‘Oh yeah. Sure. I remember.’
‘Bad fucking idea, man.’
‘Really?’
‘Cats.’
‘What about them?’
‘They’ve got a parasite. Toxoplas-something.’
Nora knew this. She had known this since she was a teen, doing her work experience at Bedford Animal Rescue Centre. ‘Toxoplasmosis.’
‘That’s it! Well, I was listening to this podcast, right ... and there’s this theory that this international group of billionaires infected the cats with it so that they could take over the world by making humans dumber and dumber. I mean, think about it. There are catseverywhere. I was talking to Jared about this and Jared said, “Jojo, what are you smoking?” And I was like, “The stuff you gave me” and he said, “Yeah, I know.” Then he told me about the grasshoppers.’
‘Grasshoppers?’
‘Yeah. Did you hear about grasshoppers?’ Jojo asked.
‘What about them?’
‘They are all killing themselves. Because this parasitic worm grows inside them, to become like a full-grown aquatic creature, and as it grows it takes over the brain function of the grasshopper, so the grasshopper thinks, “Hey, I really like water” and so they divebomb into water and die. And it’s happening all the time. Google it. Google “grasshopper suicide”. Anyway, the point is, the elites are killing us via cats and so you shouldn’t be near them.’
Nora couldn’t help thinking how different this life was to her imagined version of it. She had pictured herself and Izzy on a boat near Byron Bay, marvelling at the magnificence of humpback whales, and yet she was here in a small pot-scented apartment in Sydney, with a conspiracy theorist as a flatmate who wouldn’t even let her near a cat.
‘What happened to Izzy?’
Nora realised she had just asked the question out loud.
Jojo looked confused. ‘Izzy? Your old friend Izzy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The one who died?’
The words came so fast Nora could hardly absorb them.
‘Um, what?’
‘The car crash girl?’
‘What?’
Jojo looked confused, as curls of smoke wisped across her face. ‘You okay, Nora?’ She held out the joint. ‘Wanna toke?’
‘No, I’m okay thanks.’
Jojo chuckled. ‘Makes a change.’
Nora grabbed her phone. Went online. Typed ‘Isabel Hirsh’ into the search box. Then clicked ‘News’.
There it was. A headline. Above a picture of Izzy’s tanned face, smiling.
BRITISH WOMAN KILLED IN NSW ROAD COLLISION
A woman, 33, was killed and three people hospitalised south of Coffs Harbour last night when the woman’s Toyota Corolla collided with a car travelling in the opposite direction on the Pacific Highway.
The female driver, identified as British citizen Isabel Hirsh, died at the scene of the accident just before 9pm. She was the only person in the Toyota.
