I Know Everything, I Know Nothing

• Natalie Nazzari , Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

Ask me any question, any question in the world and I can answer it. Ever since I can remember I've been so sure of myself, Iv'e always been one step ahead of everyone actually more like one hundred steps. School was a breeze, a waste of time really. People use to use me for answers but mum didn't like me saying things that were probably best unsaid, so she made me swear not to say anything too revealing about peoples’ futures. And so I never have, and never probably will. It's not always that easy knowing the truth about everything, watching people lie, often in a mad quest for answers. I know more than just long division, I know the way that life began and I find it all those creation stories, you know the Adam and Eve sort of stories people believe hilarious. The Gods people worship that don't exist.

I know everyones future and past, I know their thoughts and emotions, their lies and their truths. My dad abandoned me when I was three, that's when I started sponging knowledge, it was like I absorbed it from the air, the water, the very earth itself. Dad left me and mum without any sign, we woke up one morning and he was gone, just like that.

I could answer any question that is except the one question that one girl asked me. It was 12:45 at the Brumbys Bakery on 21 Downey St. I was seventeen at the time and I had just bitten into my vegemite scroll when Lucy May Smith, a year older than me with blond hair, blue eyes, came up to me, of course I knew what she was going to say. She stared at me hard and tilted her head slightly, then it came.
"How come you know everything?"
There it was. Then I said the three words I never thought I would say. "I don't know."
She looked at me with her eyebrow raised.
I read her thoughts, her mind was filled with questions: How does she not know? She knows everything. Is she not the one I thought she was?
"How do I die?" She was testing me.
"I don't tell people their futures because I know mine, as well as every one else's and I'd rather not"
"I think you should find the answer to the question."
I went to speak but she hurried off.

Of course I knew where to go from here, to every doctor in the state to see if they could find some scientific explanation for me. I needed to know that one unknown. That lack of knowledge infiltrated my very being, consumed me like an undiscovered cancer. Doctor after doctor after doctor, telling me the same thing, that my brain holds a larger amount of information then everyone else's blah blah blah. I knew it wasn’t the real reason why. There nonsensical answers weren't good enough for me. My body flowed with the adrenalin of the unknown, the wanting for an answer, a feeling I had never felt before. I went to fortune tellers and most of them told me rubbish too, but one of them was more or less useful. As I sat in the dark room the lady turned my hand and ran her long fingers over my palm. I'd never been to fortune tellers before, this one was in a dark room with all different lamps and candles and incense. The lady pinched my hand, then gasped.
"Hmmmmmm... I think," she began. "I think you should find your father."
"Why do you say that?" I knew her answer but I wanted to here it.
"I believe he will give you an answer not even you know."
I knew where he was of course, 14 Miley St, Kalgoorlie. So my next trip was to my dads house.

I walked up the sandy coloured brick path and tapped on the door. One minute and twenty-five seconds later, I heard the turning of the brass door knob (as I knew it would). My father looked at me blankly.
"Can I help you?" He didn’t even remember me! Why would he? He hadn't seen me in years...
"Yes I believe you can" I said coldly "You see I'm your daughter and you owe me an explanation. Two actually, even though I already know the answer to one."
"I think you should go..." he murmured
"I think I should come in." and without any hesitation I walked through the open door.
"First question" I said, eyes narrow, hands on my hips. "Why did you leave me and mum?"
He said nothing.
"Shall I guess? You left because you knew how I was, that I 'know everything' and you couldn't handle it. You didn't like it because you wanted a normal kid. A normal kid that couldn't look into your past and watch you commit a crime? Do you think I wouldn't be smart enough to know why you left? I know everything for God sake!" I said
"I thought that if I left before you had fully developed then you wouldn't know about me." He walked to the other side of the room.
"Well you’re wrong there! You killed someone! For what?"
"I..."
"Don't explain" I cut him off "I know. So tell me this, because its the one thing I don't know, how come I know everything?"
He hesitated "Do you want to sit down?"
I glared at him "Just tell me."
He sighed, "You know everything because you were meant to know what I had done and report it, get me all locked up. Thats how it was meant to be. Not just me but all the criminals. You were born to answer all the questions the police don't know. To solve mysteries and crimes."
"Do you think I'm so shallow I would turn my own father into the cops! Seriously Dad do you really think I would do that? Did you think this day wouldn't come? Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?" I turned away from him.
"I hoped" he whispered "I hoped you wouldn't, but I didn't think I deserved to be in your life, I didn't want you to know me."
"Everyone is in my life! There isn't a soul who lived or who is going to live that I don't already know. Come on dad you must be a bit slow not to realise that! My father or not I know you down to ever damn detail!" I turned and headed for the door.
"Please try and understand!" he called
"I have nothing else to say to you" I shouted down the hall. I slammed the door behind me and left.

I sped out of Miley street the rubber of the tires screeching on the road. My foot pressing harder on the accelerator the speedometer rising. I wanted to go faster, so fast that I could leave all this behind. I didn’t want to think anymore, for one time I just didn’t want to think! All I do is think; about my life, everyones life, the future, the past, the present. I had enough and I just wanted it to stop, for once I wanted to know nothing. I shoved my foot on the brake of the car, my heart was pounding as I got out and sprinted into the police station. “Im hear to report the truth” I breathed heavily people stopped and watched me.
“Excuse me miss do you need some help?” A lady frowned at me.
“Your name is Libby Black, you are one hundred and four centimetres tall with exactly thirty-two freckles on your body. You washed your hair two nights ago and your husbands name is John.” I inhaled heavily and looked at her hard
“I am the answer to your questions, your dictionary, your bible, your proof, your evidence, your solution and your saviour. I ... Know ... Everything...”