No!!! I am not doing alfresco Irish dancing and that is a fact. So before my legs got any funny ideas I blurted out to Charlie, “Did you have fun in your holidays?”

Then I thought, Oh no, he’ll think I’m asking about his girlfriend. So before he could think that I went on. “I did. I had great fun. I had loads of laughs, loads. In fact, I pretty much didn’t stop laughing all holiday. I stayed with my cousin Georgia and she’s a laugh, such a laugh, and then her Ace Gang came round and we had, you know, a . . .”

Charlie said, “Laugh?”

And he smiled at me.

A proper light-up-your-whole-face smile.

He said, “Tallulah, I meant what I said last term about thinking you’re a really great girl and . . .” And then the others came and pushed us off the log in a surprise attack.

As we left our Special Tree to go back to Dother Hall, Phil gave Jo a big smackeroonee on the lips and said, “Au revoir, you little cracker. I’ll see YOU later.”

Jo said, “No. YOU won’t see me later because YOU are going back to the Bad Boys’ School and YOU will have to go to your beddy-byes because you are so baaaad. And a Disgrace to the Nation.”

Phil stood nose to nose with Jo. “That, my little mad missus, is where you are very, very wrong, because I will be a-sneaking out of my bedroom window and a-sneaking into your dorm tonight.”

He kissed her again and turned away with the other boys. He shouted as they went off into the woods, “So be warned, girls, Big Phil is coming a-calling tonight! Arrivederci.”

As we scuffed along, Jo said, “He won’t really come, will he?”

Flossie said, “No, he’s not that much of a fool.”

Jo looked at her, and Flossie said, “Is he?”

You don’t want to do any more winking back

I FELT QUITE CHUFFED. Charlie has more or less said he likes me. Well, to be factual, he’d said I was “great.” And now I get the chance to show my rap to the world. I hope Blaise likes it. It’s her kind of thing.

As we went into the studio, Blaise was coming out and putting her crash helmet on. She said, “Hello, groovers, just off to rescue Sidone from the under-fives tap class in the Scout Hall. It’s a mission of mercy.”

As she was passing, I said, “Oh, so are you . . . shall we do it later?”

She stopped and said, “Do you want to do it later?”

I was a bit confused but I said, “Er, well, if you do.”

Blaise said, “Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?”

She went off and then we heard her bike roar into life. Oh well. I’m a bit disappointed not to be doing my rap now but . . . that’s when I saw Dr. Lightowler.

She said to us, “I’m taking over Ms. Fox’s class. Prepare to show me the homework that the headmistress set you.”