Not My Problem

by Ciara Smyth

  “Well, you must be super flexible at least.”

  “I can barely touch my toes,” she grumbled. “The instructor says I won’t be able to be ‘flexible in body until I am flexible in mind.’ I tried explaining that that is not how hamstrings work.”

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  “Since last year after the exams when all my eyelashes fell out.”

  “Huh . . . and you can’t touch your toes yet?”

  She demonstrated. She was almost there, but she did look exceptionally awkward.

  “Your instructor might have a point, don’t you think?”

  “Mum won’t let me quit yoga,” Meabh said, and pursed her lips.

  If my daughter’s eyelashes had fallen out because of an exam I’d probably be crushing blues into her cereal every morning, but my family did tend to take the chemical route to our destination whenever possible.

  “What’s this?” Everything was acronyms and initials.

  “The gym.”

  “You already go to yoga!” I protested.

  “The gym is for working on strength and speed. For camogie.”

  I rolled my eyes. At least now it was obvious why Meabh was continually beating Holly for captain.

  “That’s Polish reading,” Meabh continued, pointing to the schedule. “That’s current affairs. What? I have to read about what’s going on if I’m going to be in politics. That’s showering.”

  “Your showers are scheduled?”

  She shrugged. “I’m busy. That’s kind of the problem.”

  “I know, but it’s transition year. It’s meant to be a doss.”

  Transition year is the best thing about our whole education system. You do three years of studying to do your Junior Cert exams; then you get transition year, which is meant to be for “personal development,” before you do two years of study for the Leaving Cert exams. When adults remember their Leaving Cert year, they get this haunted look in their eyes, like they’ve been through shit you can’t imagine, so the least they can do is give us a year of farting around.

  “Transition year is an excellent opportunity to round out my skill set and get a head start on the senior curriculum.”

  Her lip wobbled and then tears filled her eyes. She pressed her fists into her eye sockets and pushed hard.

  “All right, all right, that’s probably how you lost your eyelashes,” I said, pulling her fists away from her eyes by grabbing her wrists.

  Meabh had always been a hectic mess, but I guess I’d assumed that was her personality and that she liked being like that. Now I was a bit worried about her. At the same time I was also mentally trying to tot up how much all these lessons and instructors cost. Did principals make that much money? Or was Meabh’s mam the one raking it in? I had no idea what a cello instructor charged or how much yoga class was. I knew for a fact there was free yoga on YouTube though.

  “There are two options.” I stroked my chin. “We can break your wrist or your ankle.”

  I waited for her to laugh. She didn’t so I continued. “If you ask me, your wrist will free up way more time. No more cello, homework, or yoga!”

  She stopped crying and sniffed up an escaping trail of snot. “You’re right.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Upset Meabh was gross. “Huh?”

  “I mean, not about the wrist thing, that’s ridiculous. I can’t break my wrist.”

  “Oh good. I was really worried you’d completely lost it there for a sec—”

  “But my ankle definitely. I’d be able to stop taking PE, that’s two doubles a week, and all my yoga classes and gym sessions . . .” She wasn’t really talking to me anymore. She was daydreaming about the free time she could fill with more work.

  “Eh . . . I was joking, you know?” I said quickly. I could see she was deadly serious and I was a little alarmed. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was concerned for her or because I didn’t want to end up in trouble and having to explain how yes, it was all my idea but I didn’t mean it.

  She rounded on me. “No, you’re brilliant. It’s the only solution.”

  “You could talk to your parents,” I said half-heartedly. I wouldn’t talk to my parents either if it were me, and I was stupidly flattered by being called brilliant. Had anyone ever called me brilliant before? I felt like I would remember it if they had.

  She laughed out loud for the first time. Maybe in her whole life. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her laugh before.

  “How though?” she mumbled. “That’s the question.”

  She began pacing the room and then walked out the door into the main hall. I followed her.

  “We could get a hammer from the woodwork room.” I shut my mouth. She’d probably do it. “I mean, no. Meabh. Seriously.”

  She looked around, ignoring me. Then she ran up the stairs and stood at the top. I stayed at the bottom.

  “One, two, three . . . seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.”

  “Meabh, no.”

  “That’s going to really bother me,” she said. “Nineteen. Why nineteen? What kind of self-respecting architect puts an odd number of steps in a staircase?”

  “Meabh, you can’t jump down the stairs.”

  She clasped her hands together like she was going to dive into a pool, then took a few steps back and did a sort of mock run toward the stairs. She even turned around with her back to me and teetered precariously on the top step.

  “Meabh, you’ll crack your head open like that. You cannot do this.”

  “I can’t do this,” she agreed. “My brain is rejecting it. You know how you can’t drown yourself either? Your body’s instincts won’t let you deliberately inhale water or stay submerged once the hypercapnia becomes overwhelming.”

  “How do you know that?” I was amazed that even as she contemplated injuring herself, she still found time to show off.

  “I know everything,” she said absently.

  “Come downstairs and we’ll think of something else.”

  “You come upstairs.”

  “You come downstairs.”

  “You come upstairs.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are so bossy,” I said, giving up. It didn’t seem wise to bicker with someone who was literally on the edge.

  “So I’m thinking you could ask your dad if you could swap out doing cello for this term with doing your election stuff. The green whatsit and the application thingy.”

  “Oh no. That won’t work. He can’t know I’m struggling. No one can know. No. I’m going to need you to push me.” She said it casually, as though it was the obvious solution. I guessed I counted as “no one.”

  She wriggled in front of me and braced herself as though she thought I was really going to just shove her down the stairs. Briefly I considered that we really needed Holly for this. Meabh annoyed me, sure, but I didn’t have the edge it would take to maim her. Although Holly wouldn’t push her archnemesis down a flight of stairs if she had any inkling that it would benefit Meabh.

  “I am not going to do this. Get out of my way.”

  “Nope.” She blocked the stairwell with both arms.

  “This isn’t going to work. I’ll just go watch TV on my phone,” I said, gesturing to the benches that lined the balcony. “You can’t stay there forever. And Ms. Devlin is going to come looking for you any minute now.”

  For a second it seemed as though she was going to fight back. And then her whole body just collapsed. Her shoulders drooped, her head flopped forward, and her knees buckled. Silent tears sprang out of her eyes. How could one person cry so much?

  “Please,” she said. She grabbed the front of my jumper and pulled me so close I could smell her breath. It was still pepperminty from brushing her teeth that morning. No pre-class coffee for Meabh. She probably thought coffee was a gateway drug to cocaine.

  “I know you think I’m losing my mind, but this is the only way I can get what I need. I’ll owe you one. Anything you want. I will tu
tor you for the rest of the year!”

  I frowned. That didn’t sound like a reward.

  This wasn’t normal-person behavior. Her parents were obviously way too hard on her. If I inspected her timetable closer I’d probably find three minutes for peeing twice a day. Meabh irritated the life out of everyone, but the girl had once rubbed all her own eyelashes out, for Christ’s sake. If I didn’t do this, she would keep trying to do everything on that timetable and the election on top of that. Then she really would lose it and I would know there was something I could have done.

  Something absolutely bizarre and possibly illegal? Were you allowed to injure someone if they asked you to?

  “Fine.”

  Her whole body perked up.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said, not quite believing I was saying it. “I guess I can push you down the stairs. But don’t hold it against me if I enjoy it. Or if you injure something you don’t want to injure. I cannot be held responsible if your brains leak out your head or something.”

  We both heard the bang of a door and exchanged a look. Meabh quickly ran downstairs and when she reappeared she shook her head. “No one there.”

  She returned to her position standing on the edge of the steps, elbows bent so her forearms protected her face but her hands would be spared from the impact. I stood behind her, raised my hands to around shoulder-blade level, and took a deep breath. I was a lot of things but I was not naturally a violent person. I closed my eyes. They stayed closed for a long time and I didn’t move.

  “JUST PUSH ME,” she shouted finally.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “Aggggghhhhh!”

  I pushed.

  There was a clatter and a thump and a thwack thwack thwack and a screech of pain. When my eyes sprang open, I saw Meabh in a ball at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Are you okay?” I called.

  “No! I definitely did something to my ankle,” she groaned, but she sounded pleased. “Help me up.”

  Nothing like a please or thank you, eh? Wonder how much it costs for manners instructors.

  I ran down the stairs but before I could reach her, I heard something that made my blood chill.

  “Here, let me help.” Kavi Thakrar crouched down beside Meabh and in one move scooped her into his arms.

  4.

  For a moment none of us moved. I stalled on the bottom stair, Meabh was mute in Kavi’s arms with a stricken expression, and he had a cheerful smile that I didn’t quite get.

  Kavi was a boy in our year, but he wasn’t in our registration class. He was tall, with brown skin, curly black hair, and a sharp jawline. He seemed nice enough but I didn’t know him well enough to tell if I could trust him.

  “So,” I said cagily, “I don’t know what you think happened here—”

  “I heard Meabh scream at you to push her and then I saw her tumble down the stairs and land in a heap.” He grinned. “Which when you think about it is really weird, but you know, these things happen. When my brother was six he fell out of the tree house and didn’t even hurt himself, so we were convinced he had superpowers and we decided to test it by doing something amazing. Skateboard off the garage roof. Then my dad found us up there and freaked out and tried to convince us to get down but we thought it was fine because of the powers and Dad ended up having to catch him as he slid off the roof so like sometimes things that look weird on the surface make sense if you know the story.”

  “Right.” I didn’t know what to say to that.

  Meabh and I locked eyes. I willed her to come up with a reasonable explanation. She was the smart one. Surely she could come up with something.

  “Well, see, we were—”

  “Oh no, it’s okay. I heard your whole conversation before that, too,” Kavi said, trying to wave the hand he had hooked under Meabh’s legs.

  “Oh.” Meabh looked lost for words for the first time in her overly verbal life.

  I got the impression Kavi wanted something—he was standing smiling at me and making no attempt to leave or do anything—but I didn’t know what it was.

  “There’s nothing you can really do here,” I warned. “If you tell a teacher what happened, Meabh will deny it. It’s too stupid to be believable.”

  I wasn’t sure that was true. If someone had a nosy at Meabh’s schedule, they might think sabotaging herself for a break made a lot of sense.

  But Kavi responded with wide eyes, “You think I want to get you in trouble?”

  I exchanged another look with Meabh, who was squirming uncomfortably, like a kitten who didn’t want to be held. I thought she’d rather be set down and hobble along on her banjaxed leg.

  “Yeah? Why else are you being all I saw what you did.” I said the last part in my impression of a threatening scary-movie tone.

  “I did not say that,” he laughed, then he did a gruff impression of my threatening voice. “I saw what you did, grrrrrr.”

  “Why were you eavesdropping, then?”

  “Ms. Devlin told me to come find Meabh and then I heard you both talking and it sounded so interesting and then I realized there’s a conspiracy afoot and so I listened to more and it all got very exciting and I’m sorry Meabh that your parents are so mean and your life is all busy and horrible and then I thought maybe I could push you off the stairs but then Aideen did it before I could offer and then you fell down here and then I picked you up so I could take you to the nurse and then you two were like Kavi, why are you threatening us and then I explained how I wasn’t and then it’s now.”

  I blinked.

  “Well, let’s go, then!” I said uncertainly. I had a bad feeling about this but right now Meabh needed actual medical attention. I’d deal with Kavi later.

  Kavi jolted to attention and I followed him and Meabh out of the sports hall. We took the long way around the pitch. Ms. Devlin was too engrossed in a fight between two of the girls to notice.

  “THAT WAS AT LEAST SIX STEPS!” one was screaming at the other.

  “IT WAS LESS THAN FOUR, YOU WAGON.”

  “Should we tell Ms. Devlin about this?” Kavi bounced Meabh in his arms for emphasis. She looked deeply affronted.

  “I’m not a this,” she snapped.

  “No,” I said, “I think she needs to see someone right away.”

  The halls were empty and quiet but for the muffled sounds seeping from the classrooms. Kavi filled the silence with a cheerful monologue.

  “This is so exciting. Nothing ever happens in school, does it? I mean no offense Meabh because I know you had to be injured in order for us to have this adventure but also it was your own choice of course. Remember the day the dog got into the halls and he was running up and down and everyone started leaving class and trying to catch him but he thought it was a game and kept running away and getting really excited?”

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering how many words he could fit in between here and the nurse’s office.

  “This is a bit like that. Like I did not chase the dog that day but I wish I did because it’s nice to be involved, but now I’m involved, you know? I’m the guy who carried you to the sick bay. And then when you win the election you can remember that I was part of the whole conspiracy and we can have some kind of signal where when you say your speech you make an inside joke to me and Aideen about the injury and we’ll know what you mean but no one else will know what you mean, know what I mean?”

  “Uh . . .” Meabh struggled to find the words. She didn’t have to though.

  “And I think it’s really great what you’ve done, Aideen. You know, you really helped out Meabh here. Everyone needs help sometimes and sure, you don’t think help is going to look like pushing someone down the stairs and intentionally injuring them, but you just never know. It’s actually really selfless of you because it must be hard to push someone down the stairs and not know if you’re going to permanently disfigure them or somethin
g.”

  “Yes, I’m a regular teenage troubleshooter. Come to me with your stupid problem and I’ll fix it; it’ll only cost you a limb,” I joked, relieved that Kavi didn’t want to turn us in. If being part of a story was what was important to him, then that was fine. “Besides, it wasn’t that hard. Are you saying you’ve never thought about pushing her down the stairs?”

  I smiled serenely at Meabh. She narrowed her eyes.

  “Oh my God, no. I have never thought of that.” He looked down into her face. “I promise. I have never wanted to injure you.”

  Before Meabh could tell him she believed him, we were at the door to the sick bay.

  “Whisht now,” I said. “If the nurse hears one word about this, I swear I’ll kill you.” I suddenly realized that being part of a story was only useful if you got to tell the story. “No one hears anything about this, okay?”

  I began to feel a little uneasy. The thought that I had literally pushed a girl down the stairs and seriously injured her was suddenly very real. The only thing standing between me and deep shit was one person with a bad case of verbal diarrhea and another who could turn on me at any point. We hadn’t exactly been best friends before now, after all.

  “I promise! No one will know,” Kavi said earnestly.

  Weirdly, I believed him.

  And Meabh had no reason to double-cross me. Right?

  “You can put her down and go,” I said to Kavi. “She can make it in the door herself.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure I can.” Meabh winced and pointed at her ankle.

  I flinched. It had blown up and was turning purple and gross. It looked like a bloated corpse foot.

  “Maybe we need to take your shoe off,” I said, feeling queasy.

  “Okay, I’ll hold her and you—”

  “Oh my God, you two, we’re literally at the office door, just bloody take me inside already.”

  I gave the door a rap. It’s never open because they’re afraid someone will break in while the old nun who acts as a “nurse” is having a nap and steal all the ibuprofen to sell on the streets.

  The little nun unlocked the door and peered out suspiciously. She was at least a hundred and fourteen. It was pretty obvious why we were there, but when we didn’t offer any explanation, she asked.