Boo

The children have found me.

Friday, it was fun. They all stared at me and chased me around the school as usual and then lined up at lunch time to get my autograph on their diaries (which they then covered in clear laminated stickers, so that my embarrassed scribble wouldn't get ruined).

Saturday, they stalked me in the supermarket. Different children, but children nonetheless. They were fascinated by the fact that I was buying Japanese food. Or any food at all, actually. Perhaps they assumed that due to my height to weight ratio, I didn't eat; or perhaps only consumed tiny children who followed me around supermarkets (judging by how fast they ran away everytime I turned round).

It's Sunday now, and they've worked out where I live. Three young boys have just completed eleven circuits of my house. They keep walking past my windows and bobbing up and down to check if they can see anything. They've already peered through my French windows and had a conversation about the fact that my bed is not made (it's 2pm but it's Sunday), and if my music changes there is a ripple of excitement that passes around the group like a tiny, nervous Mexican wave. They're currently jumping around outside my bathroom to see if they can reach high enough to spot anything, and standing close enough to my windows to be able to hear me typing.

They can hear me typing this right now.

I feel like Boo Radley. It's making it very hard to do what I normally would do on a Sunday; walk around my house in various states of undress and dress with a bandana around my head and a blanket around my shoulders, sing loudly and inaccurately and occasionally grab a spray can of aerosol and perform an impromptu little choreographed dance around the kitchen (like Hugh Grant in Love Actually, except with a smaller film crew). Plus I'm a little embarrassed; I'm still in my pyjamas, having spent the morning reading and writing and burning toast, and I don't want them to assume that this is what all foreigners do when they're not teaching. Not all of us; just most of us. As I said, it's Sunday.

So I'm hiding in the corner of my room where they can't see me - trapped between two windows - waiting for them to go away. I need a shower, but I'm not absolutely certain that they can't see through the bathroom window. And I can't go out and buy a curtain for my bathroom until I've had a shower; if they see me in this unwashed, feral state, I'm ruined. So I'm trapped; I'm just going to have to hide in this corner and type in the dark until they've all gone to sleep.

Or until I've gotten up the courage to open my front door - in my pyjamas with my snoopy t-shirt and my hair standing on end - and shout BOO at them as loudly as I can.

That's the problem with being a celebrity; there are no days off. There is nowhere to hide.

But, frankly, if they start carving things in the tree outside my house and leaving presents there, there's going to be trouble.

I'm going to be forced to start dancing at them.