Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin
Page 8
We curled our pinkies around each other’s. She kissed me and turned off the light.
But I didn’t empathize. I didn’t understand at all. I guess this might be why I didn’t keep my pinky promise, why I told my father, why we ended up on the island waiting to be saved— miserable, regretful, sad.
• • •
Looking at the sleeping child, I vowed I would not make the same mistake I made when I was nine. I would keep this secret. I would help the poor girl who had hidden her pregnancy and her labor.
I gathered my thoughts. What were the facts?
Obviously, the mother did not want anyone to know about this.
She would be terrified of getting into the most massive trouble imaginable.
She’d be in pain.
She’d need help.
I wrapped the sleeping baby in a towel and carried it to my cubicle. First things first. I had to make sure it was okay and find a safe place to hide it.
The bell rang. I watched as the dining hall emptied and girls exited for their afternoon classes. I could see Amelia O’Donohue walking towards the school building. I could see the girl with the ponytail who’d kissed the gym teacher and my ex-best friends Mandy Grogan and Louisa MacDonald. I could see Miss Rose chatting with the chef.
It was still asleep on my bed. From my biology studies, I knew enough to understand that the mother had obviously taken care of the placenta and umbilical cord. I checked the baby’s pulse, which seemed normal. The baby was a healthy color. Hence, there seemed to be no immediate health issues to deal with. But it would need milk soon and, most worryingly, it would eventually wake up and cry. Which meant I had to find a safe place to hide it quick.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
I remembered the darkroom on the second floor (Right). In the months since I’d arrived, increasingly bizarre suggestions for its use had been listed on the sheet on the door (smoking room/backstabbing room/hopping room), but nothing had been decided. It hadn’t been decorated or changed in any way.
I put the swaddled baby on some towels in my plastic laundry basket and carried it downstairs, praying that no one would see me en route.
“How you feeling?” Nurse Craig made me jump. She was looking up from the first floor landing. What was she doing there?
“A bit better,” I said, terrified that my washing would wake up and howl. “I thought you were only here mornings and afternoons.”
“I’m doing some research work on the side. My husband’s not working at the moment so it’s much quieter here. You don’t look well at all. Come at five to four, beat the others.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“And get back to bed.”
“Okay,” I said, not getting back to bed, but walking with my hamper onto the second floor.
Someone else must have been off sick on the second floor. The television was on. I tiptoed to the old darkroom. It was the same size as my cubicle, but with sturdy, reasonably sound-proof, full-height walls. Thankfully, the key was still in the door. I unlocked the door, relieved to find it as abandoned as it had been at the beginning of the school year. Inside was a trestle table with photographic paper, trays, chemicals, staplers, and other stationery. At the other end of the room, was a hefty built-in cupboard. Locking the door behind me, I placed the hamper on the floor, looked inside to check that the baby was still sleeping and thought for a moment.
I opened the built-in cupboard at the end of the room. Taking several towels from the hamper, I made a soft bed, placed the wrapped baby on top, and closed the cupboard door, careful to leave a crack for air. I then stepped outside the darkroom, locked the door, and hid the key in my dressing gown pocket.
• • •
I’m clever. I have to admit.
Nurse Craig answered the door as soon as I knocked.
“I know I’m early. But I’m out of ventolin,” I said. “Please can I go to the chemist before the crowds descend?”
“Are you sure you’re well enough to walk?”
“I am. The fresh air might do me good.”
I changed into my tracksuit then wrote on a large piece of paper: newsflash: If I Tell Clinic Now Open. tonight, alo. Rachel Ross’s cubicle, Third Floor (Right).
It was worth a try, I thought, as I walked down to the ground floor and pinned the notice on the board.
The chemist was next to the curry shop. I was wheezing like mad by the time I made it there. I had terrible trouble walking, but eventually I found myself inside the bright, crammed store.
“Hi,” I said, placing nappies, wipes, a baby monitor, long-life ready-mixed formula milk, and a bottle on the counter. Before the fifty-something assistant could look at me strangely, I added. “My aunty had a boy! She’s bringing him to show me after school.”
She was like, “Ah, what’s his name?”
“Sorry?”
“The baby. He does have a name…”
I went blank. I couldn’t think of a single name. Not one. After a while, the word Rachel went through my head, but that was my name.
“Are you all right?” The woman asked.
“Asthma. Sorry,” I said. “Can I get a ventolin? Nurse Craig said she’d ring ahead.”
“Ah yes, she did. Just a moment.”
By the time the bagged ventolin made its way to the counter, I’d thought of a name.
“It’s Sam,” I said.
“Oh, that’s lovely. Sam boy or Sam girl?”
“Sam boy.”
“That’s £34.56,” she said, putting the baby stuff in the bag.
I handed her the £50 my parents had given me for treats etc., asked for a second bag so no one could see what was inside, tied it securely, and left as fast as I could.
“Oy!” someone yelled.
Bugger, it was Sammy.
“Are you okay? Why are you off school?”
“I’m fine. I can’t talk now,” I said.
But he was like, “You’re sick! Can I help you?”
“I’m fine!” I snapped, not looking back.
I am clever, I thought, as I headed back to school with the strangest bag of shopping ever. If I hadn’t fainted before I made it to the dorms, I’d have continued to think I was the cleverest person in the entire universe.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
When I woke up I was in the sick room.
“Rachel! Rachel!” Miss Rose’s face was an inch from my nebulizer. I shrieked when I saw her, took the mask off, sat bolt upright and nearly head-butted her.
“Where’s my shopping?”
“I put it in your room,” Miss Craig said. “We’re going to take you to the hospital, Rachel.”
“No, no, no!” I said, probably too insistent, looking back. “I’m fine. I really feel fine. I just shouldn’t have walked to the shop.”
What if they took me to hospital? What would I do then? What would happen to the baby? Its mother?
“Honestly,” I said, putting on a calm, I-can-breathe, voice. “I think I just need some sleep.”
They looked at me for a few moments as I tried hard to make my breathing sound normal. With each tiny gulp of air, I sensed the baby. It wasn’t that I saw it in my mind, or that I smelled or felt or heard it. It was all my senses prickling together, asking: Is it all right? Am I mad keeping this a secret? Am I doing the right thing? Please let it be safe.
Miss Rose’s voice whooshed me back into the real, non-baby world, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Absolutely. I’m going to be fine by morning. I’m going to do the speech and my English exam.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“I’m not. I’m not. But I will.”
“If you’re well enough.”
“I will be well enough.”
“All right then. But I want to ring your mother, just to let her know. She’s been leaving messages for you, Rachel. You should call her back.”
My mother and my father were the last people I wanted to talk
to. Hadn’t they gotten the hint? I just couldn’t let them distract me, judge me, or get me down. Too much was at stake.
“Nurse, you take Rachel to her cubicle,” Miss Rose said.
I started to feel angry after Nurse Craig finally left my cubicle. The last thing I needed was pressure from my parents, as well as someone else’s (massive) (incredible) (baby-shaped) problem. I looked at the speech I’d written for the pre-exam assembly. I was pleased with it. It went like this:
Girls of Aberfeldy Halls, it is my privilege to stand among you on the eve of our adult lives. The following weeks will determine our success and our happiness. And we should ask ourselves: Are we proud? Have we done everything we can to achieve our goals?
It’s because of this fine school that I’m sure each one of us can answer:
Yes, I am.
And: Yes, I have.
Good luck, girls.
I put the speech down, glanced at my English notes, and smashed my fist on my desk in rage. How was I ever going to make the speech and excel in my higher exams? This could ruin everything. My chances of getting into uni. My chances of leaving the island that had straight-jacketed my life-so-far.
I waited about half an hour and then warmed a bottle of milk using a saucepan of hot water from the communal kitchen. The dorms were still eerily empty and quiet. The television had been switched off. As I approached the darkroom, I could hear it. A faint cat noise, like the one I’d first heard.
It was awake.
I locked the door from the inside and picked the baby up, holding it in my arms as it guzzled three quarters of the bottle. I put a nappy on it, wrapped it in a sheet, and plugged in the baby monitor. Once it was settled, I went back to my cubicle, turned on the receiving end of the baby monitor so that a light came on if it made a noise, and began my investigations.
My very own Who-Had-It.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Amelia O’Donohue is so not a virgin.
It could be her, I thought as I sat at my desk making notes. I’d been on watch for her secret rendezvous at least twice a week during the first few months at Aberfeldy Halls.
Her boyfriend, whose name turned out to be Piers—a suitably posh name for a posh chinless dick—would arrive ALO and text her (illegal) mobile to indicate that he was on the fire escape. A few seconds later, she’d pop her head over the top of the cubicle wall and look down at me while I said the words: If I tell, I’ll go to hell.
She couldn’t even be bothered coming into my cubicle after the first couple of times, so I’d have to stand on my bed for the cheek-slap and nose-pull.
I’d listen as she sprayed perfume, changed clothes, and then I’d do everything in my power to stop people from going out on the fire escape or entering her room.
After a while, she stopped asking me to guard her room. She felt confident, I suppose, as no one had tried to find her after the first few times I stopped them.
I’d snuck peeks several times and knew they’d been going all the way for some time now.
And she’d put on weight. “It’s the stodge they feed us,” she’d say. “I’m on a carrot diet! Anyways, shut up, like, who are you to talk? You’re hardly catwalk material yourself.”
Come to think of it, I’d heard her vomit in the loos a while back. When I asked her later if she was feeling all right, she was like, “None of your business, stalker!”
Oh, and I’d heard her crying last Sunday. When I asked her what was wrong, she was like, “Piss off!”
Could be her.
Probably was her.
The bell rang. I watched the girls head back into the dorm building, taking note of anything unusual. There were pale girls, tired-looking girls, worried-looking girls. There was Amelia O’Donohue. I listened as she came into her room, turned her music on, and changed out of her uniform. I heard Taahnya knock, come in, and whisper something. Eventually, they both left. I stood on my bed to look into her room. Her bed was unmade. Her desk was a mess. Her clothes were strewn all over the floor. Unable to see any incriminating evidence, I climbed over the wall, landing on her bed harder than I’d anticipated.
In her cupboards were clothes and more clothes.
In her drawers were bags and bags of chocolate Flakes and licorice all sorts and five large bars of Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate and peanut butter and actual butter and four loaves of crusty bread, one of which had been disemboweled so it was only a crust now. There were underpants (lacy, frilly, see-through…) and a stethoscope!
In her toilet bag was an unopened, untouched, packet of tampons.
In her handbag were lipsticks and eyeliners.
On her desk was a diary…
Footsteps. I jumped back over the wall so fast I surprised myself, and huddled in bed, frightened…
…with Amelia O’Donohue’s secret diary in my hot little hands.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Dear diary,
Friends:
Rachel Ross (though I wouldn’t admit this to anyone but you, diary. She’s a bit of a Keener, but the only trustworthy person in the whole entire school)
Mandy Grogan (dumb, but fun)
Louisa MacDonald (Brain, but funny)
Enemies:
Tanya Nairn (keep ’em close)
Sluts:
Tanya Nairn (She denies it, but I know for a fact she had an abortion last year)
Boyfriends:
Piers Watson-McInerney
Secrets:
See above re Tanya Nairn—Whose was it: John McDonald or William Collier?
2. I am in love with Piers Watson-McInerney.
I’m going to move in with him in three months time!
I can’t write this last secret down. I haven’t even told Rachel.
Amelia was calling to me. I slammed her diary shut, pulled my head out from under the duvet, and said “Yeah?”
“Tonight at 10:00?”
She hadn’t asked me to watch out for ages. “Why?” I asked.
She opened my door. I hid her diary under the sheets just in time.
“God, you look bloody awful,” she said.
“You’re always really mean, Amelia. Why should I?” I wouldn’t usually question her like this. But in her diary she said I was her friend. If so, why did she treat me like dog crap?
“Rachel…Rachel…You know why. Because if you don’t I’ll make your life hell.”
“I don’t care if you make my life hell. I really don’t care.”
“Oh, please, Rachel. The matrons are onto the smoking. They’re checking the fire escapes each night. I’m sorry I’ve been nasty. I really am. Mum says it’s my default position. It’s just what I do. Plus that Mandy Grogan gets me going. She’s got it in for you. It’s hard not to get involved, you know. I’m weak. I’m sorry. Please…”
“Ten it is,” I said. She gave a pleading smile, said thanks (I hadn’t seen this smile before…so unlike her…she was acting very oddly indeed), and shut my door gently.
Thank god she hadn’t noticed her diary was missing. I went under the covers again and looked at the page I’d read. There were so many things about it that startled me. I was her friend! Taahnya was her enemy! She was moving in with Piers after school finished! She had a secret too big to write down! Add this to the stethoscope in her room (maybe she’d used this to check the baby was okay?) and I had suspect Number One.
I was absolutely sure it was her.
I didn’t go to dinner. I put Amelia’s diary back where I found it and thought hard about how to confront her. I waited till everyone got back, waited as everyone studied and showered and got ready for bed, took a puff of my ventolin and another two painkillers, and knocked on her door.
When she opened it, she had a green silk dressing gown on. Underneath I could see the frilly underwear set I’d found in her cupboard. It was red and lacy. “Can I talk to you, Amelia?”
She screwed up her face. The old horrible Amelia had returned already.
She was like, “What’s wrong with you? You’re white as a ghost.”
“I have asthma, but that’s not what I want to talk about.”
“Whatever,” she said, returning to the mirror to retouch her lips.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Have you got anything you want to tell me?”
She didn’t turn around.
“Amelia…I know.”
“What?” she said, turning to face me, her expression shocked, scared.
“I know what’s happening and I want to help you.”
She sat down on the bed beside me, floppy and weak, the silk of her dressing gown and the frills of her lingerie suddenly flat and formless.
“How’d you find out?”
“No one knows,” I said. “I’ve taken care of things. But you need to decide what you’re going to do now.”
“I know. I know I do.”
She started to cry. I found my arms lifting and hauling her in. I found myself holding the popular Amelia O’Donohue as she sobbed and sobbed in my arms.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, not wanting to push her, not wanting to make her feel even worse.
“I do. I do, Rachel. I really do.”
“Tell me.”
“It started to get bad about six months ago. I found myself eating a lot more than before, feeling down…puking.”
“It’s okay,” I said, as her tears fell on my shoulders.
“I prayed it’d go away. I prayed it’d just disappear, like, but it didn’t. It got worse and worse. What’ll happen if everyone finds out? What’ll happen to me?”
“You have to go to the hospital.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want everyone to know.”
“There’s no way around it. You could be in danger. You must be hurting like mad.”
“Not really…”