Free Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 09 by Stop in the Name of Pants! Page B

pathetico.
    We walked on home.
    I said to Jas, “Did you see Dave the Laugh getting stuck in to save us?”
    Jas said, “Yeah, Tom was keeping me behind him so that I wouldn’t get hurt. And when one of the Blunderboys said to him ‘Do you want some,mate?’ he said, ‘Oooh fear factor ten’ and did a judo hold that we learned when we went on our survival course and just marched him to the door. It was fab.”
    Oh, shut up about Hunky.
    I said, “When I said to Dave, ‘Are you OK, have you hurt your hand?’ he said, ‘I may never play the tambourine again!’ He is quite literally Dave the Laugh.”
    Jas said, “Oh no, you’ve got your big red bottom AGAIN!!”
    Have I?
    in bed with the owl (and her mates)
1:00 a.m.
    Jas has built a small barrier of owls between us but has said that if I don’t wriggle about I am allowed to sleep in her bed because it has been such a traumatic night of violence. Blimey, she should live around at my house if she thinks this has been a traumatic night of violence. My bedroom is littered with dismembered toys and if I move in bed I am attacked viciously by either Angus, Gordy or Libby. Or all three of them.
    Jas said, “Tom still thinks we should go to different unis or see the world or something. He saidwe might never know if we had done the right thing otherwise. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me.”
    I said, “Well, what do you think?”
    She mused (that is, flicked her fringe and cuddled snowy owl).
    â€œWell, I like fun as much as the next person.”
    I said, “Can I just stop you there, Jas? You have to be realistic if we are going to get anywhere. You do not like fun as much as the next person. Your idea of fun and the next person’s idea of fun are vair vair different.”
    â€œWell, alright, what I mean is, maybe Tom is right that we are too young to decide everything now. Maybe I could do things by myself and that would be good.”
    I sat up. “That is the ticket, pally. I mean, there are many advantages to not having a boyfriend, you know. You wouldn’t have to pretend to be interested in wombat droppings and varieties of frog spawn.”
    She looked puzzled. “I’m not pretending.”
    â€œEr, right, well—”
    God, it was hopeless. Everything I thought of, Jas had an answer for.
    She doesn’t want to let her red bottom run free and wild. She doesn’t mind the vole dropping stuffand looking interested. She IS interested. She doesn’t want to flop around in her jimmyjams if she wants to because she already can, because Tom, Hunky the wonderdog, likes her just the way she is, whatever she looks like.
    In a nutshell, Tom is her one and only one and that is the end of the matter. I wish I were her.
    Well, of course I don’t wish I were her. That would be ridiculous.
    I’d have to chop my own head off for a start, because I was annoying myself so much.
    sunday august 21st
    home
11:00 a.m.
    I have got post-gig comedown, I think. Everything was tickety boo when we were doing the dancing and it was a laugh. And even the fight was sort of exciting. But then seeing Dave the Laugh go off with Emma, and Jas talking about being with Hunky, it’s sort of made me a bit full of glumnosity.
    And I haven’t spoken to the Luuurve God for ages, anything could be happening.
    Boo and also poo.
    It’s all gloomy in the house, even though it issunny outside it is raining inside. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. Mum has gone off with Libby, I think trying to placate Josh’s mum. I’d like to think it’s because she cares but really I think it’s because Grandvati has gone off for a camping trip with Maisie. She has probably knitted the tent. Who knows where Vati is, he is never in these days.
    I didn’t think the day would ever come when I said this, but I wish they would get back to “normal.”