filmed.
For posterity.
With me as a boy.
In a moustache.
I said, “Why are none of you surprised that I am Heathcliff?”
Jo said, “Well, you did the owl, and that was good.”
I said, “You thought I was a spacehopper.”
Vaisey said, “Well, what about your horsie thing? I liked that.”
And Flossie said, “You’ve got your own moustache.”
Ms Fox said she thinks my Irish dancing should be the finale. I started to say something about, where did that fit into Wuthering Heights, I don’t remember Heathcliff (or Cathy) being Irish, but no one was paying attention. Vaisey wanted to talk about what she should wear on Friday. And also how to keep her hair under control.
I said, “Don’t any of you think it’s a bit out of the blue?”
They looked at me.
I went on. “Choosing me for the lead role. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
Honey said, “Mith Fox thayth ith inthpired by your bithycle ballet, but without the biketh or you cwathing into the wingth.”
Harold and Dibdobs are very interested in my portrayal of Heathcliff
.
Harold went on a lot about his inner ‘female’. He said, “It is something we explore a lot at our Iron Man camps. This is a really very interesting topic. In fact, I have a book that we were reading round the campfire that I must rootle out for you. We used to dress the twins in dresses until they started playschool.”
I didn’t know what to say. Except, “Golly.”
The book that Harold gave me is called, A real man’s guide to soft goods: how to knit your own socks.
What did Harold know????
On Thursday, after I had accidentally stepped through an imaginary wall into the fireplace. In her French play, Dr Lightowler said to me, “Have you thought about what you will do in show business when you leave here, Tallulah? Perhaps the box office? Or theatre cloakroom attendant?”
She hates me.
CHAPTER 17
“Get your ears on, dudes!”
The Jones are live at five
Practically the whole college was hanging around the sound studio at lunchtime. The Jones were supposed to have come in this morning, and Bob was fretting around. He had a T-shirt on with a teacup on the front of it. It said underneath, I’m the mug with the band.
On the back it said, Duh.
We could hear him in the sound studio, going “One two one two…Let’s hit it, lads!!!!!” And then smashing the drums and cymbals like a madman.
It was a really hot day. Even Gudrun had let her bun down. Bumblebees were dozily bonking about, and that is when The Jones drove up the driveway. On a tractor.
When the rest of the girls heard the tractor they rushed out screaming, and I nearly choked on my banana. Seth was driving and Ruben and Cain were standing on the running board. All of them dressed in black. They got down from the tractor with their guitars and looked as if they always had sixty girls gawping at them.
Honey said, “Vewy cool.”
As Seth went in, he looked at Flossie, and winked and said, “Oh, yes.”
Flossie took off her glasses, tossed her hair and said, “Hi, y’all,” in her Texan accent.
Cain came last, walking really slowly up the steps. He looked at the ‘Absolutely No Smoking’ sign.
He got a cigarette out and lit it. He let the smoke curl out of his lips.
Oh crumbs.
He was smoking in a ‘no smoking’ area. He was smoking by the ‘Absolutely No Smoking’ sign.
He took a drag, and then he stubbed it out on the sign!
He said in his deep dark voice, “I dunt even smoke, but I do what I want, when I want. Because I am The Jones.”
And he pushed through the crowd, who backed away from him.
I rolled my eyes at the girls.
“ ‘I AM The Jones’? What he should have said is ‘I AM the prat’.”
Jo said, “He is bloody good-looking, though, isn’t he?”
And then coming up the driveway, we saw Jack. Vaisey went bright red to match her hair-hat.
He was a bit red-faced himself and carrying a cymbally thing. He said “Hello” when he saw us and stopped.
Vaisey seemed to have lost the power of speech, so I said, “Alright, Jack? What are you doing here?”
And he said to me, although I could tell he was looking at Vaisey, “I’ve come to play percussion for The Jones, I’m, you know, maybe going to be in the band, or something.”
We were doing enthusiastic back-up nodding and trying to get behind Vaisey at the same time.
Jack said, “Yeah, well, I’ve got to do a lot