Not My Problem

Even though I was up half the night and could feel the eye bags, I was early for school because around six thirty I simply gave up on trying to sleep. I got the early bus and figured I could spend the extra time with Holly, since she was always early. I texted her to let her know I’d be there. While I was walking up the hill toward the main entrance, Kavi appeared as if from nowhere, holding a set of three helium balloons. Each one had a single word of the phrase “Get Well Soon” printed on it.

“Please tell me those are not for Meabh,” I said.

“But they are. Aren’t they nice? I was going to stick them on her locker. I have tape in my bag. One time I was off school for three weeks with glandular fever and when I came back no one even noticed I was gone and I thought it would be nice for Meabh to feel like she was missed.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Kavi, I don’t think you should give her those.”

“Why not?”

The truth was I didn’t want it getting about that Kavi was a witness. My gut said he had no intention of telling this story, but if for any reason Mr. K suspected anything I didn’t want him to grill Kavi. He seemed too good to outright lie to the principal.

I was wrong about that.

“They’re plastic. Meabh won’t like that.”

“God, you’re right. They’re terrible for the environment. That’s like getting Meabh a reverse gift. She loves the environment.”

“Right, Kavi, we all love the environment. Just stick them in your locker or something.”

He nodded seriously and began sprinting up the hill without another word, the balloons trailing behind him in the air.

No one was in the sports hall when I arrived early for registration, except Holly. Mostly people hung out by the lockers until the first bell. I imagined Kavi there now and realized I had not made the most inconspicuous suggestion. The thought of him wrestling balloons into his locker made me want to laugh and bury my face in my hands at the same time.

Holly smiled and patted a bouncy ball beside her when she saw me. I took a wobbly seat and she handed me a coffee cup from the school café. She was shivering in the huge hall, which hadn’t quite heated up yet, because she refused to wear the puffy coat her mam had bought. Actually she’d given it to me and I was wearing it and it was super warm.

I took my cup and sniffed. Steamed milk with cinnamon. My favorite. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, hun. Why are you so early? What happened to you yesterday? Did you hear Queen Meabh broke her ankle? I saw her this morning by the lockers, and she was wearing some kind of special boot.”

I ignored the other questions. Normally I would tell Holly I suspected my dad was back in our lives, but saying it out loud made it more real and I wanted to pretend for another little while. “She didn’t break it, it’s sprained.”

“How do you know?” Holly said, shocked. I never knew the gossip from school unless I heard it from her. I quite enjoyed having information she didn’t. Even if I had to lie about it.

“I was there when she fell.”

“WHAT? Oh my God. Tell me everything. How’d she do it? Did she trip over her own ego? Did her head swell up so much that she couldn’t stay balanced and she fell over? Did she simply collapse under the weight of her own arrogance?”

I laughed.

“I think she just tripped like a regular person,” I said. “She was actually pretty hurt. Her foot swelled up and looked really weird.”

“Is that it?” she said, clearly disappointed that I didn’t have a more embarrassing story for her.

“That’s it.” I shrugged. I obviously wasn’t telling her the real story. It occurred to me that maybe this was the first time I’d ever kept anything from Holly, and I felt a terrible urge to spill it all. But it just felt wrong. Like I’d be handing her the perfect way to take Meabh down, and even if I didn’t like Meabh, I had agreed to help her. I couldn’t stab her in the back now.

Holly looked annoyed for a second. Then she rearranged her face into something more neutral and sighed.

“I’m only sorry I won’t get the chance to be chosen as captain over her. She’ll think the only reason she didn’t get it is because she can’t get it.”

“Who cares what she thinks?” I said. “She wasn’t going to get it anyway. You were. At least this way you don’t have to deal with her on the team at all.”

“I suppose,” Holly said, but she didn’t seem comforted. “You don’t get it though—you don’t have a thing. You don’t know what it’s like to be the best at something and then have someone else continually try and take it from you. She doesn’t even deserve it. She only got captain last year because her dad’s the principal and Ms. Devlin was being a lick arse.”

Oh yeah, it must be so hard for you being great at things, and it’s so easy for me being rubbish at everything.

That wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t think that. She didn’t mean it like that. I brushed off the prickly pin feelings.

The rest of the class began arriving. A few grumpy, crumpled morning faces staring blankly, a lot more loud chatter and laughing.

“Will you do my eyes?” Holly produced a liquid eyeliner pen from her pocket. “I spent twenty minutes on it this morning and I couldn’t get them even,” she pouted.

Eyeliner is my one great skill. So in fact, I am the best at that. My expertise in perfectly equal lines and delicate flicks is mostly useless but definitely unparalleled.

Holly’s face relaxed as she closed her eyes and her cheek was soft where I rested my hand to steady it as I applied the black liquid in one single swift motion.

She checked it in her phone camera.

“Perfect, even while bouncing,” she said, and smooched the air in my general direction.

I took a sip of my coffee, feeling unreasonably pleased with myself. Holly was my best friend and I liked making her happy. Some days, like today, it was easy.

“I really shouldn’t have wasted my morning on makeup anyway because I didn’t do that English homework. Did you?” Holly seemed hopeful that we would at least both be in the same boat. Although she didn’t have two strikes already.

“I did for a change,” I said, and she slumped a little so I added, “but it’s terrible.”

“Ms. Devlin is going to kill me.”

“Why didn’t you do it last night?”

“Oh. Last-minute thing. I met up with someone and went to see a film. When I got back I was too tired. Meant to get up early, but you know what I’m like.”

I didn’t say anything. Holly joined the paper last year and made new friends. She introduced them to me and they were nice enough but they never became my friends. Since she got editor in September she’d been spending more and more time with them. Especially Jill. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous even though I knew she was entitled to friendships outside of ours. She’d always had a lot of friends. But until Jill, there hadn’t been anyone she was really close to. That was me. I was the one she went places with and told her secrets to. Like the time she saw balls for the first time and was surprised to find out they weren’t separate on the outside. We had both pictured them as being a bit like a Newton’s cradle. No one else knew that. Holly admitted to me the thoughts and feelings that made her sound stupid. We had always trusted each other with those things.

Meabh finally hobbled in and stood in front of a ball. I watched her glare at it as though the rubber sphere was telling her she couldn’t possibly maneuver herself onto it with that boot. Her eyes said challenge accepted. Gingerly she lifted her bad foot and in a sort of one-legged squat lowered herself onto it. A few people laughed. Meabh didn’t seem at all embarrassed and when she landed without incident her face said I told you so. Then she noticed me watching and our eyes met for the briefest second before I looked away. What were the rules now? Were we meant to say hello to each other?

Ms. Devlin strode in and distracted me by pointing at both Holly and me. She didn’t even have to tell us to leave the coffee cups outside. I downed as much of mine as I could while slinking slowly to the door and setting the cup on the windowsill. Meabh’s eyes followed us, probably because she was worried we’d leave our litter behind when we left.

Ms. Devlin called names and reminded people to check the bottoms of their shoes for gum because she’d found some stuck to the BRAND-NEW sports hall floor (which presumably she personally inspected each night and lovingly caressed) and she would rather assume carelessness than outright sabotage at this early stage.

“Any more takers for student council president?” Ms. Devlin said, and she looked disappointed in us all when no one said anything. “There’s still time. All you have to do is submit a few proposals. It’s only a few pages.”

I could feel Meabh’s energy humming from the corner of the room. She really believed someone was dying to snatch her new crown away before she could polish it.

On our way out I made a point of looking directly at her as I picked up our used coffee cups and took them with me. Holly didn’t seem to notice. She was babbling about something else.

“We don’t have any classes together for the rest of the day,” she pouted. “Have lunch with me at the restaurant.”

Transition years were allowed to go off campus to this café down the street. People called it the restaurant to differentiate it from the school café. Holly noticed me hesitating.

I really wanted to go for lunch with Holly. I hadn’t got to spend much quality time with her lately.

“It’s my treat,” she said pleadingly.

“You already bought me coffee this morning,” I said.

“And you did my eyeliner. Those are professional-grade skills. We’re even,” she replied.

We were never even. But I smiled anyway. I could never say no to her.

When the lunch bell rang I waited for Holly at the front steps of the main entrance. I stuck my headphones in and played my Creepy Vibes and Spooky Beats playlist through my covert Wi-Fi access and leaned my head back to soak up a rare ray of January sun. Dozens of students milled past me and I felt like I was in a music video. One of the ones where the singer stands still and everyone moves really fast around them. Then someone touched me and I jumped. I expected to see Holly when I opened my eyes. But the figure standing over me was blocking the sun. A feat Holly was not capable of.

“Kavi?”

So I know I said it all started with Meabh and her nonsense. But there was Kavi. Where would I be without him? Maybe it would have been a very short story about how I once pushed a girl down stairs and then carried on with the rest of my life as normal.

“I have been looking all over for you,” he said, exasperated.

I was skeptical. “What do you want?”

“I need you to come with me,” he said urgently.

“I need to get lunch. I’m starving.”

“Don’t you even want to know why?”

I shrugged and closed my eyes again.

“Are you tired? Did you not sleep last night? Sometimes I don’t sleep well. You know those nights where you go to bed and you lie there and you’re like, ah, I really need to go to sleep right now because I have to wake up really early but then the weird thoughts come into your head and you get sucked into the weird thought place and forget that you’re meant to be sleeping until you’re like, oh no, I’m supposed to be trying to sleep, so you close your eyes again but then like ten minutes later you realize you’ve done it again. I don’t know why that happens some nights, you know?”

“You should try mixing sugar into your coffee during the day instead of cocaine, Kavi.”

“What do you mean? I don’t drink coffee. You know my mam says that you shouldn’t drink coffee until you’re twenty-one because it stunts your growth and I don’t want to stunt my growth. I’m six feet but I’d like to be six foot one because my brother said if you’re over six feet you get more dates on Tinder. Even though I can’t go on Tinder yet, I’m thinking I will when I’m eighteen, and I want to be able to maximize my chances at finding true love.”

Pulling my earphones out, I opened my eyes and took a long look at him. He was tall. Though to me everyone was tall. He had soft-looking skin and black hair with cute curls; his eyes were big, dark brown, and framed by long, thick lashes I’d kill for. He was very good-looking, but I wasn’t sure Tinder’s USP was long-lasting matches.

“Kavi, I feel confident you will not lose out on the love of your life because you’re only six foot tall,” I said, not adding that he’d have to find a good fucking listener. “But tell me, and I cannot stress this enough, in one sentence, why are you here?”

He frowned. His tongue started to peek out of his mouth and I knew he was struggling to fit everything he wanted to say into one sentence.

“I brought you a new client,” he said finally, clearly proud of his restraint.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What are you talking about?”

“Come with me,” he insisted.

I had to admit I was curious. Then I saw Holly approaching. Jill was beside her. They were laughing at some probably very smart joke. I looked at Kavi. He looked so hopeful.

“Hey, Jill’s going to join us, okay?” Holly asked. She didn’t even notice Kavi at first, until I glanced at him and she realized she’d interrupted our conversation. Confusion settled in the furrows of her brow.

Oblivious, Jill looked brightly at me. “I thought we could go to this café near the cinema. We had the most amazing Malteser squares there last night.”

Oh, we did, did we?

My stomach turned.

“I’m sorry,” I said airily. “I need to skip. I promised Kavi we’d do a thing and I totally forgot.”

Jill smiled at Kavi. Holly’s frown deepened.

“What thing are you two doing?” She caught herself mid-sentence and tried to end on a pleasantly curious note rather than the deeply suspicious one she’d started on.

I glanced at Kavi. Without a second of hesitation he chimed in.

“Irish Oral. My teacher asked if I could do a demonstration of a conversation for the Junior Cert classes and I asked Aideen because she’s basically fluent.”

I felt a weird flush of pride that Kavi even knew I was a good speaker. Holly always did better than me at essays and stuff but it wasn’t because of the language. I speak English fluently too and it has never helped me write about symbolism in Emily Dickinson either.

Holly smiled a tight smile. “Text me later?”

I nodded and waved her off, feeling a pang as she and Jill erupted into giggles a second later.

Kavi took me to a spot I often hung out in, especially if Holly was doing paper stuff at lunch or she was off sick. It’s a prefab building at the back of the school that for some reason has been planted in the wrong direction. Instead of the doors facing toward the school, they are at the back, facing the wall that surrounds the whole campus. I would sit on the stoop, where I could be pretty sheltered from anyone noticing me. The odd couple came round to try and get the shift where no one could see them, but they would mosey on pretty quickly when they saw I was there. It was peaceful and although the view wasn’t great, I felt like I could relax because no one was looking at me.

“I arranged to meet her here because I’ve seen you here before,” Kavi said.

So much for privacy.

“That one time. Do you remember? I came here to kiss Jessica Ashley and you were already here and I don’t know if you were waiting to kiss someone too although it didn’t look like it because you were eating a sandwich and that doesn’t seem like a thing people do before kissing but you just never know. And a week later Jessica and I broke up, so it’s a pretty bad memory.”

Then a girl appeared. I recognized her; it was Orla. She was Black, with dark skin, long hair, and a normally beaming smile. There were four paid and much coveted student jobs in our school, one of which was office aide, and Orla had snagged that post this year. They had to give up lunchtimes and stay the night before the paper’s publication to help with printing. I’d noticed her a couple of weeks ago when I went with Holly to watch. She’d been sitting in the corner smiling at her phone and ignoring Holly scanning the proofs and having an absolute conniption over a split infinitive she hadn’t caught.

“This is Orla,” Kavi said. She wasn’t smiling her normal smile. She looked nervous.

“I know.”

“It’s okay. She’s nice,” Kavi said to her.

Did I seem not nice?

“Orla has a problem,” Kavi explained.

“And?” I said, definitely not committing to anything. I never said I would fix everyone’s problems for them.

“And you said you were a troubleshooter. That you fix people’s problems.”

I stared at him. Apparently I had kind of said it.

“Kavi . . . that was a joke.”

His face fell. He looked crushed. Like Santa himself had descended from heaven and told him he was a bad boy and he wasn’t getting any presents for Christmas. Weirdly, I didn’t want to be the one who’d made him look like that. But what was I supposed to do?

“Just listen,” he said pleadingly.

Well, I guessed that was what I was supposed to do.

I sighed as though this was the world’s biggest inconvenience.

“I’m not saying I can do anything about it,” I warned. “And I’m not maiming anyone either. That was a one-time deal.”

“Did she say maim?” Orla said faintly.

“What can I supposedly do for you, Orla?”

She looked at Kavi. He nodded encouragingly. She looked at me.

“I need my phone,” she whispered, and she looked over her shoulder like someone would be dying to listen to this conversation.

I was unimpressed. How much could you really need a phone?

“Seriously?”

“It’s in Mr. Kowalski’s office.”

“So it was confiscated? You’ll get it back tomorrow.”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “You don’t understand. It’s the fourth time it’s been confiscated and he’s going to call my dads in.”

“I can’t really do anything about that. I don’t think stealing your phone back will make him forget. If anything you’ll be in more trouble.”

I didn’t get this girl. She had to be at least seventeen, if not eighteen, and she was worried about being told off by her parents? Get in trouble, suck it up. Life goes on.

“I don’t want to steal it. I just need to delete some stuff on it before they get it, in case my dads see it. They’ll read the messages when Mr. Kowalski gives them the phone.”

Kavi mouthed the word sexts and pointed at his nipples.

“Don’t you have a passcode on it?”

“Yes, but they’ll make me enter it.”

“So, when you’re putting in the code, delete the messages?”

“I might not have time to do that. I can’t risk it.”

“So let me get this straight. You want me to break into the principal’s office and delete your sensitive material off your phone and put it back clean?”

“NO!” she shouted, as though my words could magically make it happen. “Sorry. I mean I need to delete them. I don’t want you to see them any more than I want my parents to see them.” She rubbed the back of her neck.

“I’d pay you but I don’t have any money,” she added, biting her lip.

“Yeah, same,” I said.

Kavi looked hopefully at me. Orla looked miserable.

Was this even something I could do? How was I supposed to get into his office when he wasn’t there? Confiscated phones were in a locked drawer. Mine had found its way in there more than once. But I wasn’t fucking Nancy Drew; I didn’t carry a diversion and a lock-picking kit with me at all times.

And then it hit me. I didn’t need either of those things.

I needed a favor.

Remember how I said Meabh was going to regret that text?