Read Online Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jaclyn Moriarty
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Mothers do. (So if you ever happen to see one of my assignments and you think, ‘ Wait a minute ! She said she didn’t have a computer on her desk! This looks to me exactly like the work of a computer!’ then your next thought will have to be: ‘Oh, that’s right. Her mum has a stolen lap top. Please forgive me for doubting you, Elizabeth.’)
SO. Within about 27 seconds Saxon’s got the Internet up, and he’s typing the words ‘Australian Circus’ into the search engine, and next thing you know there’s everything you need to know about a circus right there before you. Including information on trapeze artists and clowns and where to buy the sand for the circus floor. I mean, there’s not just stuff on juggling – there’s instructions for how-to-juggle, and interviews with jugglers, and stories about prisoners who reformed from all their murdering and raping because they learnt how to juggle.
And there’s also a list of all the circuses in Australia.
Then, this is the bit where Saxon does his detective work.
He’s sitting there at his computer, leaning back in his swivel chair, frowning away, and he says, ‘You know what? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that has animals. You know what I remember? I remember when we did the frog dissection in science class? And Celia got everyone trying to revive the dead frogs with heart massage, and Hoogen-boom’s going “Look, I don’t mean to let you guys down, but these frogs have been in formaldehyde for the last two months”, and Martin Wilson starts making frog noises with the back of his throat, like “riddup, riddup” and going, “Sir! I think I’ve done it! He’s alive! He’s alive!”, and every-one’s going, “It’s a miracle!” and doing ritual dances tothank the gods and trying even harder to revive their own frogs and Will Stantino starts giving mouth to mouth to his frog, and Suzanne Reynolds sees him and throws up in the preserved snake display, and Celia gets up on her desk and demands that we call vets in to resuscitate the rest of the frogs. And anyway. Elizabeth? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that uses animals.’
He doesn’t need to tell the science class story. He’s completely right. If I’d thought about it for one half a second I would have realised the same thing.
When we were four years old, Celia burst into tears when she saw the movie Benji, not because of what was happening in the movie, but because she thought it was terrible to make a dog act in a movie without giving it a choice whether it wanted to or not.
(I remember I was really confused about that because I hadn’t worked out the whole acting/film thing – you know, I kind of thought it had really happened just in a kind of big, flat way.)
She’s only written about 300 letters to the papers saying that it should be illegal to keep pet dogs unless you’ve got a 50-acre block of land for them to roam free on (she forgives me for having my dog Lochie because I take him for a run practically every day). She only rescues the ants on her driveway by trying to kind of herd them onto the lawn whenever her mum’s about to drive into the garage.
As if she would have anything to do with a place that whipped lions and put monkeys in tiny cages and made elephants do cartwheels on tiny little pre-school stools?
So I agreed with Saxon on that one.
Celia would not be at a circus where they have animals.
Then Saxon got this list up on the screen, of the circuses touring Australia at the moment which don’t have animals.
Then I remembered the postcards and that the first one was from Byron Bay. So I said, ‘Maybe there’s somewhere that gives the tour dates and places for these circuses.’
And next thing he found exactly that and suddenly we had the exact name of the circus (it’s called Firecrackers) and the exact place where it was scheduled to be for the next week.
And guess what?
Saxon started hyperventilating.
Well, that’s what
SO. Within about 27 seconds Saxon’s got the Internet up, and he’s typing the words ‘Australian Circus’ into the search engine, and next thing you know there’s everything you need to know about a circus right there before you. Including information on trapeze artists and clowns and where to buy the sand for the circus floor. I mean, there’s not just stuff on juggling – there’s instructions for how-to-juggle, and interviews with jugglers, and stories about prisoners who reformed from all their murdering and raping because they learnt how to juggle.
And there’s also a list of all the circuses in Australia.
Then, this is the bit where Saxon does his detective work.
He’s sitting there at his computer, leaning back in his swivel chair, frowning away, and he says, ‘You know what? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that has animals. You know what I remember? I remember when we did the frog dissection in science class? And Celia got everyone trying to revive the dead frogs with heart massage, and Hoogen-boom’s going “Look, I don’t mean to let you guys down, but these frogs have been in formaldehyde for the last two months”, and Martin Wilson starts making frog noises with the back of his throat, like “riddup, riddup” and going, “Sir! I think I’ve done it! He’s alive! He’s alive!”, and every-one’s going, “It’s a miracle!” and doing ritual dances tothank the gods and trying even harder to revive their own frogs and Will Stantino starts giving mouth to mouth to his frog, and Suzanne Reynolds sees him and throws up in the preserved snake display, and Celia gets up on her desk and demands that we call vets in to resuscitate the rest of the frogs. And anyway. Elizabeth? I just don’t see Celia supporting a circus that uses animals.’
He doesn’t need to tell the science class story. He’s completely right. If I’d thought about it for one half a second I would have realised the same thing.
When we were four years old, Celia burst into tears when she saw the movie Benji, not because of what was happening in the movie, but because she thought it was terrible to make a dog act in a movie without giving it a choice whether it wanted to or not.
(I remember I was really confused about that because I hadn’t worked out the whole acting/film thing – you know, I kind of thought it had really happened just in a kind of big, flat way.)
She’s only written about 300 letters to the papers saying that it should be illegal to keep pet dogs unless you’ve got a 50-acre block of land for them to roam free on (she forgives me for having my dog Lochie because I take him for a run practically every day). She only rescues the ants on her driveway by trying to kind of herd them onto the lawn whenever her mum’s about to drive into the garage.
As if she would have anything to do with a place that whipped lions and put monkeys in tiny cages and made elephants do cartwheels on tiny little pre-school stools?
So I agreed with Saxon on that one.
Celia would not be at a circus where they have animals.
Then Saxon got this list up on the screen, of the circuses touring Australia at the moment which don’t have animals.
Then I remembered the postcards and that the first one was from Byron Bay. So I said, ‘Maybe there’s somewhere that gives the tour dates and places for these circuses.’
And next thing he found exactly that and suddenly we had the exact name of the circus (it’s called Firecrackers) and the exact place where it was scheduled to be for the next week.
And guess what?
Saxon started hyperventilating.
Well, that’s what
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