Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,53

out. The last time I had seen them, they were telling the rough lads from the pub about their skipping rope. And Harold had his special Christmas pipe out.

I went up to my squirrel room.

I sat in my squirrel room.

Looking at my horsie legs.

What a night.

I love my new friends, but they can do stuff. And they are not all weird and self-conscious like me. Like Vaisey. Even though her whole head was painted blue and she was charging about in bits of old rag, she enjoyed it. And Honey sang in a lovely voice, and Jo waggled her sword about and slapped the audience with it. And Flossie, well Flossie was just Flossie…

And Ben hasn’t sent me a note or anything. Even though he did jabby-tongue business. That seems a bit rude.

I wish Matilda was here, trying to get up into my bed.

I may as well get in it myself, there’s nothing else to do.

I even broke my rule about not being childish and put the squirrel slippers next to me. Because they were soft and furry.

I wrote in my performance art notebook:

I feel all hot and restless.

I feel like there is some big mystery I don’t know about.

Some thing, wild, rising up inside me.

Calling to me.

Maybe I’ve got a touch of the Wuthering Heights.

Out on the moors,

The lonely moors,

I roll around in sheep poo.

Heathcliff, it’s youuuuu,

I hate you, I love you tooooo.

Let me in, I’m here, it’s meeeee,

Catheeeeeeee.

Look out of your windooooow.

I got up to look out of the window towards Grimbottom. That could have been named for Heathcliff. Maybe I’ll read the book Harold gave me, Heathcliff: Saint or Sinner?

Um. The first chapter is about him being an orphan.

Well, I’m practically an orphan, but I don’t go round setting dogs on people and shouting. And being mean. In fact, Matilda likes me very much. I am a tall doggie treat to her.

Boys don’t like me, though.

Ooooohhhhh. I can’t concentrate on Heathcliff. I’m too hot and bothered. Where’s the James Bond book that Dad gave me? Here it is.

Now where did I get to?

Oh yes. In Jamaica, it’s the bit where Honeychile is so hot and the fans are going round and round in the hotel room. And the waves are crashing against the shore. And so Honeychile took off all her clothes and stood by the window. Yes, this is the good bit.

Bond went across to her and took a breast in each hand. But still she looked away from him out of the window.

“Not now,” she said in a low voice.

How does that work? Is that what you’re supposed to do? Should I have said “Not now” to Ben?

If I act it out, I might get an idea of what it feels like.

I won’t take off my jim-jams, I will just imagine that bit.

Although it’s hard to imagine someone putting their hands over my corkers as I haven’t really got any.

Maybe if I put socks down the front of my jim-jams that would be more like corkers. Yes, but then I wouldn’t know what it felt like to have a hand over each one.

Maybe, if I put the socks on my hands, that would give me more of an idea.

I’ll use my big thick hiking ones.

OK.

Right, I am walking in a sexy way to the window. Phew, I am hot. I am imagining the Caribbean Sea crashing against the shed at the bottom of the garden. James Bond coming over to me. He is putting a hand over each breast. Oooh, the hiking socks are a bit prickly. I am looking away from him out of the window. I am saying, “Not now…”

Oh, dear Virgin Mary and all her cohort, there is someone down there looking up at me!!! I bobbed down beneath the windowsill.

The light was on in my room.

Had they seen me fondling myself with hiking socks??

I stayed absolutely still.

Perhaps they hadn’t seen anything and were just looking at owls or…

A voice shouted up. “Have you gone all shy now? Why don’t tha come out and play with me?”

And a girl’s voice further away said, “You think you’re something.”

And the boy said, “Correction, love, I KNOW I’m something. I’m Cain Hinchcliff.”

When I was sure they had gone off I went and shut the window. For about twenty minutes, I lay on my bed. Those Hinchcliffs are not like anyone I’ve ever met before. Cain is wild. Not like a human being, more like an animal in trousers. He will love this. It’s like he