Free Letters from the Inside by John Marsden

if I’d won it myself! But seriously, you must have known you’d win. The story was so fantastic, it couldn’t have lost. It made me cry — you sure can write.
    When does this book come out exactly? I can’t wait. I’ll buy heaps of copies and give them to everyone and say: ‘I know this person! I know her! Someone famous!’ Hope it’s a paperback, so I can afford it.
    How come the money’s no good to you in Garrett? Aren’t you allowed any money? God, they must be strict.
    I’m not game to ask how much of the story’s true. Well, I am game. How much of the story’s true? But you don’t have to answer if you don’t want. Actually you’re pretty good at not answering things you don’t want to — I’ve asked about your family before and so far you’ve managed to tell me exactly zero.
    Wish I had anything exciting to tell you, but life’s dull here. I sure haven’t won anything. This is the third day back. Do you realize well be in Year 11 after this term? I feel like I’ve only just started high school. They say the jump from Year 10 to Year 11 is bigger than the jump from 11 to 12. Well, we’ll soon find out.
    I’m still with Adam but Cheryl’s having a rocky time with Justin. Rebecca’s got glandular, not badly, but she’s not back yet. I’m going to Mai Huynh’s tonight to help with her English. Pity you aren’t here — you could take over the teaching. This’ll be the first time I’ve met her parents — it’ll be interesting.
    Well, Trace, I gotta tell you, I’m fair dinkum rapt about your story. You could be bigger than Virginia Andrews. Actually you write a lot better than Virginia Andrews. So, keep on goin ‘till it all stops flowin’, OK? Love you heaps,
    Mandy

    Oct 12
    Dear Mandy
    Thanks a lot for your letter. You are good to tell things to. But winning this thing hasn’t been that great. I didn’t tell anyone here, but Mrs McKinnon did. And somehow it gave some of the hacks and even some of the slags — that’s us — the idea that I was going soft. OK, yeah, it’s like you said in your letter. So they started brown-nosing round. And I had to put on an act to let them know I was as big a bitch as ever. So now I’m on PS — Punishment Sheets — and I nearly got worse.
    PS (Pure Shit) means you scrub floors and clean toilets and stuff. It can be slack or bad, depending on who’s on. Today was Mrs Neumann, and she’s bad news. She hates my guts. So every job I did, it was like, ‘Do it again.’ No reasons, no explanation, just ‘Do it again.’ I’m stuffed tonight. And at the end she said, ‘Now try writing a story about PS.’ Really sarcastic.
    A few months ago she came into the common room. It was Saturday afternoon and we were having our big thrill, our hour of TV. She said she had a phone message for me. We’re not allowed to take calls, but people can leave messages if there’s a special reason. I put out my hand for it without looking at her, and she cracked. Started screaming about how the trouble with me was that I didn’t know my place, and how she was going to teach it to me. She was saying I thought I was King Dick and everything. She said if I wanted the message I had to kneel down. I sat there for about three minutes, then I did it. No-one’ll ever know what it cost me to do that. But Mandy, I’d been in here six months, and no contact from anyone, except your letters. So I did it. Even though it was in front of the others, I still did it.
    But that wasn’t enough. She was loving it. No-one was watching TV any more — they were watching me. She said, ‘Hands and knees Tracey.’ Then she ripped off a few more comments about teaching me my place. I was still kneeling, and she said again, ‘Get on your hands and knees if you want it.’
    Well, I couldn’t do it. I knelt there, only half listening, then I dived at her. But she was expecting that. She jumped back, some other hacks grabbed me, they chucked me back in my slot for the weekend, and