Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,25

pyjama case over your face to drown out your snoring.”

Flossie said, “Are you telling me that you touched my teddy pyjama case in the night?”

Jo said, “Yes.”

Flossie got up. “That does it. Come on, let’s fight. You teddy toucher.”

Jo got up and said, “I warn you, I’m smallish, but…”

Flossie, who was limbering up like a prize fighter, said, “I know, I know, I’ve seen your inner Hulk. Come on!! I’ve been cramped up in that damn vicarage all morning with consumption. I want to live, I want to live!!!!!”

I got up then and shouted, “I am not an Irish dancing broomstick, I’m a human being!!!!”

And suddenly it turned into a wrestling match. Even Honey tucked her skirt into her knickers and dived on to the top of the pile.

I couldn’t see my feet.

But I knew what I could feel.

I said, “Oy, will whoever is grasping my nearly corker area get off.”

I heard Vaisey’s muffled voice say, “Sorry, I was just stopping myself from falling over.”

Then Flossie, who had my head in an arm lock, said, “Oy, leave my bum alone!”

And that is when a lad’s voice joined in.

“Bloody hell, fightin’ lasses!”

What!

When we eventually disentangled and got up, in front of us were two very dark-haired boys. Is there a whole tribe of forest boys who just appear all the time when girls are doing private group work? They had leather jackets on and slung around their necks were guitars in guitar cases. I recognised them. Oh goodie. They were the two boys I had seen fighting on the bench on my second day in Heckmondwhite. I took a bit of a twig that had got caught in my leggings and put it in my mouth like a cigarette. I don’t know why.

There was something menacing about the boys. They were staring at us from under their dark hair. One of them spat on the ground and I realised it was the pig poker, he was the one who’d been prodding Streaky and Smoky.

“C’mon Seth, we’ve got no time for silly lasses.”

Seth?

Not Seth Hinchcliff.

They started bowling off towards Dother Hall.

Then the one called Seth turned round and stopped. He looked at Flossie who was just getting to her feet and smoothing down her skirt.

She looked him straight in the eye and he said, “Tha’s not bad. I wouldn’t mind laiking about with thee.”

And he turned and went off.

Even Flossie was speechless.

Who did they think they were?!!

We soon found out who they thought they were when we got back to Dother Hall, because there was a big group of girls hanging about the studio in the corridor.

Milly and Tilly spoke at the same time. Breathlessly. “Have you seen them?”

Becka said, “The Jones. They’re here.”

We went along to the dance studio for our first dance class with Madame Frances. She had been classically trained and, as she said herself, “I danced with all the greats, in the chorus at first, of course, but just as I was chosen to dance the Swan I suffered my…” And here she hesitated and her voice went quiet and husky, “…injury.”

She was silent for so long that eventually, just to be polite, I said, “What, um, did you injure, Madame?”

She looked up and said, “No, no, you young things don’t need to know about me. I don’t complain. I soldier on. Would one of you just go to my drawer and fetch me my wrap? I feel strangely chilled.”

Someone sloped off to the drawer and got her wrap. Then her thermos flask. Then a little stool to rest her foot on. Then her stick which she had left at the far end of the studio.

Eventually she said, “Now, girls, all to one end of the studio and let’s begin and have a little warm up. Could someone get my drum…”

And that was it, that was our first dance workshop. For about an hour, Madame Frances sat on her chair in her wrap drinking tea from her thermos flask with one hand and hitting a drum with her stick. And we had to run across the room. In time to the drum. Backwards, forwards, sideways. Spinning, leaping, running, you name it, we did it to the drum.

It was exhausting.

Madame Frances might not be able to stand up but she could certainly bang a drum.

My hair was all over the place and Vaisey looked like she’d been thrown in a vat of tomatoes. So we nipped to the loos and chucked water over our heads (not even saving it