It's Yr Life Page 6
so yr ma just wont talk? why do u think she freaked + did all the laughing-crying stuff? maybe she’s been raiding yr brother’s stash? i’m glad yr feelin a bit better. what happened with yr aunt? it’s good yr doin something. it’s brave.
u inspired me. i spoke 2 deepspace 2nite … and raj. deepspace has been out @ a 3 day doof in the hills. it’s all biodynamic farming and free love out there. it’s locked in some kind of seventies woodstock time warp. if u didn’t grow up livin in a tent + u don’t twirl fire, have beads in your hair and eat magic mushrooms, you’re nobody.
anyway we sat down in the sunroom out back + i just said it straight … told her she was acting weird that night + i wanted 2 know what she knew. she just looked @ me with this smile she has, really relaxed, totally puts u at ease. only this time it kinda gave me goosebumps. then she told me about why she freaks about cops. she was in a girls’ detention place when she was a teenager – like lauren. and when she got out she used 2 get hassled heaps by cops. then when she was about 17 a bunch of cops came 2 her place + intimidated her mum 4 something she says she didn’t do (didn’t say what it was) and she’s been totally freaked by cops ever since. i tried 2 explain that probly not all cops are bad but she just asked me 2 leave it. then she said sorry if i’d been worried and she gave me a big hug, byron-style – one that lasts for like 5 minutes. even if u try 2 duck out of it they just pull u in even closer. raj backed up the story. he knows it’s weird she flips but i guess it’s just her little skeleton in the closet.
i still didn’t mention the email 2 her quack friend. figured she wouldn’t appreciate me busting in2 her account. and i didn’t quite mention the fingers in the freezer. i just thought that’d stir up a whole bunch more crap. but i’m gonna call the hospital.
lauren’s got some guy over. a ‘friend’. he’s in her room. could’ve been me if i’d taken the chance when i had it. loser.
hope u r ok.
s.
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From: Sim [sim@byronshireprogressive.edu.au]
To: Milla Gainsberg [millag@beverlyglengirlshigh.net]
Subject: sabretooth tigers
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hey
check this.
i just called the hosp + asked if anyone had come in with 3 fingers missing and they asked my name and i said donnie darko. (first thing i thought of.) then the woman said ‘ok … donnie.’ super-suspicious-style. she went away 4 a minute and then some older dude came on the line and said ‘i’m afraid we cant give u that information over the phone but do u have something u want 2 to tell us donnie?’ so i hung up.
they’re definitely in the finger business. my heart’s goin nuts. i feel like i wanna get the fingers there without tellin em who i am. or maybe i should tell them. but then they’ll ask me why i didn’t bring em in right away and do i tell them, ‘i thought my carer did it but now it’s ok.’ do i say, ‘i’ve investigated it + she appears 2 have a watertight alibi. see when she was a teenager her mum was taken away and blah blur blah.’
this is bullshit. i don’t know why i feel like a fricking finger chopper. i was tryin 2 do what i thought was right. this never happens 2 teen spies in movies. they crack the case within an hour and they’re sippin pina coladas by the pool.
is there a helpline for this? some kind of ‘i found three hairy sausage fingers in a dumpster’ helpline. there’ve got 2 be other kids out there going thru this right?
anyway. whateva. part of me just wants 2 take em back 2 the dumpsta but the other part needs 2 get em back 2 whoever lost them. i think i’ll get up real early and drop em outside the hospital in this blue chilly bag we’ve got … with ice in it. although they look so rank that i dunno if they cld even sew them back on. i checked but there’s no expiry date on them. and r fingers suitable 4 freezing?
they don’t teach u any of this stuff @ school.
my birthday 2morrow. 16. great. happy birthday 2 me. please don’t tell anyone about this and PLEASE don’t hand any of these emails in. i’m deleting my sent items as i go. (in case some freak like me busts into my email.)
if i had a decent friend i’d b asking them 4 advice but i’m ashamed 2 admit that you’re kind of it. congratulations. u must feel awesome.
lemme know what happens with yr aunt. is she a good person? does she believe u? do u trust her? i’m sendin out the good vibes.
s.
ps we’ve got 2 hand in another report sometime soon. not sure our stuff is reportable. maybe i’ll make up crap about the hollywood walk of fame + the la brea tar pits (just found the pits at www.tarpits.org. how weird’s that? sabretooth tigers in middle of l.a.?)
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From: Milla Gainsberg [millag@beverlyglengirlshigh.net]
To: Sim [sim@byronshireprogressive.edu.au]
Subject: calm people are always the psychos!
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Dear Sim
Do you really think the people you live with would have chopped someone’s fingers off? Is that what you’re saying? In all Dad’s TV shows, the actor who gets the job as the murderer is always the one who does the best job of staying calm when interrogated. Just like how calm Deepspace was. She’s guilty for sure. Hugging? Smiling? If she hadn’t done anything wrong she probably would have been defensive and weirded out that you would think that of her. Right? Look, Sim, you seem pretty normal. What kind of freaks are you staying with?! Dude, if I thought the people I lived with were chopping fingers off, then I wouldn’t want to be there. That is sicko behavior.
Who knows, when you do something bad, what are they going to do to you? I’d get out of there PRONTO.
I still don’t get why she would be involved. Why would anyone chop fingers off? What would the point be? I did a search on Dad’s script database and he’s NEVER done a show on someone cutting fingers off.
Ooooh! Look what I found on Google. Maybe the fingers are from someone stealing cars. Check out the link below. What do you think? Did I solve the mystery?
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/motoring-tech/mg18624943.600
Cool. I want a car with fingerprint recognition. Maybe for my sweet 16th?
Look, are your guardians sketchy? What do they do? (Car jackers?)
Why are they helping you guys out? What do they get out of it? You’re not in a child pornography ring, are you? Or a prostitute?
BTW, happy birthday for tomorrow.
Sixteen, huh? Wow. Feel older? More mature? You can get your license, right? Get it, get in a car and get out of there. I can’t wait to get mine and then I’m out of here too.
Oh, just googled it. You can’t drive on your own for like a year. Some provisional learner’s license – that sucks ass. You should come here.
So I’m at my aunt’s. She made me and the bro move in with her. My mom is at the hospital. My aunt said she needed to be checked out for physical and mental trauma. But I think she put her there to hide her from Dad. It’s a fancy private hospital where all the celebs go to detox from their drug addictions. Mom’s next door to some famous chick. I’m guessing it’s one of those ‘it’ girls who hang out with Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie’s crowd. Maybe that reality star Vanessa Cassidy? We saw some assistant wheel four Louis Vuitton cases into her room. Definitely not a freegan. The nurse told me the celeb is being treated for dehydration … yeah, right. My brother, even though he’s majorly stoned, keeps trying to catch a glimpse of her but security is weirdo tight. Must be someone really famous. If it is Vanessa Cassidy, I think she has a whacked family too. That’s what the tabloids say. Maybe we should have a powwow. Discuss whose parents are more messed up.
So, Dad doesn’t know. My aunt got us out of there. All of us. I freaked out. What will he do? He’s going to find out that I blabbed. He’s going to know it was me, because stoner-boy can’t string a sentence together. And the weird thing is, I feel really bad. My poor dad. All alone in the house and now he’s going to feel really guilty and mad and uggh. I feel gross.
But it does
feel good to have an adult taking charge of things. So I’m glad I told, I guess. But there goes my family. Wow, I’m kind of turning into you. Maybe we’ll swap lives. You’ll become a big movie guy and live in Hollywood and I’ll become the homeless orphan. Weird, huh?
Hey, guess what? The Australian helpline has already emailed me back. How quick was that?! The woman who wrote me seems really nice and she gave me names of some other places to go for help, like this website burstingthebubble.com. And get this, I just went there and I swear to God all the kids sounded EXACTLY like me. There were three stories from kids whose dads are beating up their moms at home. And one kid’s brother has started smoking heaps of weed to deal with it. EXACTLY like my brother. And, one kid’s family ended up moving in with their aunt just like we did. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe so many kids have to go through this. One girl was getting sexually abused. That story made me feel sick. Sounded like she got herself out of the situation, thank God.
So, thanks for giving me the heads-up. Really helped. I feel a lot better. Still kind of nauseous, but not as bad as when we were at home.
BTW, I don’t think you should drop the fingers at the hospital. They have security cameras and they’ll see you do it. That’s always in my dad’s shows. Maybe you could mail them?
As for our project: I guess I’d better google some facts on Australia ’cause finger-lopping foster parents might not go down too well.
You’re not a prostitute, are you?
Milla
PS I’m going to give these Oz facts to Bitch Mayo and say you told me about them. Weird, huh?
In 1838 it was illegal to swim at public beaches during the day!!!!???? This law was enforced until 1902.
Australia has a ‘flying doctor’ service that provides emergency medical care to people who live in the ‘outback’. Without such a service, many isolated people would die.
Australia invented the Black Box Flight Recorder and the Inflatable Aircraft Escape Slide and Raft. Who knew?!
* * *
From: Milla Gainsberg [millag@beverlyglengirlshigh.net]
To: Sim [sim@byronshireprogressive.edu.au]
Subject: you’re not going to believe it …
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SIM
OH MY GOD. GUESS WHAT I FOUND?
OLD-FASHIONED POLAROID PICS OF ME GETTING CHANGED IN MY ROOM!!!
WHAT THE HELL? THEY WERE IN MY BRO’S BACKPACK. HE’S TAKING PICS OF ME CHANGING? THAT’S DISGUSTING. I’M GOING TO KILL HIM. WHAT THE HELL? WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? THAT’S SO CREEPY. WOULD YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE YOUR SISTER NAKED? THAT’S SO WRONG. I’M GOING TO SMASH HIS SKULL IN.
* * *
From: Sim [sim@byronshireprogressive.edu.au]
To: Milla Gainsberg [millag@beverlyglengirlshigh.net]
Subject: kahoonies, coops and orphans
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hey m.
holy crap. where do i start? u guys flyin the coop? yr ma in hospital? yr bro getting his rocks off taking nude snaps? or maybe u calling me a prostitute + a homeless orphan?
r u kidding about lohan or whoever it is? who even is lindsay lohan? have u ever seen anything she’s done apart from the parent trap when u were like 6? she’s one of those weird hollywood monsters u hear about every day but she doesn’t actually do anything. but she was hot in mean girls. i swear l.a. screws with yr head. r u gonna bundle some kids in the car, guzzle a few bottles of whiskey and go on a joyride like celeb chicks do, just cos yr bro saw yr hooters? maybe don’t.
anyway. you’re at your aunts. that’s good. least the old man might get a scare + pull his head in. i don’t think it’s goodnight irene 4 yr family. u can’t think like that. we’ve always got plenty of room @ my place. u might have 2 sleep in chain-mesh gloves 2 make sure no-one swipes yr thumbs in the night, but the door’s open if u want 2 chance it.
yr bro has a sista-boob fetish? that is bizarre and twisted. i swear if i had a sista i wouldn’t be takin nude snaps of her 2 school in my lunchbox. maybe he’s showing them to dudes @ school. anyone been looking at u weird or sayin ‘hey, how you doin?’ in a way that suggests they’ve seen yr kahoonies? what if there’s a whole website of u nude? sorry. not really the time to be joking but lemme know what’s goin on in that sick puppy’s head.
with my stuff – u seem 2 still think it’s deepspace but she was tellin the truth about her mum + all that. it’s an irrational fear of cops but i swear that’s all it is. and it’s not that weird that she wants to see a psychologist. doesn’t everyone in america have a shrink? i’m thinking i’m done after 2morrow morning. i just wanna have a normal birthday.
and can u lay off on the orphan cracks? no-one ever calls me an orphan. i might be one but i’m not diggin the title 2 much. makes me feel like the jammy dodger or whoever that dawg is in oliver twist. my folks ditched me but i dunno if they died or if they just had other things on. maybe they’re still alive?
did i tell u they left me in a church + i went in2 foster care till i was 3? then this couple wes and lena (he was american, she was australian) took me 2 the states 4 a few yrs and stuff kinda went bad there. she was pretty horrible and i think he drank heaps + was doing bad stuff. one thing i remember is me and lena walking along this highway late @ nite tryin 2 get away from the house. all these massive trucks tearing past us with blinding lights, nearly cleaning us up. we did that a few times. that’s why i feel so bad 4 u. but i came out the other side and u will 2.
here’s the one pic i have of me when i lived in vermont. we went to maine on holidays. it’s my baby album.
anyway then i came back 2 oz + ended up in byron with raj. then deepspace came not long after. and i’ve had about twenty foster-bros and sistas since then. all gone except lauren. i shld be more f’d up than i am. but i think maybe cos of all the craziness i just try 2 have a normal life. after 2morrow i’m gonna get back 2 my script. least i’m gonna have somethin 2 write about now. my freegan doco’s getting pretty interesting 2.
and what’s wit u sayin i’m a fifteen yr old male hooker? u asked twice in one e. in l.a. if u find a couple of fingers in the bin do u immediately start turning tricks?
and post the fingers? r u kidding? can u post fingers? do they have a postpak 4 that in america? maybe a glove with bubble wrap inside and u just slot the fingers in? (do they have a 3-finger version? i don’t want to be wasting extra cash on the 5.)
gotta sleep. nearly midnight. getting up early 4 hosp.
hope u good.
fiddy cent.
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From: Milla Gainsberg [millag@beverlyglengirlshigh.net]
To: Sim [sim@byronshireprogressive.edu.au]
Subject: Please call them breasts
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Dear Sim
KAHOONIES? You’re not serious, right? That’s not what you call them, is it? If it is then you need to stop immediately. No girl will ever go out with you if you call them that. And HOOTERS is totally worse.
And I really don’t think my brother has seen my BREASTS ’cause I don’t really have any. I’m not that kind of hot smokin’ bitch kind of girl.
As if he’d be showing nude pics of me to other kids. I still look like a ten-year-old boy. There’s nothing interesting to look at. And anyway, I don’t think it was Josh who took the pictures, ’cause when I yelled at him about it, he just stared off in the distance. I think he got the photos from some kid at his school. You know, he was trying to protect me. I’ll hassle him some more to find out who it was but obviously it’s one of his little loser pervert friends. Remember the little sneaker prints? It has to be someone young to have feet that small.
But I’m not going to hassle him right now ’cause he seems more freaked about Dad than I am. I’m actually really worried about him. Can you get brain damage from pot?
This is Josh. He used to look really cute and smiley. Not anymore.
Maybe I should email the helpline woman about advice for Josh’s pot habit …
OH! You know what? I don’t know w
hy we didn’t think of this before. Why don’t YOU email the helpline? They might have some good tips on lost fingers. What do you think? At least this way we’ll have an adult’s perspective and they’ll be able to tell you exactly what’ll happen to Raj and Deepspace if you tell. Hey! I just realized. It’s like we have our very own Dr Phil! Hmm, but she’s a woman … Dr Phyllis? Ha! This is sooo cool.
I just still don’t get it. They’re vegos so they didn’t knock off a guy for cannibalistic reasons and they believe in recycling and peace so they’re not violent. It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it was a corpse that they dug up … Yeah, they decided to worship dead people at some rave. You know, some hippie worship-the-dead all-night drug party. Oh, but then the body would be rotten and you wouldn’t have such pristine fingers.
So, I’m your only friend, huh? Don’t be embarrassed, you’re mine too. I’m not embarrassed. All the morons around here wouldn’t be able to come up with any helpful advice, ’cause all they care about is what they look like and how many friends they have on Facebook. I feel like I’m surrounded by a bunch of preschoolers. Hailey, Sage and Olivia are cool but they only ever want to talk to me about clichéd teen stuff. I can’t talk to them the way I talk to you.
Look, as your only true friend, this is my advice. Go to the cops and tell them what you know, but Raj and Deepspace will probably get in trouble.
Or, maybe you should have a meeting with them and ask what the hell is going on? But I guess you already tried that and hit a dead end. It just doesn’t make any sense. Like, why would Deepspace not want to do something about the fingers? Even if she hates cops, wouldn’t she want to get the fingers back to the person who had them hacked off? It totally doesn’t add up.