The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie
Jaclyn Moriarty
 Bindy Mackenzie is a Year 11 student at Ashbury High, a prestigious private school in Sydney. She is a perfectionist and a high-achiever, focussing obsessively on her studies. When Bindy begins Year 11, she is horrified to discover that she must take part in FAD -Friendship And Development- a mandatory course aimed at helping teenagers deal with the issues that face them. Her teacher, Try Montaine, an American English teacher, takes a strong interest in each of the members of Bindy's FAD group. The FAD course presents Bindy with a rather shocking scenario- she discovers that she is widely disliked by most of her peers, due to her arrogant and precocious attitude. Bindy begins a mission to seek revenge on her classmates, resulting in her becoming even more disliked. For Bindy, everything goes downhill from here. Her school life becomes miserable, her jobs become a struggle and her all-important grades suffer. Bindy also falls ill from a strange illness that only contributes to these problems. Bindy slowly realises the error of her ways and tries to make amends with her FAD group, her new attitude helping her peers to gradually learn to enjoy Bindy's company as she changes as a person. In the meantime, Finnegan Blonde, Bindy's partner from her FAD group, presents a possible love interest for Bindy as one of the first people to recognise her friendly and likable characteristics. However, as Bindy's personality grows and adapts to make her a better person, her illness becomes increasingly worse, until she falls unconscious one night in an office at her school. Bindy is suffering from arsenic poisoning from a central character in the novel, and a complex mystery unfolds as to the character's motives.