by John Marsden
Does this give you the shits? Am I just a snob? Got any answers?
Love,
Mandy
Nov 18
Dear Mandy,
No, I don’t think you’re a snob. I was so scared when I came in here. Hope the hacks aren’t reading this letter, ’cos I’d hate them to know that. But it’s true. I thought they’d all be the biggest meanest mothers in the valley — that’s why I thought the only way to survive would be to be the biggest meanest mother of them all. And it wasn’t that hard. A lot of them are real pussies in a clinch. But, yeah, sure, some of them are like you describe. Anita Kelly, whoo, 200 kilos did you say? Yeah, but her left boob’s even bigger.
Seriously though, I don’t know what to say. I don’t blame you for being scared of me. I don’t like it but I don’t blame you. I’m scared of myself sometimes. Do we have to do a deal that I won’t hassle you in four years? I will if you want, but it doesn’t seem like much of a deal. Who knows where we’re going to be, what we’re going to be like, in four years? I’ve got a fair idea where I’ll be, but you?
Don’t think there’s much we can do about it Manna, except to ‘keep on goin’ till it all stops flowin’’.
A little black spider just ran across my desk. Geez he was moving. His feet hardly touched the ground. I used to hate spiders and cockroaches and stuff. I still don’t much love ’em, but I don’t mind them now, I don’t kill them any more.
Shouldn’t call this a desk. It’s a metal table and chair all in one, cream-coloured, bolted to the floor near the front of the slot. Sitting here I can see most of A Block and a bit of sky. Three stars. A Block’s a quadrangle. I’m in the bottom row, on the left as you come in, half-way along. The middle of the quadrangle’s the exercise yard. Opposite me, on the bottom is the TV room, classrooms, showers and dunnies, and a storeroom. Above that are more slots. Above that’s a kind of catwalk for the hacks. They just walk round and round trying to look like Dickless Tracy. They’re all dykes anyway — for them the shower block’s the sports and entertainment centre. You don’t want to be too good-looking. There’s one girl, Sophie, she’s the one I get on best with I guess, when she takes a shower they swarm like flies at a funeral. I have to admit, she’s got what it takes.
Well, I’m writing on about nothing. Ten minutes before lights out — I was going to do some homework and give Mrs McKinnon a shock. But one good thing about being in here, they don’t expect anything. They pretend they do, and they go through their routines when we turn up empty-handed, but what can they do? Give us a detention? And they’re sweating so hard to be positive, like they’ve been taught, they don’t like to crack at us. The tutors that is; the hacks don’t give a.
See you.
Love,
Trace
November 22
Dear Trace,
I’m not going to pretend I want to swap places with you but your life is kind of. . . interesting? Sure is different to mine. Maybe you could write a book about it one day, make a million dollars.
Like I said before, I want to keep this going. It’s gone too far to stop. It still scares me, but every day I come home I look to see if there’s a letter from you. Jacinta, my ‘pen pal’ (hate that word), still writes occasionally, but it’s not like this.
Your last letter was good. I could start to picture Garrett a bit. And I could picture you a bit too. You’ve never told me what you truly look like but it doesn’t seem to matter so much these days. I’m still curious, but that’s all it is now — curiosity.
Am I allowed to send you a Christmas present? I’d like to, but I don’t know if you’re allowed to get them. Please tell me.
Also, I’d like to tell Mum and Dad about you. I know they’re not going to be thrilled, but I think I can make them understand. And if I don’t tell someone, I’ll burst. I feel like I’m carrying this dark secret around with me. I told Cheryl that we were writing again, and that you were a bit screwed-up (sorry!) and you were in a girls’ home. She got quite into it — I think she thought it’d be like Anne of Green Gables. I wish!
You know, Sophie’s the first person you’ve mentioned as a friend in there. Is she nice?
It seems so long since I wrote anything about me and my life — I’ll have to start from scratch. Hope you can remember all the absorbing details. Right now we’re burning up with tests and stuff. Kids like Rebecca are actually doing a bit of work. Mai Huynh’s been round us too long — she’s getting slacker. The worst ones are the teachers though. All the slack ones are going mad, giving us worksheets and revision hand-outs and tests. I think they’re scared they’ll get shown up when we fail. Or maybe they’re worried they won’t get the books finished.
I’ve noticed before though, everyone goes a bit mental at this time of year. Cheryl got busted a good one yesterday. She got Mrs Grogan’s special chair, tied a bit of rope to it, and chucked it out the window — with a little help from her friends. (We were on the top floor.) Then she sat there holding the rope. Mrs Grogan came in, couldn’t find the chair, made a big scene, wasted a quarter of an hour searching the building. She couldn’t figure it out, she’d only been out of the room for three minutes, and it’s a big chair. Not heavy, but big. Then the principal arrived. Bad luck for Cheryl, she’d been walking up the driveway, seen the chair hanging out the window. But she didn’t say that at first. Just walked into the room and asked Cheryl to stand up. So Cheryl was well and truly gone. Mrs Grogan couldn’t believe it — Cheryl’s her star pupil. But like I said, everyone goes a bit mental at this time of the year.
Cheryl and Justin Smith (think I told you about him) are still a big double. She’s lucky — he’s sweet. They look good together — Cheryl’s got beautiful brown skin and dark eyes and hair down to her waist. She dresses the best of anyone I know — I mean her family don’t have heaps of money, but we go op-shopping, plus she makes quite a few things. Justin’s tall, in fact he stoops a bit because I think he’s self-conscious about his height. He’s got brown hair and brown eyes and the whitest teeth — it’s great when he cracks a smile. He dresses about the worst of anyone I know, but by the time Cheryl’s finished with him he’ll be doing ads for American Express, guaranteed.
Katrina’s been home a lot lately. She’s getting paranoid about her exams and says this is the only place she can study. All I can say is, it must be bad where she lives. She has big fights with Steve, usually about his music, which he wants to play full on. Heavy Metal, need I tell you? Steve’s got a mate called Tim now, who’s another fun guy: hasn’t washed his hair since puberty; has a vocabulary of ten words, all obscene; thinks Rambo is a real person who’s gonna call him up one day and invite him on a mission. Still, he keeps Steve off my back, ’cos Steve goes over to Tim’s a lot. Thanks Tim, good buddy.
Mum and Dad are both working their lives away still. At least that’s how it seems to me. They both say they enjoy their jobs but if you saw them when they get home you wouldn’t think so. They’re so short-staffed at the library that Mum and another lady are covering three jobs between them, and Dad works in theatres, where it’s always high pressure. When they get home you wonder why they don’t go back to Dad’s hospital and have themselves admitted.
As for me, well, you remember Adam? You’d better remember Adam. Whatever happens I know I’m not going to forget him. I read this book the other day where all the girls kept talking about how they were in lust with different guys. Well, that’s me I think, deeply in lust. And in love. Isn’t it meant to be the girl who stops the guy from going too far? With us it seems like Adam’s the only one with self-control. We were on a bus the other day, on opposite sides of the aisle, and I was looking at him and suddenly I wanted to throw myself at him, in front of all the people on the bus, and wrap myself around him. I had to hold onto the seat, I tell you.
Yeah, for once it’s going well. Trouble is, I don’t know what’ll happen to us after next month. His final exams are on now and he finishes school December 7. Then he’s working for
his uncle (he’s a builder) until uni starts — he wants to do law. He’s a smart guy — I think he’ll get in. He works hard too. He’d look cute in one of those wigs, walking down the street past the TV cameras, when he’s defending someone famous.
Katrina’s got a Christmas job in the post office, sorting mail, and she thinks she can get me in there in January, when the permanents are on leave, which’d be ace.
Anyway, I gotta fly. Mum’s been hassling me for an hour to feed the dog, and now the dog’s joining in. Abyssinia.
Mandy
Nov 26
Dear Mandy,
Mandy, don’t ever give me any shit about this place being interesting. It may sound that way to you, but you don’t have to live here. For you, it’s like watching a TV show or something. This place is a hole. It sucks, more than anything I’d ever imagined, and it’s hard to stay cool when you write me a letter saying how good it all sounds.
Anyhow, I don’t want to start another fight. I just got mad when I read your first paragraph. I’m coming up to the end of my fifteenth month, can you believe that? I came in here on September 1, the first day of spring. Very appropriate. I don’t think it hit me till that day. At the remand centre they cushioned the shock. It was quite comfortable there, better than where I’d been living. And although I knew I couldn’t walk out of the place I didn’t understand what that meant till I got here. When the first lot of doors shut behind me, I realized I couldn’t leave. That sounds stupid, but if you think about it, everywhere else you are in life, you can get out of it. If you don’t like school you can jig it, if you don’t like home you can piss off or go to a friend’s place. But here, no matter what I did or said, no matter what I offered them, even if I slid on my stomach to their feet saying ‘sorry’ a thousand times, I still had to stay. That was bad.
And they set out to soften you up. In the paddy wagon they were telling me how I’d get bashed and raped and everything. This is the pigs, I mean. And when I got in here, it was the full routine: strip off, cavity searches, everything you own gets handed over. Then you’ve got to walk to the next room, in the nick, to get the uniform, while these pervs wet themselves watching you. And the uniform’s such a winner: black shoes, khaki daks, white shirt, khaki jumper. At least they don’t cut your hair any more.
Then I had to stand in this courtyard, with my feet on a white line, for about two hours, not allowed to move or talk. The shifts changed while I was there and one of the hacks, a young one, stopped and talked to me for a minute, then she was called away and I heard her getting told off! Can you believe it? I’ve never seen her since — she probably got the sack.
Then finally I got my stuff back — the bits I was allowed to keep — and got marched over to A Block, issued with toothpaste and junk, and put in my own little slot. My home away from home. And here I sit now, listening to the voices echoing round the quadrangle. It’s about nine o’clock: we’re not supposed to talk but it depends on who’s on and how slack they are and how much noise you make. But you know, something strange happened a few minutes ago. You were asking about Sophie. Well, one thing Sophie can do is sing. And about a quarter of an hour ago when it was quiet — no-one was talking or anything — she started singing ‘Missing, Maybe Lost’. You know it?
‘When you’re in love
And when you’re lonely,
And he’s gone, you don’t know where.
You start thinking
You’re the only
One who ever, seems to care.
And you look round every corner,
You’re afraid to leave the phone.
You have joined the nothing army
Of the lost and the alone.’
Well, she sang it, and I swear to God no-one moved in this whole block, not even the hacks. It was like the world stopped. It was so still: no wind, no noises, just this voice. Then after she finished, you could hear people crying. Not me, I don’t cry, they call me Ice-eyes, but some people were. And it’s funny, although they’re talking again now, it’s different — everyone’s so quiet.
Soph’s amazing. They call me Ice-eyes, but they call her Bedroom-eyes. She’s in for RWV, like most of A Block. To look at her you wouldn’t think she’d walk on the grass without permission. You asked, ‘Is she nice?’ Jeez Mandy, no offence, but I really laugh at some of the things you say. Nice! No-one’s fucking nice in here. But I talk to her a bit. I’m not sure what a friend is any more, but she’s the closest thing to one that I’ve got. See, in here, it’s all groups, everyone hangs round in groups, for protection mainly, but a few of us keep to ourselves. I’m one and Soph’s another. Some do it because they’re pussies, some do it ’cos no-one wants them, some do it ’cos they’re off their trollies. I do it ’cos it makes me stronger. I don’t know why Soph does it — I can’t make her out.
It’s funny, I don’t care about being top dog any more, and when Anita came in, all hot to take over, I wasn’t going to stand in her way. And she was doing OK too, scoring a few points. But she’s so stupid, she should have left me alone. She started hassling me to get out of the showers a few days ago, and I dropped her with a backhander through the nose. Fair dinkum, I’ve never hit anyone so hard. Her head bounced into the wall and she went down screaming, like a beached whale, blood everywhere. She just went too far. Anyway, I’ve written a poem about her:
There was a young slag called Anita,
Who thought nobody could beat her.
Until she met Trace,
And got hit in the face,
And now she couldn’t be sweeter.
Pretty good, eh? Raz taught me how to fight. He said, go for the nose, and try to put their nose through the back of their head, don’t stop till you feel air on the other side. But he was bloody frightening in a fight. He went psycho.
Anyhow I didn’t mean to write all this. I try not to write the bad stuff, about me or this place, but it slips in.
Oh yeah, one last thing, I don’t care about Christmas and that junk but the rules are that you can send me parcels any time. They get opened and searched. If it’s legal stuff I can have it; if it’s illegal (I mean, things I can’t have in my slot) I get it when I finally go out. By which time it mightn’t be good for much. You can’t send food — don’t know what happens if you do, imagine the hacks eat it.
As for telling your parents, that’s up to you. It’s not going to make much difference to me. But what if they stop you writing? Or want to read my letters or something?
Hey that was a good story about Cheryl and the chair. I liked that. And Adam sounds a bit of a winner. If you want to send a real Christmas present, send him in for a few days. I’m getting desperate. Next time they give us bananas for fruit I won’t be responsible for what happens.
Geez I can’t believe how long these letters are getting. I’m quitting this right here. See you.
Love,
Tracey
November 25
Dear Trace,
Well, I did tell my parents. Tonight actually, without waiting for a letter from you. I just thought it was the right thing to do. It was a difficult scene. I’m not very good at those ‘let’s sit down and have a family discussion’ situations. Just getting Mum and Dad together without Steve and Katrina wasn’t easy. But after tea on Saturday Steve was doing a bit of work (too little, too late) and Katrina was doing a lot of work and Mum and Dad were watching TV. I had to wait for the commercials, then it went something like this. (Well, you said you wanted to hear about a real family!)
‘Um, hey, you know Tracey, who’s been writing to me?’
Mum: ‘Yes.’
Dad: ‘Nuh, who’s Tracey.’
Me: ‘Oh Dad, you know. She put that ad in G.D.Y:
Dad: ‘Nuh.’
Me: ‘And I answered her ad, and we’ve been, like, pen pals all year.’
Dad: ‘Oh yeah?’
Me: ‘Well, I thought I’d better tell you a few things. . . it hasn’t quite worked out the way I thought it would.’
>
At this point Mum realizes that something fairly heavy could be going down, so she starts paying more attention to me than the TV.
Mum: ‘What do you mean?’
Me: ‘Well, I thought she was a normal kid, OK, looking for someone to swap letters with. . .’
Mum: ‘Yes?’
Me: ‘But it turns out she’s in Garrett.’
Dad, sitting up: ‘You mean, Garrett, where they put the girls. . . the ones who’ve been in court?’
Me: ‘Yeah.’
Mum: ‘But you mean she’s been there all along? And you didn’t know?’
Me: ‘Yeah. I didn’t know at first. But she told me a while ago.’
Dad: ‘How could you not know?’
Me: ‘Well, I was writing to a post-office box. And she was writing like she was in a normal family.’
Pause. They’re trying to figure out what line to take.
Dad: ‘Well, what’s she in for?’
Me: ‘I dunno. She won’t tell me.’
Now they start to bubble, and the steam’s not far away. I gotta act fast.
Me: ‘But it’s OK. She doesn’t have to tell me. I like writing to her, and they’re the only letters she gets.’
Mum: ‘But what happens when she gets out?’
Me: ‘Well, she won’t, not for a long time.’
Dad: ‘How long?’
Me: ‘Four years.’
Dad: ‘Four years! I don’t like the sound of that. She’s not there for jaywalking.’
Me: ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.’
No-one knows what to say.
Dad: ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Me: ‘Well, I thought you should know.’
Dad: ‘Maybe we should contact the place, Garrett, and ask them about it. Get their advice.’
Me: ‘No! No way! Don’t you dare do that. She’s my friend, and I’m going to keep writing to her no matter what, and I don’t want her to think I’m spying on her.’