The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee

For James Walter

A Is for Assignment

B Is for Birth

C Is for Chaos

D Is for Dimensions

E Is for Earth-Pig Fish

F Is for Frances (Sky)

G Is for Gravity

H Is for Happiness

I Is for Insight

J Is for Joke-Shop Junk

K Is for Kitchens

L Is for Laughter

M Is for Mourning

N Is for Near-Death Experience

O Is for Oblivion

P Is for Picoult

Q Is for Questions

R Is for Revelations

S Is for Schisms

T Is for Talking

U Is for Understanding

V Is for Visions

W Is for Witness

X Is for Xenophobia

Y Is for Yelling

Z Is for Zero Hour

About the Author

A is for assignment.

I'm excited. Miss Bamford is my English teacher, and she is the best English teacher in the world.

Wait. Wrong way. Go back. I haven't personally experienced every teacher in the world (obviously). I believe in precision, so I must refine my statement. It is more accurate to say that she's the best teacher
as far as I'm concerned
.

Miss Bamford is a small woman and she is between thirty and sixty years of age. I refuse to guess at ages. I asked her once, in the interest of accuracy, and she wouldn't tell me. She wears long and shapeless dresses, so it's difficult to tell what her body is like. But she is probably thin.

The one unmistakable thing about Miss Bamford is her lazy eye. It's her right one, and it rolls around like it's skating on something slippery. This lack of control disturbs many students in my class. Sometimes she shouts at a student and, given her lazy eye, it's difficult to tell who she is yelling at. One eye dips and bobs like a maniac and the other glares at a nonspecific location.

Douglas Benson—he's my friend in English—once said that she might have one lazy eye, but the other is hyperactive and should be on Ritalin. When I told Miss Bamford what he said, her eye fluttered about even more than normal. You might assume Douglas and I got into trouble for that. But we didn't. I'll tell you about it later.

The assignment.

It's an essay. She wrote it on the board. ESSAY: Write about something that happened to you in the past.

Of course, anything that already happened
must
be in the past and I tried to point this out, but Miss Bamford ignored me and continued explaining the assignment. We have to write a paragraph about ourselves for every letter of the alphabet. Twenty-six paragraphs in total and each one starts with a letter of the alphabet, from A through to Z, recounting our lives. She gave us an example.

A is for Albright. I was born in Albright, which is a small town about forty kilometers from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. Not much happens in Albright, so my birth was a cause of much celebration. People danced in the streets and there were fireworks for two nights running. Since then, the town has gone back to sleep. Or maybe it is holding its breath, waiting for me to do something else, something equally spectacular . . .

I wrote Miss Bamford's example in my notebook. Our school is in Albright, so I suppose she was making the example relevant. But I didn't like the way the example made false statements. I mean, no one's birth causes
that
amount of excitement. It doesn't happen, so I put my hand up to query the point. But one of the things that makes Miss Bamford such a good teacher is that she knows exactly what I'm going to ask before I ask it.

“Candice,” she said. “In an essay, it is perfectly acceptable to play around with the truth a little. Sometimes the truth is too plain to entertain a reader, and your job in this assignment is to entertain. We've talked about this before, remember?”

I did remember and I would have understood her point if she had been talking about a narrative. But I thought an essay had to be factual. So she should have called it a narrative essay if that's what she wanted. I kept my hand up, but I think she didn't see it. It's difficult to tell with her eye. Anyway, Jen Marshall interrupted.

“Yeah, shut up, Essen,” she said, even though I hadn't actually said anything.

There are several girls (and boys) in my school who call me Essen. It's a phonetic representation of S.N., which is short for Special Needs. Many people think I have learning disabilities, but they are mistaken. I once wrote a note to Jen saying that everyone is special and everyone has needs, so her insult (because that's what she intended it to be) is wide of the mark. She simply glared at me, chewed her gum, and ripped the note into little pieces. If I have to be honest—and I
do
have to be honest, it's something I cannot avoid—then I must confess that Jen Marshall is
not the sharpest tool in the shed
, as Rich Uncle
Brian might say. But that's not her fault. And she is very, very pretty. So I like her. Then again, I like nearly everyone, as Mum often points out.

“Quiet!” barked Miss Bamford.

“Sorry, Miss. Are you talking to me?” said Jen, and everybody laughed. Well, not everybody. Miss Bamford didn't. So, nearly everybody.

I went to the library at lunchtime to start my assignment. I often go to the library at recess and lunchtime because it's peaceful and the staff makes me feel welcome. I have my own seat that the librarians reserve for me. They don't even mind if I occasionally eat a sandwich, despite the rules saying it's forbidden. I don't do it often, though, because rules are important.

So I sat in my chair and thought about the assignment. A paragraph for each letter, and each paragraph portraying something about my life. Some of the letters would be difficult.
Q
, for example. And
X
. I have never had an X-ray, so that's not in the equation. But I decided I would worry about that later.
A
was obviously where I should start.

But the more I thought, the trickier the assignment appeared. I wanted to tell Miss Bamford about my life, but a paragraph for each letter just wouldn't do it. And that's when I got my best idea.

I wouldn't do one paragraph. I would do multiple paragraphs for each letter. I've written sixteen paragraphs already (not counting this one) and I've barely even
started
on my life. If this was the entire assignment, I would be up to
P
and no one would be any wiser about the life of Candice Phee.

See? It's taken twenty-two paragraphs (well, twenty- two and a half) just to reveal my name. And I want to do a thorough job. Because this isn't just about me. It's also about the other people in my life—my mother; my father; my dead sister, Sky; my pen pal, Denille; Rich Uncle Brian; Earth-Pig Fish; and Douglas Benson from Another Dimension. These are people (with the exception of Earth-Pig Fish, who is a fish) who have shaped me, made me what I am. I cannot recount my life without recounting elements of theirs.

This is a big task, but I am confident I am up to it.

It will take time (I have plenty of that). It will take perseverance (I have plenty of that, too).

Already I am worried I have not made a proper start, so I am going to copy out the first letter I wrote to my pen pal, Denille. I make copies of all the letters I've sent to Denille, so I don't repeat myself and therefore bore her.

Denille lives in America. In New York City. One of the teachers at my school received an e-mail from a teacher friend in New York asking for students interested in becoming pen pals with students in her class. It is a project to learn about different cultures.

I was matched with Denille. I have written to her twenty times in the last year. One letter every two weeks. This is the first. It tells Denille something about me, and
that is good because it will also tell
you
something about me. It is an informative start.

Dear Denille
,

My name is Candice Phee and I am twelve years old. I attend school in Albright, Queensland, a small town forty-one-and-a-half kilometers from Brisbane. I suppose you don't know about kilometers, because Americans deal in miles. Forty-one-and-a-half kilometers is approximately twenty-six miles, I guess (I wrote “I guess” because I understand this phrase is exceptionally popular in the United States. See, I'm trying to connect)
.

So. About me. Well, I'm kinda average height for my age (“kinda” is another attempt at linguistic connection) and I have long, dirty-blonde hair. I don't mean “dirty” in the sense that I don't wash it, because I do. Every day. But more in the sense of its natural color which, to be honest, makes it seem as if I don't wash it every day. Which I do
.

I have freckles. All over my face and my body. I can't go out in the sun unless I use cream with a sun protection factor of one zillion. Please understand that I am deliberately exaggerating for rhetorical effect. Dad says I should only go out in the sun when I'm wearing full body armor. He likes exaggeration as well
.

I have piercing blue eyes. Some people say they're my best feature. Actually, it's Mum who says they're my best feature. She says they are like cornflowers (not to be confused with corn flour, which is white and used in baking)
.

I used to have a sister, but she died. This turned me into an only child
.