About Cassidy Bond
With my embarrassing dad, pregnant mum, loser brother and knicker-chewing dog, I’m practically INVISIBLE in my family. So even though starting Year Seven is totally NAIL-BITING, I’m *hoping* this is my time to shine. Because guess what?
We had to take this test at school, and I am officially GIFTED AND TALENTED. It’s a bit weird as I picked my answers at random, but the school wouldn’t make a mistake about my GENIUS…would they?
For the pupils of Oakmere Primary School and The Wroxham School, who know READING TOTALLY ROCKS.
Contents
About Cassidy Bond
Dedication
Chapter One
Page torn out of “The Universal Ordering Service”
Chapter Two
Page torn out of “Love the Life You Live!”
Chapter Three
Email to Crazy Pet Vets
Chapter Four
Possible “St Jude’s Has Got Talent” Talents
Chapter Five
Five Signs He’s The One
Chapter Six
Letter from 10 Downing Street
Chapter Seven
Ways to Impress Nathan
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Ten Freaky Animal Facts
Chapter Eleven
More Quiz Queen Factoids
Chapter Twelve
Cassie’s Fact-o-rama
Chapter Thirteen
Letter from St Jude’s Academy
Chapter Fourteen
Email to Clever Clogs
Chapter Fifteen
Reasons I Hate Life
Email from Junior Mastermind
Chapter Sixteen
To-Do List
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Reasons To Be Cheerful
Chapter Twenty
Sneak preview of Completely Cassidy – Star Reporter
Meet Tamsyn Murray
More from Usborne Fiction
Copyright
Chapter One
My life is a joke. Actually, that’s not true – it’s too TRAGIC to be funny – but it IS a total disaster. You might think that I sound a teensy bit DRAMA-QUEEN-ISH here but that’s only because you don’t know the full horror. You see, tomorrow is my first day at secondary school and already I know I am going to be the girl everyone points at, laughing. Honestly, it will be worse than the time I accidentally flashed my bobbly grey pants in assembly when I was five and earned the nickname MISS NAPPY KNICKERS for a whole year, and that was bad enough.
For a start, I have the most ridiculous name in the history of names – I mean, who calls their baby girl CASSIDY? My parents, that’s who, although it’s not as bad as MOON UNIT, which is what some old rock star called his daughter. Parents should have to submit their name choices to some kind of baby-name court before they are allowed to put them on the birth certificate. It would save a lot of teasing later on. Still, it’s all very well starting primary school with a weird name – everyone is too busy with the play-dough to take much interest – but secondary school is different. I don’t want to think about how many sniggers there’ll be when the very first register is called.
I’d probably be able to cope if that was the end of THE NIGHTMARE; it isn’t. Even worse than having the world’s stupidest name is the disgusting school blazer I am expected to wear. Seriously, it’s so ENORMOUS that my fingertips are barely visible at the end of the sleeves and the shoulders look like something the Eighties threw out. In fact, it used to fit my brother, Liam, and since he is a fourteen-year-old GIGANTOR and I am eleven, this is a total disaster. There is a big hole in the lining of the inside pocket which is just waiting for me to lose things through. And then there’s the smell of mouldy old grass and stinky feet.
I SUPPOSE I should be grateful that it doesn’t stink as badly as Liam does but silver linings are hard to find when you smell like THE GIRL THAT DEODORANT FORGOT.
Mum doesn’t seem to care. I’ve been telling her for weeks that I needed a new uniform but she didn’t listen to me. Honestly, it’s like I’m not even there sometimes. So of course we didn’t go to the uniform shop until the last weekend of the holidays and they had no small blazers left. And still Mum didn’t seem bothered, not even when she saw Liam laughing and my bottom lip wobbling – she just rubbed her MASSIVE BABY BUMP in a tired way and said, “Stop blubbing, Cassie. It won’t kill you to wear Liam’s old one for a few days.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that – technically she is right. I’m not likely to die from wearing Liam’s cast-offs (although there is a suspiciously gloopy substance in one pocket that looks like it could be a BIOHAZARD) but it’s not going to win me any coolness points either. In fact, she might as well have tattooed a gigantic L on my forehead. It’s at times like these I wish I was an orphan – not Oliver Twist, obviously. A rich one and preferably royal.
Anyway, you see my problem? I tried texting Molly and Shenice for advice but they were worse than useless. Molly suggested folding the sleeves back like she saw in last month’s GLITZ magazine. I told her it might work with a sassy little on-trend blazer but a one hundred per cent polyester IRON-EZE special was more resistant to fashion adjustments. Shenice replied that there were kids in Africa without any clothes who would love to have my blazer problems. Maybe I can offer to donate it to COMIC RELIEF. They could probably use it as a tent.
I know exactly what you’re going to say – why don’t I tell my mum I have developed a HORRIFICALLY CONTAGIOUS disease and thus avoid school? Well, I was thinking of that, too, when I bumped into Liam on the landing. He looked me up and down and sniggered.
“The Incredible Hulk called. He wants his blazer back.”
Then he went into his room, smirking like he was Windsor’s answer to Michael McIntyre, and completely missing the fact that he’d just insulted himself. He is such a moron. I’m sure you totally see why I hate him – even the Dalai Lama would find it hard to like him and it’s his job to love everyone. Shenice’s half-brother is seventeen and he brings her loads of cool stuff when he comes round, plus he lets her listen to PARENTAL ADVISORY songs. All Liam does is make stupid jokes about me and moans when Mum and Dad make him babysit. If he thinks I’m a pain to have around, he should wait until the twins arrive. Molly said she saw her little cousin wee into his dad’s face when he was a baby, so I am really hoping the twins will be on my side in THE WAR OF THE SIBLINGS.
By the time I’d stopped pulling faces at his closed door and gone downstairs, Mum had just finished stitching my name into the rest of my new uniform. She didn’t buy the illness thing.
“Cassidy Bond, you do not have malaria,” she snapped when I reeled off the symptoms I’d looked up online. “And stop going on about your blazer. It doesn’t smell that bad. Roll the sleeves up if they’re too long.”
It’s alright for her, she’s six months pregnant – NOTHING is too big for her. But she looked quite cross when I pointed that out so I decided not to mention that the badge is sewn on wonky as well. Pregnant women seem to be very grumpy – or maybe it is just my mum.
So now I am lying in bed, wishing it was always Saturday night and never Sunday and trying to think of another way to avoid school tomorrow. Maybe if I wish hard enough, a freak blizzard will appear out of nowhere, causing everyone to be snowed in and the school to be closed. That would be pretty cool. Who knows, I might have an undiscovered talent for controlling the weather – I’ve never actually tried it. Maybe I am secretly a
MUTANT, like the ones in the X-MEN movies. I wouldn’t mind so much if I was – I bet Wolverine never had to wear a badly fitting school uniform.
What my mum doesn’t seem to get is that I am REALLY worried about tomorrow and not just because of the THING THAT CANNOT BE NAMED (currently in a heap on my bedroom floor). I mean, I knew where I was at Westwood Primary – me, Shenice and Molly were BFFs from day one and, between us, we knew everyone. St Jude’s is much bigger and will be full of fun-poking strangers (apart from Liam and his stupid mates, who are so horrible that I wish I DIDN’T know them). What if I get lost? What if I look at one of the Year Tens funny and they thump me? What if I get so much homework that I don’t have time for my besties? Although now I come to think of it, Liam never seems to have that much homework but that’s because he reckons he’s going to be a rock star (ha ha) and doesn’t care about school. Dad said last week that Liam has to BUCK HIS IDEAS UP this year or his guitar will be confiscated. This can only be a good thing as far as I am concerned. It sounds like he is strangling next door’s cat when he plays it.
Molly and Shenice are worried, too, even though they are pretending not to be. We are putting what my dad calls “a brave face” on it and talking as though it will be the BEST THING EVER. I doubt we will survive the first day. In some ways, I hope I am vaporized by the scornful look of a passing Year Eleven. Then my parents will be sorry they made me wear THE BLAZER OF STINKY BIGFOOT. Oh yes, they will.
Chapter Two
I suppose I must have fallen asleep eventually because when I woke up, it was DD-DAY (which stands for DOOM AND DESPERATION DAY) and absolutely zero snowflakes had fallen while I slept. So much for the X-MEN theory. In fact, DD-DAY started exactly the way I’d expect the worst day of my life to start – with the gut-wrenching discovery that Rolo had eaten one of my brand-new school shoes. I mean, how typical is that? The first time I manage to persuade Mum to buy me a decent pair and my stupid dog has destroyed them.
“You shouldn’t have left them lying around,” Mum sniffed, when I showed her the gnawed remains of a patent leather ballet pump. “I told you when you asked for a puppy that Labradors like to chew things. Now you’ll have to wear the old ones. Or those sensible lace-ups Auntie Jane bought you.”
She said it like it is somehow my fault that we have a dog who eats everything from socks to soap bars. I mean, I admit he is my dog – we got him for my tenth birthday, back before we knew Mum and Dad were about to DOUBLE the number of mouths they had to feed. Back then I had this vague idea that Labradors played with toilet rolls all day and helped blind people cross the road.
ROLO was the only chocolate puppy in a litter of wishy-washy yellow ones and leaped enthusiastically all over his brothers and sisters to get to us. It wasn’t until we got him home and he taste-tested next door’s tabby that we realized we might have made a mistake. By then it was too late.
My old shoes are navy blue leather, with kittens embroidered on the front and I don’t mean in a retro HELLO KITTY way either. And the lace-ups from Auntie Jane make me feel about eighty. In other words, they are both a complete no-no for your first day at secondary school. Of course, my mother is completely oblivious to what is acceptable to the Year Seven fashionistas. A few minutes after her last ridiculous instruction, she waddled past looking for the car keys and threw me an impatient look. “Cassidy, you cannot stick those pumps together with sticky tape. Find the kitten ones, now. You don’t want to be late on your first day.”
Actually, I did. About seven hours late would have suited me fine but she pretended to have gone deaf when I said so. Liam was typically unsympathetic. He snorted when he saw my feet on the way to the car.
“If anyone asks, tell them you’re adopted, okay? I’ve got a rep to protect at ST CRUDE’S.”
I thought about telling him that I wish I WAS adopted but Mum was listening and she gets upset when I say that. For someone who claims to love me, she doesn’t seem to show it. If she really cared, she’d let me stay at home today.
And for the next seven years.
So, as you’ve probably guessed, Mum made me go. She went all misty-eyed when we got to the school gates, insisting on hugging AND kissing me goodbye – I think she’d have come into the actual playground if I’d let her. It’s a good thing the twins are on their way; maybe when she has real babies to look after, she’ll stop treating me like one. Things didn’t improve when we got to registration. I thought I’d die of shame as I gazed around at the pristine blazers of my new classmates and wondered if they’d noticed my slightly frayed lapel and AROMA OF TEENAGE BOY. I wouldn’t blame them for laughing behind my back – combined with the kittens, I wasn’t exactly looking my best. But no one said anything nasty, not even when the register was called, although I’m grateful to JUSTIN TYME for taking most of the heat there. It helped that Shen and Molly and me seem to be in all the same classes, at least for now – they distracted me from my wardrobe disasters with a stream of silly comments and jokes. Honestly, they should have their own TV show or something – they are SO funny.
After registration, we moved rooms to English (YAY!) and maths (NOT SO YAY) and between my hilarious BFFs and the friendly teachers, I was amazed to realize our first morning was actually fun. I even managed to forget Liam’s existence until the beginning of lunchtime. We were in the queue for the canteen when I felt something block out the sun and looked up to see him looming over me.
“Alright, dweeb?” he said, and his idiot mates all sniggered like it was the funniest thing ever. “Embarrassed yourself yet?”
“Do I know you?” I asked.
He reached out and rubbed hard at my hair with his bony fist, the way he knows I hate. “Give us some of your dinner money.”
“Where’s yours?” I said, ducking out of reach with a scowl.
“I lost it.”
Huh, spent it on sweets more like. But his mates were all staring at me like I had six heads and it was making me uncomfortable. I wanted them to go away and there was only one sure-fire way to achieve that. Sticking my hand inside the safe pocket, not the RADIOACTIVE one, I pulled out my Minnie Mouse purse. “Mum won’t be happy about this.”
He took the money I held out and smiled. “Which is why you’re not going to tell her about it. Laters, dweeb.”
“It must be nice to have a big brother like Liam,” Molly said when he’d gone, staring after him with a weirdly wistful look on her face.
“Oh yeah, it’s BRILLIANT,” I replied, injecting the words with as much withering sarcasm as I could manage. “I especially love it when he leaves me with hardly any money to feed myself for the day.”
She let out a sigh. “But he totally cherishes you as his little sister, right? He’d be there for you when it mattered?”
Shenice and I exchanged looks. Molly is an only child in an otherwise big Greek family and she has strange ideas about what having siblings is really like – I’m sure she thinks we go off and have secret FAMOUS FIVE adventures when she’s not looking. She’s not allowed pets, either, so she goes nuts over Rolo. Folding my arms, I pretended to think about the question.
“Let’s see. If I was the one without any money, do you think he’d share what he had with me?”
She began to nod. I cut her off with a pitying look. “No, he would not.”
A soppy smile crossed her face. “He’s got great hair, though. And a cute smile.”
My jaw all but smashed into the concrete at our feet – when had she ever seen Liam smiling? He hardly comes out of his room when my friends are round and wears a permanent sneer if he does. “Molly Papadopoulos, you are not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
Molly looked guilty. “What? I’m just saying he’s not a bad-looking boy. It doesn’t mean I want to get married or anything.”
“Sounds to me like you fancy him,” Shenice said in a sing-song voice. “Molly lo-oves Liam!”
“I don’t!” Molly squeaked, turning redder than her packed lunch bag. “As if anyone would
fancy Cassidy’s smelly brother, anyway. I’d rather snog Mr Brundell. Yuck, yuck, yuckitty yuck.”
Mr Brundell was the ancient caretaker at our old school. I don’t know what was worse, Shenice’s off-key singing or Molly’s attraction to an OAP. Besides, it seemed like she was protesting a bit too much. NO ONE wants to kiss Mr Brundell, not even my mum, and they are practically the same age. Molly must have realized I was a bit freaked out, though. She didn’t say anything but she did buy me a Wham bar on the way home, which is the universal peace offering between the three of us. But it’ll take a lot more than a sugary bribe to make me forget her soppiness, I can tell you that.
Still, at least that was the worst thing to happen all day. And nobody picked on me, which was a definite plus. Tomorrow might be another matter entirely, which is a deeply depressing thought. Am I really expected to endure seven whole years of the same TORTURE? It’s inhuman. There should be a law against it. In fact, I might write to the Prime Minister right now. In Victorian times, children didn’t have to go to school, they were allowed to get a job instead. I’m not saying I want to be a chimney sweep (although have you seen MARY POPPINS? It looks like fun) but it would be nice to have the option. Surely making important decisions like that is what being Prime Minister is all about?
Things took a nosedive when I got home. Mum had left my bedroom door open when she’d been getting my washing and Rolo must have followed her because there were muddy paw prints and blobs of grass-filled puke all over my duvet cover. It just about sums my life up. Seriously, Hagrid, when are you getting here with my invitation to Hogwarts? WHEN????
Chapter Three
I’m not one hundred per cent sure that I’m not still asleep and dreaming this but I THINK I might have survived the first week of St Crude’s without any major disasters. True, there was one slightly embarrassing moment when I tripped up in front of a big group of Year Nine boys and they chanted “She fell over!” until we were out of earshot but since that’s the kind of thing that happens to me all the time, it hardly counts. Even more astonishingly, Mum seemed to notice that I’ve been STRESSY MCSTRESSED and asked if I wanted a sleepover with Molly and Shenice on Friday night. This never happens, unless it is my birthday, because of an unfortunate incident a few years ago involving Mum’s straighteners and Molly’s ringlets. I don’t know why everyone got so upset – they grew back eventually, although the straighteners never quite lost the singed smell.
Completely Cassidy – Accidental Genius (Completely Cassidy #1) Page 1