Finding Cassie Crazy

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  I will now try to figure out what the real problem is.

  The real problem is obvious: that Cass should tell us everything and then we can look inside her head. Then maybe she would not have ended up alone in the reserve like that. I just think that if everyone is completely themselves, then we will all be okay. I am trying my hardest to be myself and concentrating etc, but I don’t really know if myself is myself or if myself is good enough or—

  Wow. Suddenly I am crying. I can’t believe it. I’m in a German class and I am secretly crying.

  That’s what that mark is: a tear from me. In the future they will be able to make a little baby Emily out of the DNA in that tear mark.

  Okay, I am now going to try harder to do the assignment: what am I afraid of? I’m afraid that Charlie doesn’t like me. I’m afraid that he doesn’t really like the way I look. I saw a photo of him before I met him, so I knew the way he looked. He’s cute. He has hair the colour of a crème brulée.

  Sometimes I accidentally catch a glimpse of myself when I think I look pretty and I realise that my face is too round. I don’t think I’m fat but I think I might be on the verge of it. I do exercise every now and again, to hold it off.

  I used to sometimes think that Cassie would never be unhappy because she’s skinny, but I have learned that this is wrong.

  I’m afraid that Charlie likes this girl at his school called Christina. And now I have a message for you guys of the future: FIND CHRISTINA AND KILL HER.

  Something amazing just happened in my mind.

  Listen to this. We met a girl called Christina from Brookfield at the Blue Danish last night.

  Christina, I just this moment, suddenly, thought, Christina!

  Because WHAT IF THAT CHRISTINA IS THE CHRISTINA WHO CHARLIE LIKES?!?!?

  It could be, you know. She was beautiful, there is no denying it.

  And there we were, wasting time talking to her when we should have been going straight to the reserve to rescue Cassie, my poor little Cassie, sitting under the tree in the rain. I am going to start crying again.

  It is all Christina’s fault that Cassie was in the rain there.

  Finally, thank you, Cassie, for sending back an answer to my text message this morning. If you remember, I had sent you a message yesterday asking ‘R U OK?’

  And today, you sent back a smiley face. And I know you hate smiley faces so I know you did that just for me and that’s how kind you are.

  Cassie: you deserve nothing except kindness and the following smiley faces. Even though you hate them. But you might have changed in the future.

  ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺

  Signed, Sealed and Delivered

  Emily M.A. Thompson

  Emily Melissa-Anne Thompson

  (Sorry it was more than one page.)

  Lydia’s secret assignment

  My greatest fear is losing my friends. I feel like we’re losing Cassie and I want her back.

  Mostly, I want to know what that guy said to Cass, to make her stay in the rain and cry.

  I want her to tell us so we can help her.

  And so we can find the guy and kill him.

  Cassie’s secret assignment

  Hey Lyd and Em. Nice to see you in the future.

  Thanks for coming to find me last night. Maybe I would still be there now if you hadn’t. You guys are mad.

  I know you don’t actually want to hear what I’m afraid of. You want to hear what happened with Matthew in the reserve and I’m really sorry that I can’t tell you out loud. And I think probably, Lydia, you set up this whole secret assignment so I would write out what happened and then maybe it would break my not-talking spell, and I would tell you. But I don’t think it’s going to work. Sorry.

  I’ll tell you now on paper, though, because I guess in ten years it won’t seem so important.

  But right now, I feel stupid. For letting myself get so badly fooled.

  Matthew Dunlop was my Brookfield penfriend. Which you already know. And I guess he was using a fake name, since you guys have found out that there’s no one at Brookfield of that name.

  He was kind of strange at first, but then gradually he became friendly and honest. Ha ha.

  I felt grown up when he wrote to me. Like he was someone I could help, and maybe one day he would help me. I think I had a kind of crush on him, even. He was definitely flirting anyway. And I thought about him late at night. I imagined our conversations and how he might touch my arm while he talked.

  We actually arranged to meet before—on the last day of school before the holidays and, Lydia, I’m sorry I didn’t turn up at the Blue Danish that night. I felt bad for letting you down but for some reason I couldn’t leave the reserve. He didn’t show up that time, and I think a part of me was saying, Uh, Cassie, can you really trust this guy? but the rest of me wanted to believe he was my new friend.

  Maybe even a boyfriend.

  I am such a loser.

  Anyway, so I hung around at the reserve until some stupid time like eleven o’clock when it was pitch black and freezing. Okay, I’ll keep writing fast and maybe the pen will write the words for me.

  Matthew, or whoever, told me he was there but that we must have missed each other. Now I realise he was probably planning on doing what he did last night but I was there talking with Liz Clarry at the meeting time, so he must have seen me with her and turned back.

  Yesterday, I was so excited about meeting him. I don’t know if you noticed, I was kind of jittery and stupid. I forgot to take an umbrella with me, that’s how jittery I was, I just had my raincoat, but I had the idea that we would probably meet and then just get on a bus right away to go into Castle Hill.

  I was standing there, with this file of material from my mother under my arm, trying to stay sheltered under branches, thinking what an idiot I’d look when he saw me, standing there getting drenched.

  I heard him calling in a low-down, lethargic, sort-of friendly voice, ‘Cassie Aganovic or am I mistaken?’ and I started looking around but I couldn’t see anyone.

  And then there he was, a few metres away from me—he’d come from an unexpected angle. He was taller than I expected: his letters made me think of someone short, for some reason. But he had the hood on his jacket over his head, pulled down almost to his eyebrows, and he was carrying a black umbrella.

  I said, ‘Hey, so I guess you’re Matthew.’

  It was dark and noisy, with the rain on his umbrella and the trees all around us creaking in the wind.

  I guess I had a feeling right away that something wasn’t right because he could see I was standing there getting drenched and he didn’t offer to share his umbrella. In actual fact, he seemed to be holding the umbrella really low over his head and it was making it really hard to see him. But at the same time, he was kind of chuckling and I thought maybe he was just shy.

  Ha.

  Then he put one hand flat over his mouth, with a finger tapping kind of thoughtfully on his nose, and he said, ‘It is so cool to meet you, Cass.’

  I just smiled and said, ‘I forgot my umbrella.’

  ‘I mean,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard me, ‘I feel like I know you so well. All those funny letters of yours—I just love those letters. Your crazy therapist with her tapes of applause. And your funny lawyer mother accusing the therapist of copyright breach. Remember? And the way you drive along and you mouth the words, Are you, by any chance, a Volvo driver? And the other drivers are going, What? what?’

  He was doing a kind of exaggerated pantomime of one of the stories I’d told him in my letters. I thought, I guess he really did like my letters, to know them so well. But I felt even more embarrassed.

  I said, ‘Yeah, I liked your letters, too.’

  He nodded a bit and then started again, ‘And that story about how you and Lyd and Em—I mean, Lyd and Em, I feel like they’re my best friends, Cass—they’re the coolest. That story about how you guys cut class to go to the movies? And your teacher ? Ms Spew?
Or what was it? Ms Chunder?’

  ‘Ms Ralph.’

  ‘Ms Ralph!’ he laughed loudly. ‘Ms Ralph! She was waiting for you there in the classroom, with the pizza and the chocolate crumble or whatever it was, and you guys were at the movies and then you felt guilty and you baked a cake for her!! I loved that story.’

  So now I’m thinking he’s going a bit far. Like my letters weren’t that good.

  I shook my head and bits of rain splattered around, and then I shivered and said, ‘So, should we go somewhere a bit warmer? You want to have a coffee or something?’

  ‘And Claire, the counsellor? She wears colours that are too bright for her, Cass! And you want to put your hand in the air, don’t you, Cass? You want to put your hand in the air. You feel like you’re drowning, eh? You kind of are drowning in this rain, huh? You want to put your hand in the air right now? Go ahead. I won’t laugh.’

  So then I knew something was wrong. But I thought I could fix it. I said, ‘What are you doing exactly?’ and tried to make my voice sound kind of cool/tough.

  ‘Well, Cass, I guess I’m just trying to share with you what it’s like getting to know you. I guess I’m just trying to give you a little hint of exactly how much I want to be talking to the biggest nerd on earth. You understand, Cass, how I tried to stop you writing in the beginning? But you just kept going, so I had to try a different strategy. You put yourself in my shoes, maybe, and think about getting letters from a girl who wears glasses with a patch over one eye?’

  I just whispered, ‘That was in first grade.’

  But he was looking right into my eyes, and went on: ‘A girl who plays the piano and she squeezes a squash ball, and recommends that I do the same so I can play the friggin trombone.’

  And then I just stared at him, and he laughed and said, ‘Sorry. Trumpet. I play the trumpet, don’t I?’

  I felt stupid with the shock.

  I also have to say I was scared out of my mind. Seeing as you want to know what I’m afraid of, Lyd.

  Then he put his hand in his pocket and took out a piece of paper and said, ‘And you know how much I want to read a letter that your mother wrote to your father all about what you were like when you were a baby,’ then he held up this letter that I’d sent him for some reason, back when I first wrote to him, and he ripped up the paper into little pieces, saying, ‘This is how interested I am in that.’

  Then he finished up by leaning in close and saying, ‘I’ve got a girlfriend at my own school, thanks. Besides which, I’d prefer to have a cockroach crawling around in my ear than to hear one more word in your snooty, patronising, private school voice. Now do you get it?’

  Then he stepped away, put this manic smile back on his face and said in the friendly voice again, ‘Hey, Cass! You’re getting wet in the rain there! Here, take my umbrella!’

  Then he closed his umbrella, put it down at my feet and walked away.

  So that’s what happened.

  That was fun, writing that down.

  PART 26

  FINDING

  MATTHEW

  DUNLOP

  Monday

  Hey Seb

  Stand up straight and pay attention because you are about to receive the most important challenge of your life.

  You ready to hear what it is?

  Find Matthew Dunlop.

  You know how we thought Matthew Dunlop was a figment of Cassie’s imagination? Well, wake up and smell the coffee grounds and lavender stalks which my mother just put down the insinkerator. (It’s breakfast time.)

  He exists and he goes to your school, and he was using a false name.

  (Slap your forehead and say, ‘Of course!’ Go on.)

  Em and I found Cass in the reserve behind our school on Thursday night, sitting there in the rain, crying her eyes out. Because, guess what, this guy thought it would be funny to do the Pen Pal Project in the following way: use a fake name, act as if he likes Cass, set up a meeting and then tell Cass he hates her.

  Yeah, it’s pretty funny isn’t it. Why didn’t we all think of doing something like that? Because seriously, I can’t think of anything more hilarious than leading on a girl and then TEARING HER TO SHREDS.

  It is so so funny.

  You want to know the two things I hate most in the whole world? (a) people who are liars, and (b) people who treat my friends badly.

  I hope you’ll help us find out who he is. He is the excrement of a maggot that lives with other maggots in the excrement of a sheep. So he should be fairly recognisable.

  Em and I have given ourselves two weeks to find him. I think you understand the importance of this challenge.

  Thanks

  Lydia

  Charlie!

  I will cut to the chase, which is: there IS such a person as Matthew Dunlop but Matthew Dunlop is not who that person is.

  Lyd and I feel stupid because we never even thought of the possibility. Instead, we thought that Cass was crazy and this is because we see too many movies.

  Cass didn’t want to tell us the details, but Lyd did this excellent thing where she made us write out our secret fears, with the plan being that we read each others’ fears in ten years. However, when she was just about to ceremonially staple these fears into the back of her Note-book, you know what she did? She looked up and declared: ‘At this point, one of us can volunteer to have the others read her assignment.’

  Cass just handed hers over, like she knew that was what she was supposed to do. Or maybe it was what she really wanted to do. I’m not sure.

  So Lyd and I read it, and it was about Matthew Dunlop and, I tell you, it made my blood freeze over. He acted like Cass’s friend and then was totally emotionally vicious. I do not know why anyone would do this. To a girl whose dad died last year in particular.

  Therefore, we are going to find out who Matthew Dunlop is so he can be eviscerated.

  I’m hoping that you might be able to help with this search. As you know, whoever he is, he must be in your English class. So therefore, perhaps you could do the following: arrange a line-up for us.

  You will know what a line-up is from watching Law and Order or possibly from your own criminal past, which you have not yet disclosed to me.

  In any case, will you please gather the boys from your class and ask them to walk past the front gates of our school in an orderly procession? I will, in turn, arrange to have Cass stand in the shadows and say: ‘That’s him! That is the boy who was cruel to me!’

  So, I will now close, looking forward to your response.

  Emily

  Tuesday

  Hey Lyd

  That’s one screwed-up guy, whoever he is.

  Where do we meet to discuss strategy? Name a time and place.

  Ciao, bella

  Seb

  Dear Emily

  I’m sorry that someone from this school was mean to your friend. Maybe it’s something to bring up with your English teacher? Because I’ve gotta say, I always thought the penfriends-with-Ashbury idea was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

  Similar to giving my sister Jessica lessons on how to ride a motorbike. What did Kevin think was going to happen? But that’s just incidental.

  I’m happy to help, but I don’t think I can get the guys in my English class to walk past your school gate in a procession. To be honest, Em, you seem smarter in real life than you do in your letters.

  No offence.

  Anyhow, what if I sent you last year’s form photo?

  Catch ya

  Charlie

  PS I know you’re busy finding Matthew Dunlop, but do you have a free moment to continue training me to be hot? I don’t think one Date with a Girl was enough.

  Dear Charlie

  I know! I thought the same thing! About the catatonic nature of the Pen Pal Program? A disaster waiting to happen? Me too! I was going to organise a protest at the beginning but then I thought better of it. But still, it was only under duress and I really thought: THIS WILL NEVER WORK! THEY ARE CRIMINALS A
T THAT SCHOOL!

  Okay, that’s a good idea if you send us the form photo. Please hurry up and send it. Also, why don’t you take some Polaroids of your English class, to narrow it down? Although, ‘Matthew Dunlop’ might notice you taking photos and he might think we are on to him, and that would be a shame. We need to cook on the element of surprise.

  Okay, we can do a bit of training of you, so you can win Christina’s heart; we can do that on the side.

  And to begin, I would like to see how you Say Hello to a Girl Who You Meet by Chance.

  I am thinking that you might just lean against the front gates of our school tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be walking through the gates, let’s say around 4.30 if that’s enough time for you, and we will spot each other as if by chance, and you will say, ‘Hi Emily, how are you?’ Or something more lively than that.

  Great.

  But don’t tell me whether you plan to come: it must be a great unknown.

  Love

  Emily

  Dear Seb

  I was thinking I’d send you some samples of Matthew’s letters, so you could compare the handwriting to the guys in your English class. But Cass says he typed all the letters.

  She also said a strange thing. She wants to write to Matthew again. I said, ‘Kid, let me take your temperature.’ But she explained that while he was being mean to her in the reserve she just stood there and took it, so he got the last word.

  She said she wants the last word. Which I understand. And which also makes me think of a strategy.

  Let’s say Cass writes to him, and let’s say he reads the letter, and let’s say the letter has some kind of strong perfume on it, so strong that the person reading the letter is likely to get the scent onto his hands, and let’s say—

  I think you see where I’m going with this!

  Do you?

  If I tell you when Cass sends her letter, can you watch out for a guy in your English class who smells like freesias?

  Thanks

  Lyd

  Wednesday