6. tongues

6 ½. ear snogging

6 ¾. neck nuzzling

7. upper-body fondling—outdoors

8. upper-body fondling—indoors

Virtual number 8. (When your upper body is not actually being fondled in reality, but you know that it is in your snoggee’s head.)

9. below waist activity (or bwa)

10. the full monty (Jas and I were in the room when Dad was watching the news and the newscaster said, “Tonight the Prime Minister has reached Number 10.” And Jas and I had a laughing spaz to end all laughing spazzes.)

Tallulah’s glossary

bagsie

If you say this it means, “Oy, that is mine,” meaning “Oy, I have bagged that.” It’s probably an old poacher’s term. And believe me, there are a lot of old poachers in the North.

barm pot

A fruitcake. If you say, “You barm pot” it’s not like saying, “You loonie”; it’s more sort of affectionate.

Like saying: “Oooh, you slight idiot.”

bejesus

This is from Hiddly Diddly land (Oireland). It’s a not-too-naughty swear. Like “Oh my word, you caught me on the knee with that hockey ball.”

Or, gadzooks.

Is that any help?

No, I thought not.

Borstal

Is a place for very bad yoof. Like a young person’s prison. Woolfe Academy is sort of like Borstal, only the yoof (mostly Charlie, Jack, and Phil) are allowed out now and again to go on cross-country hops.

The hope is that this will make them stop being naughty and get a job in a bank.

This is the hope.

The Brontë sisters

Em, Chazza, and Anne. They lived in Haworth in Yorkshire in . . . er . . . well, a while ago. And they wrote Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning. But in a good way.

corkers

Another word for girls’ jiggly bits.

Also known as norkers.

Honkers, etc.

Cousin Georgia calls them “nunga-nungas.”

She says because when you pull them out like an elastic band, they go nunga-nunga-nunga.

I will be the last to know whether this is true or not.

corker holders

Something to hold the corkers pert and not too jiggly.

A bra.

The Dane

Hamlet.

All actors do this. Refuse to tell you what’s going on.

It’s like never saying “Macbeth,” and always calling it “the Scottish play.”

If we all did this, where would we be?

I don’t know.

No one would know.

Mr. Darcy (and Mrs. Rochester)

Two characters well known for their sense of fun. Not.

Mr. Darcy was in Pride and Prejudice and at first he was all snooty and huffy; then he fell in a lake and came out with his shirt all wet. And then we all loved him. In a swoony way.

Mrs. Rochester was Mr. Rochester’s secret wife in Jane Eyre that he kept in a cupboard upstairs. She was mad as a snake and would only wear her nightie.

In the end it all finished happily because she set fire to the house, went up on the roof for a bit of a dance about, and tripped over her nightie and fell to her death.