey said to Jo, “You said that Night of the Vampire Bats was about interior darkness.”

  I said, “Well it will be. It’s really dark in the cinema.”

  Jo was pleased because we had got away with it. She shook her little head and said, “Yes, OK, it is about bats…but mostly…it’s…about my very first date!!!!”

  I said bitterly, “It’s alright for you, but me and Vaisey don’t know if we are officially on a date or just part of an away-day package supersaver. Three for the price of one.”

  Jo looked up at both of us and said, “I know you are doing this for me, and I’d just like to say thank you, my new friends.”

  And she gave us a friendly biff on the arm to show how very pleased she was.

  For a small girl she packs quite a punch.

  As we strolled to the gates to go home, I shouted back, “Didn’t you say that Phil is too small for you?”

  Jo shouted back like I was a bit thick, “Tallulah, it’s the cinema. We’ll be sitting down.”

  The next evening, in the dressing room of life. Otherwise known as Vaisey’s room in The Blind Pig. Even though I am on a not-really-date, I am still nervous.

  I have make-up on and Vaisey has made my hair go va va voom with her hairdryer. Anyway, now Vaisey and Ruby want me to try a red dress on. It’s Vaisey’s and she says it’s too long for her.

  I said, “No, I don’t wear dresses.”

  They both went on and on, and Ruby even made Matilda lift her paw up and look at me.

  As if she was saying in dog language, “Please put the dress on, otherwise I may never eat another Bonio treat again.”

  It was pathetic. But it worked, because in the end I agreed to at least try on the dress. I went behind the door. It was a bit tight getting it on.

  I said, “It’s too small for me. I can’t lift my arms up.”

  Vaisey said, “Come out and show us.”

  Ruby said, “You’ve left your cardigan and jeans on.”

  I said, “It’s all the rage.”

  She said, “No, it’s not. You look like the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

  I said, “I have to have them…on…in case I get cold.”

  Ruby said, “Take them off. Now.”

  In the end I went behind the door and took off my stuff and put on the dress. When I came out I could see myself in the mirror.

  The dress came to mid-thigh. Which in normal legs would mean a third of the way down your leg. In my case, it meant that it was an eighth of the way down my leg.

  No one actually said anything at first, they just looked at my legs – even Matil
da.

  Then Ruby said, “I think it looks brill.”

  Vaisey was nodding.

  Matilda was nodding too. But it may be fleas.

  Then Ruby suddenly said, “Oy, you’re getting lady bumps!!! I can see ‘em.”

  What what???

  I put my arms over my front.

  “Oooooh, give us a look.”

  I said, “I’m not a horse. You’ll be feeling my fetlocks in a minute.”

  In fact Ruby did try to feel them.

  I wanted to skip around shouting, “I’ve got corkers!” But I didn’t, because Ruby would quite likely yell downstairs to her dad.

  But I am deeply down secretly thrilled.

  I am so very right to keep up my secret rubbing practices.

  When we were ready I told Ruby, “No you cannot sneak out with us and sit in the back row, spying for a laugh.”

  On our way out to catch the bus we passed Mr Barraclough in the bar combing the hair of one of his stuffed stags. He had given it a centre parting, which is not respectful of a noble breed. But I didn’t say.

  He did glance up as we passed and said to Ruby, “Where’s the other big lad gone?”

  And then he looked at me and said, “Oh, there you are.”

  I said to Ruby, “It’s very hard to think that your dad, is, well, Alex’s dad. Alex not around then?”

  Ruby rolled her eyes.

  When we got to the bus stop Jo was there waiting for us. Hopping about. Which was a bit odd because she was also sitting on the wall.

  She looked lovely. All shiny and dark. Mad, but shiny and dark also. She was wearing a wrapover top and a rough-cut denim skirt with wedgie shoes. And a lot of bangles and necklaces.

  She said, “Do I look alright? Would you snog me?”

  I said, “What? Now?”

  And me and Ruby and Vaisey laughed.

  But Jo wasn’t in a laughy mood.

  She was in an ‘I’ve gone mad’ mood.