Cassandra (eBook)

Kathryn Gossow (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
264 Seiten
Odyssey Books (Verlag)
978-1-922200-79-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Is the future set like concrete, or a piece of clay we can mould and change?
On a remote farm in Queensland Cassie Shultz feels useless. Her perfect brother Alex has an uncanny ability to predict the weather, and the fortunes of the entire family hinge upon his forecasts. However, her own gift for prophecy remains frustratingly obscure. Attempts to help her family usually result in failure.
After meeting with her new genius neighbor Athena, Cassie thinks she has unlocked the secret of her powers. But as her visions grow more vivid, she learns that the cost of honing her gift may be her sanity.
With her family breaking apart, the future hurtles towards Cassie faster than she can comprehend it.

Textauszug

~ 5 ~

Sight

Cassie’s sweaty hand slips around the plastic handle of her new school port. The school building rises above them, the sun splayed across the peeling paint on the weather boards. They walk underneath the building, its tall stumps like the opening of a cool cave. The older kids zip in and out from the heat to the cool in a chaotic game.

‘Can I go play?’

‘Not yet.’ Her mother leads her towards a long set of stairs beneath the building. She pulls the plaits from Cassie’s shoulders and runs her hand along the trail they make down her back. ‘Your father and your poppy went to school here too.’

‘Poppy as well?’

‘Yes, when the school was new.’

‘What about you? Did you go here too?’

‘No, I didn’t grow up here,’ her mother replies.

At the top of the stairs they turn onto a long veranda stretching the length of the building.

The school office opens onto the veranda. A skinny man in long shorts, long socks and a shirt and tie steps out. There isn’t much hair on his head, only a long floppy piece combed over the shiny skin.

‘Mrs Shultz, nice to see you. How are you? How is Peter, and old Mr Shultz? Still watching the weather? I heard there was a new addition to the family. A boy? What did you call him?’

‘Everyone is well, the baby is Alexander.’

‘Good name, good name, and this must be Peter’s girl? Grade one?’

‘Yes, this is Cassandra—Cassie.’

‘Mrs Bryant has the grade ones, twos and threes.’ He points to the far end of the veranda. ‘You can go and settle her in.’

They pass another classroom, a small room crammed with books, and finally Cassie’s classroom. In the doorway a blond boy, his arms wrapped tight around his mother’s neck, clings like a bush tick. Cassie decides he wouldn’t make a good friend. Not brave enough.

‘Ah, another girl at last.’ A woman in a tight brown dress with orange flowers puts out her cigarette and walks towards them. ‘Grade one, I hope.’

Where the dress wraps around the teacher’s stomach the flowers stretch out bigger and look weird. Cassie doesn’t know what sort of flowers they are. Sunflowers? Yellow daisies?

‘Yes, this is Cassandra Shultz—Cassie.’ Her mother wipes the sweat from her hand and holds it out for the teacher to shake, but the teacher turns to Cassie.

‘Good oh, Cassandra. I am Mrs Bryant. Grade ones sit here at the front. There are seven of you so far, but you are only the second girl.’ She looks up at Cassie’s mother. ‘There must have been something in the water that year.’ She places her hand on Cassie’s shoulder and steers her to the front row. ‘This desk can be yours. Sit down and unpack your books. See there’s a slot underneath for you to put them in.’ Mrs Bryant bends over and pulls out the chair. The flowers disappear into the folds of her belly. ‘Now, let’s see if I can sort out this boy over there.’

Cassie sits in the chair and runs her hand over the top of the smooth desk. Only one other girl is not many to play with. Will that be enough? She lifts her school port onto the desk and flicks open the latches, closes them, and opens them again, enjoying the snapping noise. Clunk, click, clunk, click.

‘Cass, stop that.’ Her mother lifts the lid and takes out a pile of books and hands them to Cassie. ‘Here, put them away like you were asked. I’ll help you.’

The blond boy screams as Mrs Bryant tries to extract him from his mother. Her mother looks at the boy in the doorway and back at Cassandra.

‘You can go now, Mum. You should get home to Alex.’

‘He’ll be fine with Aunty Ida for a while longer.’

Cassandra lifts more books from her port. They are perfect. Her mother had wrapped them in brown paper and plastic, glued on a picture from the Women’s Weekly and neatly printed Cassie’s name, school and grade. That was a good day.

‘Do you think I will learn to read or count today?’ Cassie asks.

‘It won’t happen that fast.’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know. You can spend your whole life learning about something.’

‘Like Poppy and the weather?’

‘And me and being a mother.’

Cassie laughs. ‘People don’t have to learn how to be mothers. How long will it take to learn to read?’

‘A year maybe. It depends how hard you try.’

‘A year! I wish it was a year already.’

‘Don’t wish your life away, Cassandra.’

A bell rings. Mrs Bryant stands in the doorway holding the hand of the red-faced blond boy. ‘That’s the bell. Downstairs to the parade ground. Cassie, say goodbye to your mum now. There is nothing to worry about.’

‘Bye, Mum.’ Cassie stands and begins to walk out the door.

‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ Her mother bends down and Cassie kisses her check. Her mother pulls Cassie’s plait over her shoulder and fiddles with the fluffy ends. Cassie passes from one foot to the other, looking over her mother’s shoulder. ‘Be a good girl,’ her mother says, smiling at her and standing up.

‘Yes, Mum, can I go now?’

Her mother nods and her eyes look wet like they will cry.

‘Don’t worry about me, Mum.’ Cassie hugs her mum’s thighs and then races off in the direction Mrs Bryant disappeared.

Downstairs, Mrs Bryant shows the gathering grade ones how to stand in two lines—a line of boys and a line of girls. Two girls. Cassie stands in front, the other girl behind her. All the other classes line up too. The parade ground is blue bitumen and the heat rises in waves up Cassie’s bare legs.

On the veranda above them, the skinny man speaks. ‘Welcome back to the new school year and welcome to all our new students. I trust you have all found which classroom you belong to. We will start by singing the National Anthem.’ He presses a button on a tape recorder but the music comes out of a speaker at the bottom of the veranda.

‘Turn around,’ Mrs Bryant whispers. Cassie turns and finds the rest of the school facing a flagpole at the back of the parade ground. A boy pulls a rope and a flag climbs the pole.

‘God Save Our Gracious Queen …’ Cassie doesn’t know the words. She mumbles and gazes at the messy hair in front of her. The messy haired girl turns and smiles at her.

Cassie’s stomach turns like a Ferris wheel. She is going to have a friend.

* * *

Her new friend Natalie has long hair, not curly, but frizzy like a wild lion. She comes to school with it brushed and tied in a ponytail, but by the time the first bell rings, it is tangled and loose. Cassie catches the bus with the other farm kids. Natalie, a townie, walks to school so it is her job to keep a swing for Cassie.

Each morning, Cassie crosses the parade ground to where Natalie stands, a hand on each of the swings. As she gets closer, Natalie lets go of one of the swings. ‘Are you ready?’ and they both leap into the seats and step back onto their tippy toes and start the countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7 … The counting had been Cassie’s idea. 4, 3, 2, 1—Blast off! and they let go and swing counting upwards to ten. Cassie leans far forward and pulls back, knowing the faster and harder she twists the higher she will swing. At the end of the countdown, they leap off their swing onto the ground, mostly running with the momentum, sometimes tripping up into a giggling tangle on the ground. Then they do it all over again.

One morning, as they stand up from their tumble, a grade two girl tries to steal Cassie’s swing.

Natalie jumps forward and tendrils of frizzy hair spring from her ponytail and drape around her face. Her top lip curls up, and her teeth bare and Cassie knows Natalie is about to get fierce. ‘The swings are mine and Cassie’s.’

The girl pushes Natalie aside and takes hold of the swing. ‘You have to share,’ she says back.

‘I do not,’ screams Natalie and pushes the girl’s face with the flat of her hand.

The girl covers her face with her hands, her eyes wet. ‘I’m telling,’ she cries and runs in the direction of the office, her friends trailing behind her.

Natalie doesn’t get in trouble. She tells Mrs Bryant the grade two girls pushed her off the swing the day before and shows the bruise on her elbow to prove it. Later Cassie asks Natalie how she got the bruise, but Natalie won’t say.

The grade two girls play on the slide from then on.

During little break, Natalie and Cassie sit together under the school building. Theirs is the bench seat close to the drinking troughs. The teachers says they aren’t allowed to share their food, but Cassie has Aunty Ida’s homemade patty cakes with chocolate icing or her spongy lamingtons with coconut that end up in her lap and down the front of her dress.

Natalie has fruit, an orange or an apple. It doesn’t seem fair for one of them to have what the other doesn’t, so they share everything, eating to the halfway mark on the food and then swapping.

After eating they play hopscotch or at the water trough, spraying the grade two girls with water when they try to come in for a drink.

Monday morning, Cassie climbs onto the school bus, her stomach churning with worry. Natalie’s arm is broken. The bone across the side of her wrist cracked like the windscreen of Cassie’s dad’s ute. Not in pieces but painfully broken. Will Natalie be able to play on the swings? Most likely not. Natalie...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.2.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Sammeln / Sammlerkataloge
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch ► Jugendbücher ab 12 Jahre
• Schlagworte: Australia • Australian books • Dreams • fortune tellers • greek goddess • mythic fiction • psychic • retelling Greek myth • Rural • Tarot • Young Adult coming of age • Young Adult Magical Realism
• ISBN-10: 1-922200-79-4 / 1922200794
• ISBN-13: 978-1-922200-79-2 / 9781922200792