Young Writers Society

In the movies, love always works out for the best. Everyone gets the perfect teen romance, you know, as long as they’re at least above average looks wise. In real life though, love is difficult, especially when you’re an eleven year old kid who’s just figuring out exactly what love is. For me, love seemed almost impossible. Luckily, I had something that made it a whole lot easier to manage, a shining example of true love and, no, it wasn’t my parents – it was Jimmy’s.

I went to Jimmy’s for the first time a few months after school had started and, naturally, the rest of the group accompanied me. His mum greeted us at the door and offered an assortment of refreshments but didn’t have time to actually hear my answer because his dad appeared and swooped her away, rambling something about a movie that was waiting to be watched. Jimmy shouted at them from the top of the stairs to not be so gross and I simply laughed, mostly because I’d never seen such a happy couple before so I didn’t really know how to react – my parents weren’t exactly a shining example of a happy marriage. Jimmy quickly retrieved me and guided up to his room and away from his embarrassing parents, where Sam was already waiting for me. For some reason he was cleaning.

“Come on,” Jimmy urged pushing me into the room. “Get stuck in.”

“Stuck in to what?” I said, though I was pretty sure of the answer.

“Dude, the girls are coming today,” he said, exasperatedly. “You think I’m gonna let them see this.” He gestured to the mess that was his room.

I chuckled, picking up discarded clothes and shoving them into the washing basket on the landing. We worked quickly and not very efficiently. Jimmy wasn’t much help; he was too busy looking at the clock and panicking about the girls arriving to actually tidy anything. We finally managed to get the room clean just in time for Lizzie and Faith’s arrival. Gia was late. We’d obviously done a good job of cleaning, because Lizzie even commented on it as she entered the room. Jimmy graciously accepted her compliments.

“Why is Cassandra Platte sat in your front yard?” was all Faith said as she entered the room.

“Faith it’s not yard. It’s garden. We’re English,” Lizzie said, giggling awkwardly. I think even she was starting to get a little annoyed with how Faith acted about Cassandra.

“Whatever,” Faith said, dismissively. “Why is she sat out there?”

I moved over to the window; Jimmy’s room being front facing, I should be able to see Cassandra from here if she was out there. Sure enough, there she was, sitting in Jimmy’s chair swing, curled up with a book.

“She does that a lot,” Jimmy said, concentrating on hunting through his DVD collection.

“Sit outside your house like a stalker?” Faith pressed.

He glanced up at her from beneath his fringe, brow furrowed. “Read on our swing,” he said, making clear with his tone that that was the end of the conversation. As usual, though, Faith continued to push the matter.

“That’s a little creepy, don’t you think?”

“Not really. She’s always done it. My mum likes that the swing gets some use so no one really cares.”

“Yeah, but why come all the way to your house to sit on your swing?”

“Cause it’s not “all the way”,” I chipped in. “It’s just next door.” I almost didn’t manage to suppress my laughter as the shock hit Faith’s face.

“Next door?” she shrieked.

“Are we gonna talk about Cassandra Platte all day? Or are we gonna watch a movie?” Jimmy asked.

That put an end to the conversation and we all set about picking a film. Gia arrived somewhere in the middle of the decision making. Somehow, we ended up settling for Jimmy’s first choice, Field of Dreams, despite all of us having other preferences. Just as we were finally settling down to watch the movie, Jimmy’s DVD player started acting up and, after shouting at it a little and actually hitting it a few times, he concluded that it was just having “one of those days” and gave up on the movie altogether – though I suspected that the problem might have something more to do with the years of abuse he had obviously put it through. When we went downstairs so that Jimmy could complain about “the piece of junk” to his parents, his mother suggested that, since it was quite a nice day for the middle of winter, we go down to the local park, so we all slipped into our coats and shoes and ventured out into the just above freezing temperatures.

Now, as we were making our way across the abnormally large front garden, it suddenly seemed a little odd that Cassandra was sitting in Jimmy’s chair swing, especially when she didn’t even lift her head out of her book to acknowledge our presences. As we passed her Jimmy spoke without even looking in her direction.

“Alright, geek,” he said casually.

“Alright freak,” she replied, her gaze not faltering from her book.

“Pleasant guys,” Gia said, chuckling.

This, for some reason unbeknown to the rest of us, got Cassandra’s attention. She smiled at Gia, genuine affection lighting her features. “Hello, Gia,” she said cheerfully.

“Hi, Cassandra,” Gia replied.

We didn’t stop walking for the whole exchange and were now out the gate and walking down the road towards the park, leaving Cassandra behind in Jimmy’s garden. Every time I went to Jimmy’s house after that, which was a lot, Cassandra would either already be sitting on the swing or she’d come over to use it partway through my visit. She was even there when it rained – the chair had a large enough canopy over it to protect her from the rain. Every time I came and went without even acknowledging her presence. Sometimes it was just me. Sometimes it was me and Sam. Sometimes the whole group would be there. Occasionally Gia and Cassandra spoke, but no one else bothered with trying to talk to Cassandra. You couldn’t really blame us, though – she wasn’t the easiest of people to talk to.

This went on for a month until, one day, I changed everything. I’d come round to Jimmy’s house after school, like I often did with Sam, and was on my way out when curiosity got the better of me and I stopped directly in front of the swing and turned to Cassandra. I just stood there for a few minutes, staring at her, unsure of what to say. Suddenly, without even looking at me, Cassandra spoke.

“What do you want, Mimic?”

I didn’t bother questioning the mimic thing; I’d heard enough from Jimmy to know that trying to understand Cassandra Platte wasn’t an easy task.

“What is it with you and Jimmy?” I asked flat out, not bothering with the chitchat that neither of us wanted to exchange.

She stopped, glanced up at me and placed a bookmark in her book, placing it gently next to her on the chair. “What do you mean?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Why is it that you guys only talk to each other when you’re exchanging insults, yet you happily sit here, in his garden, all day every day?”

She shrugged. “I like this spot and his mum still likes me even if he doesn’t, so I’m alowed to use it.”

“What do you mean “even if he doesn’t”? The way Jimmy tells it, it’s you who hate’s him.”

“I don’t hate James.”

I stopped in my tracks. That wasn’t the answer I had been expecting and the sincerity in her voice threw me completely off balance.

“I despise him,” she added quickly, delivering the killer blow in a perfect dead-pan tone.

For a moment we were both silent. Then I burst out laughing uncontrollably. Something about the way Cassandra spoke, or even just the way she didn’t speak, made her easier to talk to than I’d first thought. She wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. She was witty, funny, light-hearted. The cold, stern girl that I’d seen around school was suddenly gone. That was when I started to feel slightly guilty.

“So, are we done here,” she asked. “Because I’m about to reach a brilliantly depressing section in my book.”

I shifted my weight from my left foot to my right and dipped my head. “Yeah,” I said, nodding. Then I turned away and walked out of the gate, but this time I actually felt kind of bad about leaving Cassandra sat alone on that swing.

The next day I asked Jimmy about her calling me mimic, though it wasn’t an easy topic to bring up. According to him, it was one of Cassandra’s weird little quirks; she would make up nicknames for people that she used because she thought they fitted them better than their names. He didn’t know why mine was mimic though, so it didn’t really help me make much sense of it. I soon found out how I’d earned my nick name when I next heard Cassandra use it.

It was at lunch time sometime near the end of winter. Someone had mixed an assortment of drinks together in a bottle and was now daring people to drink the foul looking, and smelling, contents. As soon as it was offered to him, Jimmy took the bottle and took a large gulp, managing not to gag for a whole second before he began dry heaving. I was still laughing when he handed me the bottle and said gleefully, “I dare ya.” I took the bottle and as soon as the liquid touched my tongue I wanted to hurl. I managed not to but quickly passed the bottle on and that’s when I heard the word flutter past as she crossed our path. My head snapped round to follow her as she left my sightline and the mocking smile on her face said it all.

Mimic. It was suddenly so clear. I looked around the group. No one else had drunk from the bottle – it was only me and Jimmy. In all likelihood, if someone had handed the bottle to me first, before Jimmy drank from it, I probably wouldn’t have taken even the tiniest of sips. Mimic. The word now seemed more like an accusation than a nickname. The insinuation was that I was just a copycat, doing everything Jimmy did but only after Jimmy did it. The worst part was that it was true. Since I’d met him, I’d been following Jimmy’s example, looking up to him unquestionably. The realisation made my heart sink. So this is who I was in Cassandra Platte’s eyes. Suddenly, I was struck but the desire to prove her wrong, to change her mind. I wanted her to see me differently.