Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy Read Online Free Page B

the truffles yet. I’ll share them with her in a little while, but I’ll just sneak a few for myself first. She gets on automatic pilot with sweet treats and before you know it she says, ‘Here, Fan, you have the last one.’ It can be quite devastating. Oh, and because it’s a standard day at the surgery, Marge hasn’t offered to make the tea. Marge never makes the tea. Don’t get me started about Marge not making the tea.
    Marge is quite frankly astonishing. She is thirty-seven and seventeen stone. But she is entirely happy with her shape. In fact she’s so happy with her shape that she might be taking part in a BBC documentary about the larger woman. Although when I say BBC I mean BBC Three, and when I say documentary, I mean a programme called
I Like ’Em Big
. We had a film crew here a while back filming Marge for a pilot. Although when I say film crew I mean one disgruntled bloke called Dave with a video camera, on what I now refer to as The Day When Marge Turned Into Liz Taylor. Marge has a pretty face, a jolly demeanour and she always wears very bright colours in patterns that I sometimes worry could harm epileptics. I am very fond of Marge, I just wish she’d make the tea more often and take it a bit easier on my Lindt truffles. Mind you, you have to be fond of Marge really because she belongs to the hardest family of criminals that we have in Tiddlesbury. I think there’s a game you can play where you can match any illegal drug found in Nunstone or Tiddlesbury back to a member of Marge’s family. She is in bit-twitching love with a fellow called Tim. He’s dodgy. He is in house clearance, but not the sort of house clearance that has been authorised, if you know what I mean. He is about my age, I think, and from what Marge says he is the handsomest man that ever sperm created. I have never met Tim, although I know a lot of intimate details about the man that I very much wish I didn’t. They have just bought a house together. Something else I know a lot about.
    So, basically, I sit next to Marge on the reception of Tiddlesbury surgery trying to marshal the sick whilst she tells me about the tiles in her new bathroom and where Tim puts his finger when she is climaxing. But it’s not a bad place to work. I am quite content here. We can’t all be superstars, after all, and I really do like a lot of the patients, most of whom are OAPs. I am a bit of a hit amongst the elderly, if I do say so myself. If I ever had need to summon an army, it would consist almost entirely of ailing but wily octogenarians, and would, I predict, be pretty terrifying for the opposition. The army would most probably be led by my favourite patient, Doris, who’s just walking in now.
    ‘Ooh, sparkles today, Fanny!’ She smiles when she sees me.
    ‘Morning, Doris.’ I smile back.
    You can’t not smile when Doris is about. She’s at least eighty, barely five foot, with the biggest knockers you’ve ever seen in your life, and I’ve never seen her anything but exquisitely turned out. Face powdered, mouth lipsticked, old-fashioned stockings with a perfectly placed seam down the back, neat suit over a soft-looking jumper (whatever the weather). But despite her immaculate appearance she very often has the mouth of an aggrieved builder and she loves a party. I adore her. Everyone adores Doris. Doris is the grandmother of the man who pooped on me from a great height when I was younger. It’s a shame Doris’ big heart didn’t rub off on him – a great shame, actually. I would love to be Doris’ granddaughter-in-law. Doris doesn’t know about her grandson’s pooping – Doris holds her Little Stevie on a bit of a pedestal and I think she’d be upset if I pushed him off it.
    ‘Have you heard?’ she says excitedly, approaching the desk.
    ‘What about?’ I grin.
    ‘A man’s moving into Rose Cottage. He’s a lone writer apparently,’ she chatters. ‘It sounds like the start of one of those books you read, Fanny, doesn’t