Jenny Q, Stitched Up

by Pauline McLynn

  ‘You gonna go for that?’ Dixie asks.

  ‘Nah,’ I say and hope I sound convincingly uninterested.

  She shoots me a ‘look’ that’s supposed to make me release all information to her but I keep walking without another word. It’s my Big Secret and I can tell no one!

  Uggs does a Dalek voice and says, ‘Resistance is futile,’ and I give him a good dig in the arm for that.

  Both him and Dixie do a sing-songy ‘Oooh’ and I just want to disappear, ASAP. I make for the classroom in a hot trot.

  Inside, Mike Hussy is pushing his mates around. I really don’t like him. I’m not sure anyone does, actually. He’s a rough kid who likes to intimidate anyone he thinks is weaker than him. He’s a bit chunkier and taller than he was three months ago before our holidays, so there’s more of him to deal with now = UGH, on all levels.б

  ‘Well, here they are, the GIRLS,’ he says as me, Dix and Uggs appear. He makes kissy-kissy sounds intended to wind up Uggs in particular.

  My hair begins to boil at the roots so maybe, just maybe, I am a little bit red-headed after all. I’m also still in a bit of a funk because of Stevie Lee and the Slinkies and the Teen Factor X stuff, so I’m not taking any more abuse.

  ‘What’s up, Mike?’ I ask. ‘Did you miss Eugene that much?’

  I haven’t actually accused him of fancying Euge, not exactly, not in so many words, so he’s confused by that – he can’t do subtlety or irony – and he’s also not smart enough to think of a retort there and then. That’s what makes him kind of dangerous, I think, because he broods on a thing and when he can’t talk his way out of it,§ he resorts to offensiveness and sometimes physical violence. However, today it shuts him up long enough for us to stake out desks on the other side of the class to him.

  My hands are shaking badly and my heart is doing a funny, juddery dance in my chest. Uggs gives me a slight nod of thanks. Dix whispers, ‘Good one,’ though we both know Mike will be planning some sort of horrible revenge already. Delia Thomas smiles at me. She seems to know that it’s not an option to do nothing in a situation like this.

  I am so not looking forward to Mike’s retaliation.

  We sit ourselves at our single desks, with Uggs at the front, then me, Dixie, Delia Thomas, and a new girl who looks very sad to be here. Can’t say I blame her.

  ‘Why do we attract losers and oddballs?’ Dix asks in a whisper, leaning forward.

  ‘Maybe it’s that thing of opposites attracting,’ I say, without much conviction.

  ‘Nice idea,’ Uggs says, but his voice trails away too.

  ‘Maybe we’re about as normal as it gets round here,’ I say.

  ‘That’ll have to do for now,’ Dixie says, grimly.

  Uggs nods. ‘It’s all we’ve got to work with.’

  Yikes, we’re totes screwed, so. EEEK!

  Holding On … And On …

  There is a photocopy of our timetable on each desk, as we’re not trusted to take it down from a board ourselves any more. Every class copped on to how much time could be wasted doing that, so now we’re faced with the done deed on the desk and getting on with things. Dixie is already colouring in the roundy bits of every B, P, O, e and R that she can find. She’s doing multi-colour but I’ll probably stick with pink, due to a lovely highlighter I’ve just got.

  Miss Holding sweeps in, as our first session is English. She smells lemony, as always. She has her sunglasses up on her head, as always. She greets us with, ‘Another glorious year ahead,’ so she’s sarcastic, as always. SIGH!

  I like English; it’s one of my favourite subjects, along with French and Art, because we do crafts there too. You may have thought that maybe they were my faves due to nice teachers or ones with enthusiasm for the subject (and maybe that tickles the brain, or whatever).

  Well, no, not really. Think again, in fact.

  Take Miss Holding,* she’s a sarky witch.

  ‘Open the windows,’ she gasps. ‘It stinks in here.’ That’ll be us that she’s insulting straight off. ‘Oh, would that we could learn al fresco!’ She sighs.†

  ‘We could, Miss.’

  ‘No, we could not, Jason Fielding. None of you Second Years can be trusted to learn in any but the most stringent of circumstances.’ She pauses for effect. ‘And even then the jury is out.’

  To look at her now, you’d think it was killing her, sapping her life’s force, to impart her ‘wisdom’ to us, even though that’s, er, her JOB. Sheesh, would it murder her altogether to start on a positive note?

  There are times when I wonder if Miss Holding watches Glee and perhaps, therefore, thinks she’s the Sue Sylvester of Oakdale High. Without being as brilliant or witty or as totally downright baaadass as Coach Sylvester, NATCH. Though Holding is quite bad, in the wrong, painful-in-the-butt way for us.

  She does a roll call with disdain for every name on it, then she announces we have a new pupil in the class and asks the poor thing to stand. It’s the sad girl sitting behind Delia Thomas.

  ‘This is Maya Walters,’ she tells us.

  Maya Walters is SCARLET with embarrassment as every pair of eyes in the room stares her out.

  ‘Maya is from England.’

  Well, that does it for poor old Maya, she’s well different from the rest of us – not only is she new but she’s bound to have a different accent from everyone else and will stick out all the more. No wonder she looks miserable. The one good thing for her is that she can probably duck out of compulsory Irish‡ because of her nationality.

  By lunchtime, Maya has curled into a small ball at her desk. Every teacher made a point of welcoming her. They all meant well but, as any one of us could have told them, the last thing a teenager wants is to be singled out for anything. Particularly if they’re the new kid on the block. It’s part of a general rule, along with: praise from a teacher leads to envious looks, criticism leads to jeering; and all come with mockery in tow.

  We’re leaving the classroom when Uggs takes the lead. ‘Let’s check out the new food arrangements in the canteen,’ he says to Maya. ‘You missed the Poison Partners from last year, so count yourself lucky.’

  ‘They should be serving a five-to-ten stretch in jail for crimes against the youth of Dublin’s suburbs,’ Delia Thomas says. ‘Remember the chicken tikka lasagne?’

  ‘And the curried beetroot mash as a healthy alternative to spuds?’ I say.

  ‘We all looked like teenage vampires after a messy night on the town,’ Dix remembers.

  We introduce ourselves properly and make for the stairs. But we’re careful not to make too much of a fuss over Maya because that would rattle her even more than the morning has already. We’d also come across as scary and maybe a bit creepy and needy too.

  Wow

  There’s a snaking queue of spotty, hungry, moody school kids wanting to be fed and I think that has taken the staff a bit by surprise.

  ‘Dear Jeebus, don’t let them show their fear,’ Uggs says. ‘There’ll be a freakin’ riot if they do. Even a whiff of panic could set this lot off.’

  ‘There’s a proper salad bar,’ Dix says in hushed and reverent tones. She’s on her tippy toes looking over the heads of the people in front of us.

  ‘You mean more than sliced tomatoes and iceberg lettuce?’ I ask.

  ‘I think so. I sense other green things, maybe cucumber and broccoli, and possibly sweetcorn. Yellow sweetcorn, not green.’

  ‘Breathe calmly and deeply,’ I say. ‘Don’t do anything rash. Don’t get too excited. And above all else, do NOT hope too much.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eugene says. ‘We all know what happened the last time.’

  Actually none of us knows any such thing but it sounds great, so we roll with it.

  ‘Is she OK?’ Maya Walters asks.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I assure her. ‘Thing is Dixie wouldn’t dream of eating a salad for lunch; she’d be ravenous all afternoon.’

  ‘Oh,’ Maya says, but I can tell she does not understand our ‘ways’ just
yet.

  Mike Hussy bumps into me deliberately and knocks me against a table. ‘Oops, sorry,’ he says, not even trying to sound sincere.

  I don’t bother acknowledging him and make like nothing has happened. I presume this is the start of his fight back.

  ‘Is it true your mum is up the duff?’ he says. He gives a big, loud guffaw. ‘Disgusting. At her age.’

  My scalp is tingling and boiling again. My hand has formed a fist and I want to punch his lights out. ‘We’re all thrilled,’ I tell him, smiling sweetly. People are watching now. I want to crawl under the table and hide for ever, to melt into the floor and never be seen again.

  ‘The Quinns’ mum is knocked up,’ he says, loudly.

  Out of nowhere, Stevie Lee Bolton appears behind Hussy and spills a carton of milk on him. He’s a good head taller than Mike and totally fitter, so when he goes, ‘Oh, man, I am so clumsy,’ and starts to rub the milk in, Hussy has to put up with it and believe that it’s an accident.

  ‘Great to hear your mum’s good news, Jen,’ Stevie says. ‘We’re all thrilled.’

  I think I’m going to faint. Did I dream the last few magnifeek, fantastico, unbelievabobble moments? A GOD in shining armour* has come to my rescue. Hussy will smell worse and worse throughout the afternoon as the milk goes sour in the heat but it will be worth every chokingly disgusto minute.

  We watch Stevie Lee saunter away, the essence of COOL.

  ‘Wow,’ Dixie says.

  ‘Wow,’ Uggs says.

  ‘Wow,’ Delia Thomas says.

  ‘Who is he?’ Maya Walters wants to know.

  I think I may have dribbled on my blouse.

  Hols … Past Tense

  I’m not sure teachers have all that much imagination. Perhaps they get bored teaching the same stuff over and over, year after year? But why (oh why) do they always give us the same assignment when we get back on our first day? So far, I have essays to write for English, Irish and French classes on various variations of ‘What I Did During my Summer Holidays’. Maybe the teachers are curious about what I got up to, but I doubt it. And I SO would not be putting in what I actually did or thought or said into school homework. The world has no business knowing my business.

  No, these essays will all be based on the lies I can tell using the words I have learned in any of the languages. In other words, makey-uppy stories based on the vocabularies available to me,* so they shouldn’t take too long to write. And I bet you any money the same goes for the rest of my class. I base this on the fact there was a short, group groan every time a teacher announced the (same) essay as our homework. No imagination. Boring.

  Now, if we were given an assignment to write our summer in mathematical terms, mine would be a sorry tale of sums not adding up. In fact, mine never add up to profit or money over. My allowance never stretches far enough. Good thing Mum tops up my telephone regularly as a treat. Actually, Dad does too (and sometimes even Gran),† so I’m usually contactable by phone. Hmm, yes, I know it’s not out of purely generous generosity. It’s so they can always be in touch and know my whereabouts – spying, in other words.

  No one I know had majorly exciting hols this year. Well, Uggs was exiled to cousins in Cork for a few weeks. They put him to use on their farm and he said it was hard labour. He doesn’t want to talk about cows or sheep since, and has little enough to say about his cousins either.

  ‘I think they thought I was not only a city slicker but also as gay as Christmas because most of my friends are girls and I dress differently to them,’ he said at a Gang meeting on his return.

  ‘Yes …’ Dixie said, in a leading way, drawing the ‘yes’ out to tease him.

  ‘I don’t mind any of that, as you well know,’ he said, a trifle indignant. ‘I just expect a bit of accuracy and that wasn’t accurate.’

  He can be a tad prim sometimes, our Eugene.

  ‘You should join us, Miss Quinn,’ a man’s voice tells me.

  I have zoned out in Science class and I have been caught. It’s a good job we weren’t doing some fire-based experiment with Bunsen burners and pipettes, though that would have been exciting and I’d have been paying attention.

  ‘Sorry, Sir,’ I lie.

  ‘Might one enquire as to where you were?’

  One might, I want to say, but this other ‘one’ won’t be telling.

  ‘I was just puzzling over an earlier point,’ I say.

  I think Mr Ford forgets he’s teaching kids a lot of the time because he really wants to be a university lecturer. He has been known to ‘come to’ mid lesson and ask us which year we are. Then he looks all befuddled to realize he’s been telling us way advanced stuff.

  If he really wants to know, I obviously bore easily and that’s so easily done in his class, unless we’re playing with fire and then there’s always some sort of mishap. The fire brigade should be on permanent standby any time we’re scheduled‡ to burn stuff in Chemistry.

  Also, how has he not noticed that half the class is on the phone texting right now? Sheesh! And I get caught for staring into space. At least that could be counted as Physics in a way – space, you know? And time, and matter and, er, antimatter. In his favour, though it’s slim, he doesn’t give us an essay on our recent holidays.

  I’m glad that we end the day with Art. I think it’s probably my favourite subject if I had to choose just one above the rest. I like making things. I’m not the greatest in the class at drawing or painting but I enjoy them. Miss Brown, who teaches us, has wavy, wibbly-wobbly hair and wears mad tights. Today she’s got a pair on with sunflowers all over them (she must be boiled with the heat). But, wouldn’t you know it, she tells us to do a project based on our summer holidays! Maybe it’s a plot the Oakdale High teachers hatched in the staff room to drive us insane?

  I find myself in a group of five walking home. There’s the Gang plus Delia Thomas and the new girl, Maya. I get a mean feeling for a few moments, not wanting them to join us because I like the Gang as it is. I know this is foolish and everything changes and moves on but I don’t see why we should, not now anyway. So, I’m relieved (and a little niggly, guilty bit delighted) when we turn left for our streets and they turn right to go home.

  ‘They’re OK,’ Uggs says.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dixie agrees.

  ‘But not Gang material?’ I say, as if it’s a question but one that doesn’t need an answer. When no one answers, I have to admit that a small, childish part of me is relieved.

  Paint ’N’ Patter

  I am lurching into the kitchen in search of a Kit Kat when I hear a familiar voice.

  ‘Aha, the very woman,’ Gran says.

  This could be bad news for me if I am the ‘very woman’ she’s referring to. If Gran is interested in me* she’s looking for something: fact. I look around and discover that I am the only other person in the room, let alone the only other woman, so it must be me.

  ‘Come down to the studio and tell me what you think of my latest paintings.’

  EEK! There are no correct answers in these situations. For example, I can’t say I hate something, even if I do,† and I wouldn’t. And if I do say I like something, I’ll be stuck answering questions as to why for five and a half days or years.

  ‘Well, I have a lot on,’ I stammer, desperately searching for what.

  ‘Is it knitting?’ Gran asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, too quickly and without thinking it through.

  ‘Sure, you can bring that with you and we’ll have a lovely chat while you knit away.’

  I’m so busted.

  There’s nothing for it but to go grab some knitting and proceed to the shed. On my way back through the kitchen I snag a back-up Kit Kat in case I need a sugar rush to keep my strength up during my interrogation.

  Gran has a whole series of paintings propped up against the wall.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Erm, great, yeah.’ I give my knitting a look as if to say, Jeepers I really should be
getting on with this.

  Gran ignores it and asks, ‘Which one do you like best?’

  I point at one of the less hazy ones and say, ‘That’s good … isn’t it?’ Actually, I do like the patterns in it.

  ‘Great,’ she says. (Phew for Jenny Q.) ‘On my last trip we visited France and that’s about Chartres Cathedral.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes, the architecture.’

  I know it’s going to sound totes mad but I do think it is – oh, Dear Lord, I’m being sucked into her world of nuttiness.

  ‘Jennifer, I was thinking that you could help me with something.’

  Uh-oh, what’s going down now? I try not to look in any way encouraging or even to make eye contact.‡

  ‘I’ve decided to try putting people into my work. So, I was wondering if you’d pose for me. You could sit there knitting, I’d paint you and we’d both be getting on with our projects.’

  I make a kind of ‘unk’ sound that even I don’t understand. Gran must think I’m bargaining hard because she says, ‘Oh, all right, I’ll pay you for your time.’

  Ker-ching!

  ‘Done,’ I say, and settle into a comfy chair. I am nothing if not mercenary.б

  We’re each going about our business in silence then Gran starts to chuckle.

  ‘Knitting,’ she says, shaking her head in wonder. ‘Never thought I’d see the day that came back into fashion.’

  ‘Dixie says it’s as good as meditation,’ I tell her.

  ‘I always hated the feel of a hand-knitted sock,’ Gran says. ‘Mind you, the stuff we were using was aul scratchy wool. Rope would have been better.’

  For a moment I am tempted to knit her a pair of socks made of string for Christmas.

  Crafty

  A fortnight later the Gang sits around the Quinn dining table trying to plan our craft-based gifts for the rest of the year. This might not be entirely the cheapest way of doing things but it means each present is unique and I think that makes each one all the more special.