Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,3

table tennis.

He said, “Hello hello hello! Welcome welcome welcome. I’ll just pop my table tennis bat in the bat drawer and I’ll be with you.”

He’s jolly and beamy like Dibdobs and he’s obviously where the twins get their looks from.

He also had a pudding basin haircut.

Perhaps Dibdobs has got a badge in ‘basin cuts’. I bet she has.

Despite his haircut, Harold is so happy. When he heard that the sausages were local he almost had to go and have a lie down, he was so thrilled. I like the Dobbins already, but I don’t know what to do with them. I’m not the dibdobdib jolly sort of person, I’m more the dark nobbly sort of person. But I did smiling and nodding a lot. Maybe they think that I am a bit shy?

That’s good.

Shy is good.

I am going to be quite shy.

I will become known for my shyness.

And my quirky use of language, like saying ‘oh, goodie’ or ‘yum yum’. Or ‘Yarooo!’ Although I don’t want to overdo it and make people think I’m a bit simple.

The Dobbins don’t have Sky.

They don’t have any TV.

Dobbo said they made their own fun.

I made the mistake of saying, “What sort of thing?”

And she was off.

“Oh, gosh, where to start??? We do everything, don’t we, Harold?”

Harold stopped looking at some sort of nut through a microscope and said, “Yes, it’s almost too busy in the country. We look at maps, we go and look at the river flowing. Or watch the clouds. You name it, we go look at it. Then of course there’s the Guides and the Young Christians. You should join, Tallulah!”

Dibdobs said, “Oh, yes, you should. We’re weaving a rope. Making it long enough to reach right across the village and seeing how many people we can get skipping.”

I said, “Gosh.”

So, here I am in a squirrel room near a place called Grimbottom.

I put all my books on the shelves. I am reading Wuthering Heights again. It’s a set book for the course. And my secret letter from Georgia is under my pillow. For luck.

I was beginning to feel really sorry for myself and lonely when Dibdobs knocked on my door. She has brought me a mug of hot milk and, yarooo!, some slippers shaped like squirrels to make me ‘feel at home’.

So she clearly thinks I live in a hole in a tree.

She said to me, “I hope you like them, Harold made them at his sewing class.”

I said, “Oh, yes, they’re, well, they’re very unusual…and spiffing.”

Spiffing? Where did that come from? I am even surprising myself with my quirky use of language.

Then the psycho twins silently appeared in their jim-jams and stood at the door doing more looking. I hope and pray their snails are not ‘seepin’ in my room. They were still staring as Dibdobs closed the door.

I didn’t have anything else to do, so after she had gone I tried my slippers on. You put your big toe into the snout and the ears stick out attractively at the sides. The tails nestle up the backs of your legs. Perhaps I should wear them to college for my first day, as a quirky fashion statement.

The zany, free world of a performer.

Hmmmmm. I could wear my false moustache AND the squirrel slippers on Monday. I could. If I wanted to make the girls laugh and the boys ignore me. The one thing I know about boys so far is that they don’t like ‘fun’ dressing in girls. I tried a cowboy hat on in Topshop and Connor practically wet himself.

I wonder what sort of boys will be at the college? Yeeha! A whole summer of boys. Painting, sculpting, dancing, leaping – leaping like gazelles pretending to be chasing birds. And of course, boys. It’s embarrassing not having ever been involved with, well, rumpty tumpty.

Not ever having had anyone, besides my hamster, actually kiss me on the mouth.

I’m going to take my slippers off and have them in bed for company. Toe-side up, because I don’t want to startle myself if I wake up in the night – and see a couple of tails.

I am feeling nervous about Monday. What if I am so rubbish at everything that I am asked to leave?

If I am asked to leave, I can never go home again. I would have to run away to sea.

Where is the sea?

Am I up or down?

I was lying on my bed waggling my slippers around, preparing to tuck them up in bed with me, when