Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty Page A

comes to the Internet! www.weird.wacky.wild.demons!
     
    Hey Lizzy,
     
    I don’t get this card either. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TODAY? I flew. I actually flew through the air. Patricia hooked me up in these braces things, and I just went zooming up to the top of the circus tent and then spinning all over the place.
    It was the most exciting, exhilarating thing that ever happened to me. I know what it’s like to be a bird. The circus manager is still treating me so nice -we’ve started playing chess every night until three a.m. I might ask if we can play inside sometimes, cause it gets kind of cold at night, and I think I’m getting the flu! Anyway, hope you’re okay, lots of love,
     
    CELIA.

    Dear Christina,
     
    I don’t think you should have sex if you don’t want to. You should never let anyone pressure you into it. But I guess that’s not the problem, is it? Cause you do want to. I don’t know, maybe you just should? Or do you think that you’re kind of not ready ? I think you shouldn’t do it unless you’re sure that you’re ready.
    It’s very weird that you know what I look like. Yeah, that’s me, and my ears are the stupidest things in the world. How embarrassing. Too bad if I wanted to keep them a secret.Tell that friend of yours to stop watching. Though he’s good at description – that’s exactly what Celia’s like, a fairy princess floating through the window and up into the clouds, like a paper lantern.
    It’s funny that he mentioned that there’s also a guy from our school who catches the Glenorie bus, who always stands up for old people and has running shoes tied around his shoulders. That guy is Saxon Walker and he’s never spoken a word to me in my entire life until today . Spooky. He actually came and sat next to me on the bus, and we talked the whole way . It turns out he’s training for the same run as I am, so we had a lot to talk about. You know, ‘marathon stories’ – he told me about this famous race where one guy was just ahead of the other guy, but he turned around to check on him as he reached the finish line, and that tiny second meant the other guy won. I told him about a marathon in Vancouver where a man was winning by so much that he was three miles ahead of his nearest competitor, but he didn’t realise, so he didn’t stop to get a drink even though it was steaming hot and he was completely dehydrated. He ran into the stadium for the last lap, fell down, tried to stand up, and fell down again. Then he couldn’t get up at all, and ambulance people rushed in, and then it was a race to save his life and he almost died.
    Saxon had already heard that story actually, but he’s kind of polite so he listened to the end before he told me that he knew it.
    Anyway, maybe we’ll even run together some time – he only lives a couple of blocks away from me. He asked about Celia too, which is nice. Most people think it’s so weird that she runs away all the time, that they kind of pretend shedoesn’t exist anymore whenever she’s gone. It was nice to talk to someone about her – I told him about the postcards and the circus and everything. For some reason he thought it was really funny that Celia joined the circus. He couldn’t stop laughing for half the bus ride.
    Anyway, he’s actually pretty cool. I should have talked to him before, but I kind of write off most guys in my school as total nerds.
    Sorry this has to be short. I’m in Music at the moment and people are going mad with the tambourines and it’s impossible to concentrate, but I wanted to write and see if you are okay, and send you this chocolate frog (I hope it hasn’t melted everywhere) and say thank you very very much for the nice helpful things that you said about my dad.
     
    Lots of love,
     
    Elizabeth

    Cruise and booze! Thai cuisine, French Champagne, jazz dancing –all in the elegant surroundings of the superb Princess Leandra.’
     
    Lizzy,
     
    Check out the dude in the flared pants on the front