Finding Cassie Crazy (34 page)

Hey Seb
I like the sound of your mother.

Also, I'm glad I helped you get through the probation last term. But I've been thinking, did you actually skip school to do those tasks that I gave you, like moving the polar bear sign around the shopping centre and putting ribbons around trees?

Okay, I take your point about
perspective
, but I don't think what Paul Wilson did to Cass was a game. I think it was serious and I think he has to be punished.

Anyhow, it's Friday afternoon so you probably won't get this until Monday. I'm seeing you at Balmoral tomorrow for the assignment.

I hope it's not too cold at the beach. Just go ahead and build an igloo if it is. You can use sand for that. Put in stained-glass windows and a fireplace.

Great.

Thanks.

See you
Lyd

To: LYDIA JAACKSON-OBERMAN
SPECIAL COVERT OPERATION REPORT

OPERATION:
Operation Balmoral Beach

Assigned by Agent Lydia

RESULT:
Unsuccessful

Agent AKA hereby hands in his badge and gun and resigns.

DETAILS OF FAILURE:
Agent AKA proceeded through train, ferry, buying fish and chips successfully, and thinks that Lydia's message was:
Watch out for windsurfers, weddings and whales.

However, Agent AKA did not complete the next phase successfully. Instead of behaving like a stranger, Agent AKA
moved along the sand to sit next to Agent Lydia and kissed her. This kissing kept up for about half an hour or so, until it got too cold to be on the beach, and then continued on the trip home until we fell asleep and missed Hornsby Station. Agent Lydia seemed fairly into this but I take full responsibility for the failure.

EXPLANATION OF FAILURE:
Have you seen what Agent Lydia looks like? Have you ever sat two metres away from her on the beach and seen the way she hugs her knees in the cold? If so, you don't need an explanation.

QUERY:
Lyd, do I actually have to makeup another assignment before I can touch you again?

Hey Seb
You can keep your badge and your gun etc. I'm okay with what you did. Actually, I liked it. I'll put in a good word with the boss.

But don't you want to keep playing?

Lyd

Dear Lydia
I don't want to keep playing, I just want to see you.

A lot of time has passed since we started writing letters, and I feel like I know a lot about you, but at the same time there's a whole lot I don't know at all. It confuses me, Lyd. Example: I don't know what you like and what you don't like. You could even have a boyfriend, for all I know.

If you do, you're cheating on him by spending so much time inside my head.

And I guess that was technically cheating, all that messing around at Balmoral. I wouldn't tell your boyfriend about that.

Love
Seb

Dear Seb
Okay, I'll tell you what I like and what I don't like.

I don't like sultanas in cakes, especially in a cake that seems to be sultana-free. I don't like mornings, especially cold mornings, and I don't like stockings, shoes, shoelaces, shoe polish, hair scrunchies, hair dryers and train passes.

I like socks, pens, nail polish, detective novels and spy movies.

I like fairy penguins, whales, huskies and pelicans. I like looking for four-leaf clovers and locket shells. Also looking for Santa Claus and his sleigh in the night sky. I never liked the Easter Bunny though.

I kept believing in Santa Claus for years after I knew he didn't exist.

I like Bacardi Breezers, Kahlua and milk, sangria and tequila shots.

And I'd like a tattoo of a lizard on my ankle.

And now I'll tell you some things that I liked about last weekend.

I liked the way you took that whole journey to Balmoral
without looking at me once. But all the time I felt like you were crinkling the corners of your eyes for me.

I liked the way you ordered fish and chips and a can of Coke, and said no thanks to the special seafood sauce, and then the way you said ‘hup!' at the last minute, and changed your mind and got the seafood sauce. The girl at the register smiled at you when you said ‘hup!', but you didn't notice because you were getting out your wallet.

I liked the way one windsurfer was out on the cold grey water at Balmoral and, when he fell, he'd stay there patiently in the water and let the wind pick him up again with the sail.

I liked the way you ate your fish and chips, looking out at the sea, with a big smile like you'd given up trying not to smile.

I liked how you cleared the smile away with the napkin, wiped your hands and took out a drawing pad and pencil, and started sketching, without looking back at me once. I liked how you seemed to be sketching the windsurfer or the sea, because you were frowning into the distance.

I especially liked it when you shifted so I could see what you were drawing, and it was actually a portrait of me, and I liked how you smiled when you heard my reaction. And I liked how you wrote a message on the corner of the page: ‘There's a whale on the horizon—can you see the spout?'

I don't think there was actually a whale there. But maybe.

And I liked it a lot when you put the picture away, slid over to where I was sitting and kissed me. I liked how you did that fast as if it was kind of inevitable.

I haven't got a boyfriend at the moment. If I did, I wouldn't have let you kiss me, Seb.

I don't think I want a boyfriend. I've had three boyfriends from this school and it never works out. I always feel like I disappear; I always feel like it's just physical and like they never really hear me when I speak.

Last year I was with a guy called Sergio for three months. I thought he was sexy as hell. He's got a burn scar on his face and people stared at him wherever we went, which he said he liked, but I was always so pissed off at them. Sergio called me his ‘wild-eyed girl' and the more he said it the more wild I got.

In the end I broke up with him because I was turning into this angry person all the time—like I knew that was what he liked about me, and I couldn't ever smile and be stupid, which is also what I like to be.

Plus I started thinking that ‘wild-eyed girl' made me sound like a horse.

So, see, I always start to act like someone I'm not.

That's why I want to keep writing letters, okay? And maybe meeting up sometimes if our letters say we can. It's the only way I can stay honest to myself.

Love
Lydia

Lydia
I don't really want to hear about Sergio being sexy as hell. But okay, thanks for the news.

Do you really turn into someone else when you're with guys? I find that difficult to get my head around because you seem like a fairly strong person, Lyd.

Also, do you really think you are ‘yourself ' in your letters?
I remember your first letter to me, you told me you were a fish and your mother was a pinball machine. I don't want my hand to be holding this pen, I want it to be holding your hand.

Can I phone you some time?

Love
Seb