DIARY ENTRY
Tuesday, 11 December
Amazing news!! The Group of Four seems to have split up!! It is Astrid and blonde boy versus Nicole and skinny boy! Astrid and blonde-hair have merged with another group. Astrid seems cocky and defiant. Wish I knew what the fight was all about.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 20 December
My last day of Year 7 today.
Very strange day.
For much of the year, I waited for the opportunity to tell the Group of Four that I had seen them before.
Today, I thought I had an opportunity, at last, to speak.
The Group have not made up—they remain splintered. Astrid has seemed happy enough with that, but today, on the Year 7 balcony, I happened to see her crying. Now, I know that Nicole has been spreading a rumour that Astrid was the one who caused the break-up, by stealing a guy from Nicole, even though she knew they liked each other. I guessed that this was why Astrid was crying.
Now, I thought, was the time to speak to her.
‘Astrid?’ I said, approaching gently. ‘You know, I saw you on a float in the twilight parade at the Orange Blossom Festival back in Year 5?’
A few people were walking along the balcony, and they paused and looked at us with interest. Astrid’s eyes were puffy. She stared at me.
I realised it was the first time I’d ever actually spoken to her. I found my voice trembling, but was determined to go on.
‘It was the “five food groups” float,’ I explained. ‘And it was really wonderful. I loved it! And listen, I know the kind of person who would be on a float like that is not the kind of person to steal a boy from her friend! I know you didn’t do what they’re saying you did. I can’t believe Nicole is spreading those rumours!’
Astrid’s face was doing something odd. It was as if the face wanted to find its own centre. Her eyes seemed to crease downwards, towards her nose; her nose crinkled upwards; her mouth curled in on itself.
‘And you were so great in the Orange Blossom Festival!’ I continued, in something of a panic: why wasn’t she speaking? ‘You really look superb,’ I said, ‘all dressed up as a lamb chop!’
At last, Astrid spoke.
I cannot write the words that she spoke.
They are not in my vocabulary.
Let’s just say that she spoke in these unwriteable words to say some cruel things about my appearance, about the sound of my voice, and about the fact that I exist. She told me to ‘get out of her face’.
Then she turned towards the passers-by and laughed. (They laughed too.)
I noticed something—Astrid might be beautiful, but when she laughs, she sometimes gives herself a double chin. She leans down to laugh, you see, lowering her chin to her neck. It makes her look a little plump.
She will be fat one day. She will go from vodka to antidepressants to marijuana, and she will find herself on the slippery slope to crack cocaine.
I feel sorry for her.
I’m confident she’ll be in and out of rehab.
9. Bindy Mackenzie: the Unremarkable Year (Ashbury High, Year 8, Age 13)
Explanatory Note
I have looked through my special box, but can find nothing at all relating to this year. It must have been completely unremarkable.
I do recall that my asthma returned during an incident that took place on our school trip to Hill End. I did not enjoy that trip. I have been a chronic asthmatic ever since, and take preventative medication every day. I always carry an inhaler, and only wear clothes that have pockets, and my hand is always checking in a pocket to ensure that the inhaler is there. When I moved in with Auntie Veronica this year, she scattered inhalers all over her house (high enough so Bella can’t reach them). Now I catch sight of them in unexpected places—on the windowsill, in a china cabinet. It’s like an easier egg hunt for inhalers.
10. Bindy Mackenzie: the Friendship Year (Ashbury High, Year 9, Age 14)
Feel like a MORON?
Think you might be MALFUNCTIONING?
BINDY MACKENZIE CAN HELP!!!
Come along and learn how to:
‘TAME THE TEEN MONSTER INSIDE YOU!!!!’
Bindy’s advisory sessions will take place in the relaxed, convivial setting of the locker room, every second Tuesday this term.
Free to All Students! Real Indian tea will be served.
DIARY ENTRY
Monday, 3 February
I am excited about Year 9.I intend to embrace it. I will erase Year 8 from existence. It didn’t happen! Poof. It’s gone! (I saw Astrid today, back from her summer holiday with a ridiculously dark suntan. She will erase herself from existence if she keeps that up. Somebody should tell her there’s a hole in the ozone layer.)
Anyway, I will gather Year 9 into my arms and squeeze it tight. Press it close to my body and curl my legs around it.
In that spirit, I have registered for the Schools Spectacular, the School Representative Council, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, the Tournament of Minds, a C-grade netball team and the squash comp.
Also, debating! There’s a contest called the Tearsdale Shield that our school has never won. The debating coach, Mrs Lilydale, seems friendly. We chatted for a while (she knows of my academic record), and I told her about my ‘Tame the Teen Monster’ plans. She wished me heartfelt luck with my first session tomorrow.
I wonder if anyone will come?
Tuesday, 4 February
To The Principal
Ashbury High
Dear Sir,
I am writing about a matter of grave concern.
Today, I held the first session of ‘Taming the Teen Monster Inside You’. This course is based on several books about juvenile delinquency and teenage self-esteem which I read over the summer.
My aim is to help the socially malfunctioning amongst us to realise their full potential.
I am delighted to inform you that three students attended this first session.
They were all new to the school this year. Their names are Ernst von Schmerz, Kelly Simonds and Joshua Lynch. I have no complaints about their conduct: they listened attentively, and Ernst promised to write it all up on his blog!
No, my complaint is more important—a grave issue, nay, an issue of life-or-death. I am sorry to say, at the end of the session, Joshua Lynch reached into his school bag, to take out his books for the next class, and I believe I glimpsed something like drug paraphernalia. Or, at least, something like drugs. A large plastic bag containing a greeny-browny, plant-like substance.
I do not believe in ‘telling tales’—but I was frightened by the size of that bag. I fear that my new friend may be heading for a fall.
I hope that you can find a way to help him.
Thank you,
Yours sincerely,
Bindy Mackenzie
DIARY ENTRY
Wednesday, 5 March
I now have two new friends at Ashbury: Ernst von Schmerz and Kelly Simonds.
I also have a new debating team.
I confess, there is a link between the above two facts . . .
Today, I mentioned to Ernst and Kelly that I would not be able to lunch with them, as I had to see Mrs Lilydale about debating, which begins next term.
Ernst tipped his head to the side.
Kelly said, ‘Whuh?’ (That is her way of loading the word ‘what?’ with confusion—a kind of cross between ‘what?’ and ‘huh?’)
And it turned out that they also had to see Mrs Lilydale.
Because they are my debating team!
They had always assumed that I knew this! Indeed, they had been to see Mrs Lilydale the very same day that I had, to ask her about debating. And it was Mrs Lilydale who suggested—nay, insisted—that they attend my first ‘tame the teen monster’ session! To get to know me, and each other, their debating team!
I felt embarrassed to have been mistaken—I had thought it was my posters that brought those two along.
(I don’t know who told that other bo
y, Joshua Lynch, to come along. I suppose he must regret his decision now.)
ASHBURY CITIZENSHIP AWARD
To: Bindy Mackenzie
For: Adopting the Music Courtyard
and adjoining paths
as her part of the school to keep clean.
DIARY ENTRY
Saturday, 19 April
Sam went to the wrong house to visit Anthony today. He’d been thinking about something else, and knocked on the door of the house we had lived in two houses ago. It was so funny. Sam can be vague. He and my brother are both so artistic and creative. They plan to make films together, and I believe they have every chance of success.
At the moment, they are going through films written by Charlie Kaufman. I watched Being John Malkovich with them. I think it’s my favourite film of all time.
Especially, I liked the scene in which everyone has to crouch and hunch down, because the ceilings are too low. That scene spoke to me, because I think I have to crouch and crawl my way through my days. I feel a lot like a giraffe.
Explanatory Note
The above may look like a blank, white square, but it is actually a receipt for a CD—the only ‘rock music’ CD I have ever purchased.
The receipt has now faded to this white, blank state.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 14 August
Reflection on Names
Today at lunchtime, Ernst von Schmerz told me that his real name is Kee Dow Liang.
His parents moved to Sydney from Malaysia when he was six, and changed his name to Harold Brown, to help him fit in. When he turned thirteen, he decided to go back to his real name but the kids at his school ‘did not react well’.
‘What did they do?’ I asked, but we were passing the tuckshop at that moment, and Ernst said, ‘Hang a links here.’ That is his way of saying, ‘Let’s turn left here.’
After we had bought ourselves salt-and-vinegar chips, I asked Ernst again about the kids at his old school. He said (cryptically) that they’d tried to teach him that a person should never change his name, especially not to something ‘funny’ like Kee Dow Liang.
So Ernst decided he would change his name as often as he could. At the moment his name is Ernst von Schmerz. In the future, he said, it could be anything.
Certificate for Most Improved Team Member
Grade C, Netball
To: Bindy Mackenzie
Bindy, congratulations on this—from our first game you were jumping like a little bean, and you finally learned to catch the ball! A joy for a coach to watch!
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 21 August
I would have liked to talk to Kelly Simonds about Ernst and his name: ask her if she thought he was doing the right thing. Or was he hurting himself to defy those other kids? Did he really want to be Ernst von Schmerz? If so, what had become of Kee Dow Liang—and of Harold Brown, come to think of it? And if Ernst changes his name again, who will he be? Will we really know him any longer?
But I do not speak to Kelly much these days. Although she is an excellent second speaker, and is friendly with us at debates, she has been drifting away during school days, and often she sits with other groups.
Kmart
Casual Employee of the
Month–August
Bindy Mackenzie
Explanatory Note
In Year 9, I commenced work as a casual employee of Kmart Australia Ltd, and, by August, I was Employee of the Month.
I befriended another new employee: a girl named Leesa, a student at Brookfield High. Considering that she was a Brookfielder, Leesa seemed nothing like a criminal.
Late at night, when the store had closed and we were re-shelving and tidying Leesa would take breaks to visit me. (She was in Appliances; I was in Womenswear.) She’d roll up on the back of a shopping trolley.
We’d chat about our ambitions to rise to position of Store Manager one day (we were being ironic and made each other laugh). And one day, Leesa asked for my phone number. She wrote it on the back of her hand, apparently oblivious to ink poisoning.
Now, a few days after this, Leesa actually telephoned. This happened early one morning. She told me she and some friends had tickets to see a band called Powderfinger the following night. Did I want to come along?
I explained that I had a piano exam. Leesa did not seem to mind.
Later that night, I admitted to myself that the piano exam was at four and there was plenty of time to get to a concert. In truth, I had been alarmed at the idea of meeting Leesa’s Brookfield friends. Even if Leesa could not see through me, I knew that her friends would. (And how did one go to a concert? What did one do? Dance? How? Sing along? But I didn’t know the words! I would surely fail!)
The next day, after my piano exam, I went into HMV and bought a copy of a Powderfinger CD—the only rock CD in my collection.
But when I returned to Kmart the following week, Leesa was not there. I suppose her trolley riding might have lost her the job.
DIARY ENTRY
Monday, 15 September
Today, in Art, I overheard Emily Thompson talking with her two friends, Lydia and Cassie. Lydia is going out with Sergio Saba at the moment—and she was telling the others that he’d met her at the time he was supposed to last night (he’s usually late).
At this, Emily said, wryly: ‘That’s a turnip for the books.’ She honestly said ‘turnip’. She thinks the expression has something to do with vegetables.
I have serious concerns about the stupidity levels in my year.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 2 October
Guess what, Mum secretly bought Anthony a Super-8 movie camera! (He’s been asking Dad for the money for one, and Dad keeps refusing.) Anthony and Sam have already written their first movie. They want me to play the victim. All I have to do is get stabbed twenty times, and climb a tree, covered in red paint. I’ve been going to drama classes on Saturdays, for the skills component of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and to First Aid (for the service component) on Thursday nights—so I think I am prepared for the part.
DIARY ENTRY
Thursday, 6 November
Reflections on Glandular Fever
Astrid Bexonville has glandular fever.
I overheard her friends saying she’s going to miss all the exams, but she’ll be allowed to do them on her own later, probably in the principal’s office.
As for glandular fever, I don’t believe in it. I don’t think it exists. It’s one of those ‘teenage’ ailments that students invent to get themselves extra study time. I have no respect for it.
11. Bindy Mackenzie: the Year of the Important Error (Ashbury High, Year 10, Age 15)
DIARY ENTRY
Saturday, 14 February
My Dearest Diary,
I thought it best to warn you: I won’t have time to write very much this year. I will write even less than usual. I hope you will not take offence.
You see, this is the most important year of my life to date: Year 10. A year that will shape my academic future. The Year of the School Certificate. I must focus all my energy on study—I must avoid the ‘pointless reverie’ of diary writing.
I have to write now though, because I am in a flutter. It turns out that the first few weeks of Year 10 have been surprising, nay, they have been exciting!
Things have been happening!
Here is a list:
1. Kelly Simonds is friendly to us, as if she had never drifted! She sits with Ernst and me at recess now; and she has lunch with her other friends. That’s a compromise we accept.
2. Ernst is going to set up an online study group.
3. A boy in our year, Sergio Saba, spoke to me. He recently broke up with his girlfriend (Lydia), and might just be feeling lonely. But he genuinely spoke to me. He was walking by at lunchtime and he said ‘Hey, Bindy, [. . .] is heaps good’. I couldn’t quite hear what was ‘heaps good’. I smiled enigmatically. He has a scar on his face, but is handsome, and there is something compelling abo
ut his eyes.
4. I am waiting to see if he speaks to me again. If so, I will try to respond! I hope he says something I can hear.
5. There is going to be a Spring Concert, and I am secretly planning a solo!
So, you see, ‘it is all happening’, as people say.
DIARY ENTRY
Monday, 1 March
Well, Diary,
I feel like a fool.
The lesson is this: when you think things are exciting they probably are not.
Nobody signed up for Ernst’s online study group, except me.
Sergio, the boy with the burn scar, has not spoken a word to me again. He’s already got a new girlfriend. I still don’t know what was ‘heaps good’.
Also, Kelly Simonds says she’s applying to be an exchange student next year. She wants to go to Germany or Switzerland.
I urged her not to be foolish.
‘Don’t squander an important year of your education!’ I said.
But she snorted. She says I’m just worried that she’ll come back speaking better German than I do.
And, finally, I went to see Mrs Lilydale today. She now greets me with two hats on—her ‘debating coach’ hat, and her ‘Year Co-ordinator’ hat—she is our Year 10 Co-ordinator, you see. (She likes to use the old-fashioned term ‘form mistress’. I admire her fondness for the past.)
But I was there about the Spring Concert.
‘I’d like to sign up for the concert,’ I said. ‘I’d like to sing a solo.’
Well!
The wave of doubt that crossed Mrs Lilydale’s face!
Immediately, I withdrew: ‘Or not,’ I said. ‘Or maybe not, after all.’
‘Oh,’ she said, quickly realising her error. ‘No, no! Bindy! If that’s what you want to do, you must do it! Here, see, I’ll put your name down now. Sing a dozen solos if you like!’
‘No, that’s okay,’ I said, proudly. ‘Please cross off my name.’
DIARY ENTRY
Friday, 19 March
Cassie Aganovic spoke to me today. She is one of Emily Thompson’s triangle of friends. I know it is wrong to be enthused by contact from the ‘upper class’, but she spoke to me so casually, as if I were a regular acquaintance! She was asking if I knew a boy named Matthew Dunlop, who apparently goes to Brookfield High. I wonder why she thought I knew him? Anyway, I told her that I do actually have a friend at Brookfield, a girl named Leesa, and I said I’d ask Leesa for her.
The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie Page 14
