Free Dear Miffy by John Marsden

they reckon. Too fucking right I’m in denial, and I’m planning to stay that way, believe me.
    And in the meantime I’m getting treated like shit. All these privileges withdrawn. Privileges, that’s a joke. Being allowed to breathe around here, that’s a privilege.
    So now I’m not allowed to watch TV or play the computers or get stuff from the canteen. I just get people to buy stuff for me, but, so that’s no problem. And there’s not many other privileges they can take off me. Like phone calls. I don’t get any, do I, so that’s easy.
    Well, up their bums, I say. I don’t have to do what they say. I never did what anyone said before I come in here so I don’t see why I should start now.
    Wonder where you are, Miff, and what you’re doing tonight. Wonder if you’re thinking about me. I still can’t believe what happened, the way it worked out. I guess that’s what they mean by denial. It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it? I never thought it’d go this way. Lucky we can’t see the future, hey? Guess it’d have been better if we never got involved with each other in the first place. I don’t like thinking about that, but.
    Maybe when you’re as much in love as we were it can’t never last, Miff. Maybe the only ones that last are the ones that aren’t that serious, you know, the ones that are just mucking around. The ones that are only out for a good time, like I was before I met you. Maybe when you’re our age you aren’t meant to get serious.
    We thought what we had was so strong we could beat everyone. Your parents, my uncle and aunt, the teachers, everyone. We thought we could take on the world.
    I wish you’d never kept getting me to come to your place, but. It might have been different if I hadn’t started going there so regular. I don’t know why I did go. It was easy, I guess, and better than my uncle and aunt’s. And I was sort of fascinated by how rich you were. For a long time I never felt comfortable there, but it got easier, until I got to really like being in your room. Never liked the rest of the house, but. Although if none of your family was there it wasn’t too bad.
    When they were home they treated me like such a piece of shit. I don’t think you realised how bad it was, cos you didn’t want to know about it, and they kind of did it behind your back. After a while I sussed that you hated me talking about it, so I used to shut up. But it cut me deep, Miff, you better believe it, when your brother looked at me with his weak soft eyes like a fucking guinea pig and said shit like, ‘Don’t you have a home of your own to go to?’ like it was a joke, cos I was there so much for a while, only it wasn’t no fucking joke.
    And your sister, one day she said to me, ‘Why do you say “youse” all the time, Tony? Don’t you know how terrible it sounds and how people judge you by it?’
    And all I could think of to say was, ‘Well, Miff doesn’t judge me by it,’ and she just rolled her eyes like, ‘Miffy, don’t talk to me about Miffy.’
    Fucking bitch. They were all the same. Your mother. Did you notice the way she never looked at me when she was talking to me? Her eyes were always off-centre, looking over my shoulder. Like I was some bit of dog shit that she’d stepped in when some fucking mongrel had an accident on the carpet.
    Not that any dog would dare lay a shit in your house.
    Those rich houses, the worst thing that goes wrong in them is when the fucking clock is a minute slow. Then it’s like, ‘Oh my God, throw it away, get another one.’ It’s like the leaves know not to fall on your tennis court, the grass knows not to grow above a certain height. No-one pisses in your pool. Houses like yours, they’re like churches. No-one acts real bad, no-one goes wild in them.
    That’s why I never made love