Aisling's Diary

Chapter 10

Monday 31 October (continued)

3:54p.m.

OMG. I was walking back from school when I could hear someone following me. I turned round and saw Murphy.I kept on walking, refusing to be impressed by his little moped, when he stopped beside me. He just handed me his spare helmet as if I’d grab it and put it on. ‘Quick,get on,’ he said. I was just about to tell him to ‘Get Lost’.But just then I saw Aunty Stella’s car coming round the corner towards our house and I had this sudden vision of me sitting at home listening to her going on about how solid oak worktops are the best. So, before I knew it, I’d hopped on the back, and had my arms wrapped around the very fit Murphy. Amelia is going to go crazy when I tell her this. But that’s not the best bit. The best bit was we saw one half of Pulse’s editorial team, the one and only Sorcha McFadden. Zoom we went, right past her,Zoom Zoom Zoom. I grinned widely and saw her reach for her mobile. Would love to have been there when Eavanne gets that text. Print that in your magazine, lady.

As we were riding along I had to hold really tightly onto Murphy. Although at one point he had to stop his Vespa to ask me to loosen my grip a little bit because it was actually stopping him from being able to breathe. Which makes him a bit of a moaner when you think that he’s the one who told me to hold on tightly in the first place. 

4:35p.m.

Beginning to wonder what I’m doing here. Murphy practically ran off as soon as we got here. And I don’t know anyone else. All of his crew are here but they look pretty different out of school. Maybe Stella is right and they are troublemakers. I wish I was at home with Mum, and Aunty Stell and a big plate of fish-fingers. 

4:36p.m.

Pull yourself together, Aisling Fitzsimons – you are not scared of a couple of idiots in B Ape Baseball caps. That’snot even a real baseball team, I don’t think. 

4:38p.m.

Murphy just gave me the biggest smile in the Northern Hemisphere. Now everything is OK. 

4:48p.m.

OK, people. Finally I get it. The plan is they do some pretty spectacular dance moves here, kinda on location.Upload them to this specialist site and BINGO. Top prize is to dance in an Ace FX video. Cool! Although, who would have thought Irish lads like these would want to even do that? 

4:51 p.m.

Murphy does not look happy. They’ve had a dress rehearsal (umm don’t think that’s what it’s called) and Murphy’s given his crew this kind of half-time talk, said they’re gonna have to do much better to be in the Ace FX video.

I heard him say to Dec that they needed to raise the stakes, or get a ‘secret weapon’ to beat the Fat Playaz.Murphy said to Dec that he didn’t think his dancing was up to it. I wanted to shout, ‘You don’t understand, you’re the best dancer I’ve ever seen, I’d never seen a white kidflip from a standing start before, Murphy – you can MOOOOOVE’, but I decided just to sit quietly and think it instead. 

4:55p.m.

Everyone’s dancing except me. It’s a struggle not to jump up, grab Murphy by the hand and really DANCE like I really want to. I can’t though, not in front of his knucklehead crew. I couldn’t really see HOW they were doing what they were doing. It was kinda break-dancing but not really anything Amelia and I had tried before. I didn’t want to get it all wrong and have everyone laugh at me.JP must have seen me watching them because he shouted:‘She can’t do it without her batters’.

I heard everyone laughing and I looked up at Murphy but he wasn’t – he actually looked really concerned about me. Then, I realized how stupid I was being, I just knew I could do better than all of them. I remembered MrsKennedy’s class and how awful it was dancing in front of them and I thought you know what? I can dance. And then suddenly I was standing there in front of Murphy.And the music was playing, and the music filled me, and then I just started dancing. At first it felt brilliant, the fresh air – I did a couple of moves to the music, I was actually enjoying myself. Then Murphy showed me this sequence, I thought I could do it but it messed up. I justcouldn’t get it right. What a surprise! Something else Icouldn’t do properly. I tried again and properly messed up. I looked over to JP to give him an Aisling Hard Stare for laughing but he wasn’t laughing, he was trying the move too. AND NOT EVEN HE COULD DO IT. I thought this is madness – they can’t even get it right and these are their moves, what hope have I got?

Definitely time to leave, I thought, but Murphy stopped me (which is just as well given I had no idea where I was at all). I said to him ‘There’s no point in carrying on, I’m not doing it right’ but he said, ‘There is no right’. And then I realized – yeah – they didn’t really have any rules,they were just trying stuff out. Cool. So I tried his move again but not quite the way he did. It kinda worked. It was this freaky move, part break, part Irish Dancing.Some mad old fusion of styles. I looked up to see if everyone was laughing but they weren’t, they were all just kind of staring at me. I shouted, ‘Quit staring’ but Dec said, ‘This girl is good’, and even JP the knucklehead was impressed. I did some more of my dancing and on one of the moves Murphy held my hand. This isn’t France, friends don’t hold hands – this is Ireland, holding hands means something. I just don’t know what.

Tuesday 1 November 

So this is the perfect time to rework the best days of my romantic life (so far) because there are two new entries–an unprecedented event since the list was created in first grade.

1. (new entry) Today – HOLDING HANDS WITH MURPHY.

2. (down from 1) Phil Donnelly coming to find me backstage of the show to say bye.

3. (up from 5)Adam Wiltshire buying me some Swizzlers at the School Summer Fair.

4. (down from 2) Billie Byrne giving me that note saying Phil Donnelly fancies me.

5. (new entry) Seeing Murphy on his bike for the first time. 

10:07p.m.

Can’t sleep, keep thinking about having my arms round Murphy on the back of his bike. It’s hard to sleep after a fun afternoon at a disused bridge, I am finding. 

10:09p.m.

Wonder if Eavanne is still reading that text. Ha ha ha haha. Got you back – perhaps it will help you remember not to mess with the best. 

...........

Click the Thumbnail Below or Click Info on Mobile to Watch the Webisode.