Literature / The Murder Of Bindy Mackenzie

I have never spoken to Bindy, but I am sure that behind her extremely annoying personality she is a beautiful human being.

A bit too smart.

You can't help who you are, Bindy, and maybe you will change this year? Good luck with Year 11. I think you will change.

Bindy wears her hair weird even tho people talk about it behind her back. I'd change my hair, but that's Bindy for you, she's got guts.

She's a fast typist.

Well, what can you say about Bindy? Hmm. Did somebody say the word 'SMART'???? Bindy! You have words in your head that would be too long to fit in anyone else's head! Because you have SUCH A HUGE HEAD!! Just kidding!! (kind of)

Bindy Mackenzie talks like a horse.

Bindy Mackenzie's Name Game

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (originally released in Australia as The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie and also released in the UK as Becoming Bindy Mackenzie) is a young-adult novel written by Jaclyn Moriarty. This novel is the third in Jaclyn Moriarty's Ashbury-Brookfield series, following Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments, and preceding The Ghosts Of Ashbury High. Like the others, it is an Epistolary Novel, written in the form of letters, emails, Philosophical Musings, etc.

Bindy Mackenzie is the best student at Ashbury High. She's just entering Year 11, and expects it to be the most important year so far of her academic career. She isn't pleased to have an hour of her time taken up each week with 'FAD' - 'Friendship and Development', meant to serve as a 'life raft' for students through the year. Bindy finds herself in a group with fellow students she doesn't exactly fit in with, including:

• Briony Atkins: a cripplingly shy girl.
• Sergio Saba^note mentioned in The Year of Secret Assignments: a dark and mysterious boy with a burn scar on his cheek.
• Toby Mazzerati: Class clown type.
• Astrid Bexonville: a popular girl who Bindy resents.
• Emily Thompson: co-protagonist of The Year of Secret Assignments, who Bindy regards as a drama queen.
• Elizabeth Clarry: protagonist of Feeling Sorry for Celia, who Bindy knows as an athlete.
• Finnegan Blonde: a new student from Queensland, who Bindy is partnered with as 'buddies' within the group. He is the only one of Bindy's FAD group she likes.

The group is asked to perform the 'Name Game', where each of them writes something anonymously about each other. Bindy's is unpleasant, and she snaps. She plans to take revenge on her FAD group, by exposing the ugliness of their souls - this plan goes awry, especially given Bindy's gradually deteriorating physical and mental health...

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Tropes:

• Alpha Bitch: Astrid, until her Heel–Face Turn.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: In one chapter, the FAD group type messages on Bindy's laptop while she is asleep. Later, after Bindy's hospitalization, they come back to explain the events that got her there and to say goodbye, although thankfully Bindy does end up waking up.
• Animal Motifs: Bindy associates the FAD group with venomous/poisonous animals as part of her revenge plan. Later, while trying to atone, she associates them with more positive ones.
  • Emily: A komodo dragon. Later, a northern hairy-nosed wombat.
  • Briony: A sea-cucumber. Later, a fly river turtle.
  • Toby: A cane toad. Later, a woodpecker.
  • Elizabeth: A Queen Alexandra's birdwing butterfly. Later, a Camargue horse.
  • Sergio: A platypus. Subverted later - she calls him an extraordinary young man.
  • Astrid: A sea wasp. Bindy never actually chooses a positive animal for her.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Averted with Anthony, Bindy's younger brother, whom she loves and respects, even covering for him when he attends a performing arts school against their father's wishes. She also gets along well with her four-year-old cousin Bella.
• Asian and Nerdy: Ernst von Schmerz ^note real name: Kee Dow Liang, who moved to Australia from Singapore.
• Beautiful All Along: Implied when Bindy receives some stylish new clothes for her birthday and wears them on the trip to the Blue Mountains. The boys in the group also make comments about how pretty her eyes are.
• Berserk Button: Bindy becomes furious when the FAD group write (what she perceives as) negative and insulting remarks about her during the first Name Game, sparking much of the plot as she tries to get revenge on them.
• Bilingual Bonus: The diary entry Bindy writes entirely in German.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing / Evil All Along: Try Montaine, who posed as a teacher as part of a plot to murder Bindy.
  • It's also revealed that two of Bindy's employers, Maureen and Eleanora, were hired by Try to feed Bindy the arsenic; at the end of the novel, they are mentioned to be facing criminal charges as well.
• Big Fancy House: Try has one in the Blue Mountains, which the FAD group wonder how she can afford on a teacher's salary.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Finnegan, Sergio and Toby, the three male members of the FAD group, fit this trope.
• Broken Ace: Bindy becomes this over the the course of the novel, with her previously unparalleled academic achievements falling by the wayside as she starts to feel more and more ill.
• Break the Haughty
• Character Development: By the end of the novel, Bindy has come to terms with the fact that she is a teenager, that her parents are separating, and that, despite her intelligence, she doesn't have all the answers. And that's OK.
• Cheerful Child: Bindy's little cousin Bella.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Damn near everything, from the old books on etiquette Bindy keeps quoting from, to Maureen taking a holiday, proves to be relevant.
  • Bindy has a habit of transcribing and saving every conversation that takes place in her general vicinity, and these files make up a good part of the novel. This habit is what made her a murder target.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Finnegan aka Markus Pulie, an 18-year-old posing as a Year 11 student in order to investigate the mysterious death of his beloved cousin.
• Coming of Age Story
• Daddy's Girl: Bindy tries very hard to please her father, who makes her come up with business proposals and do DIY for him despite her packed schedule. When her friends point out that he's not a particularly nice person, she disagrees, but later accepts that they are right.
• Denser and Wackier: The previous two novels had some dense wackiness, but still more or less revolved around realistic high school problems. The climax of this one revolves around an cybercrime gang poisoning a teenage schoolgirl. Bindy also suggests eating your notes during her study skills seminar.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: During one FAD meeting, Bindy makes a snarky comment in her inner monologue about Sergio's scar. To her horror, she then realizes she actually said it out loud. My God, What Have I Done? ensues.
• Doorstopper: The book is much chunkier than Moriarty's previous entries in the Ashbury/Brookfield series.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Finnegan takes Bindy's hair out of its coiled plaits to see what it looks like. From then on, she decides to start wearing it down more often, signifying that she is beginning to "let her hair down" and become more easygoing.
• Fauxreigner: Try claims to be from Ohio, but it is revealed she is really from Adelaide.
• Fiery Redhead: Bindy's hair is described as reddish. She is a star debater, doesn't hesitate to share her opinions, and has a hot-headed side to her personality.
• Formerly Fat: Toby.
• Freudian Excuse: After reading Bindy's life story, her friends point out that her father is largely responsible for her condescending attitude towards her peers, since he always told her she was better than other kids.
• Happy Ending: Bindy survives her poisoning, only being in a week-long coma, and Try is slated to serve 7 years in jail.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Astrid, who admits she was "trashed" during a school trip in Year 8, and that her mum keeps leaving material on addiction around the house.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Bindy breaks down during the FAD group trip, Astrid, who has shown much disdain for Bindy up until this point, apologizes to Bindy for bullying her in Year 8 and becomes much more sympathetic towards her.
• Heel Realization: Partway through the novel, Bindy realizes how arrogant and condescending she's been to her classmates for a long time. After witnessing Bindy's breakdown in the FAD group, Astrid ends up having her own Heel Realization about how badly she treated Bindy in Year 8, and she subsequently reaches out to Bindy to apologize.
• Hidden Depths: The best example is how Bindy initially sees Briony as completely uninteresting, but later realizes that her first impressions were inaccurate. She gains new respect for Briony after learning how hard she has been trying to overcome her crippling shyness. She has similar realizations about the other FAD group members, who she had previously been judgmental about.
• Insufferable Genius: Bindy is initially unaware that her fellow students see her this way.
• Literal-Minded: Played for Drama. Bindy takes the comments written about her in the first Name Game at face value and considers them insults, and her deep hurt and anger fuels a lot of her nastier actions towards her classmates. When she eventually has a guilt-induced breakdown and finally fully explains what got her so upset at them in the first place, they each explain their respective comments and the intentions behind them, and it turns out none of them were seriously trying to insult her.
• Malaproper: Emily, in something of a Continuity Nod to her earlier appearance in The Year of Secret Assignments.
• Meaningful Name: Lampshaded by Bindy when Finnegan Blonde, who has bright blond hair, is first introduced. Turns out it's an alias.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Bindy witnesses Astrid and Sergio hugging and thinks that Sergio is cheating on Elizabeth, but they are not actually together yet.
• Not So Stoic: Bindy pours scorn on her peers' romantic relationships and has made up her mind not to have any until school is out of the way, but it later becomes blatantly obvious that she has a crush on Finnegan.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Bindy mentions that her name is "a common enough abbreviation of Belinda", but even if we assume Belinda is her full first name, nobody ever addresses her by it.
  • Try also introduces herself by saying she's "just about forgotten" her real name.
• Parental Abandonment: Bindy is currently living with her aunt and uncle as her parents have moved into the city without her. Bindy's mother eventually explains that her intentions were to allow Bindy and Anthony to get some space from their father and have the chance to develop as their own people, but in practice it turned out to be this trope instead, at least to Bindy.
• Perspective Flip: We see Bindy's perspective on the whole "Matthew Dunlop" incident from The Year of Secret Assignments.
• Pet's Homage Name: Bindy actually suggests this as a study tip.
  BINDY MACKENZIE'S STUDY TIPS #6
  Rename your pets.
  Say you have a dog and a goldfish?
  Rename your dog Nicholas II.
  Every time you see him, say, "Hello there, Tsar Nicholas! Thinking about the 1825 Decembrists' Revolt and the 1861 Emancipation of the Serfs and how they affected your reign? How about Alexander II, eh? Swimming around in the aquarium there? What do you think of him?
• Poor Communication Kills: The FAD group's first Name Game upsets Bindy deeply because the comments written about her come off to her as insults, and she withdraws and starts lashing out at them as a result. The misunderstanding only gets cleared up after Bindy explains how hurt she was as part of a stress-induced breakdown, which gives the other group members a chance to explain their comments.
• Properly Paranoid: Once Bindy confesses the physical and mental symptoms she's been dealing with all year to the FAD group, they end up coming to the conclusion that someone is trying to murder her, and they turn out to be completely right.
• Redheads Are Ravishing: Bindy is described as having auburn hair. In the final Name Game, Finnegan writes that he wants to kiss her.
• Red Herring: Mrs Lilydale and whatever strange goings-on the group suspect to be happening in her office.
• Sanity Slippage: As the novel goes on, Bindy gradually begins narrating her own, partly from stress and partly from arsenic poisoning.
• She Is All Grown Up: Gender-flipped. Since they were childhood friends, Bindy remembers Toby as being short and plump. When she is writing a portrait of him, she notices that he has transformed into a tall, handsome young man.
  Bindy: I find it difficult to look at these "men" without feeling something -
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Bindy speaks rather formally and never uses a short word when a long one will do.
• Shrinking Violet: Briony. She later warms up to the group.
• Spotting the Thread: Astrid notices a copy of The Travellers' Ohio in Try's office and remembers a previous conversation in which Bindy repeatedly mentioned Cincinnati and Try said nothing in response; from there, Astrid rationalizes that Try should have at least had something to say in response to Bindy talking about the place where Try was from. Once the group realizes the logic of this, they begin talking out a lot more threads, such as Try's being new to the school and initially remembering Bindy's name but no one else's.
• Stern Teacher: Ms Flynn the substitute teacher.
• Teen Genius: Bindy is a Year 11 student with phenomenal academic abilities.
• Totally Radical: Bindy's friend Ernst von Schmerz has an idiosyncratic way of speaking which can come across this way.

  Ernst: Girl, you make my head spin like a Mixmaster.
  

• Unusual Euphemism: Since she doesn't like foul language, Bindy censors the other students' swear words by replacing them with similar-sounding words, such as "flax" and "spurge".
• Verbal Tic: Bindy peppers her speech with the word "nay." Turns out that's what the "talks like a horse" thing was about.
• Wham Episode: The last 100 or so pages, which is when the book starts kicking into high gear by means of action and emotion when Bindy starts suffering from her arsenic poisoning.
• We Used to Be Friends: Bindy and Toby.
• Wild Teen Party: The FAD group's party at Try's house has shades of this, thanks to Astrid spiking everyone's hot chocolates. Even Bindy gets in on the action.
  Bindy: Some people even smoked marijuana! Not I.
  
• Would Hurt a Child: Try spends the novel slowly poisoning Bindy with arsenic, and she enlists Maureen and Eleanora, Bindy's employers, to do so as well. Try herself grows conflicted about doing so as she grows to care for Bindy, but when she thinks she has confirmation that Bindy does in fact know something she shouldn't know, she ultimately goes through with attempting to murder her.

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