Not My Problem

Ronan was trying to huff the next morning. But it’s hard to really take someone’s bad mood seriously when they’re sitting on a bouncy ball with their arms folded and their bottom lip pouting.

“His mam was disgusted with him,” Holly whispered to me. “She said that next time he stepped out of line she would pull him from the Gaelic team.”

“Whoa. Just over back talk?” I said. I mean, I was pleased, but surprised she’d go for such a strong punishment.

“Well, apparently she’s super religious, so I think the whole STD thing set her off. She thinks he’s an altar boy who shouldn’t even know what that is. Jill wasn’t happy with him either.”

Every now and then I had to believe karma was real.

Ms. Devlin cleared her throat. “Friday is the last day to sign up for student council elections, and while you’d think I would be beaten down enough by your indifference at this stage, inexplicably I’m still hopeful for a volunteer.” She’d been reminding us daily and yet there were no takers. The bell rang and Ms. Devlin dismissed us with a weary hand wave. “Meabh, can you hold on a moment? I read your policy paper.”

Holly rolled her eyes at me. I pretended not to notice and gave Ms. Devlin a wave as we walked past instead. She nodded, but then her expression changed.

“Aideen,” she said sharply. “Go and wash your face, please. You know you’re not allowed to wear makeup to school.”

It was true. I hadn’t been able to sleep because Mam had come home late “from work” again and I spent most of the night thinking of insults I could casually lob at Dad if he dared show his face. Around six, puffy eyed, I gave up and put on a YouTube tutorial for something to do.

“What are you talking about?” I said with my most beamingest smile. “This is my natural face.”

“Your eyelids are rainbow colored,” she said.

“That’s one of my diseases, miss. Kind of insensitive of you to make fun of me.”

“Miss Cleary, you are wearing a full face of makeup. If I dragged my finger down your face there’d be a groove in your cheek.”

I sighed dramatically.

“Okay, I’m going to level with you,” I said conspiratorially. “I am wearing some makeup. But you and I both know that you don’t really give a fuck so let’s pretend you didn’t see me this morning and we’ll both go about our day.”

Ms. Devlin’s eyes bugged. “I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Exactly, Eileen,” I said, and I winked.

“That’s not what . . . My name isn’t Eileen.” She threw her hands up and waved me away, clearly having given up the fight. Meabh was waiting impatiently by her side, desperate to hear what Ms. D thought of her paper. I slowed down as we walked out of the hall, hoping to hear some of the feedback, and Holly trailed behind with me. As we reached the door, Ms. Devlin’s voice echoed across the hall.

“Your paper was beautifully written, Meabh, succinct and persuasive. Making the school paper digital would save money and energy.”

Making the paper digital. My brain practically shrugged from lack of interest. Then it hit me. Just as the words hit Holly too. Without thinking I threw both arms around her waist and dragged her out of the hall, letting the fire doors slam behind us. She struggled against me.

“Let. Me. Go.”

I dragged her down to the girls’ locker rooms. She screeched the whole way like she was being murdered and I could only assume Ms. Devlin didn’t have it in her to come and investigate a murder. I only let Holly go when we were safe inside the locker room. Then, panting and sweaty, I blocked the door.

Holly stood in front of me, eyes on fire.

“Let me out. Now,” she said, sounding dangerous.

I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

“She wants to make my paper dig-i-tal.” Holly enunciated each syllable as though it were some disgusting creature she was inspecting.

“I heard.” I held both hands up, the way you do when you’re faced with a wild animal. Totally useless gesture, but based on the misguided instinct to reason with it. “But if you go out there now and start screaming about it, that isn’t going to help. You’ll only piss off Ms. D. She won’t take you seriously.”

Holly snorted and folded her arms. She began pacing the locker room with quick, aggressive steps. It took a full minute for her to slow down. After a second she let out a shriek of frustration so sudden it made me jump.

I’d only ever heard one other person over the age of two make a noise like that, and weirdly it was in the exact same room. I made a mental note that if I ever wanted to try some therapeutic screaming, the acoustics in here were great.

“You’re right,” she said finally, although it came out resentful rather than grateful.

I sighed with relief and sat down to let my heart return to its normal rhythm.

“How on earth did you manage to drag me down here?” Holly asked, and she laughed. I was bent over and sucking in deep breaths. When I surfaced, I said, “Adrenaline. Like those mams who lift cars off their babies.”

“Am I the car or the baby?” she asked, and although she was smiling, there was a hint of sarcasm I didn’t understand.

“You’re my baby, baby,” I said, giving her a light punch on the arm.

The door to the locker room swung open then and fifteen first years barreled in, giving us dirty looks. I ignored them.

“So what are you going to do?” I tried not to sound too nervous.

“I can’t reason with the likes of Meabh,” she said. “I’m going to have to beat her at her own game.”

“What do you mean?” I asked warily. But Holly had already swept past me and out the door. I cursed myself for letting my guard down too quickly as I tried to keep up with her long, quick strides.

We reached the door to the sports hall. She closed her eyes and took one more deep, calming breath. When she opened them she had a perfectly neutral expression. The kind serial killers probably used when they wanted to look “normal.”

It did not look normal.

Ms. Devlin was still talking with Meabh, and they looked up at us, confused, when Holly burst into the hall, throwing open both doors like she was a celebrity arriving at a party.

“Ms. Devlin,” Holly said in an oddly formal voice. The anxiety was making me feel nauseous. I took a few steps to the side, toward the back of the room. I didn’t even know what I was anxious about yet. It was like a primal threat response. Something bad was about to happen.

“Holly?” Ms. Devlin asked, squeezing why are you behaving in this dramatic fashion into one word.

Holly smiled and I saw her eyes flicker to Meabh. From the way her shoulders tensed, she was expecting something bad too. They stared each other down.

“I would like to run for president.”

I hurried to keep up with Holly as she headed in the direction of her next class. Ms. Devlin had been thrilled to have a new candidate. I couldn’t figure out whether she didn’t notice that Meabh had been struck speechless for the first time in her life or that Holly had been possessed by a demon, giving her red demon eyes when she spoke. Maybe Ms. D mistook that look for enthusiasm, but I knew it was homicidal rage. Perhaps Ms. Devlin enjoyed the prospect of the drama a real rivalry would bring to the occasion. What’s an election without a little hair pulling and back biting and literal stabbings in the playground?

“Holly, slow down. My legs are half the length of yours.”

She relaxed her pace and seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry. I was thinking about what I should do.”

“So you think you might not run?”

“No. I am definitely running. She’s not getting away with that stupid policy. No, I was thinking about how to win. I’m gonna debate her. Ms. Devlin will love it if I suggest a debate. And I’m going to make posters. I’m going to knock on people’s doors if I have to.” She clenched her jaw and then added, “Not that I think I will have to because hello, everyone hates her. But I’m going to make sure that people vote and I’m going to make sure that they all vote for me so that when she loses, she knows that she lost because I made it happen.”

When did you turn into such an asshole?

That wasn’t fair. She was angry. She was venting to her best friend. I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

“Come on,” I wheedled. “That sounds like a lot of work. Can you really be arsed?”

She stopped dead in the hallway, causing a mini pileup of students behind her. She ignored them as they sidestepped and gave us dirty looks.

“Yes, I can. I’m sick of her taking everything and acting like she deserves it. The only reason she would win otherwise is because no one else bothered running. I’m sick of her telling everyone what to do.”

“Okay. I get it. But maybe there’s another way to get her to change her mind about the paper. I mean, do you really want to be school council president? Or do you just want to beat Meabh?”

“I want to beat Meabh,” Holly said like she didn’t get my point.

How do you argue with that?

“It looks like so much work.”

“She makes it so much work.” Holly waved me off and started walking again. “It doesn’t have to be like that. You hand in a couple of proposals, you do some student-staff consultations, you argue for your stupid ideas, they say no, you put it all down on your CV or something. It’ll look good when I apply for Oxbridge and Trinity.”

“You have the paper to look good,” I pointed out. “You don’t need this.”

“I won’t have the paper if it goes digital,” she snapped.

“You will. It’ll just be . . . online,” I said meekly, not really seeing the massive problem.

“One of the reasons the paper is so popular is because it’s in print. We can hand it out. We leave it in common areas. People pick it up and look through it and articles or photos catch their eye.” Holly was explaining this in a tone that implied I was really stupid and she was really patient. “But if you’re sitting on your phone, you’re not going to go to the school website and look it up. Not when you can watch scenes from musicals performed by a cast of old mops on TikTok.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I had an overpowering urge to see The Sound of Music with Captain von Trapp played by a Swiffer. And all the von Trapp kids could be dustpans with googly eyes.

Holly narrowed her eyes and a sudden coldness startled me out of contemplating how I could monetize Evan Hansen the feather duster for Flubberygiblets.

“Why do you care if I want to be student council president or not?” Holly asked. “When did you become Meabh’s little helper and start fighting her battles for her?”

That was a bit close for comfort.

“I’m not her helper,” I protested. “It’s just seems like you’re getting into a fight that isn’t worth it.”

“It’s worth it to me. You know that. You know how I feel about her and if you had any loyalty you’d have my back. If you hated someone, I’d hate them too. That’s part of being someone’s best friend.”

Not if it’s based on petty bullshit.

No, that wasn’t fair either. She was only asking for loyalty, wasn’t she? Maybe I was the one being a bad friend.

“I do—” I said. I meant to finish the sentence and say I do hate her, but the memory of her hurt expression when she saw me roll my eyes at her in English class cut me off. Holly didn’t seem to notice. We’d reached her classroom door, and she paused.

“Stop trying to undermine me, then, and support me instead.”

I didn’t have a chance to reply. She entered her class and left me behind, looking at the door. Why was I always upsetting her? Holly had been my best friend my whole life and I couldn’t even get on her side. Was she right? Was I betraying her? But when I thought of Meabh, she didn’t seem like the person we’d hated all these years. That person was a myth we’d built up around her. Holly would never see that. My guts churned and I tried to fight back tears. It didn’t work. I locked myself in the nearest bathroom and let them come for exactly two minutes. Then I washed my face and went to French.

When I entered, Miss Sullivan rounded on me.

“The class started ten minutes ago,” she snapped, and pointed me back toward the door. Six, but whatever. Miss Sullivan wasn’t like Ms. Devlin. She wouldn’t brush off my cheek. She was more the type who’d scream me into a puddle and then scrape me off the floor and into a bucket.

Sighing, I turned around and waited outside the room for a minute as I heard Miss Sullivan tell the class to read the newspaper article and find examples of le conditionel.

“Miss Cleary,” she said in clipped tones, when she’d followed me out and closed the door behind her.

“Yes, miss?” I said, trying to look abashed when what I really felt was tired and fed up.

“Your behavior is becoming untenable.”

I gave her a blank look.

“You’re often late. When you turn up, that is. You don’t put any effort in to your homework. Your Junior Cert results were very poor. You hand in your written work on what appears to be a whim. It’s not good enough.”

“I’m sorry, miss.”

She heaved a sigh. “I’m sure. But if I don’t see a major improvement this term, I’m going to have to take disciplinary action. I want every. Single. Assignment.”

The only good part of the rest of the day was catching up with Laura after lunch. Sure, I’d had to answer some embarrassing questions at the chemist.

“Have you had unprotected sex in the last seventy-two hours?”

“Yep. With a boy. And his bare penis. My bad.”

But that was fine.

I saw her standing picking her nails and biting her lip by the prefab building, waiting for me. I sidled up to her as quickly as possible and spoke in my best old-timey gangster voice.

“I got the goods, mugsy.”

She jumped out of her skin and screamed.

When she calmed down and I stopped laughing I passed off the pill in a covert handshake. I insisted on that part. It was silly but when she squeezed my hand and thanked me I felt all warm and fuzzy. I could fix things. It was so easy to make her happy.

The rest of the day lived up to the beginning. My history teacher gave me extra homework for failing the last quiz. I burned my scones in home economics. I couldn’t concentrate because I couldn’t stop thinking about Holly. Actually, thinking wasn’t the right word. I didn’t have thoughts, just a heavy, thick layer of grimy self-loathing that everything else got stuck in. Of course I failed the test. I was stupid. Of course I burned the scones, I was useless. Of course I was a bad friend.

I barely noticed how I got home. I was thinking about ways I could make it up to her. How I could show her I was on her side. Always. Part of me thought the best thing I could do would be to stop talking to Meabh. But I kept searching for other ideas. After all, Holly didn’t know I was talking to Meabh, so how would that help?

When I reached the flat, still running on autopilot, I shouted hi to my mother and went straight to my room. I badly needed a nap. Or a shower. Or a lobotomy. Something to shake the day off.

“Aideen, would you come in here, please?” Mam called out.

Had Mam noticed my mood from one “hi”? I rubbed my face and thought that actually maybe I could talk to her. She knew Holly almost as well as I did. Maybe she could help. We could have a cup of tea and I would tell her the whole story. Oh, all right, not the whole story. Just the “Holly is mad at me what do I do” part. I slunk into the kitchen, hoping she’d break out the biscuits if she saw how bad things were.

“Hello, love.”

I wanted to turn around and walk out again.

“Hi, Dad.”