Excerpt of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
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Sunday August 23rd
my bedroom
raining
10.00 am
Dad had Uncle Eddie round so naturally they had to come and
nose around and see what I was up to. If Uncle Eddie (who is bald as a coot --
two coots, in fact) says to me one more time, "Should bald heads be
buttered?" I may kill myself. He doesn't seem to realize that I no longer
wear romper-suits. I feel like yelling at him, "I am fourteen years old,
Uncle Eddie! I am bursting with womanhood, I wear a bra! OK, it's a bit on the
loose side and does ride up round my neck I if run for the bus "but the
womanly potential is there, you bald coot!"
Talking of breasts, I'm worried that I may end up like the
rest of the women in my family, with just the one bust, like a sort of shelf
affair. Mum can balance things on hers when her hands are full--at parties,
and so on, she can have a sandwich and drink and save a snack for later by
putting it on her shelf. It's very unattractive. I would like a proper amount
of breastiness but not go too far with it, like Melanie Andrews, for instance.
I got the most awful shock in the showers after hockey last term. Her bra
looks like two shopping bags. I suspect she is a bit unbalanced hormonally.
She certainly is when she tries to run for the ball. I thought she'd run right
through the fence with the momentum of her bosoomers' as Jas so amusingly
calls them.
still in my room
still raining
still Sunday
11.30 am
I don't see why I can't have a lock on my bedroom door. I have no
privacy; it's like Noel's House Party' in my room. Every time I suggest
anything around this place people start shaking their heads and tutting. It's
like living in a house full of chickens dressed in frocks and trousers. Or a
house full of those nodding dogs, anyway I can't have a lock on my door is the
short and short of it.
"Why not?" I asked Mum reasonably (catching her in
one of the rare minutes when she's not at Italian evening class or at another
party).
"Because you might have an accident and we couldn't get
in," she said.
"An accident like what?" I persisted.
"Well you might faint," she said.
Then Dad joined in, "You might set fire to your bed and
be overcome with fumes."
What is the matter with people? I know why they don't want me
to have a lock on my door, it's because it would be a first sign of my path to
adulthood and they can't bear the idea of that because it would mean they
might have to get on with their own lives and leave me alone.
still Sunday
11.35 am
There are six things very wrong with my life:
-
I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never
come to a head but lurk in a red way for the next two years.
-
It is on my nose.
-
I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere
in my room.
-
In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and then it
will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberfuhrer Frau Simpson and her bunch of
sadistic teachers.
-
I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home.
-
I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive.
11.40 am
OK, that's it. I'm turning over a new leaf. I found an article in
Mum's Cosmo about how to be happy if you are very unhappy (which I am).
The article is called 'Emotional confidence'. What you have to do is Recall
'Experience' and HEAL. So you think of a painful incident and you remember
all the ghastly detail of it … this is the Recall bit, then you experience
the emotions and acknowledge them and then you JUST LET GO.
The foregoing is excerpted from Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
by Louise Rennison. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East
53rd Street, New York, NY 10022
