Lots of love,
Elizabeth
Cruise and booze! Thai cuisine, French Champagne, jazz dancing –all in the elegant surroundings of the superb Princess Leandra.’
Lizzy,
Check out the dude in the flared pants on the front of this card. Sorry it’s been a while since I wrote; it didn’t help going inside to play chess, I’ve got such a bad flu. I feel like shit – headache and sore throat and all that. But you have to keep working, you can’t let the team down, so I’m not telling anyone. It also turned out to be a bit of a mistake to go inside for chess, because we went into the circus manager’s own caravan, and he tried to make a move on me. He’s like forty-five or something. Gross. But it’s okay now because we had a really long talk about it, and I guess I was just giving the wrong signals.
Love CELIA
Mum,
I’m going to run over to Saxon Walker’s place and we’re going to train together. He’s a guy from my school who catches my bus. He lives on Foxall Road. His mother’s the local councillor so you probably met her when you did your rollerblading protest.
Love,
Elizabeth
ELIZABETH !!!
WHO IS THIS SAXON WALKER? IS HE CAROLYN WALKER’S SON? IF HE IS, HIS MOTHER IS A DEMON FROM HELL! WHATEVER YOU DO, STAY OUT OF THEIR HOUSE. IF YOU SEE HER IN THE DISTANCE, DON’T SMILE AT HER. JUST SCOWL.
LOVE
MUM
Mum,
It’s too late. Saxon and I went for a run together and then he invited me back to his place for coffee.
His mother was quite polite for a demon from hell and she gave me a piece of carrot cake. I didn’t scowl at h e r at all. You always said before that I should smile and say thank you to my friends’ mothers. You are giving me confused and contradictory messages.
Love,
Elizabeth
ELIZABETH!
I GUESS I CAN ONLY BLAME MYSELF FOR TEACHING YOU THOSE RIDICULOUS MANNERS.
BUT IT′S NOT TOO LATE. IF YOU SEE HER AGAIN, YOU MIGHT THINK ABOUT SPITTING ON THE GROUND BEFORE HER. SAY SOMETHING CUTTING ABOUT LOCAL YOUTH AND LIBERTY AND THE IMPORTANT GROSS MOTOR SKILLS THAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM ROLLERBLADING
I HOPE HER SON IS NOTHING LIKE HER
LOVE YOUR MUM
PS THERE IS A RECIPE FOR CURRIED SAUSAGES ON PAGE 78 OF THIS RECIPE BOOK. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET IT STARTED?
Mum,
Thank you very much for writing your note in enormous purple texta and sticking it right in the middle of the fridge door. By lucky chance I had invited Saxon to have coffee at my place after running today, and the brightly-coloured note was impossible to miss. It was very good for him to see exactly what my mother thought of his mother.
Luckily for you, he just thought it was funny and laughed a lot.
I only just started the curried sausages ‘cause I was waiting for Saxon to go home, but they’re done now. (They’re on top of the stove.) Just taking Lochie for a walk and I’ll be back soon.
Love,
Elizabeth
Dear Elizabeth Garry,
We feel that it is our duty to ensure that you are not getting any crazy ideas. This young man who’s been talking to you on the bus? What’s his name – Saxon Walker? He is simply not ever going to be interested in you.
My dear child, he is a popular boy, a cool boy, smart, funny, athletic and gorgeous. Perhaps in your imagination such a boy might be interested in you. But never in reality, Elizabeth. Never.
You are merely a running partner to him. No more.
We do not wish to offend you, only to warn you.
Best wishes,
COLD HARD TRUTH ASSOCIATION
Dear Ms Clarry,
Okay, first of all, don’t get your hopes up here. This is NOT an invitation to join our society. Not that we think you’re really hideous or anything, but you’ve got to be kidding! Ever seen your ears, Elizabeth? Ever seen the freckles on your arms?
Anyway, we’re sure we don’t have to explain about that.
We are actually writing to discuss a different (but connected) issue. See, there are certain types of boys in the world, and there are certain types of girls. For example, there are ugly girls, and there are ugly boys. It’s perfectly okay for an ugly boy to ask out an ugly girl. Just as it’s perfectly okay for an ordinary girl to go out with an ordinary boy. Sometimes, if necessary an ordinary girl might even choose to go out with an ugly boy, depending on how desperate she gets.
But the point is, it is never okay for an ordinary girl to go out with a beautiful boy. It would be like some kind of a distortion in the universe.
It just would not happen.
Saxon Walker is one of the most prized members of our society. He has regulation sea-blue eyes, an exquisite nose with a gorgeous little bendy bit at the end, and his cheeks have patches of pink that shift around to his ears when he’s embarrassed.
He could be the son of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.
He could be Brad Pitt’s cousin.
He could be a Greek god.
He could be Romeo.
Elizabeth, you are just not Juliet.
Please keep your distance from Saxon Walker, and try not to take up time that he could be spending with more appropriate young women.
With very kindest wishes,
The Society of Beautiful People (SOB. P)
Dear Ms Clarry,
We hear that you have received letters from the Cold Hard Truth Association and the Society of Beautiful People? We would just like to add our support to their comments.
Only a true teenager could catch a guy like Saxon Walker.
A true teenager would have waited to see if Saxon wanted to go running again today, instead of starting off right away assuming that he would, just because you’ve trained together for the last few days.
A true teenager would not have got a seriously depressed look on her face when Saxon said he couldn’t run today, so that he laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, I just have to go to my judo class today. We can go running tomorrow.’ (And instead of grinning like a moron at that, a true teenager would have taken the opportunity to calmly ask about Saxon’s judo. A true teenager would know hilarious judo-related stories to share with Saxon.)
A true teenager would think of new and fascinating directions in conversation, instead of always coming back to the Belongil Trail Run and her new runners and her best times; and Celia’s circus and Celia’s headaches and Celia’s circus manager – as if running and Celia were the only two things in her boring little life. (Which I suppose they are.)
A true teenager would have called out witty things from the window when Saxon got off the bus, instead of pretending to look into her school bag and then staring after him like a zombie so that when he looked around he saw her with her mouth hanging open.
And, finally, a true teenager would find some way to see Saxon when she is dressed in her nicest clothes, instead of just going running with him, so that he only ever sees her (a) in a school uniform, or (b) with her hair all sweaty and messy, her face bright pink, and her white knees sprouting from her running shorts.
You seem to have had a lot of trouble with our earlier suggestion that you get into the refrigerator. We now suggest that you take your new runners out of their shoe box and climb in there yourself. Put the lid on behind you, tightly.
Yours sincerely,
The Association of Teenagers
PART
three
Degas and Dance: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 10th October–27th December
LIZZY.
Hi. Things are not exactly great at the Big Top at the moment. Ha. That’s an understatement. Patricia, the girl whose caravan I’m living in? She’s fighting with Miranda the juggler, and they’re both fighting with Ginny the trapeze artist. Pat, Miranda and Ginny all want me to be on their side, but I think they’re all acting like big losers. And the circus manager doesn’t seem to be able to take no for an answer. His advice is starting to get
on my nerves (so are his hairy hands). It’s exhausting. I feel tired all the time, and my head hasn’t stopped aching since last Tuesday. I think my glands are swelling up again too. Don’t worry though, I’ll be fine. Love, Celia
Dear Christina,
You’re not going to believe where I am. Actually, you’ve probably already guessed from my handwriting that I’m not on solid ground. INSTEAD, I am in something that moves.
Sorry. I don’t even know if this will get to you. I’m going to send it to my English teacher at my school and ask him to put it in the Brookfield mail box. So I hope he does. I mean, I hope I’m not wasting my words.
Anyway, I won’t tell you where I am yet, I’ll start from the beginning of the story. I don’t know if I mentioned it to you, but I’ve been getting some strange postcards from Celia at her circus. A while ago she started talking about the circus manager, and how he was being a father-figure to her, and giving her all kinds of advice. I guess she really liked that because her father isn’t around. He left when Celia was about five and she can hardly even remember him (Celia and I have been friends since pre-school and I actually remember her dad better than she does. One time Celia’s family took me with them to some huge country music festival. All around people were eating KFC, but Celia’s mum gave us Vita-Weat biscuits and cottage cheese. BLERK Anyway, Celia’s dad had the longest droopiest moustache you ever saw, and he spent the entire concert massaging Celia’s mum’s shoulders. It was so bizarre. She sat there with her legs crossed like in yoga position, and her eyes shut, and he sat behind her and rubbed her shoulders like he was polishing a magic lamp. Celia and I giggled at them and Celia’s mum had to open one eye to go mad at us.)
ANYWAY, so I guess that’s why Celia liked having the circus manager treat her like a daughter. They played chess every night. (I know. Weird.) They usually played outside, but Celia was starting to get the flu so she asked if they could play inside his caravan. Which turned out to be a mistake because he started making moves on her.
So since then, I’ve been worried about Celia. From what she says in her postcards, her flu seems to be getting worse, and it sounds like she might have glandular fever, which she’s had before and I think you can get relapses from that, and also this circus manager creep won’t leave her alone.
ANYWAY, so I think I told you about this guy from my school who catches the Glenorie bus? His name’s Saxon Walker and he’s training for the same race as me. We’ve been running together for the last few days, which makes it heaps more fun. And we’ve been going to each other’s place for a drink after we go running. He’s a really nice guy, and really cute too. He laughs a lot at what I say, but he’s also good at being serious when he has to be. And he started to get really serious when I told him about Celia’s postcards. Kind of scarily serious – I was getting worried, sure, but I thought she’d probably be okay.
But Saxon looked like he was going to pull the emergency brake on the bus when I explained it.
‘We have to rescue her,’ he said, all dramatic and kind of in a rush, like we’d better get on our dragons and fly away right then.
I said, ‘Um. We don’t know where she is.’
Saxon thought about it for about one fifty-seventh of a second. Then he goes, ‘Come on! How many circuses can there be in this country? Come over to my place and we’ll try and find out.’
So I got off the bus at his stop instead of mine and he took me into his house and up the hall and into his bedroom (it’s got posters of planets and stars and comets all over the walls; he said he likes astronomy), and switched on the computer on his desk.
I guess that’s kind of a private school thing – a computer on your desk. I have to say right away that I don’t have a computer on my desk. My mum happens to have a computer on her desk, but that’s because one day she got all excited about having a home office, and stole a fax machine and a lap top from work. She never uses them except to type some of my assignments, usually at midnight the night before they’re due, when she suddenly gets guilty about not having helped me to research it like the other Good Mothers do. (So if you ever happen to see one of my assignments and you think, ‘Wait a minute! She said she didn’t have a computer on her desk! This looks to me exactly like the work of a computer!’ then your next thought will have to be: ‘Oh, that’s right. Her mum has a stolen lap top. Please forgive me for doubting you, Elizabeth.’)
SO. Within about 27 seconds Saxon’s got the Internet up, and he’s typing the words ‘Australian Circus’ into the search engine, and next thing you know there’s everything you need to know about a circus right there before you. Including information on trapeze artists and clowns and where to buy the sand for the circus floor. I mean, there’s not just stuff on juggling – there’s instructions for how-to-juggle, and interviews with jugglers, and stories about prisoners who reformed from all their murdering and raping because they learnt how to juggle.
And there’s also a list of all the circuses in Australia.
Then, this is the bit where Saxon does his detective work.
He’s sitting there at his computer, leaning back in his swivel chair, frowning away, and he says, ‘You know what? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that has animals. You know what I remember? I remember when we did the frog dissection in science class? And Celia got everyone trying to revive the dead frogs with heart massage, and Hoogen-boom’s going “Look, I don’t mean to let you guys down, but these frogs have been in formaldehyde for the last two months”, and Martin Wilson starts making frog noises with the back of his throat, like “riddup, riddup” and going, “Sir! I think I’ve done it! He’s alive! He’s alive!”, and every-one’s going, “It’s a miracle!” and doing ritual dances to thank the gods and trying even harder to revive their own frogs and Will Stantino starts giving mouth to mouth to his frog, and Suzanne Reynolds sees him and throws up in the preserved snake display, and Celia gets up on her desk and demands that we call vets in to resuscitate the rest of the frogs. And anyway. Elizabeth? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that uses animals.’
He doesn’t need to tell the science class story. He’s completely right. If I’d thought about it for one half a second I would have realised the same thing.
When we were four years old, Celia burst into tears when she saw the movie Benji, not because of what was happening in the movie, but because she thought it was terrible to make a dog act in a movie without giving it a choice whether it wanted to or not.
(I remember I was really confused about that because I hadn’t worked out the whole acting/film thing – you know, I kind of thought it had really happened just in a kind of big, flat way.)
She’s only written about 300 letters to the papers saying that it should be illegal to keep pet dogs unless you’ve got a 50-acre block of land for them to roam free on (she forgives me for having my dog Lochie because I take him for a run practically every day). She only rescues the ants on her driveway by trying to kind of herd them onto the lawn whenever her mum’s about to drive into the garage.
As if she would have anything to do with a place that whipped lions and put monkeys in tiny cages and made elephants do cartwheels on tiny little pre-school stools?
So I agreed with Saxon on that one.
Celia would not be at a circus where they have animals.
Then Saxon got this list up on the screen, of the circuses touring Australia at the moment which don’t have animals.
Then I remembered the postcards and that the first one was from Byron Bay. So I said, ‘Maybe there’s somewhere that gives the tour dates and places for these circuses.’
And next thing he found exactly that and suddenly we had the exact name of the circus (it’s called Firecrackers) and the exact place where it was scheduled to be for the next week.
And guess what?
Saxon started hyperventilating.
Well, that’s what it looked like anyway. He was sitting there looking at this address for the circus, and breathin
g in big wheezing gasps of air, and I was shouting, ‘Lean forward! Breathe into a paper bag!’
He ignored me, picked up a ventolin puffer, and sucked it into his mouth. It turned out he’s an asthmatic. I never knew that. All this time doing training with him and I never knew he had asthma.
Anyway, so he got over his asthma attack and said, ‘My Auntie Robbie lives there! Let’s go!’
Next thing, he was on his phone to his mother, his auntie, my mother, and the school principal, and he had the whole thing organised.
I never saw anything like it. He was like the bit in the movie where Tom Cruise is a lawyer and he’s decided he’s really going to win this case, for the sake of justice and the American way, and that? And it’s suddenly like bang-bang-bang – grabbing files off shelves and slamming them down on the desk and punching numbers in the telephone and shaking out the phone cord dramatically, and you know, snapping out instructions to all the assistants around the desk, like: ‘get me all the phone records of the President of the United States for the last fifty years’, and ‘get me the names of every client who ever ate a banana’, and ‘Let’s get some Chinese take-away up here, on the double!’
This kind of thing to our school principal. ‘Good afternoon? Mr Derby? Saxon Walker here. In relation to missing pupil, Celia Buckley.’
Feeling sorry for Celia Page 6