Finding Cassie Crazy Read online

  Em and I are already halfway through our Vegemite sandwiches and she’s just walking across the yard.

  She did a bad job ringing the Old Bell. Em and I are excellent at it when it’s our birthdays: we can make it go ja-jing, ja-jing, like a real brass bell should.

  Cass just made it go: clangetty, clangetty. Crash. She must have been shaking it side to side.

  Cass arrives and says, ‘The bell sounded stupid, huh?’

  And Em says, ‘Derrrr, Fred,’ and I say, ‘Maybe yes, maybe no,’ and Em says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s because you’re no good at being the centre of attention,’ and Cass stands still in front of us, with a funny look in her eye, winding the skipping rope around her wrist.

  What is a sound that you like to hear? Tell us all about it!

  You know, there’s this background noise in my head sometimes, like electricity or maybe like frogs croaking.

  One time I was getting a bus home from school and a family of ducks crossed the road. I was sitting in the seat right alongside the driver. This was when I was maybe eight years old and in love with the bus driver. He was fatter than half a bus and named Barney.

  ‘Hey kid,’ Barney always said. ‘It’s all happening, eh?’

  I always pretended I knew what he was talking about. ‘Oh yeah,’ I always said. ‘It’s really happening.’

  I sat there bumping along next to Barney, waiting for it all to happen. And Barney would lean his fat stomach forward over the steering wheel at T-intersections, to look both ways. Or he’d concentrate on getting the bugs off the windscreen by aiming at them with washer-fluid and the wipers.

  So this one time, I was getting the bus home from school as usual, and I saw a mother duck and her five little baby ducks. They were on the side of the road. I sat there watching through the dusty window and I forgot to tell Barney. I saw them but I didn’t say a word.

  Barney was watching some noisy kids in his rear-view mirror, and shaking his head about them and, next thing, the mother duck decides to head herself and her five little babies across the road.

  None of the bumps was big enough to make the kids up the back hit their heads on the roof. Just a little bump and then bumpity-bumpity-bump.

  ‘Christ,’ Barney said to me. ‘Was that what I think it was?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said.

  Barney raised his eyebrows—like whoops—and drummed on the steering wheel with one hand. Like someone in a band.

  What is a smell that you like to smell? Tell us all about it!

  I don’t know if that was his name or not. Barney. That could be just a name I made up.

  I have a lot of dreams about sex. I mean, dreams about what I think sex is like. I think it must be good. If kissing is anything to go by, it must be great.

  What is a feeling that you like to feel? Tell us all about it!

  Sometimes I get so worried about Cassie it makes me cry. I try to get her to talk to Em and me, like she used to, but she just smiles and says she’s fine.

  She hasn’t said anything about the letters she gets from Brookfield, for instance. She reads them and smiles to herself kind of secretly.

  Whereas Em is hysterical about her penfriend. She keeps telling us that she’s never writing to him again, but I know she will because she always wants the last word.

  But I don’t know about the guy who’s writing to me. At first I thought he was okay, but then he sent his kookaburra/snake letter. I hate it when guys get all serious like they’re the ones who know how the world really works. Whereas girls are only playing at life and we have to be careful or we’ll get ourselves and them into trouble.

  Now I don’t know how to answer him. I could do his ‘test’ for him. To show he doesn’t scare me. But doesn’t that mean he’s the one with the power?

  What is a sight that you love to see? Tell us all about it!

  I think I’m going to throw this stupid, frigging, waste-of-my-time Note-book away.

  PART 10

  ASHBURY HIGH

  YEAR 10

  NOTICEBOARD

  THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

  A little learning is better than none.

  This has been a message from your Form Mistress

  For Sale: Slave

  I have a Year 7 student in my possession who owes me his life.

  He will do library research for you, clean out your locker, impersonate you at roll call, entertain you with Irish river-dancing etc, etc. This is as payment for his life.

  Very stupid but works like a Trojan.

  $250 ono

  THE STUDENT WHO POSTED THIS NOTICE SHOULD REPORT TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. SLAVERY WILL NOT BE TOLERATED IN THIS SCHOOL.

  PART 11

  AUTUMN TERM

  EMILY AND

  CHARLIE

  Dear Charles

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

  Yours faithfully

  Emily Thompson

  PS I decided to use this opportunity to practise my handwriting. As you can see, I am developing a highly eloquent style.

  PPS I got a secret assignment yesterday and GUESS WHAT. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

  PPPS I have to go now because you are wasting my TIME.

  PPPPS The next letter you get from me will be an empty envelope, so be prepared for misery.

  Dear Emily

  Check it out. I JUST SAVED THE LIVES OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL.

  I’m on the oval right now, and I can hardly see this paper through my tears of life-giving joy.

  See those girls sitting cross-legged and singing the theme song from Friends? They wouldn’t be doing that right now if it wasn’t for me. See that guy over there taking the shoelace out of one of his sneakers? Same thing. That girl picking her nose? SHE WOULD BE DEAD AND HER NOSE WOULD BE FULLY UNPICKED IF IT WAS NOT FOR ME.

  That guy with the sneakers is now using the lace to strangle someone, which is a beautiful thing to see, Emily, and I made it possible, and that’s why you are blurry through my tears.

  Okay, check it out, I’ll tell you what happened.

  I was in the admin block, outside the principal’s office. I won’t go into the reasons why I was there, because it would destroy the flow of the story. The fact is, I was there, and on my own because the secretary just went out for a moment and the telephone rang.

  So I answer the phone. ‘Hello?’

  And this voice goes, ‘Hello?’

  And I go, ‘Hello?’

  And this voice goes, ‘What?’

  So I go: ‘Brookfield High School. How may I direct your call, please?’ as per what I hear the secretary say every time I’m waiting there.

  Then this voice goes, ‘Yes, hello, I’m with the Local Gas Authority and I’m calling from the basement of your school here. I’m just checking the main gas line and there is a serious leak here. Really, so serious that at any moment there could be an explosion. I myself am about to run to my car and get the hell away, but I thought I should let you know so you can sound the fire alarm and get everybody out of the school and onto the oval.’

  Check out how cool I was under pressure:

  I just said, ‘Thank you very much, and please get yourself out of there
and save your own life.’ Then I hung up, switched on the PA system and said: ‘THERE IS A GAS LEAK IN THE BASEMENT OF THE SCHOOL. THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC. IT IS JUST A GAS LEAK THAT MAY LEAD TO AN EXPLOSION AT ANY MOMENT. PLEASE ALL GO TO THE OVAL, AS PER THE FIRE DRILLS.’

  Then I found the fire alarm and pressed the button.

  So then of course the doors all around me open and the principal practically kills me to switch off the PA and somehow I landed on the office floor but I kept my dignity.

  So that explains why I am on the oval right now and not doing my Origins of the First World War examination and also why I have now got a new faith in humanity, on account of being its saviour.

  When you think about it, the young people are the future, so I have saved the future.

  There are even a couple of police here, right this minute scouring the school for gas leaks, which includes my brother Brian (I don’t mean my brother Brian is a gas leak, he’s a cop), so I’m hoping they’ll get to the leak in time and patch it up, maybe with a bit of Blue Tac or chewing gum, whatever you do in an emergency.

  Or in the alternative, I hope they get everyone out of there, including the fish out of the school pond and the flying foxes from the attic, and then the gas leak explodes and then the school is, like, fully gone. Pffwt. (Open your hands out wide to indicate that there’s nothing there any more, as per your average magic trick.)

  No more school.

  Anyhow, I hope you don’t send an empty envelope next time.

  Catch ya

  Charlie

  PS I liked your handwriting in your last letter. It was cute.

  CHARLIE

  THIS, AS YOU WILL SEE, IS AN EMPTY ENVELOPE.

  EMILY

  Dear Emily

  Wow. You sure have a lot of resolution: I can’t believe I sent you that whole story about being the saviour of the future and you just sent me an empty envelope.

  Technically, it wasn’t empty on account of your note in there about it being an empty envelope, but still, it was pretty close, Em, and I’m proud of you, girl. You really knocked me for a six.

  I notice that you didn’t express any interest in what happened next, after the gas leak. If you want to know, just say the word.

  Actually, I’ll tell you anyway, even though it is not a nice story.

  Well, I told you there were cops at the school and I was kind of wondering why. I was thinking: why not the Gas Authority blokes? Plus, what happened to that chick in the basement?

  After I wrote my letter to you on the oval, I saw the principal waving at me to go over to her, and that’s where the truth came out.

  I go over to her and she’s standing on the front lawn of the school with the cops, and she says, ‘Now, tell us again about this phone call of yours.’

  I said, ‘Excuse me but it wasn’t a phone call of mine, I just happened to answer the phone,’ but she wasn’t interested in that.

  So I told her the details of the phone call as per my description in the last letter, and then she says, ‘Nobody told you there was anything on fire?’

  ‘No, just a gas leak in the basement.’

  ‘Charlie,’ she says, ‘Charlie, can you tell us where the basement of this school is?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Well, that’s because we haven’t got a basement. There is no basement in this school, Charlie. And Charlie, is there any gas in this school?’

  At which point my brother Brian made a snorting sound, like immaturely indicating that there’s plenty of gas of the kind that smells bad.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, as I did not know, ‘but I assume there is gas, if there’s a leak.’

  ‘There is no gas in this school,’ says the principal. ‘Electricity, Charlie. We have electrical heating, all right?’

  Then the adults all turn away from me and start talking to each other like I’m not there, about how unfortunate it was that there was a student answering the phone, and how everyone else would have seen it for a prank right away, and very sorry to have got you out here, officers, and wasted your time.

  ‘Charlie apologises also,’ said the principal, ‘for wasting your time.’

  She would have known that she couldn’t order me to give an apology.

  One of the cops was very forgiving and said he thought I did the right thing and the other two (including my brother Brian) started doing stupid stuff like kicking around dead leaves at each other and going, ‘Watch out! There’s a gas leak in your trousers!’ And taking cover under their arms and stuff.

  That was yesterday, and today I am depressed. I’m eating my Coco-Pops at the moment, and my mum is unfortunately using me as a pipeline to talk to the rest of the family, even though they are all also eating their breakfast right in this room. She’s mad at everyone for some reason or another.

  ‘Charlie,’ she just said, ‘ask Kevin if he intends to put the entire jar of strawberry jam on his toast.’

  ‘Kevin, Mum wants to know if you are you intending on—’

  ‘Yes, Chuck, you tell your mother that’s exactly what I am intending.’

  ‘Charlie, tell Jess to stop spilling the Coco-Pops all over the floor and ask Kevin what he intends the rest of us should eat on our toast.’

  ‘Jess, get your hand out of the cereal box. Kevin, what are your intentions as per the rest of our breakfasts?’

  ‘I haven’t really given much consideration to the rest of the family, Chucko.’

  ‘There’s a purple dinosaur in here somewhere, I swear to you. Tell Mum about the purple dinosaur.’

  ‘Mum, Kevin says he hasn’t considered us and Jess wants the purple dinosaur.’

  ‘Charlie, ask Jess if she is four years old, and please tell your father that his tie looks ridiculous with that shirt.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this tie? I love this tie. You gave me this tie. You love this tie! What’s wrong with this tie?’

  As you will see, my dad just broke through the pipeline to defend his tie.

  I just asked Brian if I should come by the station and give a statement about my general impressions of the chick on the phone, to help them catch her, plus some suggestions about protocol for future pranks like that. Eg, they should install phone-tracing machines in all school offices. If I could have switched on a tracer I could have tracked down the prankster while we were talking. Although that is assuming I would have known she was a prankster, which I did not.

  Anyhow, Brian just told me to piss off and stop being a nancy boy.

  See you

  Charlie

  CHARLIE

  THIS IS AN EMPTY ENVELOPE AGAIN.

  YOURS SINCERELY

  EMILY

  PS I HAVE TO PUT IN THE NOTE ABOUT IT BEING AN EMPTY ENVELOPE SO YOU CAN FEEL THE TRUE MISERY OF THE EMPTINESS. SO THEREFORE IT DOES NOT MAKE IT ANY LESS AN EMPTY ENVELOPE JUST BECAUSE THERE IS A NOTE.

  Dear Emily

  Actually, I think it does make it less of an empty envelope, but I won’t go into technicalities with you. How long are you going to keep up the empty envelopes?

  I am leaving school right this moment and I’m skipping my curry chicken pie to go see the cops at Castle Hill, despite what Brian said. I think they have to stop people who play cheap tricks—if we’re always going out to the oval on account of gas leaks in schools without gas, that could be the end of education as we know it. And therefore the end of the future. Do you want to know what happens with the cops or do you want me to stop writing?

  Charlie

  CHARLIE

  HERE IS ANOTHER EMPTY ENVELOPE. I WILL KEEP IT UP FOR MY WHOLE LIFE IF I NEED TO.

  EMILY

  PS PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU WENT TO THE POLICE ABOUT THE GAS LEAK. BUT YOU STILL CAN’T EXPECT ANYTHING OTHER THAN MISERY FROM ME.

  Dear Emily

  I am wondering what I can do to expect anything besides misery from you. It makes me feel depressed the way you keep sending misery to me. Like a kind of extra bu
rden in my heavy life.

  I remember one time when I was two years old and my mum left me with my brother Brian—I told you I had a supersonic memory, eh. I guess Brian was about twelve or thirteen at the time and he forgot about me and watched TV all night. Oh man, I was just stuck in Brian’s bedroom where he forgot me, too short to open the door and get out, hungry, cold, the noise of my own voice calling ‘LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT’ giving me a full-on headache. The smell of Brian’s sneakers making me sick to my stomach. I can’t even tell you.

  That was a bad time. And now this time in my life feels even worse than that.

  Eg, I just got my latest Geography assignment back, and, by the way, I worked really hard at that. And I got 23% and the teacher wrote, ‘Wow, Charlie, you outdid yourself!’, which I don’t think teachers should be, sarcastic and critical like that.

  2nd eg: when I went to the cops, nothing happened. Brian was there and he just made me wait for two hours, which meant I missed out on this car show I was going to and, which I now find out, has moved on to Melbourne, so I’ve missed it forever, unless there’s a plane ticket under this paper right now. No there is not, I just checked. And in the end, all Brian did was tell me to stand at the counter and write down my account of the incident. Which I did and then I gave it to Brian and he wrote something at the end of it, and told me I should sign my name there, and I looked at it, and he’d written ‘NANCY BOY’.

  Then he just made it into a twin-engined paper aircraft and flew it into the bin.

  And the fact is, I had some pretty good impressions I wrote down on that paper and they could have helped them catch the perp. For an example:

  • The chick had a funny way of saying the letters ‘th’. Like in the word ‘the’. Not exactly a lisp, but something a bit distinctive and kind of cute.