The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie (38 page)

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
As you can imagine, I did not play the piano well. (It's been a while since I practised, for a start.) Mrs Woolley worked herself up into a fever. ‘Are you playing with your fingers or your
heart,
Bindy? Are you merely playing in
theory?.
Or are you
one with the music?
Are you, Bindy Mackenzie, one with this piece and this piano?' She went on like this quite a bit.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
But Mrs Woolley,
I kept wanting to say,
it's my birthday.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon. My Birthday!
And so it is! I can hear Auntie Veronica and Bella in the kitchen downstairs, clattering around, tins clashing, excited chat.

Must go down and offer to help.

But first, I will cheer myself up and read Dad's postcard!!!

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
Oh. How funny.

The postcard was not to me.

It was to
Bella
from her
Uncle Dave.
(That's Jake's brother,
I think.) It seems he's on holidays in Tasmania. What a coincidence. In the postcard, he promises to bring back a Tasmanian tiger for Bella.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
Good luck, Uncle Dave. Last I heard they were extinct.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
For heaven's sake, who sends a postcard to a four-year-old?

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
I'm over-reacting here.

Something to do with the disappointment, I guess, combined with feeling stupid about my mistake. I mean, who mistakes
Bella
for ‘Bindy'? Who reads
Uncle Dave
and sees ‘Dad'?
Why did I think this postcard was for me?!

I guess I just glanced at the card and saw what I wanted to see.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday afternoon
Can't stop feeling embarrassed for having this card in my room all day. Can't stop thinking stupid thoughts like:
it
'
s my birthday! Why should Bella get a card?
Keep trying to get up from my bed, to go downstairs, but can't stop crying.

Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Friday, 11.00 pm

Well, it is over.

My birthday dinner is done . . .

I have waved goodbye to all the guests, and helped Uncle Jake pack the dishwasher. Auntie Veronica went straight to bed—exhausted. I think you get tired more quickly when you're pregnant.

It was fun. Mum arrived with a huge bunch of helium balloons. Anthony and Sam brought their movie camera along and got Ernst and me to act out impromptu scenes with Bella's toys. Bella felt proud that her toys were in a movie.

Also, I got some great stuff—including jeans which appear to be pre-faded and pre-ripped and which you wear low down around your waist! And high black boots! And a jacket and some other tops which will be good for the mountains.

I pretended to be shocked by all these ‘fashionable' clothes, but I tried them on and did a parade around the kitchen, and everyone made so much noise about how great I looked, and secretly I thought maybe I looked kind of, I don't know, ‘cool'????

But then the telephone rang and I kind of jumped excitedly, and ran to get it, but it wasn't my dad. It was Maureen from the bookshop, saying she's very sorry but she can't keep employing me at the moment, and she should really have looked at her turnover before she took me on.
Indeed,
I thought to myself, acerbically. She promised to call me the moment she could afford to take me on again. Then right at the end of the conversation she mentioned, in an offhand way, that the spare key was still missing, the one from behind the counter?

‘Oh, really?' I said. ‘Terrible!'

And hung up.

I believe she suspected me of dishonesty! I bet it's nothing to do with her profit margin! I bet she's planning to employ that name I saw on her notepad—she had looked so embarrassed when I saw it on the floor of the shop. Markus Pulie. I remember the name well. But imagine suspecting
me
of stealing a key!

Anyway, all this rushed through my head as I returned to the table. The others waited patiently and I explained I had lost my job.

‘On your birthday!' they cried, outraged yet sympathetic.

I did not mention the missing key. I still keep it on my starfish keyring.

I rather enjoyed their outrage on my behalf, and became quite gleeful about how I had lost
all
my jobs—and the night turned pleasant again.

Halfway through the chocolate mousse-cake dessert, however, Uncle Jake said the word ‘coincidence'.

He said it in that way he does: co-inky-dence.

And suddenly, I was
convinced
he was about to say ‘Cincinnati', and say it like this: Cinky-natty.

I was TERRIFIED, because I knew that would ruin my word, Finnegan's word, for evermore.

(I had no reason to believe he was about to say Cincinnati. I just suddenly believed that he would.)

I guess I must have looked pale or horror-struck because next thing everyone was saying, ‘What's wrong, Bindy?'

And they were suddenly urgent, saying, what's wrong
generally
with you? All looking at each other and agreeing that I've been acting strange lately, and Ernst von Schmerz, traitor, told them he never sees me at school any more, and
Mum
said the school phoned her to say I've been missing classes, and
Anthony
said he thought I was kind of weird when we met in the city the other day,
etc, etc.

Even Bella chimed in to say I'd been playing with her food a lot lately. That stopped the conversation for a moment. Bella explained that she meant her plastic picnic food.
I
thought we were playing together.

They were also asking me about my health, and saying they don't understand why I keep avoiding the doctor, and Mum was practically crying.