The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie
Page 12
But back to my childhood!
By the time I turned six, my family had moved eleven times.
I have a few, shadowy memories of my life between the ages of three and six.
I remember, when I was four, looking at a rundown building with my dad and saying, ‘That house looks so crestfallen.’
Dad laughed and told me that the land was more valuable than the house. The very existence of the house, he said, reduced the value of the land.
‘So it’s an impediment?’ I said. ‘To your profit margin?’
Dad laughed again.
I remember the preschool teacher saying to my mother, in some awe, ‘Is she like this at home?’
I remember reading Around the World in Eighty Days, in a sandpit, and the glorious way it made me feel.
I remember my first asthma attack. I was five.
Dad was reading a newspaper, elbow on the kitchen table, chin resting on his fist. Each time he turned a page, he half stood up from his chair, so he wouldn’t have to move his chin from his fist.
I began to explain that it would make more sense if he simply changed his position, returning the elbow to—but I realised he was not listening.
Mum was at the sink, washing spinach. She turned the tap full-blast. Water rebounded and splashed her in the eyes. She jumped back in surprise and tripped over my father, who was standing up to turn a page.
Together they fell to the floor in a foolish tumble.
My brother, four at the time, saw this from the hallway, and took a flying leap. He landed on my father’s stomach. All three shouted with laughter.
I took large, careful steps over my family.
I stood on my toes, and turned off the tap. I tipped Dad’s chair upright. I stared at my family, wondering how to get them off the floor.
I started to wheeze. I began to cough.
I was pointing to my parents, to the sink, to the newspaper, and chair—but the more I tried to speak the more I coughed.
I grew out of asthma after several months, but some years later, it returned.
3. Bindy Mackenzie: the Year of the Fountain Pen (Hills District Primary, Year 2, Age 7)
DIARY ENTRY
Tuesday, 16 April
Dear Diary,
Have you met Anthony? He is my younger brother and he has dark brown hair. Anyway, Anthony has a headache today. Daddy said, ‘No, you don’t.’ Anthony said, ‘Yes, I do.’ Daddy said he has no respect for headaches. They don’t exist. Six-year-olds do NOT get headaches, he said. He said Anthony has to talk himself out of his head.
Later, I saw Mummy give Anthony a disprin. I don’t know if Daddy knows.
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 14 June
Dearest Diary,
I am learning to play the piano!!! My teacher is Penny and she’s fat but she’s really nice. My favourite part is the treble clef. And there are really, really interesting sentences for remembering the notes. They are:
• Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit.
• All Cows Eat Grass.
• Grandma Brings Doughnuts For All.
I keep saying the sentences to Anthony, and sometimes I get out apples, oranges, bananas, etcetera—(FRUIT, I mean), and say, ‘Every good boy deserves fruit, Anthony,’ in a serious voice and I give him the fruit. We both keep laughing. It’s funny.
DIARYENTRY
Wednesday, 7 August
Hi Diary,
I stayed home from school today. ‘Felt a bit under the weather.’ I started reading a book called Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I need to use the dictionary quite a lot and sometimes it’s confusing BUT it has a great atmosphere. I think it’s called gothic. Mummy gave me a book of crosswords. But they were too easy. I told her maybe I need cryptic crosswords instead because I wasn’t being challenged.
DIARYENTRY
Sunday, 1 September
Dear Diary,
Today Daddy let me help with the wallpaper!! He’s pulling it off my bedroom wall. But I said, ‘Daddy, it’s beautiful,’ because it’s got roses on it. But Daddy just laughed. My job was to go along in front of him with a bucket of water, and maybe some other product is in the water, and wipe a sponge over the paper to make it wet. I could not reach some bits so Dad did them. I got sopping wet. And then Daddy gave me a fountain pen to say ‘thank you’. It says Delta Hotel in 9-carat gold on the side.
DIARYENTRY
Tuesday, 15 October
Oh My Darling Diary,
I just had the WORST day of my life. I lost the fountain pen that Daddy gave me for being his special girl!!!! I was not ever going to lose it. I KNOW I left it at school, on the windowsill outside the music room, but Mum drove me back and it WASN’T THERE any more. SOMEONE MUST HAVE STOLEN IT.
I don’t know how I’m going to tell Dad. He will be so disappointed in me. I know it.
But he could not be as disappointed in me as I am in myself.
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 25 October
Hi Diary,
Well, I finally got brave enough to tell Dad about the fountain pen. He wasn’t mad at all!
He just said be careful with your stuff because I’m not made of money, ok. And then he said, You use fountain pens at school? Don’t you use pencils? And then I started explaining about how Miss Carmine only lets us use pencils but I’m allowed to use the fountain pen for special sometimes, because it’s special, only after big lunch and how I am the best at printing and we are all working on our posture, and we already did our pencil grip, and some kids need to work on their rounded letters, and I need to work on my pointed letters, and we get to do cursive now, sometimes, and all that.
Later on, Daddy said he wanted me to begin voice training, in addition to piano lessons, to help me modulate my voice.
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 20 December
Guess what, Diary,
Last day of school!!! I asked Miss Carmine for some extra work for the holidays so I could get a headstart on Year 3 but she just laughed and said, ‘Bindy, learn to relax!’
I have such a loose tooth. I’m scared of eating apples.
4. Bindy Mackenzie: the Triumphant Year (Hills District Primary, Year 3, Age 8)
DIARY ENTRY
Tuesday, 18 February
Dear Diary,
Today, Mum’s car won’t start and there’s a summer storm outside, so Mum said we could stay home from school. Dad said, ‘They won’t get an education staying home from school.’ But Mum said, ‘Okay, you drop them off. Your car works.’ And Dad said it’s too far out of his way. Mum said, ‘I’ll get the neighbours to give them a lift.’ (We don’t even know the neighbours. We just moved in.) So Dad went to work and Mum didn’t even think about asking the neighbours.
Mum’s now on the phone trying to get a business name registered. Anthony’s singing a song about telephone electrocution. He made it up. He tried to stop Mum using the phone because of the lightning, but she ignored him. So now he’s singing the song.
I’m here on the living room floor behind the couch.
I’m reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I don’t know what prejudice is yet, but Jane Austen seems quite witty.
BINDY MACKENZIE’S SPECIAL CLIPPINGS FILE
Hills News, Thursday, 27 February
Local student, Bindy Mackenzie, aged eight, has been awarded first place in the under-10 division of the Hills News ‘I Care about My World’ competition with her innovative design for a hat.
The hat has a broad, plastic rim which collects rainwater and funnels it into an attached drinking bottle. (See picture.)
‘I would like to thank my father,’ said Bindy, ‘for being an inspiration to me. He is a person who sees possibility lurking behind every shadow. He has taught me to be the same.’
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 2 May
BEST DAY EVER!! Won the School Spelling Bee. It is the first time that anyone from Year 3 has ever won it. The Year 6 girl who was runner-up ran out of the ro
om crying.
Also discovered William Faulkner. Such haunting prose.
BINDY MACKENZIE’S SPECIAL CLIPPINGS FILE
Sun-Herald, Monday, 16 June
Children’s Poetry Competition
A Reflection on Blue
Blue is the colour of my
Mum’s nail polish today
For a party trick,
She said.
Blue is the sea
But not always
It’s only the reflection of the sky
And the refraction of blue light
From the sun which is a
White ball of light containing each of the colours
Some of which
Are absorbed, including the colour red
And also the sea contains particles of dirt and
Plants and animals, dead and alive,
Which make it look a bit
Blue.
Blue is the Blue Mountains
Which my brother,
Anthony,
Can see from
His window
In his bedroom
If he stands
On his drum kit.
Blue is the way my friend
Toby
sometimes feels
because
other kids
call
him
fat
Even though he’s not
Really, not very,
And I said,
‘Toby,
You’re not
that fat, you’re
Just
A
Bit
Plump’
And I
Bought him
A blue
Chupa chup.
To cheer
him up.
Blue is the name of my Auntie Veronica’s dog:
Blue.
Blue likes it
If you throw him an ice-cube
He crunches it
He likes to fetch
A blue rubber ball
But he won’t give it back
He just offers it to you
And you try to pull it out of his mouth
And he holds it with his teeth!
But Blue got sick.
And he threw up a bit
On the laundry floor
And the vet said,
‘There’s nothing we can do
For Blue.’
And he died,
Just yesterday,
And this
poem
Is a Special Gift for
Auntie Veronica
In memory of her dog:
Blue.
Bindy Mackenzie (First Prize (Junior Division))
DIARYENTRY
Wednesday, 13 August
Well, Dear Diary,
Today I needed $10 but I only had $2.
We had to bring in $10 for the Sausage Sizzle next weekend.
Anthony and I forgot to ask for the money last night, but I remembered on the way to school. And I was thinking about how Dad always says, ‘There is a solution for every problem’, so this is what I did.
I bought a bag of ten cheap pens for $1.50 and some colourful stickers for 50c. I put one sticker on each pen, then I said they were super-sticker pens and I sold them to some kids at school for $1 each. So then I had $10.
When I got home I was telling Mum what happened, and she was going, ‘Oh, goodness,’ and Dad heard and he said, ‘What did you do?’
I told him the story, and he started laughing. Then he goes, ‘Give me five!’ which is this thing where you slap your hands together.
And then he goes, ‘Bindy, that is an important lesson for you—always remember that you are the shepherd and all the other kids are sheep.’
He asked Anthony what he did about the $10, and Anthony said he just did what other kids did who forgot their money. He told the teacher he’d bring it tomorrow. Dad went into his study.
5. Bindy Mackenzie: the Reflective Year (Hills District Primary, Year 4, Age 9)
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 5 March
Reflections on being Number 1
Being Number 1 is strange. Where can you go from here? Nowhere except down.
Last year, when I was attaining first place (design competition, spelling bee, poetry contest, etc), I was thrilled. But this year. . .?
Well, let’s just say I arrived on the first day of Year 4 with terror in my soul. What if I could not live up to the standards I had set last year? What if I began to slip down?
Others might laugh: ‘Oh yeah,’ they might say, sarcastically, ‘it’s really tough being number 1.’
But each Friday, when we get our weekly tests back, I don’t feel glad to get 100%.
I feel relieved.
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 3 April
Reflections on the Human Condition
I think it’s a good idea to imagine that everyone you meet is having a bad day. So, it’s YOUR job to cheer them up.
ACHIEVEMENTAWARD
TO: Bindy Mackenzie
FOR: 100 Gold Stars
Top work, Bindy! Nobody in my class EVER got 100 gold stars before! And it’s only May!☺☺☺
DIARY ENTRY
Saturday, 27 June
Hi Diary,
Just back from a friend’s birthday party. (Toby Mazzerati.)
There were eleven boys at the party, and three girls. The girls banded together: we were allies in a world of boys! The boys wanted to play computer games but Mrs Mazzerati made us go outside and play ‘traditional’ party games. We played: Pass the Parcel, Musical Bumps, Racings, Bullrush, etc.
There was also something called the Chocolate Game which I thoroughly enjoyed. The group sits in a circle around a block of chocolate. A dice is passed around the circle. (I told everyone that ‘die’ is the technical singular of ‘dice’ but that ‘dice’ is acceptable these days.) If you throw a ‘six’, you have to put on an apron and begin eating the chocolate, by cutting it up with a plastic knife and fork! You should hear the screaming and shouting when you get a six! ‘SIX!’ they all shriek. And they rush the dice around the circle, hoping to get another six to stop the first person’s attack on the chocolate.
I got ‘six’ more often than anybody else. I felt so proud. I can’t explain it—I know it was only luck.
I admit, there was a point when I thought: Really? I have to eat more chocolate?
But I always did.
Now, two hours later, back home again, I have the strangest feeling. I can’t describe it. I guess I just feel sad that the party’s over. I feel tired and confused and cranky. I wonder if I’ll ever have such fun again? I mean, it just seemed to work so beautifully—could that party, that chocolate game, have been the high point of my life? Is it all downhill from here?
I think Keats put it best when he wrote:
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
DIARY ENTRY
Sunday, 16 August
I’ve been struggling a bit with Ulysses by James Joyce. I think a good editor might have made a world of difference to this book.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 17 September
I made friends with the girl next door today. (We moved here a month ago and I’ve been watching her, trying to gather the courage to introduce myself.) She’s from Lebanon and I asked her to teach me a little Arabic. What a marvellous language!
DIARY ENTRY
Saturday, 31 October
Today we moved to another new house. It’s a wreck. Anthony and I walked in the front door, straight down the hall, and out the back without stopping. We looked at each other and laughed. We sat on the porch for a while, talking about the universe, and watching some kids play in a swimming pool next door.
Next thing, one of the kids climbed out of the pool and ran over to the wire fence. He was shivering a
nd asking us over to swim!
Mum found our swimmers for us (how did she know which box they were in?) and we swam all afternoon, played Red Light/Green Light, played Crocodile, Crocodile, played whirlpool, etcetera.
The boy who invited us is named Sam, and he and Anthony are the same age, and Sam’s coming over to watch a movie at our place tomorrow.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 19 November
As soon as Mum got home from work last night, I handed her my History exercise book and said, ‘Ask me.’ Because there was a test coming today.
But this morning I woke up and at first I felt fine but then I was eating my breakfast and I opened up my history book to look one more time and SUDDENLY I got the WORST headache and such a bad tummy-ache that I couldn’t stand up.
Mum said I had to go back to bed and she’d stay home with me today. I made her promise to phone Mr Inglewood and ask if I could do the test tomorrow instead. She said only if I promise to take a day off today and not think about History.
After I slept a bit, Mum came in and had a talk with me. She said I had to learn to relax and who cares if I mess up a history test sometimes? Nobody, she said.
Then she went out and I was thinking, well, I care, aren’t I somebody? and Dad came home and I heard them fighting in the hallway. Dad was saying Mum should have sent me to school anyway, because you’ve gotta sand back those neuroses. And Mum was going, ‘If a ten-year-old’s having a nervous breakdown about schoolwork, that’s a problem,’ and Dad was going, ‘If I know our Bindy, she’ll be out of bed any moment, demanding you take her to school, and she’ll be right because you can’t let fear get in the way of progress.’
So I waited a moment then I got up and went out and said I need to go to school now.
Dad goes, ‘That’s the spirit.’
Mum goes, ‘Bindy, you promised.’
I said, ‘That promise was contrary to my own interests and you should not have exacted it from me.’
Dad goes, ‘Ahaaah!’
So I went to school and the history test was easy and we got it back in the afternoon and I got 20/20, Excellent Work.
6. Bindy Mackenzie: the Year I Learned the Facts of Life (Hills District Primary, Year 5, Age 10)