Finding Cassie Crazy (44 page)

Hey!!!!!! YOU DID IT!!! YOU MADE IT!! Welcome to the FINAL PAGE of your Note-book™. It was quite a journey, wasn't it? But a valuable one.

Go on, write your name in the box!

Write it big and write it proud.

And then, for this final page, have a glass of chardonnay and share some of your musings on what it's like to be a Writer. Because, we guarantee it, if you've got this far, then you
are
a Writer
^*
—so fill your glass and fill this space with words!

Yeah, I'm just out here in my rose garden, pouring myself a nice glass of chardonnay, thinking back to my sword-fighting days. I should phone up my best buddy, the plumber, really, and ask him what he thinks about being sunburnt. And when he answers, I'll write down the words EXACTLY AS HE SAYS THEM, because I don't actually have a mind of my own and the fact is, I am really pretty stupid.

You have the strangest idea of who I am, don't you, Note-book™?

It's been great getting to know you, of course. You're a lot of fun.

But I'm not sure how healthy it is to keep writing to you.

For a start, I think I have this idea that I can do anything by writing. Like I can be myself if I write letters, and I can help my friends if I write secret assignments. Like I can change
things, punish people, fall in love and find myself, all by writing the right words.

When actually, maybe I'm just hiding behind the words.

Just like I'm hiding behind this idea that everything is dark and terrible—like I hate my parents, and I'm always scared that Em and Cass are going to fail at life, and I'm scared I'll never be a writer. In fact I should just be proud of Em and Cass. And I don't even know why I hate my parents—I can give reasons, like the fact that my mum's spaced out and my dad can't stop flirting with other women, even though he's such a nerd that no one but my spaced-out mother could ever fall for him. But they're okay really, and they've just had a hard year. Maybe I'm just mad at them for being upset about Cass's father—like I wanted them to be normal and strong while we were the crazy ones.

I'll now be symbolic and dramatic and say this: it's time to come out from behind the words, and from behind the darkness.

I still want to be a writer. But I don't think you're going to make me one. I'm just hiding behind more words when I try to follow your instructions.

So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to take one of those 48-page refill books (feint ruled) that Dad has stacked in his study. Oh look, here's one right beside me.

And I'll write a story in this notepad. Maybe something about a girl who falls for a soccer-crazed guy who gets caught by an underground spy group and he has to get clues to the girl somehow, so he sketches portraits using colour-coded paints, which the girl—

Anyway, whatever I write, the only thing to get in my way will be those pale blue (feint-ruled) lines.

^*
For the purposes of the money-back guarantee, a ‘Writer' is defined as a person who has, at any time in his or her life, used a typewriter, computer or pen. Guarantee applies only to persons over 21 years of age. Guarantee applies only to residents of Regina, Saskatchewan. Credit card and valid photo ID required.

So, a funny thing happened last night, Diary.

Mum and I decided to stop seeing Claire the counsellor.

How it happened was this: Claire made us decorate little plastic Christmas trees on her office floor. (It's October, by the way.) Mum was too shocked even to think up some tricky reason why this might be illegal so we spent the whole time quietly twirling tinsel around tree branches, every now and then sneaking looks at Claire to check that she was for real. Whenever Claire wasn't looking, we opened our eyes really wide at each other, like,
What is going on here?

So, then, at the end, Claire said, ‘You guys like decorating therapy as much as I do?'

Mum and I nodded at her, politely and carefully. And then we didn't say a word on the way out to the car, or even as we got into the car while it went DING DING DING, waiting for us to put on our seatbelts. Mum looked over her shoulder to reverse out of the parking spot, and then, as she put the car into drive and adjusted the rear-view mirror, she said, ‘Cassie?'

And I said, ‘Absolutely.'

Which was our way of saying that that was the last time we were going near that crazy lady.

Mum said that the main thing is that people at work are now used to her leaving early every second Thursday, and she's going to keep doing that, whatever. Only now she and I can hang out together, without Claire getting in our way.

Then we started saying all the things that were stupid about Claire, such as the way she played applause for us, and the way she squints, and the way there are always two buttons missing from her cardigan, and the way she pretends to be smarter than us, and the way she told Mum to write a letter to Dad but she didn't let me do that too.

That last one was something I said, which made Mum brake a bit dangerously, and say, ‘
Cassie!
'

And I said, ‘What?'

And she said, ‘You don't need
Claire's
permission if you want to write a letter to Dad.'

And I just shrugged and said I'd been kind of jealous that she got to do that, whereas I had to talk to a stranger for my homework, which didn't seem fair and, next thing, Mum was crying.

Only for a second though. She cries unexpectedly like for a second sometimes, like a sneeze. Then she turned the cry into a laugh and said, ‘Did you get
candy canes
for your Christmas tree?'

So then we drove along for a few minutes, listening to music and kind of giggling to ourselves, thinking about Claire's Christmas decorations.

‘Listen,' Mum said, getting serious again. ‘If you do want to keep seeing Claire, I mean, if you want to ask her any questions or anything, then you just say so, don't let me steamroller you here.'

I thought about it, and I said, ‘The only question I want to ask Claire is why she told me I had to find a stranger to be a new friend.'

‘I can tell you why,' said Mum, right away. ‘She knew she was such a crappy therapist that even a perfect stranger would be better than her.'

‘Well,' I said, getting cross, ‘I don't see why I couldn't just talk to Lydia and Emily.
They're
my best friends.'

So then Mum said, ‘Who knows what's going on in that woman's mind, but I can tell you why
I
might have suggested the same thing.' Then she said she thought maybe I'd
changed a bit after what happened, but I didn't know how to be the new self with Lyd and Em. Because they knew me as the old me. Whereas I could try out the new personality on a stranger, and prove to myself that it worked.

‘Do
you
think I've got a new personality?' I said.

‘Do you?' She likes to throw questions back like a schoolteacher.

‘Yes,' I said, ‘I'm deranged in the head.' I said it right away, like a joke.

Mum just laughed, as if it
was
a joke, and she said, ‘Well,
I
think the amazing thing is this: that you are just as lovely as you ever were, except stronger and braver than before.'

Then we slowed down because lights up ahead had turned orange, and she slapped both hands on the steering wheel and said, ‘The witness may step down,' at which exact moment a woman waiting on the kerb stepped down onto the road.

So, anyhow, I don't know about that theory of Mum's, that I'm a new person now.

And if I am, when do I get to try out my new personality on a stranger?

Seb and Charlie seem pretty cool. And Seb says he's going to introduce me to Christina, so we can have fun ripping into Paul Wilson. I don't know about that, but still, maybe they can
all
be the strangers. Or I could just ask Lyd and Em to cut their hair and wear sunglasses.

Whatever, on Monday there was a notice on the board at school, saying we had to do something for the Spring Concert. Because they've expanded it now, to bring in the
people with Brookfield penfriends. I could have just put myself down as a ticket-seller or something, but it seemed like a second chance to put my hand in the air (although, to be honest, you didn't have to put your hand in the air, you just went to Mrs Lilydale's office and wrote your name in a book).

So this is what I wrote:

‘‘‘In the Stars”, a song performed by Cass Aganovic (Ashbury); words by Matthew Dunlop (Brookfield).'

Then I walked out of the office and thought:
Oh my God, what did you just do?

Anyway, but today, at the rehearsal, I decided I may as well pretend to myself that Mum was right. That I have some kind of a new brave identity now. And I think it worked.

I'm dedicating the song to my dad. Not that I'll say that aloud, okay, because people will think I'm looking for the sympathy vote. But you'll know that I mean it for you. And I'll write out the words for you here:

I saw your name in lights last night.
It's the middle of the night,
and I can't sleep,
thinking all my trumpeting thoughts,
and I get out of bed,
open the curtains
and look into the night full of stars,
and you know what I saw?
Your name.
Like the stars joined up and spelled the word for me.
Like a sign.

It's not exactly Shakespeare, eh. And like a sign of what? But it works with the music I wrote, and it's straight from one of Matthew Dunlop's letters.

All this time, we were trying to figure out who he was, who would have thought he was a songwriter?