Free Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy by Lucy-Anne Holmes Page A

who look a bit lost or like they could be new in town. We started doing them because they count as a good deed, which is always a bonus, but the thing I enjoy most about the Tidds Tour is the banter between Philippa and me. Perhaps I should be more mature but bantering with Philippa is one of my favourite ways to spend time, somehow we fall effortlessly into a patter where we finish each other’s sentences, or go off on surreal tangents of conversation. We never really exposed other people to it before the Tiddlesbury Tour, but oddly, really very oddly because we talk complete guff, people seem to quite enjoy it.
    We entertained ourselves throughout school like this. We went to Tiddlesbury Comprehensive, or Tiddlesbury Remand Centre as the locals call it. Philippa and I had an ever-expanding Tiddlesbury Remand Tour which we wandered about the school doing, mainly only ever to each other. We would assume lots of different characters but the ones I remember best were Harry and Barry, builders who liked to scratch their balls, and Marion Cleverbottom and Marjorie Knowingknockers, sex-obsessed learned professors who spoke like David Attenborough.
    ‘Ah, ha, Knowingknockers,’ I would orate, squinting fascinated at a big gouge that had been chipped out of the corridor wall. ‘This indentation here marks a battle, does it not?’
    ‘Ooooh, I think it does, Cleverbottom. It’s a mark of war.’
    ‘Ah ha, and someone, some wordsmith, has carved BUM next to it.’
    ‘Oh, yes, yes, some little Shakespeare,’ Philippa would agree, crouched beside me. ‘It could be from that epoch in 1999, when Michelle Cullet went through a stage of throwing things down this corridor.’
    ‘Yes, once a month, wasn’t it? She’d hurl a ruler.’
    ‘Or a pencil case.’
    ‘Or an empty drink can, down this corridor.’
    ‘Generally in the direction of someone’s head.’
    ‘More often than not mine. A bloody good shot!’ I would laugh.
    Laughing at the absurdity of bullying was the only way I ever found of dealing with it. And I could never have done it without Philippa. For years, if I sat in the dining room, someone, Michelle Cullet or one of her followers would spit food at the back of my head. I know, it was charming! Either as they walked past me or from a little distance away. But the first time the spitting happened in front of Philippa, she got her umbrella out of her bag and put it up, there and then in the dining room and carried on chatting away. We huddled under it and ate our food. We got a detention for putting an umbrella up inside but I thought my heart would explode with delight that I had such a friend.
    ‘Bum,’ Philippa, as Marjorie Knowingknockers, would sigh, stroking the word, carved into the wall.
    ‘I do like a nice bum,’ I would comment.
    ‘I like a willy,’ Philippa would say with a sigh, and we’d be in hysterics for hours. We were teenagers, we’d never actually seen one, but just the word willy could keep us giggling for ages.
    I suppose it was inevitable that once we left school we’d comment upon Tiddlesbury Town Centre in much the same way.
    We only ever do the tour on a Sunday and we always start promptly at 5 p.m. We tend to wear our air hostess costumes, which we opted for today. We team them with a lot of lipstick and we try to smile as much as possible when we speak. Today we are doing the tour for Mum and Al. Al is videoing it. He said it was important to have a copy of it for posterity, although I suspect he just wants to fiddle with his video camera because there’s no football on. So, the tour is really mainly for Mum’s benefit, not that she’s very excited, she was far more taken with the idea of staying in and snoozing on the sofa. I could have done with a winch to get her out of the flat. ‘You can’t give in to a hangover for a second day, Mum. You need to get out and get some fresh air,’ I told her. It was alarming, as though I’d suddenly become sensible. I’m not sure I