Visions & Revisions: An anthology of new writing by Junior Cycle Teachers [selected extracts]

Ruth Kelly
‘Ah Mam, would ya stop worryin’. Joe’s da is dropping us
off AND collecting us. I’m not stupid.’
He noticed his mother’s face soften and he knew
he’d convinced her. She liked that he was hanging around
with Joe now. She thought he was a ‘positive influence.’
And his father was high up in the guards. A sergeant or
something.
‘Oh, okay so,’ she relented. ‘Anyway, here’s Paula now. Oh
by the way, you’d better not let Bubbles in. He’s been rolling in
something in the field below and he stinks.’
Daragh watched the headlights of auntie Paula’s car run
their beam across the kitchen window.
‘Love you lots, Dar!’ he heard his mother call as she
disappeared out the front door.
And then she was gone.
Silence.
Great. He was on his own at last. He thought she’d never
go. He was suddenly filled with an intense feeling of fantastic
freedom. He thought he’d burst with elation. Thoughts of
endless possibilities surged through his mind. God this was class.
The whole feckin’ house to himself.
He’d have an extra long shower, he decided. No one around
to tell him to go easy on the hot water. He might even use
the fancy new aftershave his mother had put in his Christmas
stocking.
He’d do the dog first. Get that job out of the way.
Then he felt the weight of his freedom begin to crush him.
A free house was just an empty house. Nobody here but himself.
Here in the middle of bloody nowhere. Two miles from the
nearest house. He never really felt at ease going up to the shed
at night.
Ah, he was just being stupid.
Nothing would happen. He was only being a baby. No one
was lurking around the shed waiting to jump out at him.
Unless it was like that time. It had frightened the daylights
out of him.
STUPID
A barn owl. It had been so cool. Soaring off into the night
like the Star Ship Enterprise.
It must be nesting in the hayshed. Maybe he’d get to see it
again.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It was Joe.
Change of plan, he texted. In Ryans. Won match. C’mon
down.
Typical. Bloody typical. It was always like this with Joe. He
always had to march to Joe’s tune.
How was he to get to Ryan’s? It was a three mile walk into
the village.
And it was raining. But he really wanted to go and be with
his friends. He wanted to be part of it all. He wanted to belong.
How was he ever to properly meet any girls if he was stuck
at home?
The phone seemed to throb in his hands. It was as if it was
waiting for him to respond.
No lift, Daragh texted back.
Immediately he was miserable. He could see it all. All the
lads having right craic in the pub, laughing, joking, slagging each
other. The kitchen clock ticked its lazy tick as if mocking his
predicament. His free house now became an irritating burden.
His need to be with his friends slowly grew into a longing. An
urgent physical pain from deep within him.
His phone lit up again.
Another text from Joe.
Just one word this time.
Loser
Daragh flung his phone onto the floor. The bastards. He’d
show them. He imagined them all having a great laugh at his
expense. Them all skitting at him, mocking him. Calling him
‘mammy’s boy.’
It was all stupid. Feckin’ feckin’ feckin’ stupid.
Granny and her falls. This wasn’t the first time his mam
had been called away for a ‘granny emergency.’ She was always
falling, and she was always grand. It seemed to Daragh that
34 35