Words in Deep Blue(30)

Cal was a tall, skinny guy with a cloud of brown hair that made him look kind of like a dandelion. A dandelion with glasses, giant headphones around his neck and a book in his hand. George has long straight black hair with a blue stripe down the left side. These days she has a tattoo running along her collarbone; it’s the number 44 written in a soft blue-sky script.

I heard Martin asking about the tattoo during the week. ‘Forty-four. Is that the meaning of life?’ he asked. ‘That would be forty-two,’ she’d said, which is something I know only because Cal read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

‘But what’s he doing?’ George asks, and it feels like I’m un-writing Cal by not filling her in, so I tell her what he would be doing, if he were alive. ‘He’s on exchange, sort of. It’s not an official program. He’s living with our dad at the moment.’

It’s a sort of truth. The plan had been for Dad to spend three months in Paris, so Cal could stay with him. If Cal hadn’t drowned, that’s where he’d be right now.

‘That makes sense,’ George says in a way that makes me think she knew Cal better than I thought.

‘I didn’t know him that well,’ she says when I ask. ‘He was nice to me at school once. He gave me some Sea-Monkeys. I was having a bad week.’ She stops herself from telling me about it, and skips part of the story. ‘Anyway he said they’re like time travellers. They can hibernate until conditions are better. I haven’t put them in water yet. I’m saving them.’

I didn’t know that Cal had a crush on George, but he must have. He wouldn’t give Sea-Monkeys to just any girl. I look over at her – boots on the dash, humming to Bowie. I imagine Cal at school, holding the Sea-Monkeys, trying to get up the courage to give them to George. He probably wrote out a speech beforehand.

‘Did you two talk much?’ I ask. ‘After that?’

‘Not much,’ she says.

They would have been good together, I think, and I turn up the radio to let it drown out sad thoughts.





Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Letters left between pages 44 and 45

15 March – 15 April 2014



Dear George

So how’s Year 9 going? I’ve found this old typewriter that belonged to my grandpa in the shed, so I’m using it for our letters.

The y jumps a little yyyyyyy – see?

I like Year 9. I’m reading a heap – swimming, too, but obviously not the two together. I got a new haircut – my sister says I look good. I think I look weird. My ears are quite big. I’ve never noticed that before. You have nice ears – they’re so small I wonder how you fit all the piercings on them. I’d like to count them one day. Too much information?

Pytheas



Dear Pytheas

You’d be welcome to count them, if you ever told me who you are?!? You have a new haircut and you have big ears, so I guess there are two clues. No one at school fits that description.

This leads me to a question that I hope isn’t insulting. You’re not Martin Gamble are you? I don’t think you are but lately he’s everywhere I go at school, flipping up the cover of my book to see what I’m reading and even though I’m certain that you’re not, the thought keeps crossing my mind. Are you? Please say you’re not.

He’s going out with Stacy, so it’s highly unlikely that you are. Unless these letters are a joke, which I know they’re not. So I’ve just convinced myself that you’re not Martin.

On another, sadder note, my parents are fighting a lot. Dad says they won’t ever divorce, not as long as their copy of Great Expectations is in the Letter Library. It’s their book. Dad says it reminds them of how much they love each other, but I don’t know. They don’t seem to love each other at the moment and I don’t want to point it out but Pip and Estella don’t even end up together.

Bye for now,

George



Dear George

I’m sorry to hear about your mum and dad. My parents are divorced and I still miss Dad. I’m planning on spending some time with him overseas soon. It gets easier. Or, maybe you get used to it being hard.

No, I’m not Martin Gamble. He’s actually pretty nice, though. Maybe he’s trying to talk to you?

Pytheas





Henry




she just doesn’t let me talk

George leaves the bookshop as soon as Rachel arrives, telling me she’s very keen to get away from Martin. I’m not fooled. While she was doing my hair for me tonight, I told her I was certain Martin likes her. She didn’t tell me to shut up.

I relay this to Martin on the way to the party and quiz him about how he feels.

‘Are you always like this?’ he asks.

‘Like what?’

‘Like a matchmaker.’

‘I would like my sister to be happy,’ I tell him. ‘I think it’s possible you could restore her faith in life and love.’

‘No pressure there,’ he says.

‘Do you like her?’

‘She’s the reason I took the job at the bookstore,’ he admits. ‘One of my mums had some clerical work going at her office, but then I saw this cataloguing job advertised at Howling Books, so I took it.’