by Rowena Mohr
Monday 11 July 5.15 pm
Back at school – thank God! Big news is that Vince Cuoccolo’s brother, Tony, was arrested by the cops on Saturday night in the middle of a big drug deal but managed to escape. The entire Victorian police force is now apparently looking for him. How do I know this? Because Vince the Brain has been bragging about it all round the school and saying that they’re never going to find him. I was almost tempted to ask Vince if he knew where Tony was hiding but thought he’s so stupid he’d probably tell me and I really don’t want to know. Also, I must be the only person at Wilga Heights who didn’t know that Tony Cuoccolo did all his deals at Le Cafeteria. Which is pretty pathetic when you think about how much time I spend there. This is what the local newspaper had to say about it:
Drugs on the menu at local cafe
Last night, police raided a cafe in Wilga Heights believed to be the hangout of suspected drug dealer, Anthony Alberto Cuoccolo. Drugs task force police with sniffer dogs descended upon Le Cafeteria, in Callistemon Drive, around 11 pm hoping to intercept delivery of a shipment of ecstasy tablets to Cuoccolo and his associates. It is believed that the drugs were intended for distribution to students from the nearby Wilga Heights Secondary College.
A police spokesperson said that Cuoccolo and his gang have been under surveillance for some time suspected of dealing a variety of illegal drugs including cannabis, methamphetamine and ecstasy. Acting upon information from an unnamed source, police surrounded the cafe and arrested several men who were taken away for questioning. However, Cuoccolo and two other suspects managed to escape and police have asked anyone with information as to their whereabouts to come forward.
Of course, the really interesting question about all this is: Where was Creepazoid on Saturday night? Out with the boys, I bet!! He must think we are so stupid. Well, in Mum’s case he’d be right. She believes everything he tells her. And no wonder he didn’t get home till four in the morning – he was too busy trying to stay out of gaol!
Also – ran into Brendan and Door Matt at lunchtime. Rami doesn’t get back from holidays till tomorrow and Mandozer had lunchtime detention for showing the guys in Biology class her new piercings so I guess they were both at a bit of a loose end. Asked Brendan what he got up to during the second week of the holidays but he didn’t really answer. Just said something vague about helping his mum around the house. Hopefully packing up all that stuff that belonged to his father and taking it to St Vinnie’s so the pair of them can get on with their lives! He wasn’t being very communicative so I told him about Dad going to Bali with Mrs Parisi and the netball committee and everything but he just rolled his eyes and shook his head like he didn’t believe me. Typical!
Tuesday 12 July 2.53 am
Writing this in computer lab even though I’m supposed to be working on the class website. Had English with Mrs Parisi first up this morning. I kept staring at her trying to see if I could find any evidence that she was actually having an affair with my father but I guess it’s pretty hard to tell just by looking at someone. Was so freaked out by this that I got into trouble for not paying attention. You’d think if Mrs Parisi was having an affair with my father she’d be trying to suck up to me as much as she could – not humiliate me in front of the whole class.
Rami and Brendan joined at the hip again during lunchtime. She was looking pretty happy so I’m guessing her grandad is okay despite all that stuff she wrote.
I heard her raving on to Brendan about how fantastic Cambodia was and how they simply MUST go sometime, but I have to say that Brendan didn’t look too keen. Also am a bit disappointed that the Khmer Rouge did not live up to their reputation!
Tuesday 12 July 9.16 pm
OMG! You’ll never believe what I saw at rehearsal tonight. We were running through all the musical numbers and about halfway through I snuck out the back for some fresh air and there’s Creepazoid and Vince Cuoccolo, pally as you like, sitting on the loading dock and sharing what I’m pretty sure was a joint! I was so shocked I just stood there like an idiot and Creepazoid turned round and saw me. And then it was his turn to be shocked coz I’d busted up his little party with Vince. I heard him say, ‘Don’t worry I’ll take care of her,’ and then he came running after me going, ‘Erin, I think we should talk,’ but I got back inside as fast as I could and went and sat down the front near Rami so he couldn’t get me alone. But then, of course, I still had all these scenes with him at the end of the play and it was really hard to keep away from him. He kept looking at me in this meaningful way like he was begging me not to dob him in but I just ignored him – not because I was definitely going to dob him in but because I didn’t know what to do. I mean, what’s the point of telling Mum? She’s never believed me before so she’s not going to believe me now. I suppose I could tell Dicko or Mrs Parisi but somehow I don’t think they’d believe me either.
Tuesday 12 July 9.58 pm
Just had another fabulous mother–daughter heart-to-heart about Creepazoid. Mum said that he told her what happened and she knows it looks bad but I just have to trust her that she knows what she’s doing. What is going on? Mum is so brainwashed by this guy that she doesn’t know which way is up anymore. I mean, if she’d found out that Dad was smoking dope – or me or Ben – she’d go absolutely demented. But lover boy can get away with anything!!
Wednesday 13 July 4.16 pm
I should have known you can never trust a male of the species. Brendan Russo is dead meat. Today Mrs Parisi said she wanted to see me after class and I thought it was going to be something about Dracula or maybe the last essay I handed in (‘Thomas Hardy: Great Writer or Grumpy Old Man?’). But guess what? Mrs Parisi wanted me to know that she spent her holiday in Port Douglas!! Right then I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And all the time Mrs Parisi is looking at me, waiting for me to figure it out. And then she said, ‘So, you see, Erin, I could not possibly have spent the holidays with your father in Bali.’ Well! That’s pretty obvious! And then she said, ‘Nor did I have an affair with him when we were working on the netball committee together.’ And then I realised.
That two-faced, lying jerk-off! I told him that in strictest secrecy and now he’s gone and blabbed it over the whole school. Or maybe he just went straight to Mrs Parisi – I’m not sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The end result is still the same. Why would he do that? Obviously all he cares about is keeping in with the teachers and he doesn’t mind who he grasses out in the process. And here I was thinking that maybe he was different from all the others – you know – because of his family and all the terrible things that he’s had to live through. How wrong can you be?
Just as well we don’t have rehearsal tonight because I think if I had to see Brendan I’d lose it and just start yelling at him.
Wednesday 13 July 4.43 pm
Uh oh! Mum just got a call from Mrs Parisi who said she wants to see her and Dad after school next Monday. Mum asked me if I knew what it was about and I said that maybe it was something to do with my involvement in the school musical. Aargh! This is all Brendan’s fault! If he’d kept his big mouth shut none of this would have happened.
Thursday 14 July 8.17 pm
Couldn’t sleep at all last night thinking about Brendan and how he sold me out. Honestly, I could strangle the guy. It was bad enough having to face Mrs Parisi in English. She didn’t behave any differently towards me but I couldn’t look at her all through class coz I felt so humiliated. The funny thing is that I think I’m angrier at myself than I am at Brendan. How could I be so stupid as to fall for that ridiculous Rock God act? What an idiot. And he must have been laughing himself sick. Now I know why he was always smiling at me like I was some halfwit lamo. He had me sucked in so far it must have been all he could do not to laugh out loud. I’m beginning to wonder if all that stuff about his dad and brother is crap too and he’s just made the whole thing up to get people to feel sorry for him.
Confronted Brendan at rehearsal. He is such a weas
el. First he tries to come over all innocent and then he pulls the sad-sack ‘feel sorry for me’ act. I was sitting by myself up the back waiting for my scene and he just drops into the seat next to me casual as you like and says, ‘Hi, babe, how’s it going?’ Can you believe this guy? I was boiling inside but I thought if he can be so cool about this and act like nothing’s happened then so can I.
So I just said to him, ‘Have a nice chat with Mrs Parisi, did you?’
And he goes, ‘What?’ like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
And I said, ‘You know, passing on personal and private information that was told to you in confidence?’
And he goes, ‘What are you talking about, Erin? I never see Mrs Parisi except at rehearsals.’
I just kept looking at Ivan and Kerry prancing around on stage like Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean. ‘Oh, and I suppose you don’t happen to have any idea how she found out that I knew about her affair with my dad?’
And do you know what he did then? He started laughing. The pig. I was getting madder and madder and he’s laughing so hard that Dicko turns around and glares at both of us to shut up. I told him to shut up too but he wouldn’t listen and just kept laughing until eventually he said, ‘And was Mrs Parisi surprised to find out that she’d been having an affair with your father?’
‘I don’t know about surprised, but she seemed extremely pissed off – at me,’ I said. ‘And I would like to know how she found out, Brendan, because you were the only person I told. Explain that, huh?’
‘I can’t,’ he said. He was trying to keep a straight face but he wasn’t succeeding. ‘All I can say in my own defence is that I would never have said that to Mrs Parisi. Firstly because I would never repeat anything that you told me in confidence and I would have thought you knew that.’
‘Oh, suddenly I’m the bad guy for not trusting you. Well forgive me but what else am I supposed to think?’
Brendan just shrugged his shoulders. Which made me even madder.
And then he leans over sideways and says, almost whispering, ‘You haven’t asked me about my other reasons for not talking to Mrs Parisi.’ Even side-on in the dark I could see the evil glint in his eye telling me I shouldn’t go there – but I did.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What are your other reasons?’
‘Well, the second – and in some ways the most important – one is that I find it really difficult to believe that your father and your English teacher are having – or have had – an affair. I mean, where’s your evidence?’
‘It has to be her. Who else could it be?’ Honestly he can be so infuriating at times! ‘Are you saying Mum was lying to me?’
‘No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that I think you’ve put two and two together and come up with seventy-three.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I was practically shouting at him now.
‘It means, Erin, that maybe you should get your facts straight before you start jumping to conclusions. Have you got any idea what it’s like to have people making all kinds of assumptions when they don’t really know anything about you?’
‘What, you mean like you and your psycho mother?’
Brendan froze like he couldn’t believe what I’d said. He wouldn’t look at me but just stared at the back of the chair in front for a second and then he said really quietly, ‘Yeah, Erin. Exactly like me and my psycho mother.’
Then he got up and walked off down the stairs.
See what I mean? He just plays that card whenever he wants to and expects us all to feel sorry for him.
Saturday 16 July 11.23 pm
Weekend with Mum and dope-smoking, drug-pushing, mother-seducing Creepazoid. SLB went to stay with lily-livered, two-timing, teacher-bonking Dad as usual and I’m actually beginning to wish I’d gone with him. Mum and the Creep are watching me like a hawk – as if they’re afraid I’m going to do something dangerous – like spring out from behind the sofa and attack them with a carving knife or something. I don’t know. And they’re both suddenly being really nice to me – too nice. I guess Creepazoid’s still worried I’m going to dob him in to the school or something but I can’t believe Mum’s even thinking about trying to protect the dirtbag!
Stuff it! Am going to take full advantage of the situation and ask Mum if I can have an iPod and a year’s subscription to iTunes in exchange for my silence.
Saturday 16 July 11.54 pm
Unbelievable! She said no! She said that Chris hasn’t done anything wrong (??) and that she refuses to be blackmailed by her own daughter. Am so tempted just to go straight to the police but suspect that they wouldn’t believe me either.
Sunday 17 July 10.33 am
Creepazoid keeps asking me if there’s anything special I want to do and offering to drive me. As if! He just wants to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t run off to the cops!
Sunday 17 July 4.47 pm
Ended up being dragged along to Southland so the olds could go shopping and still keep me under surveillance. Creepazoid disappeared somewhere and Mum took me to buy a couple of tops – which she so never does. Anyway, when we got back to the house, Creepazoid whips out this present for me! Guess what? An iPod! Mum was absolutely apoplectic and dragged Creepazoid off into the bedroom to have a huge argument with him. Ha! Blackmail is so much fun!
Sunday 17 July 9.27 pm
Mum and Dad have got that meeting with Mrs Parisi tomorrow night. I don’t know why I’m so scared. After all, it was a reasonable assumption to make – despite what Brendan thinks. I just hope I don’t get grounded again.
Monday 18 July 6.38 pm
Mum was furious when she got back from school this afternoon but, strangely enough, not at me. Well, that’s not quite true. She said that she didn’t know how I could be so stupid – and then muttered something about how I must get it from my father!! But it was Dad she was really pissed off at. I heard her and Creepazoid talking in the kitchen and in between the bangs and crashes as Mum slammed things down on the bench and into the sink I heard her say something about it all being Dad’s fault and if he wasn’t such a total coward he’d have told us the truth by now. That’s when she marched into my room and asked me how I could be so stupid as to think Dad was having an affair with Mrs Parisi. I said, ‘What else was I supposed to think? And if he’s not having an affair with Mrs Parisi, who then?’ Mum had this weird expression on her face like she desperately wanted to say something but couldn’t. And then she said, ‘It’s not up to me to tell you. Ask your father.’ And walked out of the room.
So I did. I rang Dad and said, ‘Okay, if it’s not Mrs Parisi, who is it?’
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Well, actually it was more like a kind of quiet choking, and then Dad goes, ‘Um, sorry, Erin, I’ve got something on the stove. I’ll call you back’.
Yeah, right!
Tuesday 19 July 9.23 pm
Still haven’t heard from Father of the Year. Surprise! Surprise!
Rehearsal was pretty dreary. Nobody had any energy and even Brendan was crap. Rami didn’t even bother to turn up and I know she’s not sick because I saw her at school today.
Creepazoid stopped us in the middle of a scene and made us do some SAS warm-up thingo which was so exhausting that we all just wanted to go home afterwards and then Dicko cracked it with us (although I think he was actually pissed off at Creepazoid for taking over his rehearsal) and told us that we were never going to be ready in time for opening night and the whole thing was going to be a huge disaster and if we stuffed this one up, the school was never going to let him put on another one. Drama queen!
Wednesday 20 July 7.22 pm – Detention
Dad never rang back. That’s it! I am definitely never speaking to my spineless, cheating louse of a father ever again. As far as I’m concerned he can drop off the face of the earth and I won’t miss him.
Creepazoid is really creeping me out. Not content with keeping me under
surveillance at home, he has started following me around at school. I swear, every time I turn a corner there he is going, ‘How are you, Erin?’ like he hasn’t already seen me twenty times that day already or, ‘Hi, Erin, weren’t those salami sandwiches your mother made for lunch great?’ What I want to know is, if he’s the drug dealer, how come I’m the one being treated like a criminal here?
Thursday 21 July 8.57 pm
Major dramas at rehearsal tonight. This time it was Brendan who didn’t show up and Dicko was absolutely furious. Kept raving on about responsibility and commitment and how this would never happen in the ‘professional theatre’. Like he’d know! And correct me if I’m wrong, but people actually get paid in the ‘professional theatre’ and don’t have to squeeze rehearsals in between writing an essay on the social and economic causes of the French Revolution and a project on the bovine gastro-intestinal system!!
Friday 22 July 6.17 pm
Brendan not at school today either. The reason I know is because Rami told me. She’s finally decided to speak to me again – not because she’s sorry for all the horrible things she said to me but because she’s worried that something’s wrong with Brendan. Apparently he hasn’t been answering his phone and she wants to go round to his house tomorrow and find out what’s going on. I wasn’t sure why she suddenly needed me to go with her but then I realised that she doesn’t actually know where Brendan lives! I guess Rami’s never needed singing lessons but still, I thought it was a bit strange that she’d never been to his house before. Mind you, if Mrs Russo was my mother I don’t think I’d be having too many sleepovers either! And that’s when I suddenly thought that maybe we’d better go and check that she hadn’t gone completely nutso and put an axe through Brendan’s head. Also feeling a bit guilty about what I said to Brendan the other night at rehearsal. I mean, he asked for it and all, but a part of me still feels really bad about it.