Not My Problem

I met Angela in a car park in town. I told her it was more convenient for me instead of her picking me up at my house. It wasn’t, but we arrived at Daniel’s unscathed. Except for the new fear of dying in a fiery car crash I’d developed. Angela parked at the bottom of their drive. It was a large, detached house with a neat lawn, a flower bed, and a shed. It was a dream home.

The plan was that Daniel was going to put in some face time with his grandparents and then pretend to feel sick and go to bed. Then he’d throw his pillows out the window and jump. The aim was, hopefully, to land on the pillows. We’d wait for him in the car and drive him over to the party. Seeing as I wasn’t even allowed to drive the car, it was the easiest favor I’d done yet. I was more of a facilitator for this one.

Angela and I sat in the car with the radio on. After a minute of me trying to think of something to say, she began grilling me on the mechanics of the social enterprise. She asked me how many favors I’d done and whether I always used repayments to “fund” other favors. I explained as much as I could without giving too much away.

“So you’ve never used one to, like, get someone to do your homework or something?”

“That sounds like a great idea, but frankly if I start handing in good homework at this point of my education, I think it would only be a red flag.”

“You know, you have a really good thing here. You could tweak it a bit. Formalize it. Have applications or something, but it’s a pretty solid model. But what would you do if you needed something from someone, but they didn’t owe you anything?”

I had no idea.

I was saved from answering by a text.

DANIEL

Change of plan. I just said I was going to bed and my mam has told me to go and stay in the attic room and granny and granda are staying in my room because they can’t climb all those stairs.

AIDEEN

so go out the attic window

DANIEL

I could. But you know, I’d die.

I glanced up at the house. The front of the house only had a small round window where I guessed the attic would be, but it definitely was too high up to escape from.

AIDEEN

Well what do you want me to do about it?

DANIEL

There’s a ladder in the shed that Dad uses when he’s cleaning the gutters. I’ll use the window at the back.

I sighed.

AIDEEN

Fine!

DANIEL

There’s a spare set of keys under the frog at the back door, the biggest one is the shed.

“There’s been a hiccup,” I said to Angela. She raised an eyebrow.

“I won’t be long,” I promised.

“I’m missing my own party,” she grumbled, but she didn’t do anything except turn up the radio and lean back in her seat.

The lights were on in the house but the curtains were drawn, so I wasn’t too worried jogging up the driveway, but I didn’t want to take all day about it either. At the back of the house there was a patio and a back door. On the step was a ceramic frog wearing a tutu. The keys were nestled underneath and I had to shake a wood louse off them. I shook my head at someone leaving their keys outside their house like that and imagined leaving mine underneath the perpetual beer can that sat on the front step of my building. Middle-class people are not wise.

The shed was a bit trickier; when I opened it, it was full to the brim with junk. At least six bikes even though I knew there was just Daniel, his parents, and one brother. There was also a lawn mower, buckets of paint, an old bath, and right at the back . . . the ladder. I had to clamber into the old bath and wrestle with the ladder to get it off the hook. It was one of those extendable ones and it was surprisingly heavy, but I finally made it out of the shed with only a few bruises and one scrape down my leg that burned. Around to the side of the building I saw Daniel Something peering out of the window forlornly. His expression changed when he saw me and he grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. It was freezing outside but all the effort had me sweating at the back of my neck, and yeah, if I’m honest, the underboob. He opened his window and shout-whispered to me.

“HI!”

I rolled my eyes, feeling irritable from all the effort this “easy” favor had cost me so far. I tried to extend the ladder fully and nipped my finger in the process.

I groaned and clenched my jaw so I didn’t shout the bad words I wanted to shout. Pissed off, sweaty, and hurt, I slammed the ladder against the wall with a louder bang than I meant. I froze for a second. Daniel froze. We both listened for any disturbance. A second passed and nothing happened.

“All right, come on to fuck,” I shout-whispered.

I held the ladder and Daniel shimmied out of his window. He was wearing a shiny green shirt and painted-on jeans. As a breeze wafted toward me, so too did the overwhelming scent of Brylcreem and Paco Rabanne. Daniel paused on the top rung of the ladder and took his phone out.

“For God’s sake, what are you doing?” I hissed.

“Photo op,” he whispered back. He angled himself in the frame and I watched in slow motion as he slipped. I watched him reach and grab the ladder with both hands, my heart in my throat. I watched his phone fall out of his hand as he did, and that’s when everything went black.

When light returned, I had a throbbing pain between my eyes, and as my vision adjusted and I pushed myself up to sitting, I saw Daniel was clinging on to the windowsill, his tiptoes barely reaching the lip of the gutter. The ladder had fallen to the ground beside me. I was lucky it hadn’t landed on top of me.

“Are you okay?” He looked worried. I wondered how much time had passed. Not more than a few seconds, surely.

Then there was a screech and my head turned toward the noise. I’d been out just long enough for Daniel’s mother to make it from her living room to the back of the house and find me lying on the ground with her ladder and her son scrambling back through the window, his tight jeans highlighting his butt as it toppled into the room.

Daniel’s mam lifted me by the elbow and dragged me in through the back door and pointed at the kitchen table.

“Sit,” she said through gritted teeth.

A rumbling racket of feet on the stairs boomed overhead and in a few seconds Daniel had burst into the kitchen.

“Mam, don’t be mad,” he said breathlessly.

“Oh right, son, I won’t now that you’ve said so. Would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit,” she said with mock politeness. Then her tone shifted. “Get you upstairs before I lose the head. I’m not having you two sitting down here coming up with a story.”

“Mam—”

“Up,” she said. Her voice was quiet and authoritative. Daniel gave me a pained look before he turned around and slunk out of the room. I heard plodding on the stairs this time.

His mam turned on me with her hands on her hips. She was a thin white woman with long hair pulled into a sleek updo and she was maybe only an inch taller than me. She wore a silk blouse and a fine gold chain. She looked like she might be a doctor or a receptionist or something.

“Explain yourself,” she said sharply.

“Uhhhhhhh . . .” I dragged out the noise, hoping something would come to me, a very good reason for trying to aid her son’s escape.

“We’re in love?” I said, trying to take a leaf out of Kavi’s playbook. But I was unconvincing and she gave me a pursed-lip look that plainly said both that she did not believe it and that even if she did it wasn’t an excuse that would hold any water with her.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Glenda,” I said, saying the first name that came into my head. Why Glenda I don’t know.

“Glenda,” she said flatly.

I nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“Well, Glenda, you’re not leaving here until you give me your mother’s phone number and she comes out here to pick you up. I would like a word with her.”

“Oh, she’s dead,” I said quickly.

“And your father?” she asked skeptically.

“Dead.” I shrugged. “Super duper dead.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she replied dryly. “Who do you live with?”

“Oh, no one, ma’am.” I looked at my hands sadly. “I’m eighteen.”

She looked me up and down and snorted. “Little lady, you’re thirteen if you’re a day.”

I was deeply offended. Why do people always think you’re young when you’re short? There are short adults, for God’s sake.

“I’m sixteen,” I snapped. Whoops.

She rolled her eyes at me like she couldn’t believe I was that stupid. Damn it. She was a fellow short. She’d known I’d be annoyed by that. One-nil to Mrs. Something.

“Well, I suppose if you’re a minor and you just tried to break into my house—”

“I was not breaking in. Daniel was breaking out.” That wasn’t a crime.

“And how did you get into my shed?”

“Uh . . .”

“Right, well, you have two options, Glenda. Give me your mother’s phone number or I will have to call the Gardaí to come and take you home instead.”

I ran through the options. I wasn’t going to be arrested, I was pretty sure of that. But if I didn’t tell them who I was, they’d take me down to the station, surely. They’d call social services. Damn it.

“Fine,” I said. “I need to look it up. I don’t know it off by heart or anything.”

“Don’t even think of giving me a fake number,” she said. “I’m going to insist she come and get you herself.”

As I scrolled through my phone, I cursed myself for not getting Angela’s number. She could have come up with some kind of plan. Was she was even still outside? She might have decided she’d waited long enough and taken off. My guts twisted.

Meabh.

I’d give her Meabh’s number.

Worst-case scenario, Meabh didn’t have a clue what was happening and gave me away. I wouldn’t be any worse off than I was now and I could call my mam if I really needed to. That was definitely a last resort though. And what about Daniel Something? I was failing him. This was my first proper failure. Reluctantly I called out Meabh’s number and internally I blessed myself and prayed she’d tell Mrs. Something that she had to let me go.

The low brrrrrng-brrrrrng of the dial tone kept going. Mrs. Something looked at me the whole time. Then I heard it switch on to voicemail.

You have reached the voicemail of Meabh. Please leave a message after the tone.

Mrs. Something hmphed.

“I have your daughter here in my home. She has been trespassing. Please call me back as soon as you get this message.”

She gave the phone a dirty look like my “mam” had refused her call on purpose.

What now? The kitchen clock told me I’d been on the premises for at least twenty minutes. Wasn’t Angela wondering where I was? Oh, who was I kidding. She’d definitely left. She wasn’t going to miss her own party to wait around for me all night.

Mrs. Something took a seat at the kitchen table and folded her arms. She had the unmistakable look of someone gearing up to a lecture.

“I’ll have you know that Daniel’s grandparents are visiting this weekend and you are spoiling their trip.”

I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t just . . . okay? But I was saved from my impossible feat of imagination by the doorbell.

Bing bong.

Mrs. Something huffed and stood, pointing at me. “Don’t you go anywhere,” she said. She almost made it to the kitchen and then she paused and turned around. She walked to the back door, took a set of keys out of her pocket, and locked it. She locked me in the house. Like a prisoner! Surreptitiously I patted my pockets, remembering I had another set of keys; they weren’t there. They must have fallen out of my pocket when I collapsed.

“Are you messing with me?” I said, unable to stop myself. “This is false imprisonment.”

“Take it up with a lawyer,” she scoffed.

“My mother is a lawyer,” I replied.

For a second she looked worried. Then she gave me a long look from head to toe, taking in my clothes, my shoes.

“I don’t think so.”

She flounced out of the kitchen closing the door behind her.

I’d never met someone I hated more. Would it have been wrong to burn her house down to get out? I’d kill Daniel and the Elder Somethings in the process, of course, but you know, collateral damage . . .

“I’ve broken down outside and my phone has no reception. I’m sorry but could I trouble you for your phone?” a woman with a thick Scottish accent said, loud enough to hear through the kitchen door. I should have shouted at her to run. Apparently if you turned up at Mrs. Something’s house unannounced, she might tie you up in the basement and keep you as her trophy.

“Pssst.”

I jumped. My mind went to Kavi immediately. Then I heard a quiet rap on the window and when I squinted into the dark, the light from the kitchen causing a glare, I just made out the top of a head. A head with braids.

“Angela?!”

Only her eyes were visible. She was crouched outside looking in. I hurried to the window.

“Och, I’m just on hold. Oh no, wait with me a moment. They might need your Eircode,” the Scottish woman said.

“It’s H18—”

“Oh, I won’t remember that. Head like a sieve. It’ll just be a second.”

Angela mouthed something at me and pointed at the door. I glanced over my shoulder, afraid Mrs. Something would hear me. I made a locking motion and then pointed to the outside.

“Lovely home you have here. That’s a beautiful vase. Waterford crystal?”

“Yes, thank you. Any luck?”

“Still the hold music, sorry!”

Angela looked confused, so I went to the back door and she followed. I pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge of course. She grimaced. Then I pointed outside again. She got it. I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see, as though I could help from here. And I kept glancing over my shoulder waiting for Mrs. Something to burst back in.

“Well, you take one cup of sugar, three cups of flour, six eggs . . .”

A dawning realization came over me when I heard the Scottish woman giving out a very strange recipe and I burst out laughing. I clapped my hand over my mouth and then I quickly gave one hard rap of warning on the window and practically jumped back into my seat at the table. Mrs. Something burst in the room.

“What are you laughing at?”

I held up my phone. “Stand-up. Des Bishop video. You know him?”

“Give me that,” she said, holding out her hand.

As if I’d hand over my phone to her! “G’way and shi—”

CRASH

The sound came from the hall and whatever had broken sounded expensive.

Mrs. Something skidded into the hall.

“I’m SO SORRY,” the Scottish voice squealed.

A click, whoosh, and a waft of cold air let me know Angela had found the keys and opened the door. I ran toward it and practically mowed her down.

“Come on,” she said, pulling my hand, but I pulled back and stopped her.

“Daniel,” I said. I couldn’t leave him here. We had to do something. I wasn’t going to fail.

“We’re already on it,” Angela said. “Now come on to fuck.”

I didn’t have time to question who the “we” was. Although I knew Meabh was the one in the hall distracting Mrs. Something. Just then Daniel caught up to us, running much faster than me. I trailed at the back of our group as we skidded round the corner to the front of the building. Angela’s car was at the bottom of the drive, headlamps on, like a lighthouse beckoning us to safety. I turned to look back at the front door. Meabh was standing on the front step, wringing her hands and saying sorry over and over in a Scottish accent.

“DANIEL!” Mrs. Something screamed as she spotted him running. We were crunching along the gravel drive now and a set of motion-sensor lights lit us up. I ground to a halt, realizing Meabh was trapped with Mrs. Something. She couldn’t run. But then in a blur, like a sprinting knight in shining armor, Kavi appeared, racing around the other corner of the house toward Meabh. He didn’t even slow down as he barreled toward her and threw her over his shoulder.

“Keep going,” he shouted at me. Mrs. Something began chasing after us, shouting.

“GET BACK HERE, DANIEL.”

Into the dark night air Daniel shouted back.

“BYE, MAM, I LOVE YOU. I’LL SEE YOU AROUND THREE.”