The Changeling (8 page)

Darragh, sitting at the desk behind him, made a big show of innocence. ‘Wha’? What are you on about? I done nothing!’

‘Don’t give me that – you jabbed me in the back with your biro . . .’

Aoife, grinning, felt oddly powerful – she’d been wanting to annoy Killian, and then it had happened, as if by remote control. Clearly Darragh was feeling the same way as herself – no doubt because Sinead had dumped him only just before the weekend.

‘
Settle down!
’ Mr Vaughan turned to face the room. ‘Page forty-two, Vikings. Pillage in the village, et cetera. Sinead, before we get to the fun bit, perhaps you can remind us about the arrival of Christianity from last week?’

Sinead wasn’t paying attention to him either, any more than to Lois; she was practically leaning against Killian.

‘Sinead, the arrival of—?’

With an indignant cry, Sinead shot up in her seat, clapping her hand to the back of her neck. The history teacher took a startled hop backwards. Sinead turned vengefully on Darragh. ‘Quit poking me, or I’ll rip you!’

Killian’s cousin threw his hands up in the air. ‘Leave me alone, the two of ye. I’m doing absolutely nothing to either of ye.’

‘Sure you’re not—’

‘
Sinead. The arrival of Christianity.
’

Aoife hastily locked her hands together on her desk. This time she’d been looking straight at Darragh, sighting along her forefinger over his shoulder at Sinead – and she knew Darragh hadn’t done anything. It was almost as if it had been
her
that had poked Sinead . . . She glanced back at Shay, to share her puzzlement. But still she couldn’t get him to meet her eyes. His hand was a barrier between them; the frayed cuff of his jumper was pulled up all the way over his knuckles instead of being pushed back to the elbow as it normally was. She could see the tilt of his jaw and the curve of his mouth no more.

Disappointed, she turned back to her book, riffling through it for page forty-two. Despite what she’d said to Carla about Shay only meaning to be friendly, she had kind of wondered – that time on the hill, when he had caught her and pulled her down and his mouth so close to hers – she had kind of hoped . . .

I dream of this:

Under the hawthorns he raises me with a kiss.

Maybe he had only wanted someone to talk to for a while, about his childhood. Maybe she’d just been around at the right time, when he’d needed company. Maybe he now regretted opening even that small window into his soul.

Several feet above her head, a bee was hitting off the high window, trying again and again to take the obvious way out. Aoife knew how it felt. It would be so good to fly out of this concrete box of a classroom and run for miles and miles, all by herself, up into the damp and lonely bog.

Mr Vaughan said, ‘All right, Darragh, perhaps you can tell us why the Vikings came to the west of Ireland.’

‘God only knows, sir.’

‘
Darragh!
’ Mr Vaughan scowled down the room-wide shout of amusement. ‘Serious answer.’

‘I
am
being serious. Why would anyone come here? I mean, there’s no gold or decent women, just rain and sheep.’

Sinead said, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t prefer sheep.’

‘
Page forty-two!
’

The buzzing above Aoife’s head was becoming demented, rising even above the laughter. The bee had one wing caught in a strand of web, and was spinning and tugging on it like a balloon in the wind. A spider with a red back abseiled down the strand and sank its teeth into the bee’s fur. As soon as its victim stopped vibrating, the spider wove a grey shroud around it, then hung it, paralysed but alive, from the topmost corner of the window, three metres above the ground. Never to fly again.

As soon as the bell went for first break, Shay stood up abruptly and left. All Aoife saw of him was the back of him disappearing out of the door. She gathered her books together slowly, letting everyone else leave before her. He had gone back to his old silent self, and she had her pride – she didn’t want him to imagine she was following him.

A heavy squall of rain rattled the high window. Far above, the shrouded bee dangled, a grey bead on a string; the spider sat waiting. A very tall but flimsy set of shelves stood against the wall. Could she? No, she’d pull the bookcase down.
I’m feather-light
 . . . Aoife glanced around to make sure she was alone in the room, then ran up the bookcase, leaned across to pluck the bee’s body from the web, and sprang from the top shelf to the floor, landing with her knees bent and her heart pounding with shock and exhilaration. When did she get to be able to do such things? She’d never been unfit, but this was like being an Olympic gymnast.

She’d think about it later. Right now, she had to rescue the living creature from its shroud. There was a loose end of thread hanging from the pointed end. She pinched it between her fingertips and pulled. The sticky thread started to unwind. She pulled some more. The bee spun round and round on her palm like a cotton reel being unwound.

‘Aoife?’

She glanced up sharply, closing her hand over the bee. Sinead had come back in and was sidling towards her between the desks. ‘Aoife, there’s no need to hide away from the rest of us just because of what happened on my birthday.’

‘Thanks, I’m not hiding, I was just doing something.’

‘Because it’s OK. Lois says you’re feeling really guilty about ruining the trip for everyone, but I just want you to know I forgive you. I mean, you must feel bad enough about Carla ending up with the flu . . .’

A peculiar tingling sensation rushed into Aoife’s fingers, like lemon juice had been squirted into her veins. She said, ‘If you’re feeling sorry for Carla, maybe you should quit trying to steal her boyfriend.’

Sinead’s mouth formed every shape under the sun before she spluttered out, ‘
Oh!
You jealous cow! It’s you that fancies Killian!’

Aoife laughed; she hadn’t meant to be quite so direct, but while she was at it she might as well continue. The fizzing in her blood was surprisingly pleasant, like the time she’d been given champagne at a neighbour’s wedding. ‘I wouldn’t go out with Killian if he was the last person on earth. I’ve no idea why Carla even likes him. But while she does, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t upset her – and you’re going to keep your thieving paws off him.’

Sinead’s cat-shaped face flushed crimson, her eyes flashed. She spat, ‘You’ve got no right to say who goes out with who – you can’t tell me what to do, and what Killian does is none of your business, and I’ll go out with whoever I like, when I like, and you can’t tell me any different.’

‘Be careful,’ said Aoife. Her blood felt icy now.

‘Don’t you point your finger at me, Aoife O’Connor! Carla doesn’t have any reason to think Killian is her boyfriend or anything just because he sat next to her on the bus. He was only messing and it’s not like she’s pretty, she’s not even in his league— Aargh!’ Sinead jumped backwards with a scream, crashing into the desk behind her.

Aoife cried out, alarmed, dropping her hand. ‘Are you all right?’

Sinead retreated towards the door. ‘Keep away from me, you maniac!’

‘But what happened?’

‘
You punched me, you bitch!
’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Get away from me!’ And Sinead turned and rushed from the room.

Aoife stared after her, bewildered. She hadn’t gone anywhere near Sinead, let alone punched her – although she would have done, given half a chance. How dare Sinead say Carla wasn’t pretty . . . In a fresh rush of rage, Aoife clenched her fists. And a terrible pain stabbed through her left palm.

Her heart sinking, she uncurled her fingers – the bee lay dead. Sadness overwhelmed her – she’d crushed the poor little creature she’d been trying to save. All it had wanted to do was get out into the fields, and fly, and drink nectar from flowers, and make honey, and be happy. And now it was dead, and it would never see the sun again, or drift on the warm breeze.

There was a bin by Mr Vaughan’s desk, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw the tiny body away like rubbish. Instead, she opened the window and climbed out.

Outside, the rain had eased to a soft dampness, and the sky was brightening. Aoife breathed in deep. The breeze coming down from the bog was flowery with heather. So much better to be outside than be stuck in a glass-and-concrete box. She was standing on the path that ran round the school building, but there was a long stretch of grass between the path and the boundary fence. She knocked a divot out of the soft soil with her heel, dropped in the bee and footed the earth back over its corpse.

Her hand throbbed; the bee’s sting was still buried in her skin. She eased it out with her fingernails, and a little blood welled from the puncture wound. No, not blood . . . She peered at the centre of her palm. The round drop of fluid was a shimmering silver, rainbow-tinged. Poison from the sting? She licked it off her hand. It tasted sweet.

Before climbing back in through the window, she squatted down and prodded the roots of a displaced daisy and a few shoots of grass into the earth of the bee’s grave. And as soon as she had done so, she knew with sudden joyful certainty that through this process the bee would be transformed. The roots of the daisy and the grass would sink into the bee’s flesh and draw up its energy as through a straw, and as a flower it would feel the sun and wind again, and bees would drink from it, and make other bees.

Life would spring from death. There was no end.

CHAPTER SIX

She was starving. The school canteen was open for first break, but she had no money on her. Still, she checked her pockets just in case and found she did have a few coins after all, and they added up to quite a lot – almost four euros. Odd, because her uniform always got washed over the weekend, and her mother would have emptied the pockets. And even stranger, she didn’t remember having had the money in the first place. It wasn’t like there was a lot of it to spread around – since the recession, James O’Connor had been out of work and the family relied on what her mother earned from doing the accounts for local farmers.

The canteen was a long open-plan area with plate-glass windows that looked out into the gravelled courtyard in the centre of the school building. Everyone from her class was sitting at the same table.

No, not everyone.

Shay sat perched sideways on the wide low windowsill, with his feet up, staring out into the rain-swept courtyard, drinking a cup of tea. He was wearing his school coat now, with the collar pulled up.

Aoife lingered at the counter. She was so hungry she felt she needed a
serious
quantity of calories. Maybe it was all the mad cycling and running she’d been doing yesterday. She hesitated between a strawberry and a chocolate yoghurt, then bought both, then a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps, then an apple, and then, just in case that still wasn’t enough, an extra-large Mars bar. The white-capped woman behind the counter said, ‘How nice of you to treat all your friends.’

‘What? Oh, right, sure.’

She sat down beside Jessica, whose brown eyes widened. ‘Hungry?’

‘Starving.’

‘I don’t know
how
Lois gets the idea you’re anorexic.’

Lois, hearing her name, glanced over. She did a double-take at Aoife’s loaded tray and whispered in Sinead’s ear, loud enough for the whole table to hear: ‘
Bulimic
.’

But Sinead just said, ‘Stop shouting in my ear,’ and shot Aoife a sour look. It was as if she were slightly scared of her – maybe she really did imagine Aoife had punched her in the history room.

Aoife ate her way steadily through the food in front of her, all the time feeling vaguely troubled by what had happened. Sinead was sitting a long way away from Killian, and that was a good result of the fight. But at the same time, even if she hadn’t attacked Sinead, she did owe her for messing up her outing – and she still hadn’t given her a birthday present. She should have hung onto the four euros, and added it to the card. She checked to see if there were any more coins, and to her astonishment there was an actual note, folded small and pushed right down into the corner of the same pocket. A brown note. Ten euros.

She went round the table to Sinead, who said tightly, ‘What do you want now?’

‘Nothing. Just, here’s your present – sorry it’s late.’

Sinead glanced down at the folded note, then went slightly pink. ‘Oh. That’s . . . Thank you . . .’

‘Sorry it’s not more.’

‘No, really, thank you, that’s really generous.’

Aoife suddenly realized that the brown note she was handing Sinead was not a ten-euro note but a fifty. The shock was so sudden, it took all her willpower not to snatch it back again. She said as brightly as she could manage, ‘No problem, and sorry about Saturday.’

‘That’s all right . . .’ Sinead pocketed the fifty, exchanging a round-eyed look with Lois.

Aoife was so shaken she hardly knew what to do next. How had there been a fifty-euro note just lying around in her school trousers? Had it been there for a long time, and been washed and forgotten about? Yet when had she ever been rich enough to forget about fifty euros? Why hadn’t she checked what sort of a brown note it was before handing all that wealth to Sinead? She could have bought those tyres for her bike.

‘Hey, Aoife, any more of those to give away?’ Killian had been watching the exchange from the far end of the long table; he was one of those types who could smell money. Aoife remembered Carla had made her promise to give him a message. She moved on down the table. He stood up as she got to him, smiling, making eye contact. ‘You gonna give me money as well?’

‘No. Just, Carla asked me to say she says “hi”.’ She looked away as she was speaking. Shay was finishing his tea, getting ready to leave the canteen.

Killian said, ‘What about you?’

She looked back at him, surprised. ‘Me?’

‘Do you say “hi” to me?’

Aoife sighed. Why couldn’t Carla have crushed on someone a bit less irritating? ‘Don’t be such an eejit.’

‘Ah, come on, you know you like me. That’s why you didn’t tell Carla about kissing me at the disco.’