Stop in the Name of Pants!

  Dr. Beardey said, “I want you to know that I love animals very much, and I know what he means to you, but it doesn’t look good. If I keep him alive he will probably die in a few hours from something I can’t fix.”

  I just said, “He is not going to die, that is a fact.”

  Jas said she’d come and stay with me at my house but I said no, I wanted to do some heavy praying. She gave me a little kiss on the cheek when she left. I know it was dark and a lezzie-free zone, but it was still nice of her.

  thursday august 25th

  dawn

  I don’t think I slept. I just nodded off now and again and then woke up and for a few moments life felt normal and then I remembered. Even Gordy, not world renowned for his caring, sympathetic nature, cuddled up next to me and didn’t attack me once even when I moved my foot.

  five minutes later

  Gordy came and sat on my chest and looked at me with his yellow eyes. Well, one of his yellow eyes, the other one was glancing out of the window. He was looking at me, unblinking. Then he let out one of those strange croakey noises that makes him sound like he is a hundred-a-day smoking cat. And he leapt down from my bed.

  I think he knows something.

  I think he knows about Angus and he is on my side.

  Even if he is a homosexualist half-cat half-dog, it doesn’t matter. Love is all you need.

  ten minutes later

  Looking out of the window, Gordy is playing chase the bonio with the Prat brothers.

  That is not right in anyone’s book.

  To think of his father lying in a vet’s surgery whilst his son scampers around with ridiculous poodles. He has no pridenosity.

  five minutes later

  I remembered my vow to Baby Jesus. About being a jolly good egg about everything.

  Even very annoying things.

  Deep breath and—look, look at Gordy playing happily with other creatures made by God.

  Alright, curly, annoying yappy creatures, but God’s creatures nevertheless.

  I mean, not many people like maggots, do they?

  But that is not the point.

  Mr. and Mrs. Maggot love them. Probably.

  And that is what counts.

  Oh shut up, brain. Just love everything and get on with it.

  7:30 a.m.

  Please let him be alive. Please.

  I started to get myself some Coco Pops, but I couldn’t eat them.

  Mum got up and her eyes were all swollen. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Blimey, I had no eyes. They had disappeared in the night. I was now just a nose with two eyebrows. And the places where my eyes had been ached and ached. In fact everything ached.

  Mum said, “I think I am going to ask Grandad now he’s back if Bibbs can stay there for a couple of days just until this is all over—I mean, you know.”

  I said, “Just until Angus comes home for convalescence, you mean?”

  Mum looked at me. “Georgia…you know what the vet said.”

  I shouted, “What does he know, his beard is so bushy, he probably can’t even see what animal he’s treating unless it says ‘Who’s a pretty boy, then?’ Or starts barking or neighing.”

  Mum said, “Calm down. He’s doing his best.”

  I said, “He’d better be.”

  one minute later

  Hello God and Baby Jesus, erm, I might have given the wrong impression about Dr. Beardey the vet in that I implied he was a beardey fool. But I meant it in a lighthearted and gay way.

  one minute later

  When I say “gay” I don’t mean gay as in an “Oooohhhh do you like my big beard?” sort of way, I mean that I was merely being cheerful.

  one minute later

  Dear G and B. J., I am signing off communication wise as I have to go to the piddly diddly department.

  vet’s surgery

  9:00 a.m.

  I had awful collywobbles tum trouble as we waited. The nurse took us down to the cat cages bit. It was so sad in there. Doped-up kittykats with drips and bandages and charts. We went over to Angus’s cage and he was just lying there. He didn’t look like he had moved since last night. But the little machine was going click click, so he was breathing.

  Dr. Beardey came in and said, “No change, I’m afraid. I think you had better try and prepare yourselves for him to go. All his internal organs are so swollen up from the impact, I can’t tell what damage has been done, but there is sure to be some bleeding, and then—”

  at home

  11:00 a.m.

  Mum has gone to work. She said she would call in sick and stay with me, but I know she will get into trouble. And, anyway, she will get bored and start telling me stuff about her and Dad and her inner dolphin. Or how she wants to fulfill her creativity by becoming a belly dancer at firemen’s balls.

  So all in all it’s better to be by myself.

  five minutes later

  I am so restless, I don’t know what to do.

  ten minutes later

  Jas rang.

  The ace gang are going for a ramble. Just a casual ramble to the park. But I know it is because they hope that the lads will be playing footie and that they can accidentally bump into them to solve the “s’later” and “sometime” fandango.

  Jas was being very nice, actually, although she was chewing. I didn’t say anything because of my vow of nicenosity. She said, “Come with us, it will take your mind off things. You can get a nice tan whilst you are miserable. That would be good for when Masimo comes back.”

  She is being sweet to me, and she was a big pally cuddling me and looking after me when I heard about Angus. And I know she is miz about Tom, so I said I would go.

  in the park

  Phew, it’s bloody boiling. We are all lolling under a tree. We are doing leg tanning again by having our legs in the sun and the rest of us underneath the shade of the tree. Well, apart from Rosie, who has her own method of tanning, she makes Sven stand over her head with his jacket held out to make a nice cool shadow. He is burbling on in a Sven way.

  It’s quite soothing listening to him talk. As Jools said, “It takes your mind off things because it sounds like it should make sense, but it doesn’t.”

  He was saying, “Ya and when I take you my bride, Rosie, to my people, they will laugh and sing and kill the herring and make the hats with the herrings.”

  This can’t possibly be true.

  I said to Rosie, “Is Sven saying that his mum and dad will make you a herring hat?”

  She said, “Yes, exciting, isn’t it?”

  Then we heard Rollo yelling from across the park.

  “Oy, Sven, fancy a game of footie, mate?”

  And Sven went off.

  I sat up and I could see Rollo, Tom, Declan, Edward and Dom having a kick about.

  Ellen, Jas, Jools and Mabs immediately lost their marbles.

  They were trying to hide behind the tree trunk and putting more makeup on.

  Jools was saying, “Oh my god, do you think Rollo saw my legs. They are so pale, they didn’t look so bad in the house but now I’m practically blinded by them.”

  Mabs said, “Do you think this is a lurking lurker on my chin or a dimple?”

  Even Jas had gone into mad fringe-flicking mode.

  And Ellen practically dithered her own head off.

  I just looked at them. How very superficial it all seemed. I don’t think I could ever really care what I looked like again. I might even stop shaving my legs. In fact, that is what I could say to Baby Jesus if he let Angus be alright. As a mark of solidarity with my injured furry friend, I would let my own body hair run free and wild. It could shoot happily out of the back of my knees or grow so long in my underarms that I could make it into small plaits.

  I wouldn’t care.

  thirty seconds later

  I don’t think even a wrathful god would demand that I went as far as the one-mono eyebrow, though.

  Jools was looking over at the lads kicking a ball about.
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  “Do you think they will come over?”

  Mabs said, “Do you think we should amble over there to be a bit nearer, or is that like breaking the rubber band rule?”

  Ellen said, “Er, what, I mean, what is, like, the rubber band rule, or something?”

  Mabs said, “You know, what Georgia told us from that ‘how to make any fool fall in love with you’ book, where you have to display glaciosity and let them come pinging back like a rubber band.”

  We were saved thinking about a plan by the next thing that happened.

  Robbie arrived on his scooter and on the back was Wet Lindsay.

  Bloody Nora.

  Everyone looked at me.

  What was she doing on the back of his scooter?

  He hadn’t even had a scooter the last time I saw him.

  Perhaps he was trying to be like the Luuurve God.

  How weird.

  Not as weird as having Wet Lindsay clinging round your waist, though.

  Then as they took their helmets off, Dave the Laugh arrived through the trees holding hands with Emma.

  The ace gang looked at me again.

  Rosie said, “Crikey.”

  five minutes later

  Everyone else wants to go over and watch the lads play and find out what is going on. If I don’t go, it will look like I really care about what Robbie and Ms. Slimey-no-forehead-nobbly-arse are doing together. Or it might seem that I am avoiding seeing Dave the Laugh and Emma. I am quite literally surrounded by ordure and poo.

  After a squillion years of tarting up (not me, the others, I just put on some lippy…well, and a bit of mascara and eyeliner…and face bronzer…but I only did it to be brave, not for vanitosity like the rest), we all walked over to the lads. I was right at the back. I must remember I am the girlfriend of a Luuurve God. As we got to the sidelines the lads went on playing but they were whistling and calling out stuff to us.

  Rollo said, “Back off, girls, this is a man’s game.”

  And Declan said, “Look at this for ball skills…whey hey!!!” and he headed the ball right into the goal (two coats and a can of Fanta), then he bent down, pretended to sniff the grass and banged his bottom with his hands. And all the other boys did the same. I will say it again, because I never tire of saying it, boys are truly, truly weird.

  Dave and Robbie were getting their footie boots on. Wet Lindsay looked daggers at me when she saw me. She was sitting on the back of the scooter wearing some ridiculous short skirt. How very naff to wear that on the back of a scooter. I would never do that. Well, I had done it, but I would never do it like her.

  I looked away from her. I must say something loudly about Masimo in a minute. I was saved the trouble by Dom yelling out as he passed by dribbling the ball.

  “I got a bell from Mas and he said you were off to Pizza-a-gogo—’asta la vista, baby.”

  And then he was viciously tackled from behind by Sven and there was a bit of an argie bargey.

  Everyone’s attention was on the rumpus and I sort of sensed someone behind me. It was Robbie. I looked around at him. He looked at me very seriously. He was about to say something when Wet Lindsay called out, “Robbie, hon, could you fetch me a Coke before you go on?”

  He hesitated and then turned round and said, “Sure, babe,” and went off to the sweet stall.

  How amazingly naff and weird.

  Lindsay got off the scooter and came over to me. The rest of the gang were crowded round the arguing lads and so she got me on my own. She stood right next to me and said, “If you mess this up for me, Nicolson, your life will not be worth living at school. I am head girl this year and believe me if there is any way I can make your life difficult, I will. He’s mine this time, he’s sick of losers. Taa ta.”

  And she slimed off.

  Oh marvelous, how I was looking forward to Stalag 14. Not.

  Then I remembered Angus and I thought, if he doesn’t live I’m not even going to go back to school. I’ll get a job, or do voluntary service in a kittykat home abroad or something. I wonder how he is?

  All by himself in the vet’s.

  Maybe he was all lonely and frightened.

  Or in pain.

  Or…

  I had to see him and I decided I would go to the surgery and see what was happening.

  I wouldn’t bother telling the others. They would understand and besides they were too busy tarting around in front of the lads.

  I started walking off toward the gates. I had to pass quite near Dave and Emma. Dave was just about to join in the game. I must try for a naturalosity at all times sort of attitude.

  As I went by I said cheerily, “Hi Emma, Dave, you young groovers. I would hang around, but I’ve seen more fights than I can eat this holiday. S’laters.”

  Dave stopped tying his boots. “Er, Georgia, are you alright? Normally you like a bit of fisticuffs.”

  I smiled in a sophisticosity at all times sort of way and was about to walk on when Emma said, “I was just talking to Dave about you. I thought your Viking hornpipe dance sounded really groovy. Will you be doing it again at a Stiff Dylans gig? Are you really going to Italy to see Masimo? How very cool. Isn’t that cool, Dave? It must be luuurve. When are you off?”

  And she was all smiley and nice. Why? Why was she so smiley and nice? Why was her hand on Dave’s hair all the time? Did she think it would fall off if she didn’t hold it on?

  Dave was looking at me. What was I supposed to say?

  I was going to say something smart and funny or maybe even sing “O Sole Mio” if my brain entirely dropped out, but I couldn’t. There is something about Dave’s eyes that makes me tell the truth, so I said, “Well, actually my cat—well, he’s not very well, he was run over and—and I think, I think I will have to cancel my trip and look after him.”

  Oh, nooooo. I could feel the tears welling up again, I must go.

  And I walked off really quickly.

  at the vet’s

  5:00 p.m.

  Angus is still just lying there.

  The vet says that there is no change and that he thought he would have “gone on” by now.

  He said it nicely, but I wanted to hit him.

  He said, “I’ll speak to your mum in the morning and see what she says. You see the thing is, Georgia, it costs an awful lot of money for him to be here and your mum and dad, well—maybe they—”

  walking home

  Oh, I am so miserable. I don’t know what to do. I can’t give up on him, I can’t. I wish I had someone to help me.

  6:30 p.m.

  lying in my bed

  Mum came into my room.

  Libby is coming home tonight. I said to Mum, “What are we going to tell her, shall we say, “Oh, Libby, you know Angus that is your pussycat that you lobe? Well, Mummy and Daddy can’t be bothered to look after him because he is sick.’”

  Mum burst into tears. “Oh Georgia, that is so mean.”

  She’s right, actually.

  I put my arms around her.

  “I’m sorry, Mum, I don’t mean it.”

  Bloody hell, this is quite literally Heartbreak Hotel. And I am in the sobbing suite again.

  9:00 p.m.

  Libby is in bed with me.

  I have read her Sindyfellow and Heidi twice. Which has turned my brain to soup.

  She snuggled down with me and Mr. Potato Head (literally a potato with one of her hats on).

  Gordy came in and leapt on her and started tussling her knees under the covers. She was howling with laughter and hitting Gordy with the potato.

  “Huggyhugghoghoghog. Funny pussycat. Get off now.”

  And she just got hold of Gordy around his neck and flung him off the bed. He shook himself and sneezed and growled and she laughed.

  “Heggo he laaaikes flying. Snuggle now, Ginger.”

  And she got me in a headlock and started sucking my ear going, “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

  After a little while the sucking stopped and she started snoring quietly. I
looked at her face in the moonlight. She was such a dear little thing, really (when she was unconscious). I didn’t want her to ever be sad or upset. I kissed her soft little head. Pooo, it smelt of cheese, what does she smear herself with? She stirred in her sleep and put her pudgy arms up in the air. Then she sat up.

  “Geergie, where is big pussycat?”

  Oh, blimey.

  I said, “Erm, well, he’s in the—kittykat hospital, he’s hurt his—paws.”

  She got out of bed.

  “Come on, Ginger, let’s get him.”

  And she started putting her Wellingtons on over her pajamas. She was still half asleep.

  I started to say something and she flung Mr. Potato at me and started waggling her finger. “Don’t you bloody start, you baaaad boy. Get up.”

  In the end I told her that he would be snoozing and that we would go and get him in the morning and she eventually went to sleep.

  friday august 26th

  Libby only went to kindy on condition that I went and got Angus.

  I looked at Mum, Mum looked at me. But looking at each other isn’t going to help, is it?

  9:00 a.m.

  Phone rang.

  Oh, God. What if it’s the vet?

  If I don’t answer it, he can’t tell me anything I don’t want to know.

  But…

  I answered the phone.

  It was Dave the Laugh.

  “Georgia, what is going on?”

  “Oh, Dave, it’s Angus, and the vet says, and he’s all in his tubes and tongue lolling and even his tail is broken, and Libby said go get him she had her Wellingtons over her jimjams, and I can’t bear it.”

  And I started to cry. Again.

  He said, “I’ll come round, cover your nungas up.”

  at the vet’s

  10:30 a.m.

  Standing in front of the cage looking at Angus with Dave the Laugh.

  Dave said, “Blimey. He’s a bit bent.”

  I couldn’t stand him being in a cage anymore. In a strange place.

  I said to Dr. Beardey, “I have to take him home.”

  The vet tried to persuade me not to.

  And I was beginning to feel hysterical. I had to take him. I had to. If he was going to die, I wanted him with me, in his own little basket.

  Dave the Laugh was ace. He even called the vet “sir” like he was at Eton.