Finding Cassie Crazy (5 page)

Dear Charles

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

You talk a pile of crap. You talk a pile of crap.

Yours faithfully

Emily Thompson

PS I decided to use this opportunity to practise my handwriting. As you can see, I am developing a highly eloquent style.

PPS I got a secret assignment yesterday and GUESS WHAT. I'm not going to tell you what it is.

PPPS I have to go now because you are wasting my TIME.

PPPPS The next letter you get from me will be an empty envelope, so be prepared for misery.

Dear Emily

Check it out. I JUST SAVED THE LIVES OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL.

I'm on the oval right now, and I can hardly see this paper through my tears of life-giving joy.

See those girls sitting cross-legged and singing the theme song from
Friends
? They wouldn't be doing that right now if it wasn't for me. See that guy over there taking the shoelace out of one of his sneakers? Same thing. That girl picking her nose? SHE WOULD BE DEAD AND HER NOSE WOULD BE FULLY UNPICKED IF IT WAS NOT FOR ME.

That guy with the sneakers is now using the lace to strangle someone, which is a beautiful thing to see, Emily, and I made it possible, and that's why you are blurry through my tears.

Okay, check it out, I'll tell you what happened.

I was in the admin block, outside the principal's office. I won't go into the reasons why I was there, because it would destroy the flow of the story. The fact is, I was there, and on my own because the secretary just went out for a moment and the telephone rang.

So I answer the phone. ‘Hello?'

And this voice goes, ‘Hello?'

And I go, ‘Hello?'

And this voice goes, ‘What?'

So I go: ‘Brookfield High School. How may I direct your call, please?' as per what I hear the secretary say every time I'm waiting there.

Then this voice goes, ‘Yes, hello, I'm with the Local Gas Authority and I'm calling from the basement of your school here. I'm just checking the main gas line and there is a serious leak here. Really, so serious that at any moment there could be an explosion. I myself am about to run to my car and get the hell away, but I thought I should let you know so
you can sound the fire alarm and get everybody out of the school and onto the oval.'

Check out how cool I was under pressure:

I just said, ‘Thank you very much, and please get yourself out of there and save your own life.' Then I hung up, switched on the PA system and said: ‘THERE IS A GAS LEAK IN THE BASEMENT OF THE SCHOOL. THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC. IT IS JUST A GAS LEAK THAT MAY LEAD TO AN EXPLOSION AT ANY MOMENT. PLEASE ALL GO TO THE OVAL, AS PER THE FIRE DRILLS.'

Then I found the fire alarm and pressed the button.

So then of course the doors all around me open and the principal practically kills me to switch off the PA and somehow I landed on the office floor but I kept my dignity.

So that explains why I am on the oval right now and not doing my Origins of the First World War examination and also why I have now got a new faith in humanity, on account of being its saviour.

When you think about it, the young people are the future, so I have saved the future.

There are even a couple of police here, right this minute scouring the school for gas leaks, which includes my brother Brian (I don't mean my brother Brian is a gas leak, he's a cop), so I'm hoping they'll get to the leak in time and patch it up, maybe with a bit of Blue Tac or chewing gum, whatever you do in an emergency.

Or in the alternative, I hope they get everyone out of there, including the fish out of the school pond and the flying foxes from the attic, and then the gas leak explodes and then the school is, like, fully gone. Pffwt. (Open your hands
out wide to indicate that there's nothing there any more, as per your average magic trick.)

No more school.

Anyhow, I hope you don't send an empty envelope next time.

Catch ya

Charlie

PS I liked your handwriting in your last letter. It was cute.

CHARLIE

THIS, AS YOU WILL SEE, IS AN EMPTY ENVELOPE.

EMILY

Dear Emily

Wow. You sure have a lot of resolution: I can't believe I sent you that whole story about being the saviour of the future and you just sent me an empty envelope.

Technically, it wasn't empty on account of your note in there about it being an empty envelope, but still, it was pretty close, Em, and I'm proud of you, girl. You really knocked me for a six.

I notice that you didn't express any interest in what happened next, after the gas leak. If you want to know, just say the word.

Actually, I'll tell you anyway, even though it is not a nice story.

Well, I told you there were cops at the school and I was kind of wondering why. I was thinking: why not the Gas
Authority blokes? Plus, what happened to that chick in the basement?

After I wrote my letter to you on the oval, I saw the principal waving at me to go over to her, and that's where the truth came out.

I go over to her and she's standing on the front lawn of the school with the cops, and she says, ‘Now, tell us again about this phone call of yours.'

I said, ‘Excuse me but it wasn't a phone call of
mine
, I just happened to answer the phone,' but she wasn't interested in that.

So I told her the details of the phone call as per my description in the last letter, and then she says, ‘Nobody told you there was anything on fire?'

‘No, just a gas leak in the basement.'

‘Charlie,' she says, ‘Charlie, can you tell us where the basement of this school is?'

‘No,' I say, ‘I don't know where it is.'

‘Well, that's because we haven't got a basement. There is no basement in this school, Charlie. And Charlie, is there any gas in this school?'

At which point my brother Brian made a snorting sound, like immaturely indicating that there's plenty of gas of the kind that smells bad.

‘I don't know,' I say, as I did not know, ‘but I assume there is gas, if there's a leak.'

‘There is no gas in this school,' says the principal. ‘Electricity, Charlie. We have electrical heating, all right?'

Then the adults all turn away from me and start talking to each other like I'm not there, about how unfortunate it was that there was a student answering the phone, and how
everyone else would have seen it for a prank right away, and very sorry to have got you out here, officers, and wasted your time.

‘Charlie apologises also,' said the principal, ‘for wasting your time.'

She would have known that she couldn't order me to give an apology.

One of the cops was very forgiving and said he thought I did the right thing and the other two (including my brother Brian) started doing stupid stuff like kicking around dead leaves at each other and going, ‘Watch out! There's a gas leak in your trousers!' And taking cover under their arms and stuff.

That was yesterday, and today I am depressed. I'm eating my Coco-Pops at the moment, and my mum is unfortunately using me as a pipeline to talk to the rest of the family, even though they are all also eating their breakfast right in this room. She's mad at everyone for some reason or another.

‘Charlie,' she just said, ‘ask Kevin if he intends to put the entire jar of strawberry jam on his toast.'

‘Kevin, Mum wants to know if you are you intending on—'

‘Yes, Chuck, you tell your mother that's exactly what I am intending.'

‘Charlie, tell Jess to stop spilling the Coco-Pops all over the floor and ask Kevin what he intends the rest of us should eat on our toast.'

‘Jess, get your hand out of the cereal box. Kevin, what are your intentions as per the rest of our breakfasts?'

‘I haven't really given much consideration to the rest of the family, Chucko.'

‘There's a purple dinosaur in here somewhere, I swear to you. Tell Mum about the purple dinosaur.'

‘Mum, Kevin says he hasn't considered us and Jess wants the purple dinosaur.'

‘Charlie, ask Jess if she is four years old, and please tell your father that his tie looks ridiculous with that shirt.'

‘What's wrong with this tie? I love this tie. You
gave
me this tie.
You
love this tie! What's wrong with this tie?'

As you will see, my dad just broke through the pipeline to defend his tie.

I just asked Brian if I should come by the station and give a statement about my general impressions of the chick on the phone, to help them catch her, plus some suggestions about protocol for future pranks like that. Eg, they should install phone-tracing machines in all school offices. If I could have switched on a tracer I could have tracked down the prankster while we were talking. Although that is assuming I would have known she was a prankster, which I did not.

Anyhow, Brian just told me to piss off and stop being a nancy boy.

See you

Charlie