Not My Problem

For a moment none of us moved. I stalled on the bottom stair, Meabh was mute in Kavi’s arms with a stricken expression, and he had a cheerful smile that I didn’t quite get.

Kavi was a boy in our year, but he wasn’t in our registration class. He was tall, with brown skin, curly black hair, and a sharp jawline. He seemed nice enough but I didn’t know him well enough to tell if I could trust him.

“So,” I said cagily, “I don’t know what you think happened here—”

“I heard Meabh scream at you to push her and then I saw her tumble down the stairs and land in a heap.” He grinned. “Which when you think about it is really weird, but you know, these things happen. When my brother was six he fell out of the tree house and didn’t even hurt himself, so we were convinced he had superpowers and we decided to test it by doing something amazing. Skateboard off the garage roof. Then my dad found us up there and freaked out and tried to convince us to get down but we thought it was fine because of the powers and Dad ended up having to catch him as he slid off the roof so like sometimes things that look weird on the surface make sense if you know the story.”

“Right.” I didn’t know what to say to that.

Meabh and I locked eyes. I willed her to come up with a reasonable explanation. She was the smart one. Surely she could come up with something.

“Well, see, we were—”

“Oh no, it’s okay. I heard your whole conversation before that, too,” Kavi said, trying to wave the hand he had hooked under Meabh’s legs.

“Oh.” Meabh looked lost for words for the first time in her overly verbal life.

I got the impression Kavi wanted something—he was standing smiling at me and making no attempt to leave or do anything—but I didn’t know what it was.

“There’s nothing you can really do here,” I warned. “If you tell a teacher what happened, Meabh will deny it. It’s too stupid to be believable.”

I wasn’t sure that was true. If someone had a nosy at Meabh’s schedule, they might think sabotaging herself for a break made a lot of sense.

But Kavi responded with wide eyes, “You think I want to get you in trouble?”

I exchanged another look with Meabh, who was squirming uncomfortably, like a kitten who didn’t want to be held. I thought she’d rather be set down and hobble along on her banjaxed leg.

“Yeah? Why else are you being all I saw what you did.” I said the last part in my impression of a threatening scary-movie tone.

“I did not say that,” he laughed, then he did a gruff impression of my threatening voice. “I saw what you did, grrrrrr.”

“Why were you eavesdropping, then?”

“Ms. Devlin told me to come find Meabh and then I heard you both talking and it sounded so interesting and then I realized there’s a conspiracy afoot and so I listened to more and it all got very exciting and I’m sorry Meabh that your parents are so mean and your life is all busy and horrible and then I thought maybe I could push you off the stairs but then Aideen did it before I could offer and then you fell down here and then I picked you up so I could take you to the nurse and then you two were like Kavi, why are you threatening us and then I explained how I wasn’t and then it’s now.”

I blinked.

“Well, let’s go, then!” I said uncertainly. I had a bad feeling about this but right now Meabh needed actual medical attention. I’d deal with Kavi later.

Kavi jolted to attention and I followed him and Meabh out of the sports hall. We took the long way around the pitch. Ms. Devlin was too engrossed in a fight between two of the girls to notice.

“THAT WAS AT LEAST SIX STEPS!” one was screaming at the other.

“IT WAS LESS THAN FOUR, YOU WAGON.”

“Should we tell Ms. Devlin about this?” Kavi bounced Meabh in his arms for emphasis. She looked deeply affronted.

“I’m not a this,” she snapped.

“No,” I said, “I think she needs to see someone right away.”

The halls were empty and quiet but for the muffled sounds seeping from the classrooms. Kavi filled the silence with a cheerful monologue.

“This is so exciting. Nothing ever happens in school, does it? I mean no offense Meabh because I know you had to be injured in order for us to have this adventure but also it was your own choice of course. Remember the day the dog got into the halls and he was running up and down and everyone started leaving class and trying to catch him but he thought it was a game and kept running away and getting really excited?”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering how many words he could fit in between here and the nurse’s office.

“This is a bit like that. Like I did not chase the dog that day but I wish I did because it’s nice to be involved, but now I’m involved, you know? I’m the guy who carried you to the sick bay. And then when you win the election you can remember that I was part of the whole conspiracy and we can have some kind of signal where when you say your speech you make an inside joke to me and Aideen about the injury and we’ll know what you mean but no one else will know what you mean, know what I mean?”

“Uh . . .” Meabh struggled to find the words. She didn’t have to though.

“And I think it’s really great what you’ve done, Aideen. You know, you really helped out Meabh here. Everyone needs help sometimes and sure, you don’t think help is going to look like pushing someone down the stairs and intentionally injuring them, but you just never know. It’s actually really selfless of you because it must be hard to push someone down the stairs and not know if you’re going to permanently disfigure them or something.”

“Yes, I’m a regular teenage troubleshooter. Come to me with your stupid problem and I’ll fix it; it’ll only cost you a limb,” I joked, relieved that Kavi didn’t want to turn us in. If being part of a story was what was important to him, then that was fine. “Besides, it wasn’t that hard. Are you saying you’ve never thought about pushing her down the stairs?”

I smiled serenely at Meabh. She narrowed her eyes.

“Oh my God, no. I have never thought of that.” He looked down into her face. “I promise. I have never wanted to injure you.”

Before Meabh could tell him she believed him, we were at the door to the sick bay.

“Whisht now,” I said. “If the nurse hears one word about this, I swear I’ll kill you.” I suddenly realized that being part of a story was only useful if you got to tell the story. “No one hears anything about this, okay?”

I began to feel a little uneasy. The thought that I had literally pushed a girl down the stairs and seriously injured her was suddenly very real. The only thing standing between me and deep shit was one person with a bad case of verbal diarrhea and another who could turn on me at any point. We hadn’t exactly been best friends before now, after all.

“I promise! No one will know,” Kavi said earnestly.

Weirdly, I believed him.

And Meabh had no reason to double-cross me. Right?

“You can put her down and go,” I said to Kavi. “She can make it in the door herself.”

“Actually, I’m not sure I can.” Meabh winced and pointed at her ankle.

I flinched. It had blown up and was turning purple and gross. It looked like a bloated corpse foot.

“Maybe we need to take your shoe off,” I said, feeling queasy.

“Okay, I’ll hold her and you—”

“Oh my God, you two, we’re literally at the office door, just bloody take me inside already.”

I gave the door a rap. It’s never open because they’re afraid someone will break in while the old nun who acts as a “nurse” is having a nap and steal all the ibuprofen to sell on the streets.

The little nun unlocked the door and peered out suspiciously. She was at least a hundred and fourteen. It was pretty obvious why we were there, but when we didn’t offer any explanation, she asked.

“She’s injured,” I said. “We’re not just carrying her around for the craic, you know.”

Sister Dymphna frowned. “I don’t like young ladies who are cheeky,” she said.

I don’t like old bats who are too senile to spot a pretty obvious problem.

I forced my lips into a tight smile and followed Kavi through the door, where he set Meabh down on the little single bed next to the wall.

“Off you go, young man,” Sister Dymphna said. “It’s not appropriate for you to be here with a young lady.”

“But I brought her here,” he said, pouting as though she’d said something mean instead of telling him to feck off back to class. Kavi was kind of an odd duck. I hadn’t before appreciated his “I just escaped from a bunker” wide-eyed approach to life, but I was starting to enjoy it.

Sister Dymphna glared and Kavi scampered off, giving us a sad wave goodbye.

Meabh’s groans drew my attention back to her. Her foot looked even worse somehow than it did a few seconds ago.

“Are you on your period, love?” Sister Dymphna asked gently.

Meabh’s face contorted at the ridiculousness of this question, but I knew that Sister Dymphna asked this every time anyone came to the sick bay. She was obsessed. You could walk in with a pencil sticking out of your eye and she’d ask the same thing. I knew because I regularly skived off and no matter what I said was wrong with me, she looked at me like it was definitely my period and she knew that I wouldn’t be having one if Satan hadn’t tempted womankind with sin. I could tell Meabh had lost her ability to pretend to be the sweet, perfect student, so I saved her.

“She’s sprained her ankle or something.”

Sister Dymphna nodded like I’d told her something valuable that she couldn’t have found out any other way.

“I’ll be off, then,” I said, and I gave Meabh a nod, but her eyes were squeezed tight shut. Then I felt a twinge. I think they call it guilt? Maybe I should not have agreed to throw her down a flight of stairs. You’re probably not supposed to indulge people who are having actual breakdowns by encouraging their desperate impulses.

“Do you not want to stay here with your friend?” Sister D turned her face to me, pausing while unlacing Meabh’s shoe.

I hesitated. Meabh was breathing hard, short breaths like she was in labor as Sister D eased the shoe off. I half expected her foot to come off with it.

I sighed. It was my doing, after all. The least I could do was hang around. Besides, I might have to remind her she’d begged me to do it in case she got any funny ideas about telling on me.

“Don’t do me any favors,” Meabh snapped. As though my reluctance amazed her.

“I won’t. Not again,” I retorted, and threw myself into the chair that sat at the foot of the bed. I watched with my face scrunched up as Sister D held Meabh’s foot and inspected it.

“I think it’s sprained, love. But you’ll have to get an X-ray just in case. I’ll call your father.”

Meabh groaned again. I couldn’t tell if it was for the foot or her father.

Before she left to get Mr. Kowalski, Sister D unlocked a cupboard that contained exactly one box of painkillers, took two out, and put the box back, locking the cupboard again. She gave these to Meabh with a glass of water and an ice pack from the small fridge-freezer that hummed in the corner.

“Good thing she locked that cupboard again, eh?” I said when she was gone. “Else she might come back to find us here absolutely off our tits, snorting lines of ibuprofen off the sink.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Meabh said, not laughing. I suppose expecting her to appreciate my comic stylings was a bit much to ask under the circumstances.

“It’s all right. I’m getting out of class, aren’t I?”

Meabh made a face. “Do you think if I leave school early it’ll count against my attendance record?”

“Probably. And then when you die Jesus will be like, go fuck yourself, Meabh. Down to hell with you. I know all about the day you missed double Maths because you went to A and E with a foot that looked like a purple cauliflower.”

“Saint Peter,” she said, wincing as she tried to shuffle into a more comfortable position.

“What?”

“It’s Saint Peter who greets you when you die.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Right, well, he’ll be there too obviously. But when Jesus saw your name on the naughty list he was like, Pete, I gotta come down and hang out with you at the gates and see this bitch for myself. Fuckin’ chancer, she is.”

“He’s not Santa. There’s no list.”

“Well, of course there’s no list. It’s all a load of bolloxology, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of making fun of you, am I?”

“Heaven forbid.”

“They would if they could. They try and ban everything fun.”

We both heard the footsteps at the same time and we both had the same reaction, where your shoulders slump and you resign yourself to being out of control of whatever happens next.

Mr. Kowalski entered the room. He looked gentle and sweet. He looked like your friendly school principal, the kind from TV who tries really hard to understand the misunderstood. He was much older than most dads of people my age. He was an average height, average build white man with graying hair swept back in a style that has looked the exact same since the first time I met him. I half think if you reached up and touched it, you’d find it was actually molded plastic like a Ken doll. He wore relaxed open-collar shirts and beige middle-aged trousers. No. Not trousers, slacks. He made embarrassing dad jokes and walked around the school smiling all the time like he was fucking delighted to be there. I didn’t trust it one bit. I assumed he let the act drop at home and that’s when he was horrible to Meabh.

“What did you do, angel?” he asked, his face pale and his voice concerned. He didn’t even notice I was there, he was so worried.

Meabh burst into tears.

Christ, how did she have anything left in the tank?

“I. Fell. Down. Stairs,” she said through heaving sobs. He sat beside her on the bed and threw his arms around her and stroked her hair until she calmed down. When she got her breath back, she spoke again.

“I won’t be able to play in the championship.”

“Ah now, Meabh, you don’t know that yet. It might be only a minor twist.”

Were his eyes closed? I was no sprainologist but it was definitely not minor.

“I don’t think so, Daddy. It feels bad. I don’t think it’ll heal in time.”

I almost choked when she called him “Daddy” but I reined it in. There’d be time later to make fun of her for that.

“Don’t worry, pet. I think if anyone’s foot could make a miraculous recovery, it’ll be yours.”

I could see where she got her arrogance from. He thought even her ligaments were somehow better than everyone else’s.

He looked at me then, his face shifting from worry to surprise.

“Aideen.” He furrowed his brow.

“Sir.”

He didn’t know what to say when I didn’t offer an explanation. I could tell he was trying to think of a polite way to ask what the hell I was doing with his daughter. I probably wasn’t the kind of company he’d choose for her.

We wrestled with the silence for a few seconds, but I won.

“Meabh, do you think you can walk to the car if I get you crutches?” he asked, turning his attention back to her. “I don’t think your old man is quite up to carrying you with my bad back. You didn’t hurt your wrists or shoulders or anything?”

“My ribs feel a bit sore but I could use crutches.” She smiled.

“That’s my girl. Such a trooper. See, you’ll be back on the pitch in no time. I know you, you won’t let a thing like this get you down.”

When he’d left the room, presumably to find Sister D and locate crutches, Meabh’s face dimmed. Like the sun that shone out of her arse, creating a halo effect, suddenly faded.

“He seems really worried about you,” I said. But I was more than aware that someone could seem like one thing and be another.

“He’ll accept it once he hears from the doctor. Maybe it will be broken after all.”

“Fingers crossed,” I said.

Meabh shifted so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked forlornly at me.

“Can you help me get up?”

“It’s just one thing after another with you, isn’t it. Aideen, push me down the stairs. Aideen, take me to the nurse’s office. Aideen, help me stand up.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“I am though,” I said. But I got up and sat beside her so she could throw her arm around me, then hoisted her up to standing. She leaned on her good foot, but when she gingerly tried to put some weight on the other one, she winced.

“Your hair is in my mouth,” I said, spitting it out. I resisted the urge to ask what shampoo she used because the scent was heavenly. Couldn’t let her know that; her self-esteem was bloody dangerous as it was.

“Don’t spit in my hair!”

“Don’t get hair in my spit. That’s my good saliva.”

“You’re exhausting.”

“Says the girl who considered giving up sleep to take on more activities.”

“That’s different.”

“I agree. It’s very fucking different.”

“You don’t have to swear so much.”

“I don’t have to. But it makes me sound fucking cool.”

She almost smiled.

“You can let me go now.”

“I don’t think I can. Unless you want to sit back down and wait for your crutches.”

She eyed the bed.

“No, if I sit down again I won’t be able to get up again. My ribs really do hurt.”

“Sorry,” I said automatically.

“No, don’t be silly. You can’t precision injure someone with a staircase.”

We fell awkwardly silent, her hanging on to my neck. I hadn’t realized there was a clock in the room, but suddenly it was ticking loudly.

“Look, seriously. Thank you for doing this.” She caught my eye. It was hard not to when her face was almost stuck to my face. “I really do appreciate it. It’s such a relief.”

I wanted to shrug it off but I couldn’t because my shoulders were in use, so I smiled instead and she smiled back. She really did look relieved. Like the stick up her ass had decreased in width or length. Whichever one would affect comfort more.

I felt a warmth in my stomach that I wasn’t used to. Was this what good deeds felt like?

“All right, I give up. What is that? Papaya?”

Meabh gave me a blank look.

“Your hair or something. You smell amazing.”

She immediately blushed, pink spreading across her slightly sallow cheeks.

“Mango body butter,” she said. “From the Body Shop.”

Great. I was standing there sniffing her skin. That wasn’t weird at all.

Just as I was about to die of shame, the door opened again and I immediately rearranged my face into something more neutral, as though that could make me invisible to the principal.

“You should be resting with your leg elevated unless you absolutely have to be on your feet, Meabh. You want to bring down the swelling as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah, Meabh,” I said with an exaggerated sigh and a sly hint of a smile, “it’s like you want to miss the whole season!”

She gave me a dirty look as I helped her into a pair of crutches. I beamed at her.

Then Mr. Kowalski set his eyes on me, and I stood frozen while Meabh hobbled off down the corridor.

“Thank you for helping Meabh,” Mr. Kowalski said when she was out of earshot. “That was very kind.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I wasn’t falling for the nice guy bit.

“Now get yourself back to class. I know you’re supposed to be in Maths right now and I don’t want you missing any more than you have to. Those absences are starting to worry me again, Aideen.”

“Yes, sir. Right back to class.” I waved him off with a cheery goodbye and when the door swung closed I gave him the finger. It’s the little things that keep me going.