Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,59

dark farm.

Ruben, Seth and Heathcliff.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Then I have also written something which I might send to the Yorkshire Post:

Imagine the scene.

A small Yorkshire village, high in the moors.

It’s evening, the villagers are lining up to skip with a fourteen-foot skipping rope.

Harold is holding one end. He has the Christian Table Tennis team hanging on to him.

Dibdobs is on the other end, and she has the whole of the Brownie pack holding her waist.

Two lines of people queue up to skip.

The aim is to get the whole village skipping at once.

That is the aim.

One goes in, then two, then three.

They have to be quick as it is a big strain on the Dobbins’ arms.

Sixteen, seventeen.

It’s all going well. Everyone skipping at the same time.

Then Mr Barraclough lumbers over from The Blind Pig.

The rope comes down for the grand finale and they all leap over it at the same time.

Leaping into a place in village history – apart from Mr Barraclough. He is handing out pies to his mates.

He doesn’t see the rope.

It hits him in the shins.

Everyone falls over.

There is booing.

It’s nearly midnight, but I can hear laughing and yelling from the green, people are carrying on skipping and the Dobbins are still out. I wonder if they have ever stayed up till midnight before?

The next morning when I got to Dother Hall, Vaisey came dashing out again to see me. I thought that Vaisey had hit her peak yesterday, but today she is on cloud nine. And her hair is on cloud ten. I’ve never seen it look so perky.

She’s got a little note. From Jack.

As we went to creative writing class, she was so excited and red. She said, “He must have delivered it in the night. It was in my postbox this morning.”

How romantic, to have a note delivered to you.

Monty was reading from his ‘Diary of a Young Man’. It’s an epic he is writing as a one-man play. It’s about him. He says it is good to take your own experiences and use them in your theatre work.

He started by pretending to be asleep on a chair and then ‘woke up’ as if from a dream.

“Do you know, I really thought I was back there, with Biffo, Boffo and Sprogsy. Those happy, happy days of youth.”

And then he began gadding about, skipping and shouting with laughter.

“Biffo, pass the sandwiches, you greedy pig. Last one to the lemonade shop is a slowcoach!”

Then he was doing really slow-motion running on the spot. Looking behind him.

I whispered to Jo, “Is he still acting? Or has he gone mad?”

As Monty illustrated the use of props, by playing a record on an old record player, I asked Vaisey, “What did Jack’s note say?”

Vaisey was all pink and her hair was dancing about.

“It was really nice, just a short note. He’s been busy with The Jones and he says he’ll be here on Friday, and will see me then.”

Wooohooo. Vaisey’s first date!!

This afternoon we ‘brainstormed’ the Wuthering Heights production with Ms Fox. And she announced to everyone that I was going to be Heathcliff and that Vaisey is Cathy. We are going to improvise towards a production. It’s going to be about wildness and youth and passion. With music.

Ms Fox said, “Let’s start now. I want you to ‘go wild’, in whatever way you like. I’m going to put The Ride of the Valkyries on, so just let yourselves go. Find your inner gorilla.”

So we crashed around the studio, fighting and running and shaking everything to music. It was really good fun.

Then we had to do ‘contained violence and anger’. To the 1912 Overture.

Flossie was very good at it. And Jo had to be hauled off one of the lighting stands.

Then we had to lose our tempers in a foreign language. Jo was livid in Chinese, yelling, “You make me VELLY VELLY ANGWY!”

I tried Norwegian because of my mum. And was able to use ‘Sled-werk’ in a sentence:

“Du grossen biggen Sled-werk nit.”

I haven’t laughed so much for ages.

Ms Fox was falling about.

We went and sat under our tree at lunchtime. Even though it did look like there was a storm brewing.

Everyone was jabbering on about Wuthering Heights. Ms Fox has got us all talking ideas. Flossie and Honey are the wind-singers. And the heavenly chorus. And Jo is thunder and lightning. She’s got loads of drums to bang and a wrestling match with one of the village folk, so she is made up.

The whole thing is an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza.

It’s going to be