Excerpt from Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas by Louise Rennison, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

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?"

The foregoing is excerpted from Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas 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.