Celtic Night

by Bridget O'Dwyer

  “Oh my god. You’re Sarah! From America! How many movie stars do you know? Have you been to New York City? Do you walk down the street and see famous people everywhere? Oh yea, I almost forgot I’m Maebh!” She was practically close enough to kiss me. Her aggressive introduction frightened me, but I knew she meant well.

  “Hi,” I said. “No, movie stars aren’t everywhere,” I said laughing.

  A girl with curly hair and glasses sat at the front of the classroom and abruptly shouted out, “Are you like in High School? Are you a cheerleader and you go out with the quarterback?” I laughed hard, but quickly stopped so I would avoid offending her. I didn’t want to make any enemies on the first day of school.

  “High school is really only like that in movies. I’m far from a cheerleader and I don’t hang out with football players.” She turned back to the front of the class with the most disappointed facial expression.

  “That’s Colleen,” said a girl to my right. She was leaning up against the windows. She was tall and stringy and had long brown hair and brown eyes. Her features were simple but put together in an appealing way. She sat next to five of her friends who were talking and every now and then taking a quick glance at me.

  “Hi, I’m Sarah. I noticed the six of you staring at me as I was walking in this morning.”

  “Yea, sorry, we thought it was you but we weren’t sure. I’m Kate, and this is Sinead, Deirdre, Amy, Kiara, and Mairead.”

  “Hey guys!” I responded happily. We talked for a couple minutes and I became more familiar with them and their school. They asked me where I was from and why I had decided to come here for six months. They begged me to tell them about America and were so interested to hear about the differences between our countries.

  I was really looking forward to making friends with all the girls. I walked around and continued to introduce myself to everyone.

  After first period was over we had Math, then Geography. The classes went by extremely slow and I found them all to be boring and dull. Then we had a break to get a snack and relax before our next three classes. There was a place to get rolls and freshly baked bread with butter and jam or chocolate doughnuts, and two little shops to buy sweets, drinks, and crisps (as I now called them) right inside the school. I bought a plain doughnut with creamy chocolate filling and went back to sit in the classroom. It was pretty much empty except for a few girls because most were off buying snacks or talking with friends from other classes. Thankfully, Deirdre and Sinead walked in, also eating doughnuts, and sat down in two of the chairs next to me.

  “So what in the world ever made you want to come here? It’s so boring in Thurles,” Deirdre said as she scooped the jam out of her doughnut with her index finger and licked it off.

  “Well, let’s see. I guess for starters I was just really restless at home. Like if you went to live in my town for six months I would probably think you were crazy too.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Sinead said. “I’ll be back. I want to buy another doughnut.”

  “Also, I have so much family here that I have never met because we never come over to visit,” I added.

  “You should come more often then!” she said.

  “I wish it was that easy.”

  The bell rang, signaling the end of our break, and Deirdre went back over to her seat. “We’ll talk more at lunch,” she said. All of the other girls filed inside the classroom and sat down in their seats, quickly finishing the last crumbs of their snacks before class began.

  We now had computer with the only male teacher in the entire school, Mr. Malloy. We called him Sir, just as we called the entire female staff Miss. Respect for teachers at the Presentation was much different from my school in Syracuse. Mr. Malloy was a strange man with enormous eyes that bugged right out of his head. I guessed he was about forty-five years old and aging was definitely not on his side. When I introduced myself, I stuck out my hand, in which he shook strongly with his chubby, dry hand. He reeked of cigarette smoke. In addition to his strange looks, he appeared to have a great deal of trouble controlling a class of twenty-five girls. I felt bad for him in a way because he was so helpless.

  After computer, I was forced to make a choice between French or German, neither of which I spoke. The girls were in their fourth year of their language and either way, I would be lost in France or Germany. Colleen convinced me to go to German with her because she claimed they didn’t do much of anything in class. Basically, I just sat and listened and misunderstood. Occasionally, the teacher, Miss Kelley would try to teach me a word or two but nothing stuck. After German we had gym class. It was different at my co-ed school where the sexes would separate into locker rooms to change. Here, all of us girls changed clothes right in the classroom. We ran a few laps around the “gym”, which was also the cafeteria and the theater, and then played badminton for a while.

  Finally, it was lunchtime. I watched as Kate made her way over to the table, her long legs gracefully moving toward the table. I sat silently for a couple of minutes observing them. Deirdre was so funny. She had a lot to say.

  “Deirdre, do you mind moving down so I can sit next to Kiara,” asked Mairead.

  “Sure, no problem,” Deirdre responded, acting like the easy going person I had already noticed her to be. She had long blond hair and extremely pale skin.

  Sinead and Amy were very similar to one another. They were both kind of shy at first, but they eventually opened up. They both had shoulder-length brown hair and lots of freckles. Mairead was definitely shy and seemed uncomfortable around me because she didn’t know me. I saw her looking at me. When we would make eye contact she would smile and turn away quickly. I could tell she was talkative because I saw her being open and loud with the other girls. I guessed it would just take time. She was very simple and elegant. She had shoulder length strawberry blond hair and gorgeous skin. It looked like she had blush on all the time but it was a completely natural glow to her skin. Finally, I tried to figure out Kiara. She and I had hit it off completely. She had thick black hair and hazel eyes. She was really cool to talk to and we had a lot in common. I was zoning out and staring at them all when Deirdre snapped me out of it.

  “Hello, earth to Sarah,” she said snapping her fingers in front of my face.

  “Oh sorry! I was daydreaming.” They were all halfway into their lunches by now, looking at me oddly.

  Anyone I should steer clear of?” I asked.

  “No, I would say you can handle everybody,” Kiara said.

  I had ordered a ham sandwich at break time that arrived for lunch. I gobbled it down fast because I was so hungry. I had brought a yogurt and an apple from home and then decided to buy a bag of crisps from the shop.

  “So what do you like about Thurles so far?” Kate asked.

  “Um, I like my family a lot, but probably my favorite thing is the chocolate! I love it! I can’t get enough of it! I swear I will gain twenty pounds before I go home!” They all laughed at me.

  “My father told me the chocolate in America is rotten. Ye don’t even have Cadbury Chocolate,” Kiara said. All the girls at the table gasped.

  “I don’t know what I would do without Cadbury,” Sinead exclaimed stuffing a piece of a bar of chocolate in her mouth at that very moment.

  As we continued with our lunches I asked them about what they did on the weekends.

  “Some weekends we’ll go out to this nightclub called the Ragg,” Kate said. “It’s class.”

  “Class?” I asked.

  “Yea, class. Like it’s fun. A good laugh like,” she explained.

  “Oh, okay. Gotcha.”

  “You’ll definitely have to come sometime with us!” Amy said excitedly.

  “All right cool! Ya know what I’ve noticed? I haven’t seen any cute boys around here since I came over. Someone please tell me they’re around,” I said laughing.

  “Oh yea, there’s plenty of good-looking lads,” Kiara said smiling. “You should hang around town with us after school.
Most days we don’t go home until six o’clock or so.”

  “Okay, sure,” I said just as the bell rang ending lunch. We rose from our seats and cleared the table off. Science and English were the last two classes of the day. I followed the girls up to the third floor of the school and into the biology lab. We sat in the back of the classroom while the teacher gave a lecture and we took notes. The teacher, Miss McGraw, was a very pretty, young woman. I was shocked when she entered the class because she was so young and pretty, quite different from all the other teachers who were mostly old and tired, not to mention quite stiff. For English, we were split up into two different classes with two different teachers. My teacher, Miss Calloway, was a thin woman who was slightly hunched over and wore glasses. She had short red hair which she carefully tucked behind her ears. She wore a long skirt and a cardigan, neither of which complimented her body type. She looked and dressed like an English teacher, or a librarian even, pardon my stereotyping. She walked into class, stood behind the podium, and began to explain the lesson. Colleen, who was sitting next to me, was fiddling with her pen as Miss Calloway spoke.

  “Stop clicking pens! Stop clicking pens! That’s the one thing I ask! Just stop clicking pens!” she exclaimed.

  Colleen and I looked at each other in shock, covered our mouths and started to laugh hysterically. Miss Calloway turned around and gave a cold and harsh look, which we inferred as a demand to keep quiet. We passed notes all through class because Miss Calloway kept her back to us while she scribbled nonsense on the board. When the bell to end the day finally rang, the other class rejoined us in the room and we gathered our things to go home. Kiara, Kate, Deirdre, Amy and I were going to walk around the town for a while, but Sinead and Mairead had field hockey practice. We walked out of the school, past a couple of pubs and a Chinese restaurant, over the bridge, and right into the heart of town. Students from all the different schools around were scattered throughout, walking to catch a bus home, window-shopping, eating, or standing around talking. I must have counted at least four other uniforms in addition to ours. The town had a wide variety of stores. There were two different grocery stores, a bunch of shops for women’s and men’s clothing, a handful of shops where you could buy sweets, magazines, and various other small things, two athletic shops, a post office, a hotel, a fast food place called Supermax, a book shop, a shop that sold school supplies, a couple of shoe stores, a movie shop, a couple of pharmacies, three banks, and more pubs than I could count on two hands and two feet. We weaved in and out of shops, looking at the latest fashions. We walked up the square towards where there were many groups deep in conversation.

  “See look Sarah, there are loads of cute lads!” Kiara said as she scoped around for one to point out. “See there’s one. He’s lovely looking. I think I’ve seen him out at the Ragg a few times.”

  “Kiara, you can only see the back of his head. How do you know he’s nice looking?” I said, laughing at her silliness.

  “Well he has nice hair and a nice butt anyways,” she said smiling at me.

  “I think I’ve met him before,” Kate said.

  “Met him?” I asked.

  “Yea, like kissed him. Pulled him,” she explained. “What do you call it in America?”

  “Hooked up,” I said. “I need to start reviewing your Irish lingo. I’m beginning to get very confused,” I said laughing some more.

  “He just turned around, and he is cute. Just as I expected!” Kiara said. A group of people was in front of me blocking my vision from the so-called “cute boy,” and as soon as they moved, I had a good view of him.

  “Ew! That’s my cousin! I can’t believe we were staring at his butt!” I screamed.

  “Oh! Sorry! What’s his name?” she asked.

  “James,” I said loudly. Apparently I said it much louder than I thought because I caught his attention. He gave me a little nod and I waved. He was standing with a group of guys who were all actually quite good looking. I started zoning out again as this one boy in particular caught my eye. Deirdre grabbed my arm as we started walking across the street but I couldn’t stop staring. I looked straight into his gorgeous blue eyes but it seemed as though it wasn’t my first time. It was like I had seen him before somewhere. He looked straight at me with his short, messy, brown hair and rosy cheeks. Deirdre snapped her fingers in front of my face and I snapped out of my haze. I started walking across the street with her and turned around to catch another glimpse of the boy, but he was gone. I looked in every direction for the mystery boy’s face, but it was too crowded and everywhere I turned, there was a brown haired boy wearing a blue school uniform.

  We went to get a cup of coffee at Hayes Hotel and talked for an hour.

  “What in God’s name were you staring at out there in the middle of the street? He better have been worth it, cuz you almost got yourself killed,” Deirdre said.

  “He was gorgeous. It was strange. I felt like I had seen him somewhere before, sometime, but I can’t remember. I just can’t place him.” The four of them looked at me like I was a two-headed dog because it was impossible for me to have seen him before. I smiled at them because I knew exactly what they were thinking.

  “Ya right Sarah. Maybe in your dreams!” Kiara said laughing. At that moment my heart skipped a beat and I nearly fell of my chair.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning I had planned to meet the girls just outside the bank at the top of the square at eight thirty-five. Thankfully, I was on time. We arrived at the school around eight forty-five, and as soon as all of the girls were settled in their seats in the classroom, Miss Dwyer came in to speak with us. She explained that we would be studying a unit on Celtic Mythology and she would be coming in to teach us three days a week.

  “And, your first class will start right now,” Miss Dwyer said. “You don’t have to write anything down. You won’t be tested. Just listen and enjoy your break from your regular studies.”

  From that day on, every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I looked forward to one class in particular. At my other school we of course learned Math, English, Biology and so forth, but there was never anything like Celtic mythology. I was completely intrigued by the magic and mystery of the creatures and ideas from Ireland’s past.

  “For our first few lessons I will tell you all about the various fairies and creatures, and then I will go on to share stories and myths from the past of our country. Today I want to tell you about Leprechauns,” she began. “Now Sarah, I’m sure that many Americans stereotype the Irish and think that there are Leprechauns running around everywhere. However, they are in fact a myth.” I laughed because it was true. Many Americans, especially those who were my age, thought that Ireland was made up of drunks, leprechauns, and pots of gold.

  Halfway into Miss Dwyer’s explanation on the various mannerisms of Leprechauns, I noticed as I looked around the classroom that, with the exception of a few girls, everyone was either asleep on their desks or doing last nights homework. I was alert and eager to hear more. By the end of the two hours I had learned the real story of Leprechauns. That evening I went home and wrote Sophie a long e-mail.

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  To: Polarbear99@aol.com

  From: Sarbear15@hotmail.com

  Hey girl,

  Today was my second day of school. Our class is doing a unit on Celtic Mythology and I learned the truth about the myth of the Leprechaun today! Leprechauns are very old looking men who are often found drunk. However, they can handle their alcohol well so it won’t affect their work as shoemakers. They are also guardians of ancient treasures, which they bury in crocks or pots. If a human catches them burying a treasure the Leprechaun will promise them great wealth if he is allowed to go free. I hope I catch one some day! Then Miss Dwyer, the teacher, shared with us the rest of the story and of the idea of catching one of the little guys and becoming rich. It was just too good to be true. They carry two pouches. One contains a silver shilli
ng and a magical coin that always returns to the pouch when it is given out. The other one contains a gold coin, which the Leprechaun will use to bribe his way out of various difficult situations. Unfortunately the gold coin turns into leaves or ashes as soon as it is handed out. In addition to their fooling coins, Leprechauns can disappear in an instant if you divert your eyes for even a second. I’ve seen a couple short drunk men around since I’ve been here so I’ll make sure to keep my eyes on them!

  Love, your world-traveling friend, Sarah

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  After I sent the e-mail, I heard Jack yell that dinner was ready. Usually, in Ireland dinner is in the middle of the day around one o’clock and tea is in the evening around six o’clock, but since I’m in school during the day, I eat my dinner when I get home from school around three thirty. Jack had made pork chops, potatoes, and peas, and had already begun eating when I entered the kitchen. I joined him at the table and we ate in silence for about two minutes. I wondered about who Jack really was and questioned myself as to why I didn’t talk to him more. I mean, if I was going to live with him, I would want to know him. Right as I was opening my mouth to speak he beat me to it.

  “Are all the girls treating you all right down there at the school?” he asked.

  “Yes, they are all really nice,” I told him.

  “What about the teachers? Do you have Miss Calloway? She’s a right one, isn’t she?” he said laughing.

  “She’s a bit crazy all right. She’s my English teacher.”

  After dinner I helped Jack clean the dishes, then went upstairs to change out of my uniform. I put on a pair of jeans and a light blue hooded sweatshirt along with a pair of white and blue sneakers. I put my hair up into a ponytail, grabbed a bit of change from the nightstand next to my bed and went back downstairs. Jack had moved from the kitchen into a big stuffed chair in the sitting room. He was flicking through the television channels.