A Midsummer Tights Dream. Louise Rennison

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      I could say, “That Dickens writes a lot, doesn’t he?”

      Ruby came bursting out of the pub door.

      “I saw you through the winder. Ullo ullo. It’s me!!!!! And Matilda!!!!”

      Matilda was barking and throwing herself at me, jumping up. Well, sort of. She was just thudding against my calves to be fair. Her bulldoggy face looks like she is doing a turned down squashy smile all the time. Maybe she is.

      Ruby was laughing and her pigtails were jiggling about like ears underneath her hat.

      She was still yelling, “Ullo ullo!!!”

      It was so nice to see her little freckly face and gappy teeth.

      She was skipping around me and shouting, “She’s back, she’s back!!! Matilda, show Loobylullah how tha can die for England!”

      Matilda stopped leaping and lay on her back with her stumpy bow legs in the air.

      Ruby said, “Do your Irish dancing over her. She likes that. Go on. I’ll do the singing. Hiddly diddly diddly. Hiddly diddly diddly.”

      As she was bobbing around she said, “You should see the owlets! Shall we go for a wander now? You’ll not believe it, they’ve got right fat. Come on, come on.”

      As she went skipping off, I said, “Should you tell your dad where you’re going? Or… or… Alex?”

      She shouted back, “He’s not in, he’s forming a heavy metal band in Ormskirk.”

      What?

      I caught up with her crossing the green.

      I said, “Alex has formed a heavy metal band in Ormskirk? But—”

      She said, “Not Alex tha barm pot, Alex has gone off t’college. Me dad. You should see him in his band stuff. He’s got these right tight leather trousers. It’s horrible, and sometimes he can’t get them off. Or walk up stairs in them.”

      As we went down by the side of the sheep field, I said, “I didn’t even know your dad could play a guitar.”

      “Believe me – he can’t – but he can shout bloody loud and he’s got his own Viking helmet. It’s a tribute band.”

      I said, “What to? Vikings?”

      And she said, “No, it’s a tribute band to pies. They’re called ‘The Iron Pies’.”

      I hope I never have to see them.

      So no Alex around then.

      I sighed.

      No Mr Darcy to look at and try out my new boy skills on.

      As we walked along I said, “Rubes, do you think my knees have got less nobblier?”

      Ruby stopped hopping and looked at them. Then she bent down and knocked my knee with her fist. Quite hard. I said, “Owww.”

      She said, “Aye, I think they av a bit.”

      Then she looked up at me.

      “I tell thee what, that corker rubbing has worked a bit too. Tha looks like you’ve got two walnuts down your jumper. You haven’t, have you?”

      We were passing by the back of the Dobbins house, it seemed so familiar to be back here, but so much had changed. I was a woman now with womanly bits. And womanly bits’ holders. In various colours.

      Ruby said, “Ay up, what did tha mean in your letter? You know, you said you would tell me abaht Charlie when you saw me.”

      Hmmmmm. I felt a bit sad when I thought about Charlie.

      Ruby said, “Yes, you thought he thought you were a long lanky twit and that, didn’t you?”

      I said, “Er, Ruby. No, I didn’t think he thought I was a long lanky twit, actually. I’m not a long lanky tw—”

      At which point I caught my head a glancing blow on a low lying branch.

      Ruby tried not to laugh. I rubbed my head as we walked on through the dark woods and crouched a bit.

      Ruby said, “Go on then.”

      I wasn’t her plaything, I was a sensitive human being. I said, “I think you’re too young… I don’t think you’d understand.”

      She said, “Well, I understood about Ben, when you said kissing him were like having a little bat trapped in your mouth.”

      She was going on, toddling around in front of me.

      “Some boys are so useless at snogging. I don’t know why they don’t practise before they come bothering you. They could practise on… balloons or, or potatoes or a… melon or summat.”

      Balloons? There was a whole world of snogging I knew nothing about and Ruby was only eleven.

      Actually, it was making me feel sad thinking about Charlie. I’d really liked him. He made me laugh. And I thought he sort of liked me.

      We were at the barn by now. I wanted to make sure that Connie had gone off. I said to Rube, “I don’t want my head pecked off by an enormous angry barn owl. It’s not even as though she would peck it off at once and get it over and done with. I saw her eat a mouse head first, bit by bit. Till only its tail was hanging out of her beak.”

      Ruby crept off and opened the barn door while I crouched behind a bush.

      I noticed Matilda sat down behind me.

      Ruby came back skipping and said, “They’re on their own, come in!!!”

      I went into the barn and when my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see them. Our owlets!!! Little Ruby and Little Lullah. Our little owlets.

      Little owlets? They were HUGE! We spent an hour with the furry freaks. They can flutter about now, although they do crash into the walls. And they swooped down on to our hats. I think they love us and think we are their stupid friends who don’t even know how to fly. Well, maybe I can’t fly but I don’t poo myself all the time. I said to Ruby, “Look they are pooing while they are eating.”

      Ruby said, “Ah know, sometimes you can see little mouse claws in the poo pellets.”

      It was getting cold and late, so Ruby put them back on their hay pile. I didn’t want to handle them in case I was involved in a poo situation. But they were so sweet and they fluffed their feathers up to make themselves look bigger. And did head swivelling, to show off how far they could swivel. I feel proud of them.

      I said to Ruby as we left them, cheeping away in the dark, “Little Lullah looks like me, don’t you think?”

      As she pulled her hat down she said, “Don’t make me have to say owt to me dad about you saying an owlet looks like you.”

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