Finding Cassie Crazy

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  (b) We’re allowed to ask each other THREE questions, only they can’t be questions about what we look like. Just questions that we think will help us to identify the other person’s soul.

  Tell me if you agree with the rules or not.

  Lydia

  Dear Lydia

  The only thing I don’t like about your rules is that the person who wins has to leave the café. Why is that? Why can’t the person who wins get to sit down with Lydia and have a coffee with her and get to know her?

  I’m enclosing a photo of my left ankle. It’s going in for a tackle, which will lead to me getting control of the ball and making a beautiful pass, leading to a goal being scored. The guy who’s got the ball and is about to lose it to my brilliant piece of footwork is my good buddy Charlie Taylor. He’s a great guy but a really crap soccer player.

  I’ll answer your three questions but not until you agree that we get to stop and talk before I walk out of there, leaving you heartbroken with nothing but your red rose.

  Seb

  Dear Seb

  I already made the rules. Trust me, you’ll be glad to have the opportunity to leave when you see what I look like.

  Here are my questions:

  1. How do you take your coffee?

  2. What is your favourite song at the moment?

  3. Do you smoke?

  Catch ya

  Lydia

  Dear Lydia

  1. Black.

  2. I haven’t got one but I like Tom Waits.

  3. No.

  I’ll give you some time to think about the answers before I send my questions. I seriously don’t know what use my answers will be to you. Maybe you’re thinking of playing a song on the jukebox and then looking around to see if anybody in the café looks happy when they hear it? Ingenious.

  Wait until you see my questions.

  Watch and learn.

  Seb

  Dear Lydia

  Okay, it’s me again. Here are my questions:

  1. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody cut it down, why did it fall?

  2. If you were an astronaut and you noticed that your spaceship was running out of petrol and the nearest petrol station was on Venus, would you:

  (a) scream and get upset?

  (b) convert to solar power?

  (c) go to Venus and get petrol?

  3. Who won the 1998 World Cup?

  I still say we should change the rules and stay and talk.

  Seb

  Seb

  Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get a cold. The rules can’t be changed.

  Your questions are intriguing but you must have a master plan because I know what kind of an undercover spy you are.

  1. Why did the tree fall if no one cut it down? Because it got struck by lightning. That happened to me once and I fell over. It was the shock.

  2. (b)

  3. I haven’t got a clue who won the World Cup in 1998. Do you actually need me to find the answer to that question? Do you not know?

  Dear Lydia

  DO I NOT KNOW?

  You want to know every finalist, semi-finalist and quarter-finalist ever in the World Cup, FA Cup and European Champions League? I’m your guy.

  I asked that question for a reason, Lydia: a person who knows who won the ’98 World Cup will have a kind of shine in their eyes, which I would recognise right off across the floor of the Blue Danish.

  I now know that you will have the flat, sad, lost eyes of the person who doesn’t know who won. That makes my challenge harder because the café will be full of girls like that.

  Out of interest, what kind of perfume do you wear and if you choose anything to eat at the Blue Danish, what would you normally choose? Also, what kind of shoes do you wear and what colour is your hair?

  Seb

  Seb

  The winner of the 1998 World Cup was France.

  See you tonight.

  Lyd

  *Stands for Arse-Kicking Agent.

  PART 13

  AUTUMN TERM

  CASSIE AND

  MATTHEW

  Dear Matthew Dunlop

  Okay, I give up. What do you do to people you don’t like? I asked around at school but most people hadn’t heard of you. Bindy Mackenzie said she thinks she’s heard of you and she thinks you’re a trumpet player. I asked her what you do to people you don’t like and she said maybe you play the trumpet really loud in their ear.

  But she was just trying to be funny.

  Em says I’m not allowed to talk to Bindy Mackenzie any more.

  I went to counselling again last night and the counsellor played some applause for Mum and me. She had a whole tape full of applause and all three of us sat in her corduroy couches and listened to cheering, clapping, whooo!, whistling etc.

  It’s hot today, eh? I was thinking there should be like a tribunal or something you can complain to when the weather is incorrect for the season. It’s autumn. There should be crisp air and orange leaves. Lydia is sick at home with the flu and that’s the kind of thing that happens when the season gets the weather wrong.

  ‘Any complaints, take them up with the management,’ is what my dad used to say when it rained on a netball day. Actually, he stole the line from Lydia’s dad; he heard Lyd’s dad say it one time and he thought it was clever.

  The counsellor said it was called cheer therapy, making us listen to the applause.

  ‘That’s excellent,’ Mum said, politely, when it finally ended.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the counsellor, proudly. ‘I made it myself.’

  Then Mum leaned back in the corduroy chair and tapped her nose with her finger. ‘So, what you’re telling me,’ she said, ‘is that you clapped and cheered like that onto your tape recorder?’

  The counsellor laughed and said, ‘No! No! What I did was, I got out some of my live music CDs and I taped the clapping at the end of the songs! A whole collection of it!’

  ‘Not opposed to a little copyright infringement then, are we?’ Mum said. The counsellor laughed a bit nervously and said, ‘I hardly think anyone’s going to know . . .’

  And Mum said, ‘Your concern is whether you’ll get caught, rather than whether you’ve broken the law? Interesting. Do you, by any chance, shoplift?’

  It was great. She went on like this for the rest of the session, and the counsellor kept trying to get control but then Mum would confuse her again with questions about which supermarkets she found had the least security etc.

  We pissed ourselves laughing the whole way home, and when we weren’t laughing we were shouting stupid things at other drivers like, ‘Are you, by any chance, a Volvo driver?’ and the drivers were scrunching up their faces at us trying to understand what we were saying, and mouthing, ‘What? What?’

  It was excellent.

  Mum hasn’t been writing any more letters to Dad so I guess I just have to tell you about myself myself.

  Love

  Cassie

  Cassie

  I swear to God if you don’t stop writing to me I’m coming around to your place to rip your eyeballs out.

  Matthew

  Dear Matthew

  Well, I have good eyesight. That’s one thing that I can tell you about me. I can see really well and sometimes when Mum’s driving at night time she can’t see a thing so I tell her where the road is. And the corners.

  When I was in first grade I had to wear glasses with a patch over one of the lenses, and that corrected my vision, so now, as I said, I have great vision.

  Em, Lyd and I skip a lot of classes, that’s the second thing I want to tell you about myself. Sometimes this is to go to the studio that Lyd’s mum owns. Lyd’s mum is never there—that’s the point of owning, she says—and she hangs out at home instead, watching soap operas, as she is a former TV star herself.

  Also, we have an obsession with going to the movies and we go every Thursday after lunch because we have double Maths then.

  We got into some trouble about this last year, so
we are very careful these days. Also, we try to avoid skipping Science classes and that’s on account of an event which I want to tell you about.

  Well, the event went this way.

  We had this Science teacher called Ms Ralph in Year 7. She was like straight from teachers college and that’s when they’re overexcited, you know, when they want everyone to love them and they want to try out experimental discipline techniques.

  And her name, as I said, was Ms Ralph.

  So she was on the back step to start with or whatever that expression is.

  It was coming up to the half-yearlies and everyone was really stupid. Like saying that the moon is inhabited by tadpoles that produce carbon dioxide. So Ms Ralph got into a panic, thinking we were all going to fail, and we were, but it wasn’t her fault.

  So, she split us up into groups and arranged lunchtime sessions for each group. Everyone got pretty annoyed about having to do Science at lunch, but Ms Ralph said it would be like a party and we’d chat and have fun, and please, please come or you’re all going to fail.

  Our lunchtime session was the first one, and the group was me, Emily, Lydia and this guy, Vincent. But we had History first that day and we couldn’t stop sighing, so after History we just walked through the reserve to the train station.

  As soon as the train doors closed Lydia remembered the Science class at lunchtime and said maybe we should go back. But Em and I said we’d already paid for our train tickets.

  So we went to the movies and got back to the school just in time for the end-of-day roll call, which is what we do.

  And then I overheard some people laughing about Ms Ralph, how they saw her sitting in the science lab all by herself at lunchtime that day, and she was surrounded by pizzas and chocolate crackles and cans of Coke.

  And I said, ‘What about Vincent, wasn’t he there?’

  And they said, ‘Vincent? He’s got chickenpox all over his entire body even under his hair and in his private parts.’

  So then, the three of us were like: ‘Oh no, poor Ms Ralph.’

  Except that Lyd said, ‘And I even said we should go back, remember?’ Em and I got a bit annoyed and said she didn’t exactly try to make us, and she said she did, and I said how were we supposed to know that Vincent was sick, and Em said that she knew he had chickenpox but she forgot.

  So Lyd and I were mad with Em for not telling us about Vincent, and Lyd was mad with Em and me for not listening to her, and Em and I were mad with Lyd for making us feel guilty.

  We stopped talking to each other for ONE WHOLE MONTH. It was like the world turned into a strange place, walking around and seeing Em or Lyd and they were not Em and Lyd any more, they were mean strangers with weird little smiles.

  It all ended when I found Emily crying behind the tennis court, and I said, ‘Wait right where you are’ and I ran and got Lydia, and we both comforted Em, and she kept on crying and saying, ‘When will the secret assignments start again?’

  Lydia said, ‘You will both get a secret assignment before the end of the day.’

  Which we did. And the secret assignment was: ‘Go to Lydia’s Place This Weekend and We Will All Bake a Cake Together to Give to Ms Ralph to Say Sorry.’

  So we did that.

  And Ms Ralph was so happy about the cake that she had sparkly tears in her eyes and wanted to hug us, and then Lyd got 95% in her Science exam because she does that kind of thing when she feels like it, and Ms Ralph loved us even more.

  I should let you go now.

  The counsellor asked me if I’d found a nice person to talk to about myself and I said yes, a trumpet player named Matthew Dunlop, and I am telling him the Stories of My Life.

  So she played some applause for me.

  Love

  Cassie

  Cassie

  After I rip your eyeballs out, I’m breaking your fingers one at a time.

  Matthew

  Dear Matthew

  That is so strange because my fingers are the other thing that’s good about me. They’re kind of freakishly long so I can play the piano and reach the interval of a tenth (major or minor), and I’m fairly good with locks, and that’s not showing off, it’s just lucky for me.

  Do you practise on your trumpet much?

  You can’t play the piano when your hands are cold and I’m just wondering if the same applies to the trumpet. I had a cat when I was little, named Giraffe because it had a weirdly long neck, and I used to make my hands warm by holding Giraffe before I played. She was like a hand-warmer.

  Last night the counsellor asked my mum and me what our greatest fears were and I said my greatest fear was failing my piano exam. It was a straight-out lie, especially because I’m taking a break from piano exams this year.

  I should tell you more about the counsellor. Her name is Claire, and she’s provided by my mother’s law firm. They signed Mum up for six months of free family counselling, which I think means that she’s not working as hard as she used to and they want to fix her up so she can keep making money for them.

  Claire wears bright colours that make you jump back a bit when you first walk into the room and I don’t think her face is interesting enough for so much colour. Her face disappears.

  I felt kind of guilty about lying to Claire’s invisible face. Telling her my greatest fear was failing piano. So later in the session, I told her something true. I told her that I can’t stop thinking about putting my right arm into the air.

  I think she thought I was making that up, like to play a joke on her. She looked at me very narrow-eyed and suspicious but the fact is, that part’s true. I can be eating my breakfast, or watching TV or doing homework and I’ll suddenly have this terrible wish to put my hand in the air.

  Sometimes, if I’m alone, I even do it. I actually stop playing the piano and put my hand up, you know, like some kid at school who wants to go to the bathroom. Then I feel really stupid, sitting there on the piano stool with my hand up, and I put it back down and keep playing.

  Do you think I’m crazy? I’m pretty sure that Claire did.

  Love

  Cassie

  Cassie

  I’m getting really tired of thinking up threats for you.

  Matthew

  Dear Matthew

  Are you?

  The other night I told Claire that you and me have a rapport. ‘Me and Matthew are developing a real rapport,’ I said, and then I told her we had formed a band and we were playing music together, on account of your trumpet playing and my piano playing.

  There’s a lot of violent imagery in your mind. Do you watch too much TV and/or play too many violent video games and/or eat too much food with red colouring?

  I read the other day that you should eat more cabbage. Matthew Dunlop should eat more cabbage. That’s what I read.

  My mother is a copyright lawyer for her occupation. She works at a law firm which is practically the number one law firm in the city of Sydney, maybe number two.

  Woohoo! as Claire would say. Emily’s mum works there, too, but she’s a partner.

  Now I wish I hadn’t told Claire about the hand in the air thing. I’m going to have to think up a reason for it, because she keeps asking questions about it.

  Grandma Matilda visited us the other day. She’s my mother’s mother, and she told me I’m looking a bit sharp-featured. Mum told me I could insult her back in any way I wanted, and then they both waited patiently for me to think of an insult but I just shook my head at them in disbelief.

  It’s getting cold, eh?

  Good. It’s autumn. It’s meant to be cold.

  Lots of love

  Cassie

  Cassie

  Your last letter? I put it through the shredding machine.

  Write to me again? The same thing will happen to you.

  Matthew

  Hey Matthew

  That took you a week and I have to say, it wasn’t up to your normal standard. You used to answer like WHAM. Like a lightning strike.

  You
don’t have to, if you don’t want to, you know: I mean, threaten me. You could just tell me how your day’s going, or how your sinuses are, or, I don’t know, write a poem.

  Feel free.

  One good thing is that I thought of a way to stop Claire asking about my hand-in-the-air condition. I told her that sometimes I feel like I’m drowning. Claire kind of breathed out in a slow, loving, sympathetic way, and my mother looked at me sideways, but I just shrugged and said, ‘It’s not a big deal, it’s just how I feel sometimes,’ and then changed the subject.

  I’ll see how long it takes for Claire to make the connection. Oh, you feel like you’re drowning, eh? So you feel like you need to put your hand in the air, like indicating to the lifesaver to come rescue you!

  That will surely occur to her soon.

  Love

  Cassie

  Hey Matthew

  Where are you?

  It’s hurting your brain trying to think up something threatening, eh? But don’t even worry. I am way scared of you, already. I feel threatened. Relax.

  But listen, Claire wants to know about YOU. It’s my new homework. You remember that my first homework was to find a new friend (I found you) and tell him/her all about myself ? Well, now I have to find out about the friend. Claire wants to know what you plan to be when you leave school and what’s the worst thing that ever happened to you and what you love most in the world.

  I think that Claire’s probably a genius. She’s teaching me to be a listener, see? That’s way important.

  Come on, you owe me.

  Cass

  Hey Matthew

  Well, I guess I can just keep writing without you writing back. That’s fine and it’s not really that different to how it was before. Although before I felt like I was playing squash against a big brick wall. Every time I whacked the squash ball over to Brookfield, it would hit the brick wall and come back SMACK in my face. Whereas now it’s like the brick wall has just dissolved and it kind of makes my arm feel funny when I swing the racquet.