The Bad Karma Diaries

by Bridget Hourican

  I did not learn too much about seduction. I think seduction in New York High Schools is a lot different to seduction in Dublin secondary schools! Will text to ask Anna what she makes of the different seduction techniques.

  Oh…! That last sentence is extremely sad, I think. It is an Elegy to a Demised Friendship.

  MONDAY NOVEMBER 2ND

  School without Anna is an entirely different place. It is like going to the beach on a cold day. You have to get in the water because that’s why you’re there. You’re not there to sunbathe or relax because there’s no sun. You’re there to swim. So you get into your togs and shiver and grit your teeth and wade in. And you scream because it’s so cold, and you don’t stay in long, and then you run out and your teeth chatter for hours.

  But it is better to force yourself to speak to people just like it is better to force yourself into the sea. So I spoke to Heeun again. She smiled like she was my friend when I went up to her. She even made a good joke. But she is shy.

  Oh, and Declan came up to me. He is the only person who seems to notice that me and Anna are fighting.

  He said, ‘Where’s your other half?’

  I was a bit confused, then I got it, and I said, quite defensively, ‘She had to finish something …’ It is embarrassing to admit we’re fighting, I don’t know why.

  He said, ‘Oh, thought you’d had a fight. Not used to seeing one without the other.’

  I said, ‘Ha, Ha.’ There was a kind of an awkward silence.

  Then he said, ‘So I’m following your blog. Nefarious goings on in the lower school!’ I looked at him suspiciously. That sounded like something Renata would say. I mean what the hell is ‘nefarious’? I can’t believe that even Declan, who is a computer genius, is getting infected by the way Renata speaks!

  I don’t know what ‘nefarious’ means, but I knew what he was getting at. Obviously. He sounded a bit patronising though.

  But I was curious so I said, ‘Isn’t anybody talking about the racist stickers in your class?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Afraid it hasn’t penetrated.’

  This is basically a Good Thing. It’s definitely good that the whole school isn’t talking about who stickered Jayne. But it made me feel embarrassed about making such a deal of it on the blog.

  I just looked up ‘nefarious’ in the dictionary. It means ‘atrociously sinful or villainous’. That is a little more extreme than I thought! I thought it meant ‘dodgy’ or ‘unsettling’. I did not realise that me and Anna were atrociously sinful. It’s hardly surprising we’re not speaking.

  TUESDAY NOVEMBER 3RD

  Back friends with Anna!

  YES!

  Oh, and we might get expelled …

  What happened was after English (second class) as we were leaving O’Toole said, ‘You two, stay!’

  He was pointing at me so I stood still and looked around. The other person staying still was Anna! We half glanced at each other. When everyone else had filed out O’Toole closed the door, then he walked behind his desk and drummed his fingers on it, then he walked in front of his desk and leaned on it. He gazed out the window, then he looked at us and said, ‘Would you say the person who hid Pierce’s homework also stuck the stickers on Jayne O’Keeffe?’

  Silence! We gaped at him. This was not what I was expecting at all. Then we both spoke at the same time.

  Anna said, ‘Hid Pierce’s homework?’

  I said, ‘Don’t see the connection.’

  O’Toole raised his eyebrows at us and looked from one to the other. We’d said completely different things and Anna was implying she didn’t know anything about Pierce’s homework, while I was implying I did. It was impossible that one of us could know and not the other seeing as we discussed everything, and seeing as he knew we discussed everything. So he paused in a very deliberate way, and said to Anna, ‘Yes, somebody took Pierce’s homework to get him into trouble …’ Then (super ironically), ‘Denise will tell you about it.’ (We’ve been studying irony in class. It is quite a difficult concept and I can never remember the definition, but for sure I recognised it now: irony is when you let the other person know that you know they know what you’re getting at (whew!).)

  Then he said to me, ‘The connection is that whoever hid Pierce’s homework was trying to punish him for being a bully, and whoever stickered Jayne O’Keeffe was trying to punish her for being a racist. The connection is … street justice.’

  There was a silence. It was awful not knowing which way Anna was gonna play this. I couldn’t believe how dumb we were not to have prepared for getting questioned. Criminally dumb, Renata would say, meaning criminals are dumb otherwise they wouldn’t get caught and you wouldn’t be labelling them criminals.

  Anna said, ‘Yeah, I see the connection,’ in a very cheerful voice. She didn’t sound remotely guilty. I was impressed. She was smiling quite cheekily at O’Toole so I copied her smile, and somehow I understood as if by telepathy from her to me that I shouldn’t say anything. Let O’Toole do the talking.

  He said, ‘Good! So, you’d agree probably the same … people did both.’ He emphasised people.

  I said, ‘Yeah, I guess, it could have been the same person.’ I turned full to Anna and looked at her questioningly. She nodded happily at me. We looked back at him.

  Then Anna said, ‘Though, not necessarily… I mean they’re in different years, Pierce and Jayne. It’s unlikely someone would have a vendetta against someone in a different year.’ She sounded like she was turning this over in a detached way, like it was a subject for debate.

  O’Toole said, ‘Yes, that’s occurred to me. But still, the similarity is striking… If it were someone with … an over-pronounced sense of justice, they might transcend year groups, wouldn’t you say?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ (My shrug was magnificent!)

  ‘Right. So … if I had to pick who did it, I’d say you two.’

  Anna said, ‘Us?’

  I said, ‘Us?’

  He said, ‘Acting from good intentions, but not thinking it through. Yes, that would be you two.’ (Also in a detached voice, like he was summarising us for a report). He was looking hard at us.

  Anna said, ‘We’re not that dumb.’ She sounded thoroughly disgusted, like she couldn’t believe how dumb the sticker person was.

  I said, ‘Yeah, and we’re not that good either.’ I giggled and Anna giggled too! We were back on the same wavelength! A feeling warm as toast came over me, even in the middle of my cold worry about being found out.

  O’Toole went on, ‘And when I see you’re not sitting next to each other in class … Such an abrupt change of behaviour … Guilt causes fights, doesn’t it?’

  We said nothing. I was pretty impressed he’d noticed!

  He walked back behind his desk and picked up some papers, ‘You’d better get on to your next class,’ he said dismissively.

  We turned to go. He said, from behind us, ‘When something goes wrong, but when you meant well, it’s better just to admit it. You’ll find people take into account your intentions … And pleading guilty always gets you a lighter sentence.’

  We paused, Anna said, ‘I know … but that doesn’t apply to us now.’

  I turned the handle. As we were walking out, I said, ‘Bye, Mr O’Toole.’

  He said, ‘And of course Jayne deserves an apology … Not Pierce perhaps. But Jayne, yes. That was libel, you know.’

  Anna said, ‘Bye, Mr O’Toole,’ and we escaped through the door!

  In the corridor, Anna muttered, ‘Don’t say anything. He might come out …’

  So we walked, not too fast, down the corridor, and turned the corner … Then we turned to each other and both of us went: ‘Aaaagghh!’ – we opened our mouths very wide and popped our eyes so we looked like cartoon characters. Then we began to run. I don’t know why but I had the impulse – and Anna had too I guess – just to run. Because of being so tense the last few minutes maybe, I dunno, but we legged it down the corridors.

>   So we’re back friends! And it’s worth it, even if we do get expelled (which we won’t, probably, I just put that in for Dramatic Tension).

  Mr O’Toole is right: guilt causes fights. But being accused cements you back together again.

  Still we’re in trouble and we don’t know what to do. O’Toole is On To Us. Somehow. I thought maybe Gita came clean, but Anna said no – Gita told her that when they brought her in for questioning, she totally denied any connection between herself and the stickers. She said she wasn’t in school that day, she didn’t know anything about it, someone must have heard her accusing Jayne of racism and taken it into their own hands. She stuck to her story.

  ‘That was nice of her!’ I said.

  ‘Nah,’ said Anna, ‘she just knew if she was found out hiring someone to do her dirty work, she’d get into real trouble.’

  Anna thinks O’Toole probably doesn’t have actual proof. She thinks that someone in the class snitched on us about hiding Pierce’s homework, and he put 2 and 2 together, and now he is giving us the chance to do the right thing. I said if he doesn’t have actual proof he can’t pin it on us, and we could just keep on denying everything, like Gita did.

  We have agreed to Sleep On It.

  Didn’t write in the blog. There is no way of writing about O’Toole’s accusation without giving the game away.

  WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 4TH

  At break we argued it round and round and we didn’t get anywhere. On the one hand if we come clean, we will get off lightly – O’Toole practically promised that – because our intentions were good. On the other hand everyone will then know it was us and they’ll think we’re dumb (my point). On the other hand Jayne deserves an apology because she probably wasn’t actually racist (Anna’s point). On the other hand she’s been cleared of the charge, more or less, and she was bullying – and bullying a girl who was new to Ireland, which is extra mean, even if the girl in question does wear designer shoes – and if we tell, we might get Gita into trouble (my point). On the other hand, Gita deserves to be in trouble seeing as she exaggerated about Jayne being a racist. On the other hand …

  Well, you get the picture! There were more hands showing than in netball practice.

  So we’ve decided to ask Tommy. He is the only person we can trust with this.

  Oh – at break I caught sight of Heeun coming towards me with this hopeful smile, and then it kind of fading as she saw Anna … but what could I do? It is just tough for her.

  Ha! As if!

  I did not forget the coldness of the sea and the instability of Default Friends. I waved madly so she came up to us and we all chatted away, very friendly.

  Afterwards I explained about Default Friends to Anna. She liked that. She thought it was funny. But she said, ‘Trust you to arrange a default position.’

  I said, ‘Well what did you do?’

  She said in a really superior voice, ‘I knew we’d be back friends. I wasn’t bothered.’

  I said, ‘That’s because you’re used to fighting with your brothers and sister and still being back friends’

  ‘And you’re not,’ she finished, giving me A Look which I knew was a criticism of the way I can’t be bothered with Justine.

  I didn’t like being criticised and I didn’t like her being the one who got to be all cool and solitary, while I scrabbled around un-coolly for default friends, but then I remembered, ‘Anyway you’d Carl to speak to.’

  She said, ‘Carl?’ like you’d say worms?

  I said, ‘Yeah. Carl. Your boyfriend.’

  I caught her eye. We went off into laughter. Very mean laughter.

  THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5TH

  So after school today we went round to Anna’s. In the kitchen were Tommy and Renata and suddenly Anna started telling the whole story to them both! I was amazed. Why would she let Renata in on this? Does she want to be laughed at for the rest of the year? But it was too late to stop her. All I could do was interrupt to make sure she told it right. She kept forgetting crucial things. Maybe because she’s given up keeping a diary? Writing things down is a good way of sticking them in your mind.

  Tommy and Renata didn’t comment at all until the end, which was surprising for Renata. She must have copped how important it was.

  When we finished off, ‘So what do you think we should do? Come clean to O’Toole, or play dumb?’

  Tommy looked at Renata, ‘Jesus wept,’ he said.

  They both looked quite dazed … almost shocked, in a way. I was surprised. I didn’t think it would be such a deal. Not to those two – I mean they must have done loads of stuff like that. But apparently not. ‘Quite the little Cosa Nostra,’ said Renata. (That is something to do with the mafia – I just checked. It means ‘our way’ in Italian, which, by coincidence, is basically what ‘Sinn Fein’ means in Irish … I wish people would stop going on about the mafia!)

  Tommy said to Renata, ‘That pronounced sense of justice … who would have thought it would come to this?’

  ‘When a pronounced sense of justice meets distrust of authority,’ said Renata grandly, ‘and gets mercenary!’ She gave her witchy cackle.

  ‘Maybe not mercenary exactly,’ said Tommy fairly, ‘entrepreneurial …’

  ‘Entrepreneurial! That’s one name for it… compromising their standards in pursuit of profit. This shows the intrinsic corruption of the capitalist system.’

  I was getting mad. I didn’t necessarily know exactly what they were on about but they’d ganged up together – suddenly they were like parents – and they were passing judgement and debating our morals, and that’s not what we asked them.

  ‘If we wanted a moral lecture, we’d have gone to a priest,’ I said, ‘just tell us whether we should admit to O’Toole.’

  They cracked up laughing – all three! (Good!)

  Then Renata said, ‘Well obviously you have to admit to O’Toole! He knows already. He’s just giving you a chance to do the right thing, instead of going straight to Lucas with it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tommy, ‘I mean what do you think he’s gonna do? Just drop it?’

  They looked at us as if we were fools. I felt a fool. I mean if it was that obvious, we didn’t have to ask their advice, we didn’t have to expose ourselves to their moralising.

  But, ‘Maybe he doesn’t know,’ said Anna, ‘maybe he was bluffing. He doesn’t have proof. He can’t accuse us without proof.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the lawyer now,’ said Renata, ‘from anarchist to lawyer. You should have been asking for proof from Gita.’

  This was too much!

  Anna roared, ‘Get lost!’ and flung herself on Renata, fists waving.

  I screamed, ‘Yeah, shut up!’ It was total bedlam.

  Then Tommy pulled Anna off Renata, ‘Okay, that’s enough, that’s enough!’ he was saying in a loud, but firm, not hysterical voice.

  After we straightened up, Renata said, ‘Alright, I’m sorry, okay? I couldn’t resist the dig.’

  ‘You never can,’ said Anna.

  ‘I know,’ said Renata. She sounded almost ashamed! ‘But it wasn’t just a dig. I’m your older sister, and I don’t know if you realise just how wrong––’

  ‘All right, Renata,’ interrupted Tommy, ‘let’s take it she does. Anyway,’ he looked at us and managed to look amused and sorry for us at the same time. He has the sort of face that can express a lot of emotions at once, ‘Anyway, O’Toole will soon tell them what for. And Lucas too.’

  So we have to confess to O’Toole. Tomorrow. We’re not going to mention Gita, because Tommy and Renata agreed it would be breaking her trust. We’re just gonna say that we heard about the racist incident, and took matters into our own hands, like we took matters into our own hands over Pierce’s bullying. We’re not gonna mention about the money, obviously. That, as Renata says, would be wallowing in our guilt.

  On the other hand, not mentioning the money makes us sound like do-gooders, like vigilantes dispensing justice. Frankly I’d rather be considered greed
y, or – what was it Renata said? – mercenary. (I have just looked this up in the dictionary, it says: Soldier of Fortune and also ‘motivated solely by desire for monetary gain’. Soldier of Fortune sounds okay, but we were not motivated solely by desire for monetary gain. We were motivated mostly by desire for monetary gain).

  I asked Anna, ‘What did you tell Renata for? Now she’ll jeer for a year. And what happens if she tells your parents?’ Anna looked at me in amazement/contempt, ‘She’s not gonna tell my parents. You don’t tell on your brothers and sisters!’

  This was obviously a Family Code. I wouldn’t know – Justine and me are/were always telling on each other, but then we don’t have anywhere else to go. In Anna’s family you form factions, and leave the parents out.

  FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6TH

  Oh God! Sorry, but I am now so bored with the whole thing I could scream!

  I know we made a mistake. We’ve already suffered for it! Five days thinking I’d lost my best friend! Twenty-four hours in a day. 24 x 5 = 120 hours of misery! Which I bet is more than Jayne O’Keeffe suffered.

  So we got the full lecture from O’Toole. He must have forgotten that we’d already got the lecture from Lucas at assembly, and he doesn’t know we also got it from Tommy and Renata. So yes, we know, we’re:

  a) perhaps well-meaning, but thoroughly misguided;

  b) interfering, getting involved in other people’s quarrels;

  c) egocentric, wanting to take matters into our own hands;

  d) secretive, doing nasty things anonymously;

  e) bullies, making people’s lives miserable;

  f) anarchists, not trusting in authority to mete out justice;

  g) naïve and foolish, taking other people’s words at face value;

  h) sloppy, not checking our facts.

  Oh, and we’re: