Yours Troolie, Alice Toolie

by Kate Temple

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Oh, don’t do that. This week is Waste Free Week. So no-one is allowed to bring disposable plastic stuff to school this whole week (did you forget?). That’s why my mum has been wrapping my sandwiches all week in those amazing paper origami boxes! So anyway, no need to bring all those nasty plastic cups! It’s a good idea for you to be in charge of cups, though. I’ll bring the lemonade. Can’t wait :)

  Also, I made this SOOO cute sign for the stall!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  So today is the big day! I think I’ve solved the cup problem. At first, I was pretty worried about how we could have a lemonade stand without disposable cups, so I talked to my mum and asked her what I should do about the cups since we’re not allowed to bring any throwaway cups to school this week. Well, my mum was pretty keen to help. She knows I’ve been down about losing the ghost, so she decided to cheer me up by letting me have this awesome coffee mug that Dad gave her one Christmas but she never uses. On the outside it says, I LOVE YOU, and then at the bottom of the mug there’s this picture of a bum and it says FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART. Kids are going to love it!

  Did you make the (sugar-free, lemon-free) lemonade (a.k.a water)?

  Yours terrifically

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  I made the lemonade and I’m really happy with how it turned out. It does taste a little bit like water (since that’s the only ingredient), but I’m pretty sure the cute sign I made and these fun hats I’ve got for us to wear will totally make up for it.

  It’s going to be a HUGE success—pretty much everything I do always is :) Time to shine!

  Dear Alice,

  Let’s do this!

  Yours shiningly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Well, that was a disaster! Total disaster! First we lose Ghosty, and now this! We only made $3!!!! :( :( :( :( And I’ll have you know I am not used to disasters. Not at all. Not one bit! Every time I do anything with you, it always turns into a catastrophe!

  So… I blame you. Seriously.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  P.S. Here’s an angry face emoji I just invented :[ ($400 if you want to use it.)

  Dear Alice,

  $3! That’s fantastic! I thought we’d make nothing after Conrad started telling everyone the lemon-free, sugar-free lemonade was just water. It probably wasn’t a great idea to set the stall up RIGHT next to the bubblers where the water is free (your idea, not mine). The only reason we even made three dollars is because of my amazing mug. Once word got out about how great the mug was, pretty much everyone wanted a turn. Everyone is still talking about how great the mug is, so I think it’s a total success. Also, we made a lot more than $3, you’re just not counting it right.

  Yours brightly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Of course I am counting it right. You do know that I won the state counting championships last year after I counted to 8,739,322? So it’s pretty easy for me to count to 3! 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. That’s how much money we made: $3. I am not counting all the stuff you let people trade for a sip from your stupid mug.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Well, you really should be counting all that stuff. Trading is just another way of paying for stuff. It’s totally legal. In the olden days when there were pirates and Vikings and stuff, that’s exactly how people bought things. If you wanted to buy a hat and you didn’t have any money, you would trade something else, like an electric eel or a box of gunpowder, stuff like that. So if you count up what we REALLY made from our sugar-free, lemon-free lemonade stand, it’s actually heaps:

  3 dollars

  1 large ball of glue-tack

  4 sparkle hairclips

  2 yoghurt squeezies

  5 ants (I think they got away)

  1 real cocoon (probably containing a giant spotted moth)

  6 marbles

  1 coffee cup with eyes drawn on it

  2 really good sticks

  3 cute erasers in the shape of cupcakes

  So if you don’t think that’s a success, then you don’t know what success is! This is literally the first time I’ve been happy since the ghost was imprisoned!

  Yours successfully,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Fine then. Go to Petz4You and buy some dog shampoo with your big ball of glue-tack. I bet you wouldn’t dare!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Ha! That’s where you are WRONG, Alice Toolie. I would dare. I would totally dare. That’s because I know for a fact that there are three ways to buy things, and this is true in real life:

  Money

  Trading

  Post Stamps

  A lot of people (YOU) don’t actually know this stuff, and they just think money is the only way to buy things, but that’s not actually true. Because I’m quite the explorer, I make it my business to know all the different ways you can buy stuff. One time, I even bought an icy-pole for a bulldog clip and a pair of my dad’s socks. If I still had the ghost, I could probably trade it for a luxury helicopter … but I never would.

  Yours financially,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Well, as you probably know, something very bad has happened. Your mum called my mum last night. What did you tell her???

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Just how bad it is working together. How we’re both sad about losing the ghost. All the stuff we already agree on.

  Yours pleasantly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Well, now my mum is making me go with you and your mum to buy the dog shampoo after school tomorrow, which is bad enough. But then for some reason, our mums also decided that I should come over to your place afterwards for a play date! I told my mum that it was a SUPER bad idea, but she said it’s good to make new friends who have different interests.

  Apparently our mums are friends now, which is a real problem.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  This is a serious problem! If our mums are friends, we will have to see each other all the time. How will I ever be able to dig up a mummy, explore a volcano, or rescue MY ghost if I’m stuck tap-dancing like a jellyfish with you!

  Yours in SERIOUS concern,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  You think you’ve got problems! One time, my mum made friends with this other mum in the park who had these twin boys who ate sand and we had to spend a whole summer hanging out together. I went to the beach about 6 zillion times with them. It was soooo bad :( :(

  We have to stop our mums being friends.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  It will be very hard, impossible even. I told her how terrible you are, but my mum wouldn’t even listen! The more bad things I tell her about you, the more she likes you. Apparently she thinks that your sparkly pony/floating panda/bubble love heart/rainbow bunny influence is just what I need! I can’t talk her out of it and I REALLY tried.

  Yours in SERIOUS SERIOUS concern

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  SAME! I told my mum how much I don’t like all that weird fake explorer/olden days/stick carrying/messy hair/dirty shorts stuff that you do and she said it would be GOOD FOR ME to have a friend like you! We need to put an end to this NOW or our families will end up going on camping holidays together! We’ll end up at Yum Cha on Sundays! They’ll enrol us in Art Class together and organise JOINT birthday parties! We’ll go on Fun Runs and have sleepovers and weekend BBQs and go on pony rides together forever!
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  WE NEED TO STOP THIS NOW!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  There’s nothing I can do. My mum is so excited that you’re coming over that she even made me clean my room and go through my ENTIRE Legot collection and find all the girl characters, which was really hard because I’d put most of the girl heads on monster bodies and pulled off their arms and replaced them with robotic-looking arms so it took forever to put them back together. Anyway, she made me make a Legot scene with them that you might like so I’ve made a frozen yoghurt shop that’s run by ninjas.

  This is really going to get in the way of me hatching a plan to get the ghost back.

  See you after school, I guess.

  Yours reluctantly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Wait! I think I have a plan to save us. An amazing plan. If our mums want us to hang out because we’re so different, maybe we should pretend to like all the same stuff! Maybe we should pretend to be exactly the same! When I go to your house, I can pretend to be into the weird stuff you like and then your mum will never want me to come over again and then our mums won’t become best friends and ruin our lives!

  QUIXOTRY?

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  P.S. Are you REALLY hatching a plan to get the ghost back?

  Dear Alice,

  Total QUIXOTRY! Seriously genius! One of the best plans ever, it’s like something I’d come up with, it’s that good. My mum is totally expecting you to do all this girly stuff. She even made me get out some fancy paper with gold flowers on it in case you wanted to make an origami bear.

  Yours most impressed,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  P.S. No, of course I’m not REALLY hatching a plan to get the ghost ; )

  Dear Jimmy,

  Oooo! I love origami and special paper! But I have to stay focused and pretend to like all your weird stuff. This is too important. See you this afternoon

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  P.S. I love how you used the wink emoji! I totally got it. Tell me about the plan after school.

  Dear Alice,

  There’s good news and there’s bad news.

  First, the good news is: that was a super great play date! At first I wasn’t sure your plan was going to work, but then when we went to Petz4You and you tried to pay for the dog shampoo with that glob of plastic-clay and a half a jelly-snake … my mum was so confused! I would totally do that!

  (I actually think the Petz4You lady should have accepted it because plastic-clay can be really expensive and it was a pretty good deal.) Also the giant hole we dug in the backyard was totally awesome. My mum is always getting cross at me for digging massive holes in the garden but she didn’t get cross with you there, plus you did find a real Ancient Egyptian necklace so she should be grateful. Also it was pretty awesome when the Legot yoghurt shop was attacked by space ninjas and block meteors.

  The bad news is that my mum likes you even more now and thinks we have HEAPS in common and says that’s why we argue because we’re actually so alike. Also I didn’t think you were very supportive of my plan to set the ghost free.

  Yours regretfully,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  What a disaster! I can’t believe I had to dig that big hole for nothing, although it was nice that your mum let me keep that necklace I found :) My mum said it was just plastic, but I checked on Google and I’m pretty sure it’s real Ancient Egyptian, so it’s worth about 5 million dollars or something.

  Anyway, I told my mum that the whole visit to your place was terrible and she said I looked like I was having a great time when she got there! And your mum told my mum we were laughing the whole time! And my mum said she’d never seen me so muddy! And your mum said we had so much fun! And my mum said it was great that we were friends! And then your mum said we should do it again!

  This is the problem with being SOOOOO good at drama! Everyone believed my performance because it was so good, when the REAL truth was that underneath all the fun, I was actually having a really, REALLY bad time. Now they’ve organised ANOTHER play date for the Dog Wash at my house on Saturday.

  I hope you’re good at acting so that my mum thinks you’re just like me and they stop trying to get us to be friends.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  P.S. I’m sorry I wasn’t that supportive of your so-called ‘Rescue Plan’, but I’m pretty sure that tunnelling under the school in an atomic submarine with a giant claw isn’t going to get the ghost back.

  Dear Alice,

  My plan was awesome. You’re probably just jealous because you don’t know how to operate an atomic submarine.

  Anyway, it will be extremely hard to pretend to like all the boring stuff you like, BUT as a world famous explorer, I am always up for a challenge and I never give up. Also, should we make an ad so that people in your neighbourhood know we’re having a Dog Wash to raise money for the school fete?

  Yours considerately,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  An ad is actually a really good idea :) I made this one last night and put it all over the neighbourhood.

  I think it’s going to be huge! See you tomorrow and remember, don’t be yourself! Be me!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Don’t worry. I’ve been practising. Instead of working on my great plan to rescue the ghost, I watched a whole episode of Princess Snow Cone with my baby sister yesterday. Also Mum says it’s nice to bring a gift when you go to someone’s house and I’m pretty great at coming up with ideas for that. One time I had a sleepover at Lucas Terrazzo’s house, and I brought the family a cactus that I dressed up with pipecleaners to look like an octopus and called it a CACTOPUS. It was pretty great and I think Mr and Mrs Terrazzo really appreciated it, but then Lucas Terrazzo left it on the sofa and his dad sat on it and I had to go home after that.

  Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow and I’ll bring something YOU would bring for your mum.

  Yours cunningly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Jimmy! I brought our letter book home so that we can write messages to each other while you’re at my house so MY mum can’t spy on what we are saying. Also I don’t want her to hear us having fun, so just write everything down. That way she’ll think we’re really bored!

  Good idea. I can tell you about my new plan to rescue the ghost involving a giant crane made of cheese.

  Speaking of good ideas, do you think your mum liked my gift? It’s a sock bouquet; I rolled up socks so they look like a bunch of flowers … but made of socks!

  It was a good idea and something I would definitely do, but I would have used cute socks that were clean Were those your dad’s old socks?

  It’s actually like a giant pink sparkle monster exploded and then little sparkly bacteria grew everywhere and then evolved into another giant pink sparkle monster and then THAT exploded. That’s what it’s like. Also, why is there a teeny tiny little purple door in the corner? Is that for a pet mouse?

  Cool! I totally need one of those. Does it work? Do you have an infestation of fairies?

  Also, you have the biggest collection of Best Friends Brickies ever! You’ve even got the Cupcake Hospital!

  We can’t wash Emperor Fluffy Pants because he’s still asleep on my head!

  I’ll put him down in the fluffy teepee castle we made him and we can go and wash all the dogs that will be waiting outside. Let’s go!

  I don’t think there’s any dogs waiting! I just looked out the window. Also my mum wants to know why we’re so quiet. I told her it’s because we’re soooo bored and you keep playing with all my toys.

  Great answer. Adults hate it when kids say they’re bored. I actually do like most of your toys, particularly this Cupcake Hospital, but it would be even cooler if it was invaded by s
pace bushrangers with lasers … anyway, let’s wash some dogs!

  Let’s check if we have everything first. Dog shampoo?

  Why isn’t anyone coming with their dogs? :( I put the signs up all over the street!

  I’m sure they’ll come. Everyone wants their dog washed. While we wait, I’ll just play with the Cupcake Hospital a bit more …

  Okay, it’s been ages. You might be used to sitting around eating your mum’s delicious jam scones and waiting for dogs to drop on your lap, but a world famous captain like me knows that if you want something, you have to go and get it.

  So let’s stop waiting around for dogs to wash and go get a dog! I think I saw one next door.

  Dear Jimmy,

  Well, I hope you know that your visit got me in quite a lot of trouble and it wasn’t just because you told my mum about your stupid plan to rescue the ghost with a crane made of cheese :( :( :( :( :( As it turns out, the dog that we washed wasn’t actually a dog. It was a cat. I told you it was a cat, but you kept saying that it was just a French Bulldog. Well, it wasn’t, and it wasn’t just ANY old cat—it was an assistance cat that belongs to Mrs Toddleduck, my neighbour. (You probably don’t even know what an assistance cat is but it’s a cat that helps you with stuff like telling you when the phone is ringing.)