Finding Cassie Crazy by Jaclyn Moriarty Page A

realise that’s THREE challenges you have succeeded in for me without a single thing going wrong?
    You know what you are?
    You are Argentina.
    In particular, I’m thinking of the fact that Argentina beat Japan, Jamaica and Croatia without conceding a single goal in the first three games of the World Cup in 1998.
    This time you have to let me take you out to say thank you. I’m not accepting a no.
    Your Number 1 Fan

    Dear Seb
    Thanks for your praise about the stolen exam papers. But I can’t take personal credit. I have a friend with a talent for locks. You don’t need to know any names.
    I don’t understand why you want to meet in person. Try to remember something: you don’t know what I look like.
    You need to see a person to know what they look like. Did you not know that?
    Lydia

    Dear Lydia
    I bet you a thousand dollars you are the most gorgeous girl in the county.
    Seb

    Dear Lydia
    You haven’t written for five days. Where are you and when can we meet? I know that you are beautiful.
    Seb

    Dear Seb
    Okay, just to prove how wrong you are, I’ve decided that we CAN meet. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’ve figured something out.
    It will be a double secret assignment and the aim is to identify the other person first.
    What we’re going to do is, I’m going to tell you a place and a time and we both have to be at the place at the time, and we have to figure out which one the other person is before the other person figures it out. Does that make sense?
    I haven’t decided yet where the place will be but it will be somewhere crowded and noisy. And I think it will be the last day of term before the holidays.
    Gotta go
    Lydia

    Dear Lydia
    Okay. What time will we go to the crowded/noisy place where I have to figure out which one you are before you figure out which one I am?
    Seb

    Dear Seb
    You are so going to lose this.
    I’ve figured out all the rules now. This is them:
1.
We will both be at the Blue Danish Café next Friday, arriving some time between 6 and 7 pm.
2.
As soon as you figure out which one is the other person, you have to go straight up to them and give them some kind of object, like a flower or something, to show you know it’s them, and then you have to leave the café immediately.
3.
The first person to do that is the winner.
4.
We can’t ask around at the café to find out which one the other person is.
5.
Also, we can’t ask around for information about what the other person looks like before Friday night. It’s very important that you obey this and I’m trusting you, and you have to trust me. The point is to recognise the other person’s soul, not their face.
6.
We can only use the following clues:
(a)
We have to send each other a photo that shows something about us. Eg it could be a photo of our cat. I am enclosing a photo of my elbow now. The person in the photo who is grabbing at my elbow,trying to get me into the photo, is my father. I look absolutely nothing like my father, thank you Jesus. So his face is not a clue.
(b)
We’re allowed to ask each other THREE questions, only they can’t be questions about what we look like. Just questions that we think will help us to identify the other person’s soul.
    Tell me if you agree with the rules or not.
    Lydia

    Dear Lydia
    The only thing I don’t like about your rules is that the person who wins has to leave the café. Why is that? Why can’t the person who wins get to sit down with Lydia and have a coffee with her and get to know her?
    I’m enclosing a photo of my left ankle. It’s going in for a tackle, which will lead to me getting control of the ball and making a beautiful pass, leading to a goal being scored. The guy who’s got the ball and is about to lose it to my brilliant piece of footwork is my good buddy Charlie Taylor. He’s a great guy but a really crap soccer player.
    I’ll answer your three questions but