Finding Cassie Crazy (8 page)

We didn't have to do our Science test today because our teacher had his car broken into and all the papers stolen.

You know what? I've been working on my memory of that gas leak incident. I feel like all my problems would be solved if I could find out who tricked me like that. And made me miss out on that car show, wasting time going to the cops. Even though it was not really my fault that I didn't know we are a fully electrical school with no gas to leak, it was still a humiliation to be tricked by that Gas Authority girl, and to have the cops laugh at me. So I really want to try to find out who that girl was and maybe get her arrested.

I have been trying to remember what that announcement said in the background. You remember I told you there was some announcement going on while she was talking to me? Now I think I almost have it.

Would all [something something] who are [something] on
the inside of the Balkans, please be devout immediately
[something]
and the lives of others.

Something like that.

So that seems to suggest it was an airport or a train station. Something about devout passengers going to the Balkans? She was making an escape is what I read into it.

Catch ya

Charlie

Dear Charlie

You should chew on fresh mint all the time. You can get it from your mother's mint garden and you can always keep it in your pocket.

I think that one problem with boys is that they often smell: eg, Body Odour or Breath or just a general Boy-smell.

For an example, I have an Uncle Christopher and he has a real tendency to drink coffee and eat garlic and sardines and so therefore he has Breath.

So this letter is a reminder to eat fresh mint from your mother's mint garden while you are asking a girl out, and to move out of your home. That's my advice for now.

My other advice is that it will not solve any of your problems if you keep thinking about the girl who called you about the gas leak. It will only keep you awake at night, tossing and turning, and that is no answer. That girl would be long gone now, since she was calling from an airport. Plus, maybe she is not so evil as you think she is? Maybe she really DID believe there was a gas leak? MAYBE IT WAS A WRONG NUMBER. Have you considered that?

Sincerely

Emily Thompson

Dear Emily,

Okay, fair enough about the mint though I have to say that my old lady is the last person on the planet to have a mint garden. I'll pick some up at the supermarket.

But even if I got Christina to go out with me, what would I do once I got her out? As you can see, I am a hopeless case.

I can't go home tonight because Kevin thinks I took his motorbike for a spin. In actual fact, it was Jessica. So maybe you are right about moving out, but how will I live?

I will try to stop thinking about the gas leak girl.

See ya

Charlie

Dear Charlie

I have got some more advice, as I see you are miserable again and I wonder if you are taking my advice about the toilets in Grace Bros.

But I wonder if the boys toilets are the same as the girls toilets? That is something I never thought of and it's good that I'm writing to you as it puts a whole new perspex on the world.

Here is some new advice. The ladies seem to really go for Lydia's dad (Justice Oberman). They love him! ☺ I have heard tell (from Lydia's mother) that Justice Oberman's name was once a cinnamon for sex god. This was in his university times.

I asked my parents about this, but they just laughed fondly, remembering the days of free love.

All our parents are friends, you know. They used to smoke pot together but they gave up to set a better example to us. However, they continue gathering to drink whisky (the men) and gin-and-tonics (the women) and at some point in the
night, they always play a song by Kate Bush called ‘Wuthering Heights', which makes them dance wildly, in drunken disarray.

Well, anyway, they used to do this often, before Cass's father got too sick and, even when that happened, they still hung out at his place and laughed loudly in their variety of laughs.

Now, getting back to Lydia's dad, the mystery of it is that he is bald. ALMOST COMPLETELY BALD. And he does not even seem ashamed of it, for example by wearing a hat or a wig. He would wear a wig when he is being a judge, of course, and that is probably why he became a judge, but I do not see him wear one in normal life.

Also, I have seen on TV that you can get head transplants and it seems to me that it is a tragedy if you are bald and you don't get a head transplant.

My dad agreed with me heartily and with much joy, when I pointed out that Lydia's dad should get a head transplant.

Yours sincerely

Emily Thompson

PS I completely forgot the point of this letter! It was to say that we should learn from Lydia's dad, because if he can be bald and still be attractive to women, well then!

PPS You can really learn from him, I guess.

PPPS. So therefore I thought about that while I was at Lydia's place. I noticed that her father plays a lot of snooker with various friends in the family games room. He seems to be sharp at snooker, and offers brandies and cigars to his friends while they are playing, and makes urban comments about the cigars. As well as being urban, he can be quite
trivial. For instance, the other night we stopped by the games room to see if we could play snooker while we were eating our pizza and he was in there with two women. He put on a strong Italian accent and said, ‘Pepperoni, eh? Mamma make-a the pepperoni pizza, eh?' If you can believe it, the two women giggled. Then he put on a French accent instead, and told us to leave him, because he was entertaining
mon cheries,
gesturing towards the giggling women.

He is a ladies man, as I have said, and so you should learn from that.

Dear Emily

Thanks for your advice about the pepperoni pizza and the head transplants.

My brothers sit on the back porch and drink beer when they get home from work each day and that means that they are alcoholics.

I'm sitting out here with them now, freezing my balls off in the dark, trying to see this paper using the lights of their cigarettes. They've been talking about building a fire pit alongside the porch for as long as I can remember so that we can keep warm out here, but they never do, just figure out how they would do it.

I have no socks at all today because Jessica has stolen them all to keep her worms warm. She's got a worm farm in a garbage bin in the backyard, which stinks.

Meantime, my mother has been having a bath all afternoon, to get over the nervous breakdown she had over
Jess's tattoo. So the bathroom also stinks, but of some kind of jasmine flavouring designed to get Mum sleepy.

It's funny that you say guys smell bad, because in my family I reckon it's the women.

Catch ya

Charlie

Dear Charlie

Sometimes I think I might have already
lived
too much for a teenager. You know, because I have been to Spain, France, Italy, England and the United States of America. Where else is there? I am too cosmopolitan for my own good.

But not cosmopolitan enough to see my horses this weekend because there is nobody to drive me to the south coast where we keep them. I never get to see them, you know.

I have thought of some more advice for you for trying to impress that girl called Christina. Well, first you have to be very, very funny. I have realised that it is essential for a boy to be funny. Otherwise, what is the point in a boy?

The boy must be funny. It's a rule, and it's similar with fat people. There is no point in being fat unless you are funny.

Yours sincerely

Emily

Dear Emily

There are a couple of things I have to point out about your letter.

One of them is that I can't be funny. I have tried to be funny but I'm crap at it. So what do I do if I'm a boy and I'm not funny?

The other thing I have to say is that I think it is wrong what you said about fat people—that fat people have to be funny. I think it's actually a bit racist.

Catch ya