Finding Cassie Crazy (28 page)

‘Make your own dinner,' Cass said hostilely.

‘That ad is so sexist,' contributed Lydia.

From her treadmill, Patricia said, ‘Well, of course, the ad is sexist. But that's just one of the ways you can interpret it.'

Cass was a bit surprised as it is her mother who is always trying to make us into so-called feminists. I try to refuse her attempts as it is not needed in our generation.

‘For example,' Patricia continued, hardly puffing at all, as she is very fit, ‘for example, how might a socialist interpret that ad?'

We all turned around from the floor and looked at her.

‘A socialist might point out the conspicuous consumption in all that luxury furnishing and the man's designer suit and the unimaginable waste of a packaged Diamante meal while most of the world's population is starving.'

‘Huh,' said Lydia.

‘But an advertising executive might say,
Nice product imaging
because they've got cheap microwave meals and associated them with a young professional lifestyle. And a trade practices lawyer might say,
Hmm, is that misleading and deceptive to call those awful meals ‘divine'?
And a Christian might say,
Well, that is a beautiful, loving marriage, and marriage is based on sacrifice.
Or some tosh like that. And now, tell me what might a Muslim or a Buddhist say?'

We all continued to stare at her.

Patricia's feet started moving faster while drops of sweat scattered from her hair, ‘Come on! Didn't you girls take Comparative Religion last year?'

We explained that the Comparative Religion class was cancelled, so we did Liturgical Dance instead.

‘The point is,' said Patricia, the pounding of her feet slowing down as the treadmill let her have a break. ‘The point is that there is no right or wrong; there is no one truth, there are lots of truths. And you girls should
translate
the world into as many different languages as possible. If you see the world in just one language, your world becomes too small. Okay?'

We did not answer as we were translating the TV ad into Liturgical Dance, which was making us laugh too much to talk.

See you
Emily
PS You are definitely ready to ask Christina out. I don't really
feel like giving you advice on how to do it, I think you just go ahead and be funny etc like you are with me, and give her that little wave by raising one finger in the air. Please go ahead and hurry up and just make it happen.

Dear Emily
Well, you should maybe listen with care to your friend's mum with her theories about looking at the world in different ways, because it might make you calm down a bit. As my brother Brian often says to Mum when she's in one of her intense moods, you seem to be a person of EXTREMES and HYPERBOLES. You are a bit wacked out and crazy, and I have used those capital letters in the previous sentence as an echo of all the capital letters you often use.

No offence.

When can we meet up again?

Love
Charlie
PS Sometimes the right thing to do with zits is not squeeze them and maybe that's what your buddy Bindy is up to there?

Dear Charlie
I will now translate the criticisms in your letter into a variety of languages:

Sexism:
Boys always think that girls are too extreme and emotional. They think that girls are crazy, whereas they think they themselves are level as a head. They are WRONG.

Socialism:
It is wrong to use long words like ‘hyperbole' because that is the way of the rich classes.

Mathematics:
Hyperbole is something to do with graphs. What is it in particular? I don't know. I hate Maths.

Christianity:
You should not throw stones until you learn how to Kick a Pebble.

Stupidity:
What you say in your letter is fairly stupid.

I might check with Cass's mum whether I am playing this game correctly.

Well, Charlie, you are exasperating me. I hear no word of you pursuing Christina. She will be wrapped in you. I know it.

Emily

Dear Emily
Well, I don't know. I still think Christina is gorgeous, and she's a really nice girl and you were fairly wrong back when you said she must be a bad person if she's going out with Paul Wilson. It's not her fault that Paul tricked her into falling for him.

I mean, think about it: Paul Wilson tricked your friend Cass too. He's just good at taking people for rides, clearly. The teachers here slobber all over him and he doesn't even
do
that well. He's just a smarmy bastard who thinks he was put on earth to be the next Russell Crowe in Hollywood and to
perform
for the girls, is all.

This is all incidental leading me up to the point: that maybe I'm not interested in Christina any more. Maybe I have changed.

Remember what you were like when you wrote to me last
term? You were a bit of a loser. You were always going on about ‘secret assignments', I recall, and you really wanted to get your English teacher into bed.

So maybe we have both changed since then.

I just need to check with you
one more time
. Do you really truly want me to go for Christina?

Yours
Charlie

Dear Charlie
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the idea of
hurting yourself
, and I have some conclusions, which are:

This girl in our year jumped off a cliff last year, and I would put that in category (b). People said she was trying to kill herself, something to do with her boyfriend. Maybe he broke up with her or something? Anyway, I was so angry with her.

Because this was happening around the same time as Cassie was going to her dad's funeral and I was scared it would make Cass think of doing the same thing, and I
thought,
What a stupid idiot that girl is, if Cass can get through this without jumping off a cliff, then I think you can get through a break-up.

And NOW THIS PAUL HAS DONE EVEN WORSE, AND WHAT IF IT MAKES CASSIE WANT TO KILL HERSELF?

So it is extremely important that Lyd and I do our best to help Cass. It is what we do, we help each other.

Eg: this last year we were criminals fairly regularly (shoplifting etc) as our means of distracting Cass from all her sadness.

2nd eg: Just today I got so upset because I got 42 out of 100 in a History exam and that's practically failing. Anyway, I came out at lunchtime and sat down and just started crying. And Lyd said, ‘Wait right there,' and she went to the canteen and got me a Toblerone, whereas Cass started French-braiding my hair. So before you knew it I was feeling much more cheerful.

You see how we fix each other?

So that's what we have to do for Cass.

I therefore really need you to steal Christina away from that horrible boy and break his heart.

Thank you.

Love
Emily

Hey Em
I'm not so sure it's okay to hurt yourself, even a little bit. Could you not scrape your pretty hands along the wall and cut the skin please? Because that makes me feel upset.

Also, it's never okay to break a mirror as that's seven years bad luck. Right there.

I get the point of your story about how you all help each other, but I wonder if distracting Cass by getting her into crime is all that mature? Maybe you could have distracted her with some action-packed DVDs?

In relation to the exam, I myself have never cried about failing an exam. You did fail, by the way—42/100 is not practically failing.

No offence.

Em, is it really so serious to fail a History exam? In the grand scheme of things?

Charlie

Dear Charlie
You might not think it to look at me, but my greatest fear is that I won't be able to become a lawyer or any other profession because I'm not smart enough. So, yes, in the grand scheme it is that bad.