said, “I’m going to make us a traditional tea to welcome you. So make yourself at home. You can see for miles from your window.”
She beamed at me through her roundy glasses. She said, “Oooh isn’t this exciting??”
And gave me another big hug.
I wonder if she has got a ‘hugging’ badge? Probably.
As she went off down the steep wooden steps singing, “Bring me sunshine in your smile, Bring me laughter all the while…lalalalala,” I looked around my new bijoux home.
It’s a sweet room really, you know, good, but I thought going to performing arts college might be more…gooderer.
I went to the window.
Yep, you could see for miles.
And do you know what you could see for miles? Sheep.
Oh no, there are some pigs.
I put my bag down on the bed. My bed, by the way, is wooden. It’s got wood-carvings all over it. Even the bedhead has got furry things carved into it. Squirrels I think. Or maybe hairy, long-tailed slugs.
I unpacked my suitcase and hung my clothes up in the (wooden) wardrobe. I must start planning what to wear for my first day at Dother Hall. It will be weird not having to wear a really crap uniform. I wonder if we are allowed make-up? At my school, if we had worn make-up we would have had our heads cut off. And put on the school gates as a warning to others.
But hahahahaha I am on my own now.
I am flying solo.
I can cover myself in lipstick from head to foot if I feel like it.
Not that I will, actually, as I have only got one lipstick.
I need to get a lot more.
I wonder where Boots is in the village?
Dibdobs called me down for tea. I had changed into my jeans and a rib top and my Barely Pink lipstick. Live as you mean to go on, I say. In fact, I might go the whole hog and get some blusher.
Dibdobs had a frilly apron over her Brown Owl uniform when I went down into the kitchen. She was just dishing up sausages and she gave me a super-duper smile. I had no idea that teeth could be so…teethy.
She said, “They’re local.”
Meaning the sausages, not her teeth.
Or does she mean her teeth?
No, she means the sausages. No one has local teeth.
Anyway, does it matter that the sausages are local, I’m just going to eat them, not make friends and go to the cinema with them.
But she’s only trying to be nice, this is how most people live. I think. But how would I know?
I smiled at her as I sat down in front of my sausages. And said, “Oh, goodie.”
I’ve never said “Oh goodie” in my life.
It feels good.
I may say it a lot and make it something I am notorious for.
Because when I am famous I will have to have a quirky personality.
I can’t just rely on having sticky-out knees.
The door slammed open and a voice shouted, “I’ve brought ’em back, I’ve got most of the worst off, but they’ll need a good soak. Bye.”
Dibdobs shouted, “Thanks, Nora.”
The door slammed again and two toddlers shuffled into the kitchen.
Both with basin haircuts.
Basin hair with playdough in it.
Dibdobs was busy at the stove and said over her shoulder, “Hello boys, this is Tallulah.”
They came and looked at me for a bit whilst I was chewing.
One said, “Goo-morning, did you hear me clenin my teeef?”
Um, it wasn’t morning. And he didn’t have any teeth except for one waggly one right at the front. And he didn’t look like he would have that for long.
Mrs Dobby was beside herself with joy.
“Tallulah, this is Max and Sam. Say hello, boys.”
One started picking his nose and the other one, Max (or Sam), said, “They’ve gotten out, I’ve been feelin’ for ’em but I can’t find ’em.”
Mrs Dobby was getting a bit red in the face and her roundy glasses were steaming up, but she didn’t raise her voice, she just said, “What is it you were feeling for to find, darling?”
“Bogies.”
Mrs Dobby laughed, but not in a normal way, like a budgie-in-an-apron sort of way.
“No dear, not that, besides that naughty word, what were you looking for?”
“Bogies.”
“What else?”
I put my sausage to the side of my plate.
Max who had just been staring at me and waggling his loose tooth piped up.
“Snails. Great big sjuuuge ones with sjuuuge shells.”
“We put them to seep.”
Put them to seep?
Seep where?
They’d better not be seeping anywhere near me.
Mrs Dobby began sort of dusting the insane brothers with her tea towel, still smiling.
She said firmly, “Quiet now, boys, and go and play in…”
Sam slapped her a bit crossly across her calf with his dodie.
“Sjuuuge.”
“Be quiet!”
Max shouted back, “We WAS quietin’ before you came in!!!!!”
The boys stared at me all through my jelly and ice cream. And then, as a bit of light relief, my new dad, Harold, came home from his Christian table tennis.
He said, “Hello hello hello! Welcome welcome welcome. I’ll just pop my table tennis bat in the bat drawer and I’ll be with you.”
He’s jolly and beamy like Dibdobs and he’s obviously where the twins get their looks from.
He also had a pudding basin haircut.
Perhaps Dibdobs has got a badge in ‘basin cuts’.
