Chapter I
Is it possible for me to have a normal brain?
Not the question you’d get asked by the typical thirteen-and-three-quarters year old. Or maybe you get that a lot. You can’t blame a teenager for wanting a normal brain, though.
But mine simply isn’t normal – Not even by teenage standards. When I was eight, I got into a plane crash. That was the first time I was travelling without my parents – My grandmother was dying and they were already on the other side of the country. They had left me with my godmother. We had to get there in hopes of reaching before the funeral.
The crash kind of messed up my brain (and also led me to a fear of planes and heights and a number of other things). Whenever a problem arises, my brain automatically shuts down. Instead of looking for a solution, I forget how to breathe.
Aside from that, I’m pretty happy, I guess. I have a pretty normal life, and one thing’s for sure, I haven’t got it as bad as most do. I have a couple of friends and I’m an average-grade kid who loves reading and writing, plus I’m part of the local theatre and poetry club. And I used to go to therapy a couple years back. Though I stopped going there when I was ten. The thing about therapy is, almost everybody needs it at some point of time. But because of this messed up place we’re living in, most people don’t pay as much attention to their mental health as they should. Though, if a celebrity got a nose-job, it has got to be the hottest topic in the world. The world keeps disappointing me, but I’ve got to get used to it now.
On the morning of Christmas, I awoke next to my best friend, Pixie. Pixie was spending Christmas with my family because her Mum was away for an urgent work trip. She wasn’t really that bummed about it. Her Mum rarely was away. She has short coils for hair. Amazing ones, too. They always reminded me of chocolate twists – sort of like these curly chocolate candies we’d eat when we were younger. She has freckles and this kind of cinnamon coloured skin which I’ve always adored. And her eyes were the kind of eyes which people usually get mesmerised by: they were amber.
Beside Pixie was a beautiful (unfinished) portrait of me. She got the urge to draw me last night and she’d got every detail right in my portrait. She drew my eyes which are deep brown and apparently golden in the light (which she says are “mystic” and “something an artist would die to draw” – I have a feeling she’s saying that just because she’s my best friend), my short hair up till my shoulders which was a brown that you couldn’t describe as a colour, my diamond shaped face, my pale lips because I’ve always been one to forget to drink water, my small nose which I hate – profusely because people say it’s fun to press it like a button. She somehow managed to properly colour in my skin that looked like the dust you’d find on roads. I argued about how my eyes were a deep brown, not a bright golden.
ME: But they’re way too light to be my eyes
PIXIE: Yeah, but when you’re in the sunlight, your eyes light up and become these golden orbs which an artist like me absolutely adores! And in this art piece, you are in the sunlight.
ME: Can’t argue with that.
She’s been my friend for years. And I’ve watched her expand into her world of art, I’ve been to every art store she’s ever visited and I’ve probably seen every pencil she’s ever bought.
I was grateful for Pixie. She was always there for me when I had any problem. And she loved trying out new things with me. She and I were both in the theatre club. She was even there when I joined the writing club when I was ten years old.
She left a while later, but I still loved her for being there until I warmed up to the community.
I, on the other hand, am still in that writing club. I’ve always been the youngest member over there. Nobody really joined and stayed after I was introduced to the club. Basel may be large, but the neighbourhood I lived in was pretty small. Due to the growing number of children – I’ve been to a lot of sweet sixteens and elegant eighteens (a term the theatre club coined when Laura, who was probably a princess in disguise, turned eighteen).
I’ve also watched some people become older. Old enough to leave the clubs. I’ve watched them grow out of the writing club, even the theatre, and get into share-markets and finance. It hurt me when that happened.
But the clubs never changed. Not really.
In fact, it probably was the best part about Christmas – we had a beautiful Christmas play every year. And every year it would get more distinct than the other plays.
This year, I would be acting as the main character. Something I was very excited about, but very anxious about, too. But Pixie and Ant (Antonio) were going to be there with the “emergency kit”: an inhaler, a pillow, a bottle of cold water, and a Rubik’s cube. Plus, nobody unknown was really going to watch the play. But I couldn’t bear the thought of people saying the main actor didn’t act well. That the play was cheap. That it wasn’t as good as it was last year. That the actors weren’t fit for acting. That everything was just as good as mayhem.
I stopped thinking after Pixie woke up.
‘Don’t be anxious, Cassandra,’ she told me.
‘Gosh, Pixie, saying my actual name makes me more anxious now.’
’Stop being so silly, Cass,’ she laughed. The kind of one-syllable laugh that you do when you exclaim more than laugh, or when you just breathe out sharply. ‘It’ll be perfect. Even Nemo will like it, and he’s a dog who probably has no clue what theatre is!’
Nemo was one of my Australian Shepherds. He was known for being a bit dumber than Dory – my female Australian Shepherd. Who was pregnant.
Great job, Nemo.
She was expecting puppies any week soon and that made time go slower.
‘Cassie, by the way,’ Pixie cut into my thoughts. ‘You know what time of the year is coming, now, right?’
‘Uh, the end of the year?’ I asked.
‘Idiot There are MANY things at once.’ Pixie rolled her eyes. ’Athletic tryouts? Club elections? Goddamn it please tell me you’re going to try out for the club council this year,’
‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘Are you gonna try out?’
‘Well, not the council – I wouldn’t be able to do that – but the tryouts, for sure.’
‘Bit-’
’Language,’ I heard my Mother say from the next room. Pixie blushed slightly. She rarely swears, but when she did, she always gets caught.
‘Sorry, Kate,’
Kate, my mum, gave birth to me when she was fifteen. And she does regret the age at which she gave birth, but she tells me she doesn’t regret having me. Up till she was twenty-five, she was only comfortable with people calling her Kate. So everybody calls her Kate. Well, I call her Mum, because I have to.
Me and Pixie got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast and the exchange of presents. She gave me a gallery of her and me, she also gave me fountain pens. I love fountain pens. I’d given her art supplies and a book that she’d been wanting to read for ages. We ate breakfast by the Christmas Tree. Outside it was snowing. It was snowing in Basel and I wanted to jump into the thick blanket of snow and sink into it. Pixie had similar ideas. She, however, acted on them. As soon as she was done with her warm grape juice and crisp toast, she was frollicking across our large garden.
‘You okay?’ Mum asked me.
‘Yeah,’ I said and got off the floor to wash the dishes.
Me and Mum dropped Pixie to her house and then we took off for rehearsals. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be, Pixie helped me out with that. I still had a stress ball and a writing pad (I draw circles when I’m anxious).
Thoughts kept screaming in my mind, Cassie, what if you fall off the stage? What if you hurt somebody? What if you accidentally use the props in the wrong way and… I picturised an ambulance. I distract myself and keep calm.
It was not snowing anymore, but it was cold. People were gathered around the fireplace backstage.
“Alright now!” Miss Maudie, a blonde, short woman with blue eyes yelled. “You’ve all got five minutes until you can gulp down your hot chocolate. Then we begin rehearsing!”
People yelled a yes!
I was waiting for Antonio to show up. He was one of the main characters along with me. It was worrying me that he hadn’t shown up yet. Plus, Pixie was really hoping to see him, for some odd reason.
He’ll be there, I reassured myself.
I went to change into my costume after I finished my hot-chocolate and began reading my script. The next day, new people would be joining the theatre club. And some would be leaving.
That Moment Antonio walked in. He had red hair that swept over his eyes – but today, he styled it in a European-1950’s hairstyle. He was tall and lanky and had the brightest grey eyes I’d ever seen. In the light they almost looked white.
‘Sorry I’m late!’ his squeaky voice yelled.
‘Antonio, gosh – I thought you weren’t gonna show up.’
We shared a quick hug and then he poured himself some hot-chocolate (which turned cold long ago)
‘You won’t be able to finish that in time,’ I bit my lip.
‘Never underestimate the abilities of Antonio D’Souza, Cassandra Kate Lawrence.’
‘Not funny,’
He smiled. I peeped through the curtains: Pixie was waiting anxiously. Antonio had arrived in his costume, and the Moment he let the last drop of hot-chocolate fall down his throat, the intro music played. Miss Maudie snatched the cup away and Antonio stepped onto stage.
I took a quick look backstage, and Antonio started his act. I stepped onto stage. I give my dialogue. I felt like I wasn’t me. I was Larissa, the princess trapped inside a tower for Christmas. I felt Antonio was Liam. Larissa’s brother. I wasn’t in the real world. I wasn’t in Basel. I was in Castlestone. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
The play was over in half-an-hour. It got a standing ovation. I felt that wave of disappointment wash over me – I was no longer wrapped in the delicate winter of Castlestone. I was now watching the snowstorm outside the stage. Another play went by this year. It made me sentimental.
Pixie walked up and tackled Antonio with a hug – she gave me one, too, but mine wasn’t a bear hug like Antonio got.
‘You guys did great!’ Pixie smiled.
‘Thank you, m’lady.’ Antonio bowed down and looked at me, ‘We make a great team, as always.’
I nod with a grin.
