Aisling's Diary

Chapter 9

Monday 24 October (continued)  

8:02p.m.

To: Aisling Fitzsimons

From: Colleen McLaughlin

Subject: Hi 

Dear Aisling. How r u? Wot u been up to? We won the State Regionals. We really missed you tho. Phil wants me to go to school Formal with him. Would that be OK, I know you kinda liked him.

Colleen.

PS Phil’s here. He says ‘Hi, Fitzsimons, how’s Ireland?’  

8:03p.m.

So an email from the snake. I can’t believe I lent her my spare hairpiece in the regionals last year when hers got burnt when her mum left the curling irons on it for too long. I wish I never had. I wish I’d left her to her own wispy badly curled hair and never helped her.

I would never try for a man if someone else was interested in him. What happened to the sisterhood?

8:04p.m.

Unless it was Eavanne. Eavanne isn’t part of the sisterhood.

Wednesday 26 October 

Irish Dancing lessons should be just renamed Irish Shouting lessons, because I sure have to listen to a lot more shouting than I do dancing. Another dancing lesson; another lesson in Gaelic shouting. How come the only words I know how to say in Gaelic are ‘will you please try to keep your arms by your side’? That’s sure going to come in handy, isn’t it? I wonder what career options that grasp of the Irish language is going to open up for me. Maybe a Sergeant Major – hey maybe Mrs Kennedy is ex army. Then things would make sense. I bet her friends call her Killer Kennedy or KK for short.

It doesn’t seem to matter what I do or how hard I try, I can’t please KK. I try to do it her way, I really do, but it’s so stiff and difficult. I concentrate on what she’s saying but then I notice my arms are suddenly moving around a bit like I’ve gone all Mr Tickle or I’ll suddenly find myself moving to a different rhythm in the music. Of course that’s the moment old Killer Kennedy has chosen to stand right in front of me watching me like a HAWK.

Sometimes I can’t help but think that I don’t fit in because I’m too old to do Irish Dance – the only kids who do this kind of dance here are the real young ones. It’s like every kid in Ireland does it at first, but by the time everyone’s reached 12they’ve stopped. That explains why there’s no Irish Dance gang, because no one does it. At the moment it’s looking, to the detective in me, like the big problem IS the Irish Dance itself. Maybe I should give it up? But Mum would go mental. And if I did, then what would I have left? I wish someone would just tell me where I fit in and then I could just go and get on with it.

When I feel like this, I can’t help myself from wishing that Dad had never lost his job and decided to move us all back to Ireland. Because if he hadn’t I’d still have loads of friends and everything would be fine. I wish I could wake up tomorrow and I’d be in Charlestown and going to school with Amelia and Lauren. Even Colleen!

Come on, Aisling. Pull yourself together. 

6:58p.m.

Have just remembered, there is of course one HUGE upside to this. This upside has a number of key characteristics: it can be found riding along the country roads of Ireland on a Vespa, it has dark hair and is kind of boy-shaped and is known as a lesser spotted Murphy. 

7:01 p.m.

News flash! Mum saw straight through my attempt to keep my composure. How does she do that? Eventually, I had no choice but to tell her everything. She says it’s been hard for her too. I guess I never thought that she might be missing her friends too, I only saw it from what

I was missing. Mum was really cool and said if I keep making an effort for a few more weeks, and keep on trying to make the best of Irish Dance class, she’ll try to see if they could afford a ticket for me to go back to Boston. A plane ticket home to Boston!!! This is the best news ever.

This would mean I could be back in Boston in less than six weeks, 42days. Woop woop.

SCHOOL PROJECT 

Monday 31 October 

Transition Year Project. Ex-squeeze me? A ‘whatsition’ year project? Here is the general idea, as I understand it, and I ain’t no expert. So, we have to work as a group on a project to come up with a business idea and then go out and set up said business so we can learn how to make some folding money. Hey, I sound like Rory!

Deep down I know this is all a scam from the Irish government so we: 

1. Learn how to be self-sufficient (and so don’t end up on welfare sitting in front of daytime TV eating cereal from a box)

2. Go out and do something with our lives and win ‘Irish Business Woman of the Year’ nominations. 

I’m in Group C and thankfully so is that sweet guy from Irish Dance, Ali, and Siobhan – the one who told me about Eavanne and Murphy (not that there is an Eavanne and Murphy, right?). I said to Siobhan we were in the group together and she just smiled. Every time I think we’re becoming really good friends, I just don’t know – I think she likes me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because at least for the first time since I arrived in Ireland I’m in a gang – even if it took a teacher to put me in it! I guess you could say I’m in the kind of ‘geek and sweet’ gang. Trouble is, we three – sweet, geek, and bad Irish Dancer – have no idea what to do. Nothing Nada Niente. As soon as Miss O Connor announced the project Eavanne said, ooh I’ve been waiting for two years for this. Apparently, Sorcha and her are going to make a fashion magazine, they even have a name for it: ‘Pulse’. Oh purlease, I thought, who’s going to be interested in THAT? But Ali immediately started nodding in their general direction and said, that sounds like a good idea, and I had to once again resort to my Aisling Hard Stare.

At Charlestown High they would give us loads of ideas to work with. I was explaining this to Siobhan but she just shot me this look and said, ‘So you need to be told what to do, do you?’ Ouch! She’s right tho’, sixteen is totally time enough to start thinking about sorting things out for yourself. Well, I’m ready for a challenge.

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