The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie Read Online Free Page B

busy with Emily Thompson and Emily’s two best friends.)
    And she hates and despises (nay she demolishes ! ) the people she dislikes.
    I am a person Emily dislikes.
    Lucky me.
    What else? She wears too much lipgloss. She talks in capital letters (her voice is so loud you can hear her from the front gates of the school).
    And, strangest of all, she is obsessed with doing well at school.
    Strange because she is a moron.
    She will never do well at school.
    Yes, there is no doubt. She is the one who wrote that comment on my Name Game. All those exclamation marks and capitals. Poor girl, she can’t stand how well I do, so she tells herself I am ‘big-headed’. Jealousy, thy name is Emily.
    So, how to describe her true nature?
    I will reflect upon it and before this week is up, I will show her.
    But, more to the point, on Wednesday afternoon at the next session of FAD, I will show them ALL my own true nature.
    At last, I am going to speak my mind.
    I wonder how to slow my beating heart?

    Resolutions from the Heart. This week, Bindy will . . .
    1. Live until Wednesday afternoon (that is, do not have a heart attack before then).

    The Dream Diary of Bindy Mackenzie
Tuesday, 5.20 am
    I dreamed that I was lying on my stomach, somewhere dark and warm. My eyes would not quite open. This is good, I thought, I deserve this rest. I smiled to myself, and pressed into the warmth. Flower petals brushed against my neck. It was a tropical sauna.
    But something heavy was resting on my back. What was it? Some kind of a backpack? My computer? I shifted, trying to tip the weight, but it only pressed harder and heavier.
    Then a voice moved against my ears. It was not a backpack but a person on my back!
    â€˜It’s flying fingers Mackenzie,’ said the voice, ‘woho, we got lucky, we got flying fingers Mackenzie, it’s ok, Mackenzie, I got lucky, I got flying fingers too—’
    The flower petals brushed more quickly—they were sticky, they were sticking to my neck. They were not flower petals, they were fingers! What’s more, they were lumpy and were clinging to me!
    This was not a sauna but a swamp! I was a cane toad! There was a cane toad on my back.
    It was so shocking that I had to wake at once.

    A Memo from Ernst von Schmerz
    Â 
To:
Bindy Mackenzie
From:
Ernst von Schmerz
Subject:
Summonsing You
Time:
Wednesday, lunchtime
    Yo Bind,
Looked for you in the library, looked for you in the tuckshop, looked for you on the lawn. Nevertheless: whassssup? Why have we not crossed paths to date this year, my dirty ho? More than a week has passed. Have we no single class together? Howzat possible? Perchance you is INVISIBLE this year?!?! How was your summer holiday, anyho?
    Me? Oh, thanks for asking. Went to a Science camp, Penrith way. Sweet as.
    To the point. Mrs Lib/dale wants to see us. She fastened her evil eye on me and said, ‘I need you and Bindy.’ Find Bindy, she said, and bring her to me. The mission is yours, she implied, should you choose to accept it.
    And guess what, Bind, I accept.
    So, where’s YO ass, girlfriend?!!
    No doubt she wants to talk to us about someone new for the debating team, given the loss of our second speaker to the vortex of international exchange. Think on ideas for recruitment, woncha, and track me down, hokay?
    Just had a thoughtflash and philosophised. Here it is, for your infotainment:
    The Philosophical Musings of Ernst von Schmerz
Where is Bindy?
Seems that I am alone this year
Like a tear that falls from a candlestick
(No, Ernst! That’s wax, I fear, not a tear)
(oh fear is the tangling horsewhip)
Can this be right?
It’s a gangsta night so
it can’t be right: this darkness.

    The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
1.46 pm
At last I am at FAD! Here I am at FAD! And I shall keep nothing to myself!
    I am the first to arrive. Here I sit in the storage room at the back of the gymnasium. I have unstacked the chairs and they speak to me: