Dear Miffy by John Marsden Read Free Book Online

that’s what it did. I seriously thought about ringing the cops and dobbing on him, you know that? Like, anonymously. The only reason I didn’t was because I knew how pissed off you’d be.
    I had some strange feeling that I was going to be your protector, for God’s sake; like, I wanted to take care of you suddenly. You’d have killed me if you’d known that! I don’t know anyone who wanted protecting less than you did . . .
    Wait a minute though . . .
    It’s about ten minutes since I wrote the last sentence. I’ve been thinking about you all that time. And you know, I’ve just worked out what anyone with an IQ in double figures would have figured out months ago. And it’s this: you did want me to look after you! You know what I mean. All that toughness, all that aggro, it was real all right, but geez, you were a kitten when I touched you. A panther with anyone else, but a kitten with me. I never could quite figure that out. I know for sure that no-one else ever saw that side of you. They wouldn’t have believed some of the stuff you said when we were just lying together, the way you sometimes went soft and mushy around me. You were like a little kid then. Remember? We used to laugh about it and I’d stir you about needing your dummy and your teddy and stuff, but I kind of liked it when you went that way.
    I guess maybe I liked being all protective and shit around you. I don’t know, I don’t want to think about that.
    I’ll change the subject.
    Well, sort of. The subject’s always you, Miff, as far as I’m concerned. I know you wouldn’t want it that way any more but it’s still that way for me and I’ve got a feeling it’s always going to be.
    So . . . I’ll go to that Monday again.
    I half thought it all might be a dream, or not a dream exactly, but that you’d have changed your mind over the weekend, or that it had just been one of those funny things that happen, sometimes when two people come together for a moment and the air crackles, then they move away and go cold again.
    Like, that movie I was talking about before. At the end they say something like, ‘Well, we’re all going to be really good friends now,’ and one of them says, ‘No, we’re not, it’s just a fluke that this happened, and on Monday we won’t want to know each other, we’ll be embarrassed to be seen together, we’ll pretend this never happened.’ And as soon as he says it, or she, I can’t remember, you think, Yeah, that’s exactly right.
    So I really thought there was a big chance it’d be that way for us.
    Monday when I saw you coming along the walkway I was shaking like a leaf. And me mates, they didn’t know nothing, of course; they thought we was still worst enemies, and Artie was saying, ‘Hey Tony, here’s your girlfriend,’ real sarcastic, and I’ll never forget the look on his face when you took my hands and kissed me right on the mouth.
    Mmm, your warm firm lips, and your little tongue flicking into mine like a lizard, I forgot about Artie pretty quickly.
    Oh fuck it, that’s enough for this letter. Bye bye bye bye bye, Miff.
    Lots of love,
    Tony
    Dearest Miff,
    There’s hardly been any time to write to you the last few days. Sorry about that. Sometimes I wonder if they do it deliberately, make me work my bum off just so I can’t sit in the corner of the TV room thinking of you. Do you reckon they’d do that?
    Too fucking right they would.
    I want to live in a dream world with you, Miff, that’s all. I want us to be on a boat, one of those big white bastards, drifting through the beautiful calm blue seas, not going anywhere in particular, just watching all them tropical coloured fish. And we wouldn’t wear no clothes, we’d lie around on the deck and make love whenever we felt like it. Your beautiful brown body walking naked towards