Cassie

By Barry Jonsberg

Holly Holley is so average it hurts—until her cousin Cassie comes to stay, and the coolest girl in school takes Holly under her wing and makes life a whole lot more interestingMy name is Holly Holley and I have given up routines.Holly hates her name, her looks, and her life. She isn't in with the right crowd and she has little hope of dating the gorgeous Raph McDonald. With her cousin Cassie staying with her family, she has to move out of her bedroom into the tiny, smelly spare room, and she feels her life couldn't be more unfair. So when Demi, the coolest girl in school, invites Holly on a makeover shopping spree, she jumps at the chance. Even Cass can see that Holly is stretching her wings—but will she fly or fall? Before long Holly learns that appearances can be deceptive, and friendship can blossom in unexpected places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Unwin
• Release date: Jan 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781742697482

Barry Jonsberg

BARRY JONSBERG was a high school English teacher in Darwin, Australia, before he began his career as an author. His young-adult novel It’s Not All About YOU, Calma! was awarded the Adelaide Festival Award for Children’s Literature. His widely acclaimed, bestselling novel My Life as an Alphabet was adapted into the film H Is for Happiness, and a film adaptation of Catch Me If I Fall is now in the works. Barry still lives in Darwin with his wife, Anita, and their dog, Zorro.

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Barry Jonsberg

This edition published in 2011

First published in 2008

Copyright © Barry Jonsberg, 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Cece Adams

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Auout the author

1

My name is Holly Holley and this is my morning routine.

Six-thirty: fumble for snooze button on alarm clock, curse mother before slipping back into coma.

Six-forty: fumble for snooze button on alarm clock.

Six-fifty: fumble . . .

Seven o’clock: mother screams into ear. I curse her [silently], sit on edge of bed, wait for brain to make an appearance. Stumble into bathroom, stand on scales, get depressed.

Seven-oh-five: have shower [you weigh more after a shower because of water droplets caught in hair], stand in front of mirror and check for signs of change in manner of ugly duckling-to-swan [magazines say it often happens at fifteen]. Get more depressed because freckles still scattered randomly, snub nose still unchanged, small wart on corner of eyelid still witch-like, dumpy legs still dumpy. Curse mother. Think of Demi Larson, wart-less, freckle-less, snub nose-less and with perfect legs up to her armpits. Try to hate her, but can’t. Curse mother instead.

Seven-twenty-five: back to bedroom, extract school uniform from floor wardrobe, drag on over head. Examine self in wardrobe mirror. Pygmy in a sack stares back. Try to imagine sack-draped pygmy on arm of Raphael McDonald, but fail. Take deep breath, curse mother.

Who would ever, ever, ever, think it was a good idea to call your child Holly when your last name’s Holley? Who would still think it was funny fifteen years later? Who would be so cruel that she wouldn’t even give you a middle name – something like Demi – as a get-out?

I curse my mother as I go downstairs and pray she hasn’t cooked me any breakfast.

Holly

‘Please don’t do it, Mum. Please.’

Holly fixed her gaze on the windscreen. She knew she would stand more chance if she met her mother’s eyes, but she couldn’t do it. Somehow, it felt safer not to look.

‘You don’t have a sense of humour, chicken,’ said her mum, swerving into the outside lane and nearly knocking an old bloke off his bike. ‘That’s your problem.’

No, thought, Holly. That’s NOT my problem. Not directly. How can anyone keep a sense of humour when your mother always embarrasses you in public? How can you laugh when your stomach is rebelling against breakfast? How can you giggle at someone who calls you ‘chicken’? If I haven’t got a sense of humour, she thought, it’s the fault of the REAL middle-aged problem sitting next to me with a blue flash in her hair, numerous body-piercings and one visible tattoo.

‘Just don’t do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why not. It’s embarrassing.’

‘You’re embarrassed by your mother saying she loves you? How sad is that?’

‘Mum, you yell it out the window after you’ve dropped me at the bus stop. All the kids from school hear you.’ Raph McDonald hears you, she thought. ‘You must really hate me to embarrass me like that.’

‘That’s silly,’ said her mum, switching lanes again to a blare of horns. ‘You should never be embarrassed by love. There’s not enough of it in the world. But . . .’ she glanced in the mirror, indicated and pulled in to the kerb, ‘never let it be said I am insensitive to my daughter’s feelings. Though it hurts me, I will not tell you I love you while you are at the bus stop.’

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart.’

Holly opened the car door. Her mum leaned across the passenger seat and offered her cheek. Holly glanced around. No one seemed to be watching. She gave her mother a quick peck, gathered up her schoolbag and ducked outside. Mrs Holley wound down the window.

‘I love you,’ she whispered.

Holly hung her head to hide a smile. Her mum eased the car into gear and pulled out in front of a motorbike which swerved alarmingly.

‘You’re one gorgeous chicken, Holly Holley,’ her mum yelled as she went past the queue at the bus stop, one hand waving from the driver’s window.

Cassie

Moving through air is like moving through warm, thick water. Sweat beads my neck. The sun makes knives of light that flash and cut from every surface. Mum lifts me into the front seat, straps me in. Dad stands at the door and I try to fix him there. But my head moves and he flicks in and out of being. The aircon takes the heat away. Sweat crinkles, shrinks against skin. And the world moves past. Dad is a final frame at the door, his hand raised. Then he’s gone. Sounds bubble in my throat.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ says Mum. Her eyes are wet and I know she is lying.

We move towards somewhere else and my words won’t do as they’re told. When I wake, Mum is wiping tissues down my chin. My head jerks.

‘Time to eat, Cassie,’ she says.

She folds me into my chair. We are at a petrol station, but all around is nothing. A tree scratches the sky. Pictures flip through my head. I choose the one of Dad with his hand raised and keep it before my eyes.

We are moving towards something, but this isn’t it.

Holly

Raph McDonald moved through the school yard like he owned it. He had the easy grace of an athlete, all loose limbs with the potential of explosive energy. Sun-streaked hair hung to just above his shoulders. His skin was olive, eyes brown and smiling. Surrounded by an almost visible aura of confidence, he strolled secure in his own perfection and the knowledge others recognised it. Girls melted a little as he passed. Knees wobbled, shoulders straightened, eyes swivelled and the air hummed with the accumulated rush of small sighs.

Holly Holley sat on a bench next to the basketball court, added her own sigh and pressed her peanut butter sandwich to her lips.

‘He is sooo gorgeous,’ she said, though her words were muffled slightly by low-GI wholemeal bread and therefore lost something of the dreamy tone she was aiming for.

‘He’s got the brains of an amoeba,’ said Amy. Her tone could not, under any circumstances, be described as dreamy.

‘Brains aren’t everything.’

‘And looks are?’

Holly hated these conversations. She nearly always lost with Amy who had the annoying habit of neither drooping, melting nor sighing whenever Raph walked by. In fact, she normally snorted.

‘No,’ said Holly. ‘Of course not. But if I was attracted just by brains, I’d be madly in love with Mr Tillyard.’ Mr Tillyard taught maths. It was generally recognised that he had a brain the size of a melon. Unfortunately, his head was completely misshapen as a result of carrying this huge organ. Bald and lumpy, he caused small children to cry and hide behind the skirts of their mothers. Both girls shuddered.

‘I’m not saying looks aren’t important,’ said Amy after a lengthy pause. ‘But Raph McDonald has only one topic of conversation. Raph McDonald.’

‘That’s the only topic of conversation I’m interested in,’ replied Holly.

‘Then you’re a sad loser.’

‘True. So true. Mind you, Amy, I’m not convinced that a science nerd like yourself is best qualified to offer advice on romance. Quantum theory, maybe. Affairs of the heart, definitely not.’

‘Your obsession with Raph has nothing to do with the heart.’ Amy replied.

Holly finished her sandwich and rummaged around in her bag for an apple. Amy watched Raph sway into the distance and snorted.

‘Why not get a life-sized photograph of him and prop it in the corner of your bedroom?’ she said. ‘That way you could admire his looks without actually having to talk to him. Sounds like the perfect solution to me.’

‘I hate you, Amy. I think you should know.’

‘That’s because I’ve got brains and no looks.’

‘And I haven’t got either.’

‘Well, if you’ve got the hots for the dim-witted McDonald, then I won’t argue with you about the brains.’

Holly crunched into her apple and looked around the yard. Her eyes widened.

‘Oh. My. God. He’s coming back,’ she said.

‘Whatever shall we do?’ said Amy, throwing up her arms in horror.

Holly sighed.

‘He is sooo gorgeous,’ she breathed.

Amy snorted.

‘He’s got the brains of a brick,’ she said.

They sat in silence while he sauntered past.

‘So,’ said Holly. ‘How do you reckon I can get a life-sized photo of him then?’

Fern

The food in the roadhouse was bound to be disgusting, but it would have to do. After all, Fern Marshall thought, when you are surrounded by a three-hundred-kilometre radius of red dirt, scrubby bush and impossible sky, your options are limited.

They would have to stay here tonight as well.

She wheeled Cassie into a corner of the canteen and put the lock on the wheelchair. Without consciously thinking about it, she checked the immediate area for anything Cassie might knock into.

‘Doesn’t look promising, Cass,’ she said. ‘Probably pie and chips, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?’

Cassie twisted in her chair and smiled. She gave a high keening sound. Her left arm flung itself out to the side, fingers twisted and