The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie (45 page)

WEDNESDAY

A Memo from Briony Atkins

 

Dear Bindy,
Well, I COMPLETELY understand that you feel uncomfortable bringing in a urine sample and I guess we'll just have to wait for your doctor's test results. Often, they test hair and fingernails for arsenic because it stays in those things for years—so, don't worry, they'll be able to test even after you're dead (ha ha, just kidding, you won't die) (hopefully).

I ordered my testing kit off the internet when I was doing my Biology assignment and wanted to check arsenic levels in local streams. (And now I get
so
much junkmail from online pharmacies.)

Anyway, can I please suggest that you eat a lot of eggs,
onions, beans and garlic? These foods have sulphur in them which will help to get rid of some of the arsenic in your body.

Love,
Briony

PS None of us were convinced by Try when she made her speech about you not being poisoned. That's just what you do when a teacher gets reasonable like that. You act quiet and serious and wait until the teacher is gone and then you get on with what you were doing. Didn't you know?

A Memo from Emily Thompson

 

Dear Bindy,
Now, it might not seem significant to you but copyright issues can involve a lot of money, such as millions of dollars, and therefore maybe you
did
hear something so important that you must die? You just don't know. (And your doctor admitted that your symptoms could be poisoning!! What more proof do you need?!?!?!)

So, now, if it's about software, we need to think about people involved in computers at our school? I don't like to admit this, but maybe it's not Mrs Lilydale at all. I'm thinking through all the computer teachers, and also, I'm remembering that I
always
see Miss Flynn at the computer in the library! And she wears pastel! Could be a disguise. Could it be her?

Please can you tell me which law firm you went to about
this copyright issue? Also, what kind of software it was, and who the parties were? And then I can ask my mum if she knows anything about the case, as she is a copyright lawyer herself. I'm going to ask you in person right now, actually, because I can see you.

Great.

Thanks.
Emily

A Memo from Sergio Saba

 

Bindo,
Toby and I hereby reportificate on Mrs Lilydale as follows.

We have dialled in to her office and we have heard her give exactly the same speech to five different students in a row. The speech is about apples. I don't get it and neither does Toby and that's after five goes of hearing it. It's something about Granny Smith as compared to Golden Delicious and I'm sorry. But it makes no sense. Can an apple-obsessed woman be a murderer? I don't have the answer to that question, but I hear that apple seeds have cyanide in them, if you chew them hard enough. So, that's relevant.

We have also watched Mrs L.'s office door and we have noticed that she's often not there. Except for the apple speeches, she's never there.

Don't eat anything.

 

Sergio

A Memo from Elizabeth Clarry

 

Dear Bindy,
You know how I said you should think about people at school who have given you food or drinks this year?

Well, I realised I wasn't outside the box as I was supposed to be. Because you can get poisoned in other more interesting ways, such as: bath products, toothpaste, or perfume. I've seen you using a Ventolin inhaler, so, listen, who has access to that inhaler? Also, I was watching you in History this morning and you were biting your nails. I know you wear nail polish . . .

Also, I notice Em mentioned Miss Flynn as a suspect. I think she's always at the computer because she's editing her online newspaper.
But,
it's interesting to note that Miss Flynn is
new
to the school this year. And she's here to replace Ms Lawrence who
seems to have completely disappeared.

Did Miss Flynn murder Ms Lawrence so she could take her job and murder
you
?

Just some things to think about.

Love,
Elizabeth

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Wednesday, 4.30 pm
Finnegan was still not at school today, and my FAD group continue their insanity.

Meanwhile, I slip further behind as I spend my nights in reverie, and there's no point in putting that word into a box. It makes no difference. Nor have I phoned the lawyer yet! I am obsessed with getting the transcript right first. For instance, just now I was looking at the password, Edna Lbagennif, and I thought:
how do I know that I spelled that correctly?
I only
heard
it, after all, and must have guessed the spelling. Why, it could be Edna Lobbagenif, or Edna Lybugenyf, or, for all I know it might have been
Ed Na
lbagennif or Ed
Nolb
anagennif. Who knows? The women were speaking very quickly, words running into one another.

I wonder if I should find a way to
test
the password before I phone the lawyer? Just to see if it works? To prove to him I am no fool?

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
6.30 pm
What does it matter if he called me annoying? He also called me
beautiful.
At least, he saw that I was a beautiful person, behind my personality. Oh, insightful Finnegan. And then, in the second FAD session, he became my buddy! Of course, that was Try who paired us up. But still, if I think back now, perhaps I see his
feet
pointing straight towards mine, his body subtly twisted, so that Try felt
compelled
to put us together! He played a psychological trick on Try and that's how we became buddies! I bet.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
9.30 pm
Impossible to get any work done. Can't stop whispering ‘
who'
into the palm of my hand. I sound like an owl with laryngitis. Who? Who? Who?
Who, indeed?

THURSDAY

A Memo from Astrid Bexonville

 

Dear Bindy,
Well, I am writing to you today cos I said I would, cos I haven't written yet this week. We were talking about you in the reserve yesterday cos Sergio goes, ok, enough with the writing, we need to
confer.
He doesn't want to keep doing memos & making copies for the others. You can tell he and Toby and Liz think this is all funny, but Em and me and Briony think it
MIGHT
be real.

Nobody was around to like hear us talk, so don't worry.

We've now decided that EVERYONE is a suspect, including the FAD group. Because we started talking and, okay, we realised this:

 

So, Emily was cross-examining all of us about the nail polish, saying we could be denying it. And she's going to cross-examine Finnegan when he gets back to school.

I could tell the others were kind of thinking, if there's anyone in the FAD group who wants to kill Bindy, it'd be Astrid. Because we have a kind of history of hostility. Everyone was going, ‘Who hates Bindy most? Oh, look, there's Astrid. Hmm. Coincidence.' But I promise I'm not killing you.

Anyway, but now I come to why I have not joined in the memos this week. It's that I feel guilty.

Because in your life story that we read, you talk about how you wanted to be friends with me, and I just laughed in your face.

And you also talk about the trip to Hill End in Year 8 but you don't go into details.

I remember what happened at Hill End exactly, cos I was
pissed out of my brain on that trip, tho I was kind of young to be that and someone should really of stopped me. I didn't know
you
would keep it in your mind, but I see you did.

I remember you were put in the same cabin as me and my friends cos you must have forgotten to put your name down for a cabin with your own friends, and we, like, politely asked you to move to another cabin. Cos we knew you wouldn't really fit in with us. But you laughed like you thought we were joking, and you had a cold, so when you laughed there was a bit of snot that came out of your nose. Not too much and I know I over-reacted when I got hysterical and started screaming that you were grossing us out.

And then you blew your nose, and said it was too late to change cabins. So I went, ‘Okay, Booger Mackenzie, you can stay here if you like.' And that kind of infected everyone, and they called you Booger for the rest of the trip.

And on the last night, I started kind of like chanting, Booger, Booger, Booger Mackenzie! cos I was still annoyed with you for staying in our cabin. Kind of like pretending it was a fun game as a tribute to you. And everyone joined in the chant, and you got that asthma attack.

I thought you were just faking it to make us stop.

It was probably just that your cold had moved to your chest tho? But still, it made me feel bad.

So, when I think back, even tho I was only young, I kind of really hate myself for it. You were always so happy back then I never thought that like calling you a name could take you down, plus you were so smart, so you know, I kind of think happy, smart people are indestructible.

But I think maybe people kept calling you Booger for the rest of Year 8. I hope not, but I have a kind of memory of you being alone a lot that year, and people making fun
of you. I hope that's a wrong memory, but if it's right that must have sucked.

So, I feel guilty and terrible.

But I'm very sorry and I hope you can forgive me one day.

Love,
Astrid

Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Thursday, 11.35 pm

Strange, strange, disturbing!

A mystical thing just happened and I must type quickly, to know if it is real.

Very well. (Calm my breathing.) Here it is:

I arrive home from school in a state. Astrid's memo leaves me feeling as if I have been plucked from my life and placed into a rattling cage. I feel awry, broken, exposed, taken apart piece by piece. My secret anguish, my secret year, scrawled in Astrid's handwriting.

I pound the piano all afternoon. Veronica and Jake watch me carefully. Bella presses one of her toys into the palm of my hand—a little plastic man who belongs in her toy bus. This makes me cry.

I decide I must have a hot bath. Anthony gave me bath bombs for my birthday: I watch as a strawberry bomb fizzes and dissolves.

Astrid apologised.

That stone of resentment that I carry around in my heart: should it now fizz and dissolve?

But can I let it go?

I think I've been trying to do that all year. I think that's why I've been wanting Try to talk to me about my Life. I wanted her to
ask
me about the cataclysmic episode in Year 8. It's all there, hinted at in my Life. I wanted to tell Try all about it—a part of me wanted her to hate Astrid as I do.

I lie in the bath and watch the light bounce off the tap like a starburst.

I think about the ‘name' that Astrid gave me in Hill End— the name that they called me for most of Year 8. I can never write it down.

I forgot who I was that year.

Astrid chose my name for me.

I think of Ernst von Schmerz and how, at his old school, they would not let him choose his name. So now he chooses over and over, to defy them.

Astrid's just a skinny girl who is always running from police. Why did I let her choose my name that year? I see now why she hated me. I was happy. I wanted to be friends with her. I didn't care that she'd been cruel to me the previous year—I had
signed up
for her cabin. Astrid knew my social status but
I did not.
She felt compelled to show me who I was. By naming me, she thought she held a mirror to my soul.

This year, I've been just like Astrid. Frantically naming my FAD group, showing them who I think they are. But as my FAD group pointed out, if you name people like that, you place yourself above them. Worse, you give them no room to change.

It was the Name Game that made me do it—when they put my name in the centre of the page and described me like that. It was just as if they had renamed me. I think that's why Hill End has been so present in my mind this year.

I think of names, and of choosing who you want to be.

I think of the names of my FAD group. Toby, Briony, Astrid, Emily, Sergio, Elizabeth, Finnegan and Try.

I stare at the starburst of light on the tap, squint, and the starburst splits into squiggles, like a sparkler shaking in the night.

Names begin to merge and collide.

Try and Toby collapse into one. Briony and Bindy. Finnegan, Miss Flynn.

Now my squiggles of light have become two fish, facing one another, almost colliding, almost kissing, whispering:
who who who.

The starburst, the squiggles, the fish, the starburst, the squiggles, the fish. I move closer to the tap and there is nothing but a tap: a swan's neck, a silver cane. Reflected in that cane is the elongated face of Bindy.

Bindy Mackenzie.

I stare and all I can think is: Finnegan, Finnegan, Finnegan Blonde.

Finnegan A. Blonde.

His signature on that ‘Buddy Contract', all those months ago.

Finnegan A. Blonde.

And as I stare, his name collapses. Fin. Neg. Gan. A. Blon. De. The pieces run backwards. De. Blon. Gan. They reverse within themselves. Ed. Nolb. Nag.

I lift the plug by its loop.

I am standing in the roar of draining bathwater.

Ed. Nolb. Nag.

I am grabbing at the towel, running to my bedroom, searching through my notes—

And there it is.

My musings on the password. One spelling of the password:

Ed Nolbanagennif.

It is Finnegan A. Blonde in reverse.