Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging. Louise Rennison

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to be bobbing around like pigeons for hours but I couldn’t tell much from the photos. I wish I had never read it, it has made me more nervous and confused than I was before. Still, why should I care? I am going to be staying in for the rest of my life. Unless some gorgeous boy loses his way and wanders into my street and then finds his way up the stairs into my bedroom with a blindfold on I am stuck between these four walls for ever.

      12:15 p.m.

      Perhaps as I can’t go out I can use my time wisely. I may tidy my room and put all my dresses in one part of my wardrobe, and so on.

      12:17 p.m.

      I hate housework.

      12:18 p.m.

      If I marry or, as is more likely, become a high-flying executive lesbian, I am never going to do housework. I will have to have an assistant. I have no talent for tidying. Mum thinks that I deliberately ignore the obvious things but the truth is I can’t tell the difference between tidy and not tidy. When Mum says, “Will you just tidy up the kitchen?” I look around and I think, Well, there’s a few pans on the side, and so on, but I think it looks OK. And then the row begins.

      2:00 p.m.

      Putting the coffee on for the girls. It’s instant but if you mix the coffee with sugar in the cup for ages it goes into a sort of paste, then you add water and it’s like espresso. It makes your arms ache like billy-o, though.

      7:00 p.m.

      Brilliant afternoon! We tried all different make-ups. I’ve been Sellotaping my fringe to make it longer and straighter and to cover up the space where my eyebrows were. Jas said, “It makes you look like you’ve escaped from the funny lads’ home.” Ellen says if I emphasise my mouth and eyes then attention will be drawn away from my nose. So it’s heavy lippy for me from now on.

      We were all lolling about on my bed, listening to the Top Forty and Jas told us about the gorgeous boy in the shop. She knows he is called Tom because someone called him Tom in the shop he works in. Supersleuth! We all pledged that we would wait until I can go out again and then we will go and look at him.

      Talk then turned to kissing. Ellen said, “I went to a Christmas party at my cousin’s last year and this boy from Liverpool was there. I think he was a sailor. Anyway, he was nineteen or something, and he brought some mistletoe over and he kissed me.”

      We were full-on, attention-wise. I said, “What was it like?”

      Ellen said, “A bit on the wet side, like a sort of warm jelly feeling.”

      Jas said, “Did he have his lips closed or open?”

      Ellen thought. “A bit open.”

      I asked, “Did his tongue pop out?”

      Ellen said, “No, just his lips.”

      I wanted to know what she did with her tongue.

      “Well, I just left it where it normally is.”

      I persisted, “What about your teeth?”

      Ellen was a bit exasperated. “Oh, yeah, I took those out.”

      I looked a bit hurt. You know, like, I was only asking...

      She said, “I can’t really remember. It was a bit tickly and it didn’t last long, but I liked it, I think. He was quite nice but he had a girlfriend and I suppose he thought I was just a little thirteen-year-old who hadn’t been around much.”

      I said, “He was right.”

      10:00 p.m.

      My sister Libby kisses me on the mouth quite a lot, but I don’t think sisters count. Unless I am a lesbian, in which case it’s all good practice probably.

      11:00 p.m.

      Through my curtains I can see a big yellow moon. I’m thinking of all the people in the world who will be looking at that same moon.

      I wonder how many of them haven’t got any eyebrows?

      Sunday August 30th

      11:00 a.m.

      Thank God they’re all actually going out. At last. What is all this happy family nonsense? All this “we should do things as a family”?

      As I pointed out to Dad, “We are four people who, through great misfortune, happen to be stuck in the same house. Why make it worse by hanging around in garden centres or going for a walk together?”

      Anyway, ratwoman does not go out. She just hangs around in her bedroom for the next forty years to avoid being laughed at by strangers.

      I will never ever have a boyfriend. It’s not fair, there are some really stupid people and they get boyfriends. Zoe Ball gets really nice boyfriends and she has got sticky-out ears.

      1:00 p.m.

      I still haven’t tackled Dad about his apron.

      1:15 p.m.

      God I’m bored. I can see Mr and Mrs Next Door in their greenhouse. What do people do in them? If I end up with someone like Mr Next Door I will definitely kill myself. He has the largest bottom I have ever seen. It amazes me he can get in the greenhouse. One day his bottom will be so large he will have to live in the greenhouse and have bits of chop passed to him, and so on. O quel dommage! Sacré bleu!! Le gros monsieur dans la maison de glass!!!

      1:20 p.m.

      I may start a neighbourhood newspaper.

      1:22 p.m.

      Oh dear. I have just seen Angus hunkering down in the long grass. He’s stalking their poodle. I’ll have to intervene to avert a massacre. Oh, it’s OK, Mrs Next Door has thrown a brick at him.

      11:00 p.m.

      What a long, boring day. I hate Sundays, they are deliberately invented by people who have no life and no friends. On the plus side, I’ve got six o’clock shadow on the eyebrow front.

      Operation sausage

      Tuesday September 1st

      10:00 a.m.

      Six days to school and counting. I wish my mum could be emancipated, a feminist, a working mother etc. And manage to do my ironing.

      I thought I’d wear my pencil line skirt the first day back, with hold-up stockings and my ankle boots. I’m still not really resolved in the make-up department because if I do run into Hawkeye she’ll make me take it off if she spots it. Then I’ll get that shiny red face look which is so popular with PE teachers. On the other hand, I cannot possibly risk walking to school without make-up on. No matter how much I stick to sidestreets, sooner or later I will be bound to bump into the Foxwood lads. The biggest worry of all is the bloody beret. I must consult with the gang to see what our plan is.

      5:00 p.m..

      We’re having an emergency Beret and Other Forms of Torture meeting tomorrow, at my place again. СКАЧАТЬ