Not My Problem

by Ciara Smyth

  Dedication

  To Darren, for everything. Maybe you’ll read this one.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Ciara Smyth

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1.

  It started with Meabh Kowalska having a temper tantrum in the girls’ changing room. You know a Meabh Kowalska. Trust me. The intense overachiever type, with no hobbies other than winning. The girl who will either run the world or become a supervillain dedicated to destroying it.

  Or maybe they’re the same thing.

  She was weeping. No. Not weeping. She was wailing and writhing on the floor. Her pale skin had turned blotchy, and she was banging her fists. It was a full-on tantrum. She clearly thought she was alone.

  No, I’m getting ahead of myself. It started in the PE hall about an hour earlier. Our form tutor, also our English teacher and the head of PE (that was her true love, much more than Emily Dickinson and Shakespeare), always took morning registration in the gym instead of a classroom, and we had to balance on those huge inflatable balls instead of chairs. I can’t imagine what they’re actually supposed to be for. Giant dodgeball?

  “—so Mrs. McKeever’s class will be in room 103 instead of 207. If you want to audition for next term’s musical, there’s a sign-up sheet. It’s somewhere. You know what, just ask Mr. Smith, he’s usually involved with that—”

  I rolled the ball under my butt from side to side, bumping into Holly each time I leaned left. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about how Mam seemed off this morning and whether I should text her and make sure everything was okay.

  “I’m going to ask Jill to read my article and give me notes,” Holly said. “If she can tear herself away from that slimy knuckle dragger she calls a boyfriend.”

  We both glanced over at Jill and Ronan, who was about two seconds away from sticking his tongue in her ear. They’d been going out three weeks and I had no idea what she saw in him. Neither did Holly, though I didn’t mind that Jill had less time to spend with the only person who actively liked me. Jill could hang out with anyone. I only had Holly.

  I bounced up and down on my ball until Ms. Devlin gave me one of her fed-up-with-your-antics glares and I stopped and pressed really hard into the rubber instead, watching the tips of my fingers turn white.

  I wondered if I could text inside my bag. I slipped my hand in through the open zip and rummaged around.

  “Finally, as you all know— Aideen? Do you need something in your bag that you cannot find?”

  Ms. Devlin was a sarky bastard.

  “I was looking for my phone, but I think it’d be inappropriate to take it out now.”

  I heard Holly snort beside me.

  “It would, Aideen. I think it can wait another minute. As can foreplay, Ronan.” She shook her head, disgusted, and he rolled a few inches from Jill and shoved his hands into his pockets with a huff. “As I was saying, the student council elections will be held in three weeks, which is an opportunity for you all to exercise your democratic responsibility. Women died for your right to vote, girls; the least you can do is use it. Boys, you’ve had a head start—if you want to sit this one out, be my guest.”

  A few of the boys exchanged miffed expressions.

  “Miss! You can’t say stuff like that!” Ronan said.

  Ms. Devlin looked at him, waiting for him to explain why she couldn’t say stuff like that.

  “It’s . . . it’s not fair.”

  Ms. Devlin looked extremely unmoved by his reasoning.

  “I hope that any applicants to the student council will have more impressive debate skills. Just a thought.”

  I watched Ronan choke back a retort, his face contorting in frustration. It was like he’d never met Ms. Devlin before.

  “Anyway, as I was saying. The elections will be held at the end of the month and the president chosen this year will be your class president for the remainder of your senior cycle, so choose wisely, for God’s sake. I don’t want to be sitting in a consultation meeting with some eejit demanding no school on Fridays, all right? Just because someone tells you they can do something you like the sound of doesn’t mean it’s remotely possible, and if they can’t actually achieve it, then they’re worse than useless to you.”

  Meabh Kowalska’s hand shot up into the air.

  Holly leaned over and whispered to me, “You know, I really don’t think anyone died so the students at St. Louise’s could vote for Meabh Kowalska to kiss teachers’ arses for two years.”

  I snickered. She had a point. The whole election was a formality anyway. For one thing, she was the principal’s daughter, and for another, I couldn’t tell you the name of anyone who’d been council president since I’d started at this school. No one cared. Usually only one person volunteered for it. It was extra work with no reward except maybe missing a few classes—and there was no point in that if you were missing them so you could sit and talk to teachers anyway.

  “Yes, Meabh?” Ms. Devlin pointed at her. She didn’t have the weary expression many of the teachers had when they called on her.

  Meabh stood up.

  “She’s going to make a speech,” Holly said. I could hear the eye roll without having to see it.

  “I’d just like to say a few words.”

  Groans.

  “Shut your mouths, every last one of you,” Ms. Devlin barked. “Or you’re doing ladder runs before your first class. That’s right, you can sit next to your adorable crush smelling like unwashed armpits.”

  The class collectively remembered we were terrified of Ms. Devlin’s wrath and we fell silent like she’d pressed the mute button on us. She was one of those teachers where you could have the craic with her, but when she reached her limit . . . well, no one tested what happened when she reached her limit, but the threats often involved an inhumane amount of exercise.

  Meabh faltered slightly but drew herself up.

  “I will be running for class president this year and I would like to ask for your support and give you some information about the initiatives I will be hoping to implement. Firstly, I have a green initiative, which includes reducing the shocking amount of unnecessary waste produced by this school. I will also be campaigning to have a Polish language class for the Leaving Cert—as you all know, my family is Polish-Irish and there is a significant Polish community in this town as well as making up 2.7 percent of the national population. Thirdly, I will be seeking to address the issues in the school’s application procedures that have created a worryingly homogenous student body. I hope that you will consider voting for me. I want to address the problems in this school that students really care about and my door is always open. I will take any questions you may have now.”

  She looked around the room expectantly, w
ith the impatient air of a mother waiting for a toddler to tie their own shoes. Ms. Devlin had commanded silence, but she couldn’t make people listen. I followed Meabh’s gaze as she took in people biting their nails and playing with their hair. Her brow furrowed. She had tried very hard to sound calm and collected. It was almost impressive, when I knew for a fact that she would rather beat us all into submission if that had only been an option.

  “Very admirable and ambitious but not fucking absurd ideas, Meabh. Thank you.” Ms. Devlin’s swearing brought the class back to attention with a few giggles. Meabh plopped back on her ball chair, her jaw visibly grinding. She took out a notebook and began scribbling furiously as Ms. Devlin dismissed us.

  “See you all second period. Helmets and shin guards. No excuses.”

  She looked at me when she said the last bit, and I pointed to myself and looked around, pretending there could be anyone else that she meant. Ms. Devlin rolled her eyes.

  I grabbed Holly by the elbow and guided her out the door into the cold.

  “Did you hear Queen Meabh?” she said as we crossed over the pitch to get to the main building. Then she mimicked her in a high-pitched voice: “I’m going to address the problems the students really care about. I mean, if she wanted to address the problems students really have, she’d be printing fake IDs or getting us all tickets for Electric Picnic.”

  “There’s an idea,” I agreed. “Instead of flyers and badges, she could hand out test paper answers and bags of weed.”

  I checked my phone to see if Mam had texted. She hadn’t. I pressed my fingertips into the sides of my jaw, where all the tension was, and found a painful knot. Who even knew you could get face knots?

  Holly took my hand and squeezed. She looked down at me with her big blue eyes sparkling.

  “Save me a seat for geography?” she said. “I see Jill’s escaped Ronan’s clutches.”

  “Last time I saved you a seat, you ended up sitting with Jennifer Murphy and I was on my own.”

  We were in a lot more classes together this year because we weren’t streamed by ability for transition year, but so far we hadn’t spent much more time together than when we were separated for nearly everything.

  “She’s not in our geography class,” she pouted.

  That was not the point. But it didn’t matter either way. I didn’t have to save her a seat next to me. No one would take it anyway.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, kissing my hands. I felt a flutter for a second and then a dull, familiar drop as I watched her run off, with her perfect wavy red hair bouncing in its ponytail.

  I took out my phone and texted Mam.

  AIDEEN

  U ok?

  Of course Holly was only just in time for geography; she and Jill were still nattering about her article when they walked in and took two seats at the front. She texted me under her desk that she hadn’t wanted to make a fuss and it would have been rude to abandon Jill. That was understandable.

  I didn’t get any response from Mam.

  We were supposed to read a passage about plate tectonics and answer questions. It made my head swim. I tried to think about all the things Mam could be doing, and how that list was so much longer than the list of things I hoped she wasn’t doing. Which meant statistically it was more likely that she was doing one of the okay things. She’d message me back on her coffee break.

  Even with your limited knowledge of statistics, you know that’s not how it works.

  I ignored that voice. The mean one. I kept my phone tucked into the waist of my school skirt all through the class so I’d feel it vibrate when she replied.

  Mam didn’t reply.

  I got all the answers wrong.

  2.

  An hour later I was in front of Ms. Devlin again. This time I had a slip of paper and she had a huge wooden stick. Okay, the technical term was a camán and it was used to play camogie. For those of you who, like me, think all sports are just sticks and/or balls, this is another stick-and-ball game. For Ms. Devlin and the girls on her team, it was life and death.

  “I’m not reading that,” Ms. Devlin said. She was short, white, and sturdy, and she had a no-nonsense energy that I ignored.

  “Okay.” I shrugged and put the note in my pocket.

  “You’re playing today,” she said. Her voice had a very “this is an order, not a request” feel about it.

  “No, I have a note,” I said brightly, and produced the note again, smoothing it out.

  She closed her eyes and breathed really hard. With her free hand she snatched the note from me.

  “Please excuse Aideen Cleary from PE today. She has bubonic plague.”

  I coughed.

  “You do not have bubonic plague.”

  “I do though.”

  “I could phone your mother.”

  “You could.”

  She’d threatened this a dozen times since September. But she hadn’t done it yet. I had a suspicion my last form tutor had warned her there was no point, that my mam didn’t care. Mam would absolutely eat the face off me if she knew I was skipping PE, but I had long since solved that problem. Unfortunately, I had a bad feeling about Ms. Devlin. Like sooner or later she wouldn’t be able to help herself from getting involved.

  The rest of the class had changed into shorts and T-shirts and were messing around on the pitch even though it was the bloody dead of winter. I saw Holly stretching out of the corner of my eye, the hem of her jersey riding up and revealing a few inches of bare skin. Holly was one of those girls who took camogie very seriously.

  Ms. Devlin narrowed her eyes at me, then threw her hands up.

  “Whatever. Just do something productive. You haven’t done your last two English assignments and you have one due Friday. I told you next time it’s detention.”

  “Wow, gossiping about me with the English teacher. I would have thought you were above that kind of thing.”

  Ms. Devlin turned red, ready to explode. “I am your English teacher, you ninny.”

  “Oh right, I thought you looked familiar.”

  She sighed and rubbed her temples for a second.

  “Is everything okay at home, Aideen? Is there a reason your work isn’t being done?”

  A prickling sensation crept over my skin.

  “Everything is fine.”

  “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help unless you talk to me. I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I want to see you get stuck into something. Anything. So you have some support.”

  “You’re trying to make me play camogie to solve an imaginary problem. There’s nothing wrong. Except for my bubons.”

  “Your what?”

  “My bubons. I have bubonic plague. My body is covered in bubons. Under my clothes, though, obviously.”

  “You could at least read a bit more about these illnesses, you know, instead of simply choosing one off a list.”

  “Sounds like homework.”

  Ms. Devlin shook her head at my back as I escaped toward the sports hall. I couldn’t see it but I knew she was doing it. I could feel the head shake of resignation.

  I made a beeline for my usual spot. There was a sort of balcony that overlooked the main hall; it had great reception, and last year I managed to talk a substitute teacher into giving me her log-in details to the teachers’ Wi-Fi network when she couldn’t work out the system. During PE I liked to sit up in the balcony and get all Netflix and cozy.

  I tried ringing Mam before I settled in, but she didn’t answer. She was supposed to be at work. She worked in a hairdresser’s and they opened around ten. So it was fine. Her phone was on silent, that was all. Just as I found the show I wanted to watch I realized I needed to pee and sighed, thinking of how I had to walk all the way downstairs again. I left most of my stuff behind me because I didn’t have anything worth stealing, but I put my phone in my pocket. Not that it was worth stealing either, but I’d still be annoyed to lose it if some waste of space nabbed it.


  As I approached the locker room, where the bathrooms were, my ears picked up on some kind of unholy wailing. It echoed and bounced off the walls and the closer I got to the locker room, the louder it became. I blessed myself. This was it. There was some kind of ghost or demon in there. The school was an old convent and although the sports hall was a renovated building, it was definitely built on ancient ground. Although wasn’t all ground ancient technically? The most likely scenario here was the disturbed spirit of some girl who had died while undergoing an aggressive exorcism. Probably because she had unnatural feelings (a gay) or disturbing thoughts (an opinion) or had been possessed by Satan (was horny?).

  I was almost disappointed for a second that it turned out to be a regular, real-life teenage girl having a shit fit.

  Okay, that’s potentially misleading on account of how it’s a bathroom, but I mean like a tantrum. All the crying and wailing was less interesting before I realized who it was. Meabh Kowalska. I watched for a moment, curious like I was getting to see rare footage of a creature undisturbed in its natural habitat.

  Here we see the Perfectionist maximus engaged in the ritual dance of her species. See how she flails her limbs? Soon she will progress to pulling chunks of hair from the head.

  She must have noticed me mid-thrashing because she suddenly froze and then slowly turned her head and looked me dead in the eyes. Her blue eyes were red rimmed and puffy. I thought about how I must look to her now, in her moment of weakness, and I was very generous, picturing my out-of-control brown curls as lustrous waves and my blue eyes as sparkling and amused.

  She let out a strangled groan. “You.”

  “Yep.” I grinned broadly, and rocked back and forth on my heels. This was the best day of my life.

  I have these two daydreams. One is catching my enemies in a moment when I have the upper hand and they’re embarrassed and I get to act cool and aloof. The other is doing something amazing with my life and coming back to a school reunion and rubbing it in everyone’s faces. I’d invent an app that everyone uses and I’d rock up to the reunion and people would be using it and they’d be like, Oh, Aideen, nice to see you after ten years. Are you on Flubberygiblets? and I’d shrug like I didn’t even care. I invented Flubberygiblets, I’d say. Everyone would think I was class and then I’d be like, Have you met my wife, Kristen Stewart? We’re flying on a private jet to Maui tonight to have lots of sex and lip biting. Fuckity bye, assholes.