seem fazed.
“Do you want to come in – er – what’s your name?”
I say, “Georgia,” (damn, I meant to say a false name) and we go into his house.
He has tight blue jeans on and there are those tinkly things that the Japanese have outside the doors. (Not on his jeans, obviously – on the door.) You know... wind chimes. Why do they do that? It’s such an annoying noise and do you really need to know that the wind is blowing? We’re doing Japan in geography and to annoy Hawkeye I have memorised the islands. Hokkaido, Honshu... er, well, I nearly have. I did it last year with Northern Ireland, and reciting the counties (you remember them by the mnemonic FAT LAD – Fermanagh, Antrim, Tyrone, Londonderry, Armagh, Down) can be very impressive to trot out when you are accused of not concentrating.
Oh-oh, we are going up the stairs to Peter’s room. He hasn’t said a word. His room is much tidier than mine. He has made his bed, for a start. On the walls are posters of Denise van Outen and Miss December, and so on. On my walls there’s a poster of Reeves and Mortimer showing their bottoms and a group shot of the cast of Dad’s Army. Is this the big difference between girls and boys? Is this... oh-oh, Peter is sitting on his bed.
“Do you want to sit down?” he says, patting the bed.
I think, No thanks, I would rather put my head in a bag of eels, but I say, “OK,” and sit down.
He puts his arm round me. I think of putting my arm round him like a hilarious Morecambe and Wise joke but I don’t because I remember the stuffed olive incident. Then, with his other hand, Peter turns my face towards his. It’s a good job he didn’t try that yesterday when I had rigor mortis of the head. Then he says, “Close your eyes and relax.”
9:00 p.m.
Phew, I suppose I am a woman now. Libby doesn’t seem to realise as she has made me wear her deely-boppers to bed. She is insisting I am a huge bee. If I say, “Look, it’s your bedtime now,” she just goes, “Bzzzz bzzz,” and looks cross.
I have to say, “Bz bz bzzy buzz buzz,” and point at her bed with my feelers before she will go.
9:20 p.m.
When I got home neither Mum nor Dad seemed to notice the change in me. Mind you, I’d have to walk in with my head under my arm before Dad would get out of his chair. He’s getting very chunky. I may mention it in a caring way. Anyway, as I said, phew.
When I closed my eyes Peter said, “We’re going to do an ordinary kiss first.” Then he kissed me. We started off with number one kissing, which is just lips, not moving. He said I was a natural, not too “firm” or toothy, which is apparently very common.
He told me how to know which side to go to (you sort of watch where the boy is going and then you fit in). Then we did a bit of movement and he told me what to do with my hands (waist is safest).
Oh, we got through a lot in half an hour. We did a bit of tongues, which was the bit I was most scared of, but actually it wasn’t too bad, a bit like a little lizard tongue darting about. Cute really, in a bizarre way. The main thing to do is to strike a happy balance between “yielding” and “giving”. Peter says you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it kiss properly.
At the end of the session (he had a little alarm clock) he shook my hand and saw me to the door. I passed Mabs on the way out – it was her turn. I was glad that I had gone first. Jools and Ellen and Jas tried to pump me on the way home but I said, in a dignified sort of way, “I think I’d just like to think about this for a while, if you don’t mind. Bon soir.”
10:45 p.m.
Hahahahahahahaha. I’m a natural.
Friday October 2nd
4:00 p.m.
Party time!!! I don’t know why I’m so excited as SG is not even going to be there. But maybe I’ll be able to try out my new snogging skills.
Jackie Mathews has got a huge lovebite on her neck. She’s put about six centimetres of concealer on it and is wearing a scarf... how inconspicuoso!! It’s HUGE! What has she been snogging with – a calf? I think it is so common. Why would you let someone bite you?
The day dragged by. I really am going to complain about Miss Stamp – she should be working in a prison. I’m sure she has done before. Even though it was icy outside she insisted that in our games period we ran round the hockey pitch. You could see your breath. She found Jackie and Alison hiding in the showers having a fag and made them change into their sports knickers and do the circuit twice. Which is almost a reason to have her as a teacher. It was hilarious! Jackie might look OK when she’s all dolled up in some dark nightclub, but you should see her from behind in big navy knickers!!
4:15 p.m.
Only three hours to get ready and made up before I meet Jas, Jools and Ellen and the gang at the clock tower. We’re going to arrive together. Dad is insisting on picking me up at midnight. It’s useless arguing with him, he’ll only say, “You’re lucky, in my day... blah blah blah,” and then we’ll be back in the Middle Ages or the seventies as he calls it.
7:30 p.m.
Meet the gang. We look like a group of funeral directors going out for a drink. Black is our new black. Katie Steadman’s house is quite posh – she has her own room as well as a bedroom. Shagpile carpets all rolled up round the walls, for dancing.
When we arrived there were about thirty people there already, including Tom. Cue Jas going all dithery and daft. He was in a group but he came over to talk to us straight away. I left Jas to it and circulated. It was good fun. I had a mad dancing phase for about an hour. I suppose I was vaguely looking for substitute snoggers for SG, but all the boys seemed a bit on the nice but goofy side. There were one or two most unfortunate skin complaints. I feel lucky just getting the odd lurker – some people looked like they had mountain ranges of spots on their faces... and some down their backs too... Au secours!!!!
Then I saw Peter Dyer. I waved at him and he came over. He had been talking to Katie Steadman and she seemed a bit miffed when he came over to me. Peter said, “Hi!” and I said, “Hi... er... thanks for the other day. It was really... er... great. I learned a lot. Thanks.”
He looked at me sideways and stood quite close. “There was something I didn’t have time to show you, come with me.” And he took hold of my hand and led me out of the room. We hadn’t done hand-holding but I improvised... not too floppy but not too gripping. I don’t think anyone besides Katie saw us go, they were too busy dancing stupidly to a Slade record.
We went outside into the garden and went behind a big tree just by the path. Peter started kissing me (he didn’t seem to be a big talker).
There was a lot more tongue business. It was all right but it was making my jaw ache a bit. Peter seemed to like it quite a lot more than I did because he sort of moaned and pushed me against the tree. Then Peter started nuzzling my neck and I thought, Oh, we haven’t done necks before, he’s branching out a bit, and then I nearly choked to death trying not to laugh (up against a tree... branching out, do you get it?)... but I stopped myself. You have to keep reminding yourself about boys not liking a laugh. Then I heard a car door slam and people crunching up the drive towards us.
I stepped backwards but Peter was still attached to my neck. I tripped
