Improper Order

by Sullivan, Deirdre; Slattery, Fidelma;

  I have liked him for over six months now and am learning to live with it, just as I would learn to live with disability or something. I now can form coherent sentences around Felix and sometimes even disagree with things that he says. Also his band, The Deep Tinkers, kind of suck, but the fact that he is in a band at all is amazing to me. I want to become their manager and make them rich enough to keep me in the manner to which my father has long been accustomed but I amn’t really accustomed to at all. Only problem is, as I’ve said before, they do kind of suck.

  I do not know a lot about Laura the Human Dolphin’s boyfriend Mac, but what I do know is extremely good looking. I still can’t decide if he looks more like a vampire or a fallen angel. Something from the cover of a book in the Dark Romance section of a bookshop, anyway. His eyebrows sweep up, so he always looks a bit surprised, his cheekbones could cut paper, and he has a thin upper lip and a big fat pillowy lower lip. His shoulders are broad, and he is quite tall and slim.

  He wears nice clothes. And he has a ridiculously perfect girlfriend, which makes him even more unattainable. He often wears a battered leather jacket that used to belong to his father.

  The way Laura said that made me think that his father was dead or something. I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to appear nosy, but that might explain the sexily troubled look that occasionally passes over his porcelain features. Also it would mean we have a tragedy in common, which might lead to me being the only one who understands him which might lead to him breaking up with Laura to spend all his time hanging out with me, making snarky comments on the fringe of social gatherings like a hero. I have seen him four times now.

  I still prefer Felix, though, because anyone with a pulse would fancy Mac, but Felix is an acquired taste particular to me, like that mouldy cheese Dad buys from the expensive cheesemongers down the road and which he appears to enjoy even though it tastes like powdered gym socks.

  Liking people is weird. It happens so rarely. You’d think that being built the way we are and being so pumped up on hormones that everyone would be attracted to almost everyone else. But it doesn’t work that way at all. I mean, it’s kind of unusual for me to meet a boy that makes me wibble at the mere thought of him. I suppose that is a blessing in a way, as otherwise my life would be hampered by constant think-wibbling.

  Mum had boyfriends, and sometimes — not often, mind — she would have what I now think were one-night stands. It is hard living in close proximity to someone — our place was really small: two bedrooms, a bathroom and a big sitting/kitchen/everything-else room. So we were close. We couldn’t hide very much from each other and it is still strange to me sometimes how much SPACE there is in Fintan’s house. Our house, I suppose it is now. It feels like home, but when I think of the other place, that feels like home as well.

  We were renting — there are probably some other people living there now and they won’t know about all the stuff we had: pictures and our big fat teapot that got broken on the way to Fintan’s. I kept the lid. It is in the biscuit tin that serves as my safe. I like my biscuit tin. It says KEEP OUT: MAY CONTAIN BISCUITS on it in big black letters and for some reason that always makes me smile.

  At the moment it contains a Deep Tinkers flyer, a page with some scribbled song lyrics, some cinema tickets, a concert ticket on a lanyard from that time Joel, Ciara and I went to the charity gig thing, a half empty bottle of Mum’s perfume, half of one of Dad’s novelty ties and some photos of me and Mum and Dad from when I was younger. Things I like to hang on to and remember. Beads from an old necklace, a flower from Mum’s grave I picked and pressed.

  TY: Short for transition year, which is the year between Junior Cert and fifth year. It is kind of a doss year, being more focused on field trips and work experience than exams and homework, but Felix seems to be enjoying it. I’m not sure if I’d like to do TY or not, because I started out secondary school wanting to go to college ASAP, and I suppose I still do, but I can kind of stand living with Fintan a lot better now, so TY is kind of an option.

  Joel wants to do it, Ciara wants to skip it, but who cares because we won’t have to decide for almost two years. Also, if I were to skip it, I would be in fifth year while Felix was in Leaving Cert, which would make us closer in school years, if not in actual age years. Which is an interesting point to note.

  UNCONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE: Handsome, but not the kind of handsome where you’d describe it to a person and they’d be all, ‘This dude sounds handsome.’ But if you showed them the person they’d be all, ‘Oh, now I get it.’ So, hot but not in a cookie-cutter, same-as-all-the-other-hot-people kind of way. Again, an acquired taste, like Fintan’s stupid cheeses.

  COHERENT: Something that makes sense, is easy to understand and clear in its meaning. Not the way I speak around boys I am attracted to.

  AMN’T: Hiberno-English for ‘am not’.

  UNATTAINABLE: Ungettable. Something that cannot be gotten. To Roderick, this might be an appealingly nibble-able book-cover. To me, well … there are a lot of things I want that are unattainable.

  PORCELAIN: China, a fine, pale, delicate ceramic material. Usually expensive. May sometimes be used to describe the complexion of certain unattainable and conventionally attractive persons.

  IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO: Near, beside, close to. I would like to be in close proximity to Mac or Felix. Or even both, crushed between them in some sort of cosy, hairgel- smelling boy sandwich. God, that sounds a bit pervy doesn’t it? I wouldn’t want to, like, have a threesome with them or anything. Just a fully clothed, chaste cuddle. Or a nap, like the way puppies sleep in videos on YouTube. That would be amazing. But the kind of amazing where you don’t tell anyone you would like it to happen, ever, for fear they will not understand and get all judgemental and irritating.

  RODERICK: My rat and the one member of my family I can trust to always be there for me. Mostly because I keep him in a cage. He has rakish whiskers and a fondness for being scratched behind the ears.

  DO OR ___ (FOLICALLY SPEAKING) (3)

  The idea came to me in geography. Joel and Ciara hate the sound of what I am planning to do to my hair but that doesn’t matter because Fintan lets me get my hair done any way I want now. (He calls it ‘picking your battles’. I call it ‘being the boss of what grows on my head’.)

  We were talking about V-shaped valleys and I was gazing out of the window, wondering how many of us would ever need to use that information ever again. I reckon maybe two out of thirty, which isn’t so bad, but still, I had the idea that I would probably not be one of them. Leona might, because she was wearing earrings made of geodes, which could denote an interest in rock formations. But then again, they are kind of lovely and I would like a pair, so not really indicative of anything beyond an enhanced ability to accessorise.

  Joel was over the other side of the room. We are only allowed to sit beside each other in science and civics now because we find each other endlessly amusing and sometimes make up little songs and hum in the middle of class.

  Anyway, I was looking at this tree, which had that lovely thing of sunlight filtering through leaves going on, pale green and dark green and glowy green and white, and all of a sudden this jackdaw alighted on a branch opposite me. I knew he was a jackdaw because we had a teacher in third class who was OBSESSED with birds to, like, an unhealthy degree, which means that all the kids in his class ended up being able to tell a jackdaw from a crow or a raven. I have only ever seen a raven once, but it was pretty cool. Anyway, whatever way the light was shining on his feathers, it made them look so black and sleek that they were shining green and purple as well in the magic light of the sun-tree.

  GEODE: A stone that is cut open to reveal all these little crystal clusters inside it. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. How do people know what rocks to cut open? I think that a geode starts out as a normal rock and then a process happens and it becomes all magical and sparkly inside.

  This is what Ciara thinks sex does to people. Not that she is ha
ving any of it, but she has, on occasion, alluded to worlds opening up and being a proper woman and fireworks and so on and so forth. I think it is my fault for lending her that book about the Viking and the stolen princess who becomes his servant and ultimately his bride. That Viking, Alfric, was a lot like a geode, as I recall. He was all rough and warrior-like on the outside, but on the inside he was full of manly vulnerability and tender glances. I wonder where I could get a pair of geode earrings?

  And I decided I was going to dye my hair the same colour as that jackdaw in the light, because it was just so lovely and nature-y and made me think about how intricate and magical the world is, how many little entities there are, going about their business, no matter what is happening in our stupid human lives.

  No sooner had I made that decision than I was asked a question about glaciers, which I got right because, as I told the teacher when she asked me why I was looking out the window, ‘I use my eyes for looking and my ears for listening.’

  She sent me to Ms Cleary’s office and Karen was all ‘good enough for you’. I genuinely didn’t mean to be rude or anything, though, I just wasn’t thinking clearly. About anything except hair. Ms Cleary was pretty cool, just told me to pull my socks up and stay out of trouble.

  Also I have detention on Friday, which will be alright, I think, because it’s only for two hours after school and it’s not like there’s anything good on. Anyway, my Saturday cheer-up plan of plans is to go get my hair dyed jackdaw. Because for that level of amazing, I will need the skills of a professional, at least at first.

  This is only the second time I have had detention this year so that’s not actually that bad. The first time was for rowing with Karen (again). I hate that girl; she’s so full of bile and horror. She says things just to hurt people. I think she plans them, probably at night-time instead of doing homework. I hate her so much.

  Sometimes I have to express my hatred by yelling at her when she does something particularly heinous. Teachers should understand this, and I know whenever anyone gets in trouble they always say that someone else started it, but Karen genuinely started it and deserved everything she got. Urrrrgh.

  I think my new hair will look OK. Ciara says I will look like a ‘punk rocker’. I have never met a ‘punk rocker’, but it seems like an awfully granddad-ish way to describe a person. If she is not careful, she will soon be taking up fishing and telling long pointless stories that don’t go anywhere at all.

  She kind of has the second one down already, though. Her and Syzmon do things and she tells me all about them in the minutest detail. Not physical stuff, obviously. But if they go to the cinema, for example, she will tell me what he wore and what she wore and how their respective hairs were done and what the film was about and what snacks they bought. And then she will expect me to remember it all. She does little quizzes throughout the day — not full-on ones like school tests or anything, but little jokey references that I won’t get unless I have been listening carefully to her stories. I think she thinks that if she doesn’t tell somebody about it, it is like it didn’t happen.

  I wonder would I be that way if I had a boyfriend? I do not think so. But maybe … I keep my crushes close to my chest because I don’t want them to be discussed as if they were, like, a thing, when they kind of only exist in my head. I would be seriously embarrassed if someone were to find out about them. And by someone, I mean either Felix or Mac. Or, heaven forbid, Laura the Human Dolphin. That would suck enormously.

  DYE

  Ciara’s grandmother is called Lily and she has moved into their granny flat. A granny flat is a little houseen off the corner of your house that you use to make extra money or put grannies in.

  Mum and I lived in a granny flat for a year when I was eight. It was nice, but my bedroom was the sitting room, so I had to fold away my bed every morning, which was a bit annoying. I really looked forward to visiting Dad that year, I remember, because I had a big double bed in his house, and it felt HUGE compared to the sofa bed. Also, he never woke me up to look for keys or lipstick that had fallen between the sofa cushions, because my bed there had a proper mattress.

  It wasn’t that Mum didn’t want the best for me, but money was tight and she didn’t like taking it off Dad because then it was like he was paying her to have me and she got a bit squicked out by that idea.

  ‘Squicked out’ is a thing that Ciara says and now I have started to say it too. Isn’t it bizarre how that happens sometimes? You, like, appropriate your friends’ little quirks and turns of phrase, sucking them in until they are a part of who you are as well and you don’t even think about them any more.

  Granny Lily is really sick and can’t make dinners or drive herself places any more. Also, she forgets things. It’s not dementia, but it still means that it is safer for her to move out of her own little house and into Ciara’s, where her family can keep an eye on her.

  She is Ciara’s dad’s mum. Ciara’s mum’s mum died when Ciara was three. I wonder if Ciara’s mum is jealous of Ciara’s dad because his mum is alive and hers isn’t. I am sometimes jealous of Joel and Ciara because they both have mums and I don’t. Not that I get angry at them or anything, but sometimes I’ll get this nasty little you-don’t-know-how-lucky-you-are fist in my stomach. I don’t like it because I know that if people had their way my mum would be alive and also I know for a fact that I don’t want their mums to die, especially if Joel’s mum, Anne, keeps baking scones with various unexpected fruits in them (blueberries, raspberries, pomegranate and passionfruit) and I get to eat the benefits. But still. I suppose it is like new-top envy only on a deeper, more feelingsy level.

  And I know I have Fintan and he is great, in his own crap way. But it isn’t the same as when Mum was alive, because I could talk to her about anything and she wouldn’t judge me and she helped me with my homework, even when I didn’t need it, which could be kind of annoying because sometimes I’d feel that I’d get it done quicker on my own. Fintan has never, ever offered to help me with my homework because he is never around when I do it.

  I know there are things that he is better at than Mum was too, like being able to make loads of money. Also he is better at dating Hedda than Mum. Not that Mum dated Hedda, but Dad seems to be doing a pretty good job at that recently: they look all happy and interested in each other and she calls over more often than she used to. He can’t call over to her house very often because of having to be a half decent father to me and stuff.

  I wonder what it would be like if they got married. They would perhaps have pretty (Hedda), big-nosed (Fintan) children and that would be weird. I don’t know if I would like a little half-brother or -sister. I have been an only child all my life. On the upside, though, Hedda hasn’t had kids up until now, so maybe she doesn’t want them.

  Also Fintan is really busy, so a baby would probably be left to me a lot. And I do not have a good history in the whole ‘being left alone with babies’ department. Although the thrill of putting false moustaches on them has sort of worn off, mostly because of that time Joel used his theatrical make-up kit to put a full beard on his brother Marcus and it looked really realistic and amazing but somehow wrong, and we caught each other’s eyes and said ‘too far’ and only took, like, five or six photos of the poor small fellow before abandoning the project.

  Marcus has had to put up with a LOT, now that I come to think of it. He’ll probably grow up to be either a saint or a master-criminal.

  APPROPRIATE: Get, obtain, by fair means or foul. Not to be confused with appropriate, which is spelled the same way but pronounced ‘a-pro-pree-it’ and means suitable. As in, my hair was not deemed appropriate for school, so I appropriated the principal’s golden retriever and held it to ransom. (I would never do that in real life. Pets are sacred.)

  HOUSEEN: Like a house, only smaller. In the same way a girleen is a small girl or a careen is a small car. Mum and I used to have a careen at one time. Which is why I find the first name Carina weirdly hilarious.

  IT MAK
ES WOMEN DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO BE HONEST (8)

  Big News. Dad asked Hedda to marry him.

  Bigger News. And she turned him down.

  I know I shouldn’t laugh but, oh, this is priceless. Maybe just a giggle or two?

  Poor Dad.

  It is funny, though.

  They might be moving in together as well. But they have to iron out the details of it.

  Who does she think she is? My dad is too good for her. Or something. I am trying to be loyal because he is kind of upset. He keeps whining and demanding cups of tea. It’s not like she broke up with him or anything.

  PROPOSAL

  Who does she think she is? My dad is too good for her. Or something. I am trying to be loyal because he is kind of upset. He keeps whining and demanding cups of tea. It’s not like she broke up with him or anything.

  Question-popping-wise, Dad was very cute about it. He took her to her favourite painting in the national gallery and proposed there, very quietly passing her the ring. I am so glad that I shared my thoughts on restaurant proposals with him, because it would have been horrible for her to turn him down with so many people around.

  Luckily, they were by themselves in a room, because her favourite painting is that meeting-on-the-turret-stairs one that you can only see at limited times. Dad is a wily fox and let them know what he was at, so they gave him and Hedda some space. He had a little speech about how happy being with her made him and so on and so forth. I hope someone makes a complimentary little speech like that at me some day.