Vaisey said, “If Bob comes in now his bob will fall off.”

I said, “Flossie. Have you got stuff in that bra that’s not you?”

She said, “Why, Miss Lullah, you just talk so much silly talk.”

Vaisey said, “You do seem much more sticky-outy than you did before you went behind the curtain.”

Flossie said, “Well, it’s the goddam heat, it just makes everything grow like crazee.”

I went and pulled out two pairs of tights from her corker holder.

Flossie said, “Well, I never, how in God’s name did they git in there?”

It made us laugh. Well, most of us.

I said, “Jo, come and look at this!”

There was silence from behind Jo’s curtain.

And a tiny soft snuffling.

And then more snuffling.

Oh no.

I looked at the others, then I said through the curtain, “Jo, do you remember that Phil said you were a cracking snogger?”

Jo’s muffled voice said, “So?”

I said, “Well, my cousy said that if you have excellent snogging skills, it’s like … human glue.”

No, she hadn’t said that.

Where had “human glue” come from?

I am a genius. I must write “human glue” in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary.

After a bit of silence, Jo said, “What do you mean, human glue?”

Ah.

Well.

Good point.

I didn’t have a clue what I meant by human glue.

But, hellfire, I was on the brink of a showbiz career. I’d been a shark this morning. I had the scars to prove it. I could improvise. “Aaah, I’m glad you brought that up.”

Vaisey and Flossie looked at me. Flossie started dancing with her teddy-bear pajama case and Vaisey got out her plectrum.

Jo drew back her curtain and looked at me.

I shook my hair dramatically and said, “Because when you are a good snogging match, everything works out all right in the end. Because you are sort of glued at the mouth.”

Jo smiled and said, “Really?”

Crikey.

Back in my squirrel room I wrote in my Damson Diary:

Human glue.

I tried to remember what Cousin Georgia had said about the snogging scale. Had she said anything about glue? I know Number 1 was “holding hands,” Number 2 was “arm around,” Number 3 was “good-night kiss.” What was Number 4 then?

Oh, I know, “a kiss lasting three minutes without a break.”

But where did tongues come in? Number 5? Number 6? When bat boy Ben attacked me with his tongue, we definitely hadn’t done a kiss lasting over three minutes without a break. So how come he just plunged in with his bat tongue?

He can’t know the snogging scale.

And Cain hadn’t even bothered with Number 1 before he …

Oh, I don’t know.

Calf love

HONEY IS ARRIVING TODAY. I’m so excited. She’s lovely and also sort of more experienced. She knows a lot about boys. I wonder what number she’s got to? I was panting a bit because I’d been walking really fast, and so leaned for a minute on the fence by the road that turned off to Woolfe Academy.