then a Pekingese dog came hurtling by dragging its lead behind it, followed by Angus. Oh no. He loves Pekingese. A LOT. I hope it is a fast runner.
Anyway, I haven’t got the time to worry about everything. If careless people will let their small dogs loll around in parks they are asking for trouble. It’s a cat-eat-dog world.
Twenty minutes later
The general mood of the gang is that I should play it cool until I know what is really going on. Although what Ellen knows about cool I really don’t know. She had a massive ditherspaz trying to describe how Dave the Laugh had said good night to her at the Stiff Dylans gig. Apparently, and I know this because I heard it about a zillion times, “Er, well… then he, well… and I didn’t know what he meant, but then, well, he just said… he just said to me… he said…”
I shouted, “WHAT? What in the name of heaven, Ellen? WHAT, WHAT did he say?”
And I didn’t even want to know; I just wanted to get to the bits about what happened after I left and what did people say about me and so on. But you know what people are like, it’s just me, me, me with them.
Ellen went even more divvyish. Good grief. “He said, ‘Well, good night then, Ellen, never eat anything bigger than your head.’”
I didn’t know what to say.
No one did.
Fifteen minutes later
Anyway, the nub and the gist is that the Ace Gang are useless and don’t know anything more than I do. It seems they all watched me run off like a loon (to catch my train) and then lolloped home. Useless.
However, I decided to forgive them. They are, after all, my besties.
And if I don’t forgive them I will never find out anything. And also never go out again and stay in my house with my parents. So, grasping the bull by its whatsits, I said to the gang, “In order to make a full and frank decision boyfriendwise, I have to know the intentions of the prospective snoggees.”
Ellen said, “Er, what are they? I mean who, what is, like, a snoggee?”
“Ellen, keep up, the prospeccy snoggees are Masimo and Robbie. Masimo said that he was single and free for me, but on the other hand did not come running after me and stop me getting on my train. And Robbie only had time to say hello and then not long after went off with Wet Lindsay. Soooo, did Robbie come to the gig to see me, or does he just want to be friends with me? Why has he come home?”
Rosie said, “Someone must go underground and subtly find out what Robbie’s intentions are. Shall I ask Sven? He could wear his camouflage flares.”
I said, “No.”
Jools said, “What about asking Dave the Laugh to find out?”
Ellen nearly fell over with pleasure. “Oh, yes, well, I mean, I could, well, maybe I could, like, go with him or something. Be, like, his assistant? But maybe that would be, like, too forward or something. What do you think… or something?”
I said, “No, Ellen, it has to be this year, really.”
Jas had gone off into Jasland. She was fiddling with her fringe and I could tell she had Tom and voles on her mind.
I said, “There is someone here, isn’t there, who knows Robbie’s brother quite well, shall we say, and who could use subtlety and casualosity to find out stuff? Isn’t there, Jas?”
Jas looked up like a dog when she heard her own name. “What do you mean? What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to find out about Robbie by asking Tom a few casual questions.”
Jas said, “Oh, OK. Can we go now?”
“The key word here, Jas, is ‘casualosity’. Casualosity. Can you say that, Jas?”
Jas got into her huffmobile. “I know how to be casual, Georgia.”
“Wrong.”
In bed
5:00 p.m.
I am absolutely full of exhaustosity. How difficult can it be to be casual? We coached Jas for four hours. It was like talking to a lemming in a skirt.
First of all, we tried it her way. Always a mistake in my humble (but right) opinion. Her idea of casualosity essentially means that she says: “Does Robbie fancy Georgia? Or is he normal?”
I had to use clevernosity to get Jas to do what I wanted in the end. I said, “I’ve got an idea. You know how good you were as Lady MacUseless and everything, Jas?”
Jas said, “Yes, it took quite a lot out of me, actually. Do you remember the bit when I had the dagger and…”
Oh no, three million years were going to go by while she relived her big moments in the school play.
I interrupted her by hugging her so hard that her head was buried in my armpit and said, “Yes, yes, now this is my idea.”
I asked her to act out what she was going to do in an improvised scene, like in drama. She loves that sort of thing as she is such a teacher’s bum-oley kisser.
Rosie volunteered to be Tom. She said, “I’ve got the legs for it.”
Incidentally I’m a bit worried that she was able to whip out a false beard from her rucky. I said that to her, I said, “Rosie, do you carry a beard around with you at all times?”
And she said, “Well, you never know.”
The Viking bride-to-be gets madder and madder. We are definitely entering the Valley of the Unwell.
Anyway, Jas was mincing around like a mincing thing, warming up, flicking her fringe at Tom (or Rosie in a beard, as we know him). It was incredibly irritating. I was on the edge of a mega nervy b. and supertizz as it was. I said, “Jas what in the name of arse are you doing?”
And she said huffily, “I am getting into character.”
I said, “But you are being you.”
She looked at me like I had fallen out of her nose. “I am finding the inner me.”
Good grief. Her “inner me” is bound to be an owl.
Eventually she was ready and came pratting girlishly up to Rosie and twittered, “Oh, Tom, I found some vole spore down by the woods.”
Tom/Rosie said (in a French accent, for no apparent reason – it must be the beard), “Ah, did you, my liddle pussycat? Would you like to, how you say… kiss my beard?”
Jas actually blushed and said, “Well, you know I would, Tom… but maybe, you know, in private, not in front of everyone.”
I had to put a stop to this. It was
