Finding Cassie Crazy (7 page)

I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks again and catch ya later

Charlie

Dear Charlie

Well, for a start what you did wrong was ask out a girl with lady beetles in her head and long socks. A girl like that does not deserve to be asked out, or even to be alive.

The other thing you did wrong was that neither of you were drunk. You should always ask girls out when you are both blind and so therefore you can't see each other.

Anyway, I'm in English at the moment, and I'm so hungry that I'm just going to take a pain-killer. Excuse me.

Yours sincerely

Emily Thompson

Dear Emily

I appreciate your comments about the girl I asked out and I think you are an alcoholic. If you need alcohol to give you courage, that's alcoholism.

Maybe you could give me some advice on how to pick up chicks. You seem like a very experienced girl, I have to say, and kind of professional about life. I am eating a Crunchie this moment and I've got to say it cheers me up, just as you said.

There's one girl my heart belongs to at the moment, but she's just been taken by a class-A prick who happens to be captain of our year. He also gets himself the starring role in every drama the school puts on. I say being the guy-in-charge and a star should be enough for him. But no, he has to get Christina Kratovac for his girlfriend as well. She is the hottest woman alive, I swear to you.

Hey. Sorry I had to stop then. The smoke alarm just went off and the sprinkler system turned on in our classroom. You won't even be able to read this letter any more because the ink's all running, eh? I am soaking wet. The good thing about it is that we now don't have to do our exam on South African geography. I've got to go get a change of clothes or something.

Catch ya

Charlie

Dear Charlie

When you say ‘pick up chicks' it reminds me of ‘pick up sticks', which is a game I used to have as a child. I do not
think it is correct to refer to girls as colourful sticks in a pile on the floor and so therefore please don't use that expression.

Also, I don't think you should refer to a girl as ‘the hottest woman alive'. For one thing, it might be offensive to the girl you are writing to. How do you know the girl you are writing to is not the hottest woman alive? I am not saying that this is true, I am only giving you a hyperactive situation of how you might give offence.

However, you are very inexperienced and so therefore I will forgive you for now.

I think that I should give you some lessons on how you ask a girl out. And then you will be able to ask out this girl who has your heart, named Christina.

However, Lydia and Cassie are waiting for me this moment, standing right beside me trying to read over my shoulder, which makes it difficult to concentrate. We are about to take the train to Lydia's place because we are spending the weekend there and painting the walls of her bedroom. Lydia says I have to explain that we are not just painting the walls like wall-painters, we are doing a mural. We get one wall each and the fourth wall is for practising. But I don't think that's necessary, for me to explain that.

Wait one moment and I will ask Lyd and Cass for their ideal way of being asked out.

Okay, Lydia says her ideal way would be this: it would be the guy with the nose stud and the blond hair who works in HMV in Castle Hill and he would sell her a CD and he would put a little purple note in the CD cover saying a time and a place, and she would not even know what he meant and whether it was serious, but she would be curious and
have to go there, and when she got there, there would be a waiter standing at the door, wiping his hands on a white cloth, and, speaking in a Russian accent, he would say, ‘You are Lydia? I have a message for you. Go now. Go to the second elevator from the left and press the up button' and she would go there, and she would see an electric guitar leaning against the elevator door . . . LYDIA IS GOING ON AND ON AND I AM NOT GOING TO WRITE DOWN ANOTHER WORD.
LYDIA, YOU MUST LEARN TO CONTROL YOURSELF.

I am going to ask Cass instead.

Cass says that her ideal way would be for the guy to be Brad Pitt and he can just call her up and ask.

I am not sure that they understood the question correctly, but at least it is a start for you to work with. You could think about getting a nose stud, for instance.

Okay, I have to go as they are both trying to take the pen out of my hand as you will see from the handwriting.

Yours sincerely

Emily Thompson

Hey Emily

Thanks for your letter with the good advice. I would think about getting a nose stud but we have a crisis in the family at the moment as Jess, my sister, just came home with a tattoo of barbed wire around her wrist. My mother has been crying her eyes out and my father punched a hole in the kitchen wall.

My brother Kevin didn't make it any better because then he got home with a broken heart and a tin of black paint, ready to paint his room black.

That's a coincidence, eh, because you and your friends were painting bedroom walls over the weekend.

Anyhow, but Kev shares his room with Jack and Jack doesn't want the walls black, so they're just beating each other up in the backyard for a while to sort it out.

I hope you had fun with your friends. Did you?

I've got a heap of homework right now and it would be good if I could do some of it, eh, but no chance in this family.

See ya

Charlie

Dear Charlie

Well, I had a very nice weekend, thank you.

Lydia's bedroom walls were this revolting orange colour so we made them extremely fascinating, and then we just watched movies and talked all night, generally.

Cassie is an excellent singer and she did this BEAUTIFUL song that she made up, all about painting the wall, and she wrote the words on the wall with paint so we could join in on the chorus. I can't explain how beautiful the singing was because you can't write music.

The sad thing is she will never sing in front of anyone else except us and I guess her piano teacher, and maybe she sings sometimes in the shower and maybe a passer-by hears. Also, she did sing at her dad's funeral last year but that was too sad for words.

Cass is just not the kind of person who can sing on stage.

And there is nothing wrong with being a shy person is what I always say, as long as you tell your best friends every
single thing inside your head. Incidentally, I am a bit suspicious that Cass is not obeying this proclamation.

You know what, though, Lyd and I have noticed that Cass is writing a lot of letters to her penfriend person at Brookfield. This is a mystery to us, but he must be a nice person, whoever he is, to get her to write letters like that. She never usually likes to write stories or essays or anything. She is more the sport and music type of girl.

What I am thinking in my psychological mood is this: Cass does not explain the expressions on her face.

You must express your feelings. It is a rule.

I don't mean you though. Boys should never express their feelings. It's really annoying when they do and makes them less mysterious, which is what boys should be. There's a guy in my English class who is always saying how books make him
feel
, like in
Julius Caesar
, it made him feel really angry to see the violence in the world. For a start, who cares how he feels, not me, and for another thing, that's not how you are supposed to read, you are supposed to look for the Themes and the Characters, and for a final thing, the teacher really gets off on it when this guy says how he feels and praises him to an extent beyond belief.

Therefore, in conclusion, when I say ‘You must express your feelings', I mean a
person
should express his or her feelings, unless the person is a boy.

Yours sincerely

Emily

Hi Emily

Well, Kevin won the fight in the end, so he was able to paint his bedroom black. Only he was too depressed to lift a paintbrush, so I had to do it for him.

I really need some help, Emily. My family is making me crazy.