The Taming Of The Tights. Louise Rennison

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СКАЧАТЬ I’ll tell you why he’s here, young man. He’s our new drummer for The Iron Pies. We are going to be a sound sensation. Good to see you back, young Bilbo.”

      He went off into the bar shouting, “Hit it, lads!”

      And an awful din of drums and guitars started up. It really did sound like Bob was just hitting things.

      Ruby and Matilda came tumbling down from upstairs. Matilda was leaping up at my legs and Ruby was dancing around me, yelling, “It’s Tallulah-lebulla, Matilda, let’s mek her dance, do the dance, Tallulah-lebulla, do the dance!!!”

      I said with dignity, “I don’t want to, you know I’ve sort of grown out of the Irish dancing thing.”

      The Iron Pies crashed into their version of a James Bond theme. Mr Barraclough started singing, “From Russia with PIES I came to yooooooo.”

      And Ruby had to yell over the top of it. “Oh, come on, just a little bit. For me! I’ll sing the Irish song. Hiddly diddly diddly diddle.”

      So I let myself go. I did my Irish dancing. Ruby joined in and we were leaping and hopping around in the hallway. It was fun actually. There was no one to see me and I needed to relax so I let my knees go wherever they pleased.

      When I was mid-hiddly, I noticed Matilda had got caught in the umbrella stand. Umbrellas were crashing around her. She looked up blinking at us. Ruby said, “What? What? Why are you blinking at me?’”

      Then Matilda looked at the door and back at Ruby.

      Ruby said, “No, I’m not taking you out now, it’s quiet time.”

      Matilda started making a snuffling noise which sounded a bit like crying. Ruby gave in and picked her up.

      “Oh, bloody hell, all right, Matilda, you daft ninny. Come on, I’ll tek you out, even though it’s going to be a tornado out there. C’mon, Lullah.”

      She rammed a hat and coat on and dragged me outside with her. For an eleven year-old she’s quite strong.

      Big black clouds were tumbling in again from Grimbottom and in the distance we could see lightning crackling. There was a rumble as we set off up the back path.

      We reached the old tree with its branch that we sit on. Ruby pulled her coat round her and shouted above the gathering wind. “It’ll start pouring down in abaht five minutes so ‘go fetch!’ Matilda.” And Ruby flung a stick for Matilda to chase.

      Matilda lay down like a splayed chicken.

      Ruby said, “Oh, you!!! That’s not ‘go fetch’, is it? That’s lying down and dying for England!!!”

      Ruby went running off into the bracken to get the stick, shouting, “And then you can start telling me abaht snogging and stuff, Lullah!”

      Matilda’s not interested in stick fetching. She knows a stick is not a biscuit so why would she want to fetch it?

      Gosh, it was wild up there with the lowering sky and the trees bending in the wind and the moors stretching off.

      I sat down on the branch and snuggled into my anorak and put my hood up. I was sitting on the branch that HE had sat on.

      I could feel his warm presence even through my anorak.

      Alex the Good.

      I was sitting where Alex the Good sat.

      In a way, I was sitting on his knee.

      Alex, Alex the Good. Ruby’s gorgey older brother.

      I’ve got a bit of a crush on him. Even though he thinks I’m just a schoolgirl, he’s always nice to me. Really specially nice to me.

      He’s not like the Hinchcliff brothers, Seth, Ruben and the other brother. Whose name I will never mention again. But the one who waved a dead rabbit’s paw. That one.

      Yes, Alex is always nice to me, encouraging me to fill my tights. Not like Dr Lightowler the drama tutor who says, “Seeing you onstage makes me feel physically sick.”

      Mmmmmm, Alex.

      It was sunny when I last saw him, he was up here looking out to the moors. Like Mr Darcy. Only not in pantaloons and a ruffled shirt. He saw me and said, “Hey, Lullah!” and hugged me.

      In a proper huggy way. I felt myself melt. I don’t mean I actually melted, I just mean … anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I melted or not. It was just me and him in Brontë country. Where Em Brontë wrote Withering Tights. It was a perfect opportunity for him to kiss me.

      But then ‘she’ came wafting out of a field like a, like a twit. A twit in a floaty dress. He introduced us: “Meet Candice, she’s at college with me.” Then he kissed her on the lips.

      Do boys like twits in floaty dresses? I haven’t asked Cousin Georgia that. She’s told me some number one rules that they do like. Boys, I mean.

      Like when you want them to like you, you have to have ‘sticky eyes’. Not eyes with glue on, just eyes that do ‘looking up, looking down and then just looking, full-on looking at them’.

      Georgia said you mustn’t accidentally do sticky eyes when a boy says something so stupid you are staring at him in disbelief. Because they will get the wrong impression and think that you actually like them. In an ‘I fancy you’ way.

      Another top tip Georgia says is that boys like you to say nice things to them and praise them for stuff. Even if they unexpectedly do a back flip or something.

      You have to say, “Golly, that’s the best back flip I’ve ever seen.”

      I said to Georgia, “No fool would believe that you really liked people doing back flips.”

      Georgia said, “Boys will. If you say something nice to them and give them praise, they are like jelly boys and you can do anything with them.”

      My brother Connor thinks he is the world’s top farter. Which he probably is, but I’m not going to give him praise for that. Otherwise he’d do it all day.

      He does do it all day.

      I’ve got a photo from Georgia to remind me of her. I’ve stuck it in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary. It’s of her and her Ace Gang sitting in one of those big teacups that go round and round at fairgrounds. They’re supposed to be for tiny toddlers. In fact, there were some little children in the background crying.

      On the back of the photo it says, Send us the latest on the D. B. C. of H. Yours sincerely, A Friend. And some other friends. In our cups.

      Georgia wants the latest on the D. B. C. of H who is Cain. He’s so awful I call him the Dark Black Crow of Heckmondwhite. But there won’t be anything to tell Georgia because I won’t be having anything to do with him.

      EVER again.

      Whoever he is.

      And if I do see him, I’m going to make it clear that what happened, you know, the accidental snogging incident on the moorland path, was СКАЧАТЬ