Free The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty Page A

year? Good luck with Year 11.1 think you will change.
    She probably believed it would encourage me.
    Elizabeth Clarry, meanwhile, is often short and sharp. I therefore conclude that it was she who wrote:
    A hit too smart.
    Too smart for what, Ms Clarry? Too smart for you? Can’t run fast enough to keep up with my brains?
    So.
    No guilt.
    They ought to know the nature of their souls, and I have revealed them. (Although, it was disconcerting to discover that Briony already knew about her soul. Her mother is a marine biologist! Who could have predicted?)

    Next week, I will complete my task.
    The final victims are Sergio and Astrid.
    Sergio is innocent enough, but, like a platypus, he can surprise you with a spurt of venom. (I suppose that technically makes him venomous, since he can attack, but not very often, and not in the same league as that venomous three. None is in the same league as Astrid.)
    I believe it was the platypus who wrote that I wear my hair ‘weird’ and suggested that it takes ‘guts’ to do so. Sergio has laughed at my hairstyle before, and is just the sort of person to twist cruelly into ‘compliment’.
    There is no doubt in my mind that Astrid—the sea wasp—wrote this:
    I have never spoken to Bindy, but I am sure that behind her extremely annoying personality she is a beautiful human being.
    I have two things to say about Astrid:
1.
She lied when she said she had never spoken to me.
2.
She is the most venomous of all.

    Third Further Extended Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Thursday, 4.03 am
    Strange, after a day like today—I mean yesterday, of course— a day when I revealed two souls, and furtheralsomore . . . what a strange and wonderful word! Furtheralsomore. I love it. Anyway, furtheralsomore, I refused to attend their Saturday ‘get-together’ at Try’s house— they will be wasting time, filling in foolish ‘confidential’ questionnaires andtalking about themselves, but I will have a wondrous Saturday! After Kmart, I’ll get homework done, maybe summarise my History notes, work through Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist, Complete Piano Exercises, match up some of my odd socks. I’ll write my speech for English next week. I always win that speech contest. I’ll feed the ca—
    But where was I?
    Ah, yes, strange. Strange that my symptoms of anti-climax persist even after revealing two souls.
    I still have the headache, my stomach hurts, and I’m so tired. Yet I cannot sleep tonight—perhaps I fear a return to that dream of corpses and tree roots. My arms are so heavy and numb I scarcely believe that I can lift them.
    Auntie Veronica said at dinner that she feels the same way herself, so I suppose we still have that virus, but how long can it last?
    â€˜What a coincidence,’ Uncle Jake said. ‘You two having the same thing!’
    What does he mean? Why should we not have the same virus? We live in the same house! I don’t understand him.
    And more to the point, and furtheralsomore, he doesn’t pronounce the word correctly. A university professor!
    â€˜Co-inky-dence,’ he says, and it makes me want to kill him.

    Further Final Extended Fourth Night Musing Times of Bindy Good Night Mackenzie
Thursday, 4.52 am
    Oh, I must confess it.
    The Venomous Seven,
    What seven? What seven?
    What Venomous Seven?
    There are the poisonous (Briony, Elizabeth and Sergio), there are the venomous (Toby, Emily, and unforgivable Astrid), but even the poison and the venom adds only to six—and all along I have lied when I have called them the Venomous Seven.
    I did it because it rhymed.
    They are only Six, and
    Finnegan
    Finnegan
    Finnegan Blonde
    IS NOT AMONG THEM!
    Why did I disgrace him by including his name in that number? Oh, the number seven, it disgraces him! And just for the sake of the rhyme! (Or anyway, it was an internal half-rhyme. The assonance of those recurring v’s and e’s . .