Louise Rennison was a British comedian and the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of the angst-filled Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series as well as the Misadventures of Tallulah Casey series. Her first novel, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, received a Michael L. Printz Honor Award in 2001, was adapted into a feature film, and has become a worldwide bestseller now translated into 34 languages. She was also awarded the Roald Dahl Funny Prize for the first book in her Tallulah Casey series, Withering Tights.

Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas

HarperTempest

october
return of the loonleader

thursday october 21st
my room

1:00 p.m.

Looking out of my bedroom window, counting my unblessings. Raining. A lot. It's like living fully dressed in a pond.

And I am the prisoner of whatsit.

I have to stay in my room pretending to have tummy lurgy so that Dad will not know I am an ostracized leper banned from Stalag 14 (i.e., suspended from school). I'm not alone in my room, though, because my cat, Angus, is also under house arrest for his love romps with Naomi the Burmese sex kitten.

2:00 p.m.

They'll be doing P.E. now.

I never thought the day would come when I would long to hear Miss Stamp (Sports Oberführer and part-time lesbian) say, ?Right, girls, into your P.E. knickers!?

But it has.

3:30 p.m.

All the ace gang will be thinking about the walk home from school. Applying a touch of lippy. A hint of nail polish. Maybe even mascara because it is R.E. and Miss Wilson can't even control her tragic seventies hairdo let alone a class. Rosie said she was going to test Miss Wilson's sanity by giving herself a face mask in class and seeing if Miss Wilson had a nervy spaz.

Jas will be practicing her pouting in case she bumps into Tom.

3:50 p.m.

How come Jas got off with cloakroom duty and I got banned? I am a whatsit . . . a scapethingy.

4:10 p.m.

Robbie the Sex God (MY NEW BOYFRIEND!!! Yesss and three times yesss!!!!!) will be going home now. Walking along in a Sex Goddy sort of way. A walking snogging machine.

4:30 p.m.

Mutti came in. ?Right, you can start making your startling recovery now, Georgia.?

Oh cheers. Thanks a lot. Good night.

Just because Elvis Attwood, school caretaker from the Planet of the Loons, tripped over his own wheelbarrow (when I told him Jas was on fire), I am banned from school.

Mutti rambled on, although she makes very little sense since Vati got home. ?It's your own fault. You antagonize him and now you are paying the price.?

Yeah, yeah, rave on.

4:45 p.m.

Phoned Jas.

?Jas.?

?Oh hi, Gee.?

?Why didn't you phone me??

?You're phoning me. I would have got the engaged tone.?

?Jas, please don't annoy me. I've only been speaking to you for two seconds.?

?I'm not annoying you.?

?Wrong.?

?Well, I've only said about two words to you.?

?That's enough.?

Silence.

?Jas.?

Silence.

?Jas, what are you doing??

?I'm not annoying you.?

She drives me to the brink of madnosity. Still, I really needed to speak to her so I went on, ?It's really crap at home. I almost wish I hadn't been banned from school. How was Stalag fourteen? Any goss??

?No, just the usual. Nauseating P. Green smashed a chair to smithereens and back.?

?Really?! Was she fighting with it??

?No, she was sitting on it having her lunch. It was the jumbo-sized Mars bar that did it. Everyone was killing themselves laughing. The Bummer Twins started singing ?Who ate all the pies' to her, but Slim, our beloved headmistress, heard them and gave us a lecture about mocking the unfortunate.?

?Were her chins going all jelloid??

?Yeah. In fact, it was Chin City.?

?Fantastic. Are you all missing me? Did anyone talk about me or anything??

?No, not really.?

Charming. Jas has a lot of good qualities though, qualities you need in a bestest pal. Qualities like, for instance, going out with the brother of a Sex God. I said, ?Has Hunky, I mean, Tom, mentioned anything that Robbie has said about me??

?Erm . . . let me think.?

Then there was this slurp-slurp noise.

She was making slurping noises.

?Jas, what are you eating??

?I'm sucking my pen top so I can think better.?

Sacré bloody bleu, I have got le idiot for a pal. Forty-nine centuries of pen sucking later she said, ?No, he hasn't said anything.?

7:00 p.m.

Why hasn't Robbie mentioned me? Hasn't he got snogging withdrawal?

8:00 p.m.

I can hear Vati singing ?If I Ruled the World.? Good Lord. I have only just recovered from a very bad bout of pretend lurgy. He has no consideration for others.

8:05 p.m.

The worsterosity of it is that the Loonleader (my vati) has returned from Kiwi-a-gogo land and I thought he would be there for ages. But sadly life was against me and he has returned. Not content with that, he has insisted we all go to Och Aye land to ?bond? on a family holiday.

However . . . nananana and who-gives-two-short-flying-pigs'-botties? Because I live in Love Heaven.

Lalalalalalala.

I am the girlfriend of a Sex God!!

8:15 p.m.

The Sex God said I should phone him when I get back from Scotland. But there is a fly in his ointment . . . I am not going to Scotland!!! My plan is this, everyone else goes to Scotland and . . . I don't! Simple enough, I think, for anyone to understand.

operation explain-brilliant-not-going-to-scotland plan to mutti and vati

8:30 p.m.

The olds were slumped in front of the tv canoodling and drinking wine. They are so childish. I had to leave the room in the end because Dad did this really disgusting thing. They were laughing and grappling about on the sofa and they did number five on the snogging scale (open-mouth kissing). Honestly. I mean it. There might even have been a suggestion of six (tongues). Erlack a pongoes!!!! Libby was there as well. Laughing along. It can't be healthy for a toddler to be exposed to porn.