Feeling Sorry for Celia (2 page)

WITH LOTS OF LOVE FROM YOUR MUM.

Dear Mum,

I’m going to bed now. I hope your neck has stopped crunching.

My first day back was okay. But Celia wasn’t there.

!!!

I went for a run over to her place and Mrs Buckley says she climbed out of her bedroom window last night and disappeared again. Mrs Buckley said she heard her climbing out the window because she fell on top of Benjamin’s drum kit which he has in the garden so that he can practise by moonlight. But Mrs Buckley just pretended not to hear. She says we should all just breathe in and out and stop stressing, and leave Celia to figure out Celia’s own thing.

Thank you for your exciting suggestion about how to spend my night tonight.

Here is what comes into my mind when I hear the word TOOTHPASTE:

      teeth.

Lots of love,

Elizabeth

A Letter From A Complete and Utter Stranger

Dear Elizabeth Clarry,

Actually I think porridge is cool. You probably just haven’t had good porridge. It has to be steaming like a shower so it burns the tastebuds off of your tongue, and you have to tip a packet of brown sugar on top of it.

I wrote an essay on
To Kill A Mockingbird
last term. If you need it, I’ll send it to you. I think the best way to forge ties between our schools is for us to swap homework. Have you ever done an assignment on the human immune system?

Also, I’ve got two brothers and two sisters and they’re all younger than me. So I’m the oldest.

What’s the deal with ‘long-distance running’? How long is a long distance anyway? And how come you like that? Write back again cos I forgive you for being a nice private school girl.

Christina Kratovac

PS How come it’s important that your friend Celia didn’t get on the bus this morning? Is she like in a wheelchair or something?

A Letter to Someone Who is Practically A Stranger

Dear Christina Kratovac,

I don’t know what to do about the porridge.

Maybe we just shouldn’t talk about it?

Thanks for writing back to me. I’m glad you got my letter and not that guy who told the teacher to stick it up his arse.

Long distance running is like cross country or marathon running, and long distances are different lengths – like the City to Surf is 14k, and a marathon is around 42.2k, and an ultra-marathon is to the North Pole and back. People always tell me I shouldn’t run so far because I’m too young and
my bones will fall to pieces. But I do it anyway – mainly because I love the bit when you finish and get to stop running. For example: The next race I’m going in is the Belongil Trail Run, which is 15k. Imagine stopping after 15k. It’ll be fantastic.

A
VERY IMPORTANT THING
for you to know is that I’m NOT a nice private school girl. And I know I’m not, cause most of the other girls here
are
like that. They take clarinet lessons and go to pony club. And they do this thing whenever I’m talking to them where they blink their mascara’d lashes really quickly as if they need to take lots of little breaks from looking at me.

I’m writing this in Science and Mr Hoogenboom is going blah blah blah about the human skeleton. At the start of the lesson, before Mr Hoogenboom came in, this guy Martin Wilson turned around from the bench in front of mine and said, ‘Elizabeth! You look
radiant
!’

So at first I think, ‘oh fantastic, Martin Wilson’s got a crush on me – now what?’ (Martin Wilson’s got orange hair which is crinkley like potato chips, and a chin like a cauliflower.)

But then David Corruthers looks around too and says, ‘Man, is that
red
or what?’

So then I remember that my face is so red that my own dog doesn’t recognise me anymore. It’s because I went skiing with my dad on the holidays and got sunburnt.

I can tell you right now that if I was a nice-private-school-girl, I wouldn’t’ve got a bright red face from going skiing. I’d’ve got a perfect golden tan like I’d dipped my head in a jar of honey.

Anyway, so Martin and David are staring at me like
Mulder and Scully staring at the family of aliens they just discovered in the kitchen sink, when Mr Hoogenboom walks in.

And Martin calls out, ‘Sir, look at Elizabeth’s face! She’s gonna get skin cancer, right? Maybe we should do a topic on
diseases
and use Elizabeth as our experiment?’

Mr Hoogenboom looks straight at my face. So does the entire class. Then everyone’s calling out stuff like:

‘How can you get sunburnt like that and still be
alive?’

‘Is she clinically dead, sir?’

Then Mr Hoogenboom clears his throat and Martin Wilson says, ‘Do you have throat cancer, sir? Would you like to be one of the experiments too?’

The guys here are almost as bad as the girls, except stupider.

So anyway I really only have one friend here, that’s Celia, and I promise you she is
most DEFINITELY not a nice-private-school-girl
. She’s kind of weird actually. She’s always getting into trouble because she gets bored really really easily. So she always wants to try something new, like shaving her head or chopping down a tree or taking apart the kitchen so she can put it back together (she did that to my kitchen actually, and it took us six months to reconnect the dishwasher).

My mum
says it’s because Celia has an attention span the size of a sesame seed.

Celia’s mum
says it’s because Celia’s identity is unfurling itself slowly, like a tulip bud, and it’s a breathtakingly beautiful thing to see.

Anyway, I’m kind of depressed today because Celia’s run away again. She does that a lot but she usually at least calls
me to say where she is. And she hasn’t called yet. I’m scared that something bad will happen to her. My mum called Celia’s mum and said, ‘Why don’t you tell the police?’ but Celia’s mum just said, ‘Remember the tulip bud?’ and told my mum to breathe in and out.

Sony for making this letter so long. I hope you’re not bored. I hope you write back. Tell me your brothers’ and sisters’ names if you want? I never met anyone with two brothers and two sisters.

From

Elizabeth

!! ELIZABETH !!

THERE IS PORRIDGE
ON THE STOVE FOR YOU
.

YOUR BLAZER IS IN A HEAP ON THE LIVING-ROOM FLOOR WHERE YOU LEFT IT LAST NIGHT.

I’LL TRY CALLING CELIA’S MUM AGAIN TODAY. CALL ME AT WORK IF SHE SHOWS UP AT SCHOOL.

CAN YOU PEEL FOUR POTATOES WHEN YOU GET HOME FROM SCHOOL?

IF YOU ARE BORED WHILE PEELING THE POTATOES YOU CAN SPEND THE TIME THINKING ABOUT THE COLOUR
WHITE
.

WHAT ARE SOME
REALLY WHITE THINGS
?

SEE YOU TONIGHT,

MUM

PS YOUR FATHER CALLED YOU. (I THOUGHT YOU SAID HE WAS FLYING BACK TO CANADA A WEEK AGO? HE’S GOING TO TRY AND CALL AGAIN LATER TONIGHT.)

Dear Mum,

Celia didn’t show up at school. I don’t know how come Dad’s still here.

I’m taking Lochie for a run and I’ll be back in an hour for dinner.

Here are the potatoes.

I thought of something white:
         potatoes.

Love from Elizabeth

A Letter from a Stranger

Dear Elizabeth,

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVE A TEACHER CALLED MR HOOGENBOOM.

Were you for real about that or were you just taking the piss?

If we had a teacher here with a name like Mr Hoogenboom, he’d be dead by now. Seriously, people here wouldn’t let him live.

I’m sorry I called you a nice private school girl. I believe you now that you’re not one of them. You don’t really sound like one of them. How come you’re at that school then?

But you did go skiing on the holidays, which sounds kind of private school. I’m sorry your face went red. You should’ve used sunscreen or it’s true about the skin cancer. I’m very sorry but it’s true. You’ll get it. My Uncle Rosco had skin cancer on the end of his nose. It cost him five
thousand dollars to have it surgically removed. (My dad said he’d have done it with his power saw for a case of beer, which Uncle Rosco didn’t think was very funny.) Auntie Belinda’s always getting moles cut off her arms too. Actually, I don’t really think that’s cos of skin cancer, I think it’s because she wants arms without moles.

Those guys in your science class sound like walruses. I think you should punch Martin Wilson right in his cauliflower chin.

That must be really hard for you having your best friend run away all the time. You must be worried a lot. Plus you must miss her. I hope she’s called you by now, or come back.