Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [16]
‘Ah… Scarlett, conas atá tú?’ Miss Madden asks.
I have no idea what she is asking. I can barely follow her accent when she’s speaking English, let alone Gaelic. I shake my head.
‘Conas atá tú, Scarlett?’ she repeats, teasing me. ‘An bhfuil tú go maith?’
My head aches. I can’t make sense of anything she says.
‘She says, how are you?’ Ros whispers. ‘Are you all right? Say something!’
‘ I’m a bit hot,’ I mumble, and a ripple of laughter spreads out around the class. Of course, I was meant to say something in Irish.
‘Oscail an fhuinneóg,’ Miss Madden says, smiling. Why can’t she leave me alone? She may as well be speaking Cantonese. She grins prettily, nodding towards the window.
‘The window,’ Ros hisses in my ear. ‘She says, if you’re hot, open the window!’
I lean across to fiddle with the catch and let the big, metal-framed window swing open. I look out of it longingly, across the little playground, the neat daisy-sprinkled grass where we sat in the sunshine just half an hour ago. Then I drag my eyes back to the classroom.
‘An bhfuil biseach ort?’ Miss Madden says.
Why is everyone looking at me? I lean back in my chair, staring at a fixed point just above the blackboard, wondering why it keeps going out of focus. Something that feels a lot like panic is forming a small, hard knot inside me.
‘Miss Flynn?’
I shove my desk so hard it topples over on to the floor. A gasp spreads out across the classroom like a ripple on water, and Miss Madden’s eyes look like they might pop.
‘What are you doing, Scarlett?’ she asks, switching back to English rapidly, but by then there is no going back. I step up on to my chair as the class looks on, gawping. My wedge heels make a clopping sound as I balance on the window sill before ducking through the open window and dropping down on to the grass.
‘Where are you going?’ Miss Madden calls out as I stride across the grass, tearing the worksheet into shreds as I walk. Ripped paper flutters out behind me like confetti.
‘Scarlett Flynn!’ she screeches. ‘Come back here!’
I reach the gate and turn slightly, my head held high. The sun is warm on my back but there’s a slight breeze, and my head feels clearer than it has all day. Miss Madden is hanging out of the window, calling the name of a girl I can barely remember, a girl who no longer exists. Behind her the class have gathered in a pale-faced clump, fascinated. They seem very far away.
I walk out through the open school gates and don’t look back.
The trouble with Kilimoor is that there’s nowhere to run to. The main street doesn’t have one single normal-looking shop, just an alarming egg-yolk yellow pub called Heaney’s Bar, which seems to have a post office and greengrocer’s attached. There’s a sweet shop that sells sherbet lemons and pear drops straight from the jar and a dusty craft shop selling Aran cardigans and harp-printed tea towels.
I fish out my mobile, hold it at arm’s length and take a picture of myself cross-eyed, tongue lolling. Messed up again, I text Mum. Coming back 2 London. Scarlett x.
Not that she’ll be bothered. She still hasn’t called.
I find a bus stop, count my cash and wait half an hour for a tiny minibus to appear.
‘I need to get to Knock Airport, please,’ I say to the driver. ‘Do you go straight there or will I have to change?’
‘Ah, now,’ he replies. ‘I’m going the other way.’
‘To Dublin?’ I ask, because I know you can get ferries from there. The driver just laughs.
‘No. You’re about as far from Dublin as it’s possible to be,’ he says. ‘Now, you could take the bus to Castlebar, and change there for Knock, but the Castlebar bus went an hour ago. And if it’s Dublin you’re wanting, you’d best take a bus down to Galway and pick up a coach going east. The Galway bus goes from over the road, by Heaney’s. You’ve just missed it.’
My face falls. ‘Is there another one?’
‘Friday,’ shrugs the bus driver. I stand on the pavement and watch him drive away.
I slump into a little cafe that has red-and-white checked tablecloths and order a bottle of pop and a cheese sandwich for later.