Aisling's Diary

Chapter 12

Friday 4 November

Outside I shall be calm and cool and collected, inside I am seething with injustice of the situation, like the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

Eventually my façade cracked in the school toilets and I was forced to let the torrent of emotion spill out to Siobhan. She was pretty much the nicest anyone has been to me since I’ve been in Dublin, despite technically siding with Mom over the motorbike (NOT A MOTORBIKE) issue. It’s making me think, does ANYBODY in the whole of Ireland actually know the difference between a motorbike and a Vespa? One is a massive engine that middle-aged men buy in a crisis so they can dress in leather and look younger AND the other is a cool, quick,environmentally friendly method of transport driven by cool dudes and their dudettes (yuck).

However, Siobhan seemed to know all about Murphy asking me out (NOT asking me out, but asking me to dance with the crew). She said it’s called flashmobbing. I did that thing where you pretend you know what’s going on, and sort of agreed, but inside I was saying, ‘what’s flashmobbing’?

3:55p.m.

Just looked up flashmobbing on Wikipedia. All it said was that it was just people meeting up to dance – sounds pretty harmless to me. Rory came by while I was looking at the computer on his roller blades (not inside, Rory, how many more times) – he shouted ‘Flashmobbing, how cool is that?Who’s going flashmobbing,sis?’ I of course had to ask him what he knew about it. ‘I know it’s cool’ was the answer I got. Ah well, if you ask an idiot a question ...

 4:23p.m.

Just texted Murphy. ‘Are we flashmobbing?’ Got one straight back: ‘Are you asking? M’.

 4:25p.m.

Well what does that mean? I’m beginning to understand it now when Mum scrunches her nose up and says ‘Men!’after Dad has done something particularly annoying. Men!

4:28p.m.

Here are some facts. Fact numero uno, I can’t take anytime off from practising for the Irish Dance competition because I’m already favourite to come last. And how much would Killer Kennedy like that? So Irish Dance practise has to be my number one priority, right now. Fact number two: flashmobbing with Murphy is about as high up my list of priorities as it’s possible to go though. Houston –we have a problem, I have two number one priorities.

 5:36p.m.

Siobhan has a solution. She listened to me all the way through looking straight at me, like she does, and then said simply: ‘Why don’t you just ditch the Irish Dancing and go to the flashmob if that’s what you want to do?’How could I? Irish Dancing is what I do, what I’ve always done, it’s who I am. If I don’t have that I don’t have anything. I gave her the little speech that my teacher in Boston used to say about our Irish heritage but Siobhan shrugged and said that Ireland was full of so manyinfluences now that Irish Dance was just part of it. But Idon’t agree, she doesn’t know what being Irish in Boston means. Irish Dance is my heritage, my family, it’s who I am. There’s no way I can give up Irish Dance, even if I really wanted to, even if it meant I got to go out with Murphy, because … well, because … because Mum would kill me for one thing.

Monday 7 November 

One week after we were given our Transition Year Project and Team C still have no idea what to do WHATSOEVER.Ali the Geek said that his Dad wanted him to do something with the hospital – maybe set up a volunteer programme.Brilliant, I thought, but then he admitted that the sight of blood made him sick as a dog. So that was that for that idea. Then Siobhan suggested a mobile manicure service,which sounded great until we thought of giving people pedicures. Yuck. Then we saw a load of kids with face paints go by on the way to a party and then we had the Idea of the Century. Da dah. We’re gonna do children’s parties,we’re gonna do children’s parties. We’re gonna party likeit’s your children’s birthday, yeah we’re gonna party like it’s your children’s birthday.

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