Ask Eva (2 page)

Chapter Three

M
aths was the last class next day. I’ve always hated maths – mostly because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It’s weird – the more I study it, the less I understand. It’s like just thinking about maths eats up half of my brain.

Mrs Hegarty went straight up to the whiteboard and switched it on.

‘Pay attention students,’ she said. ‘Today we’re going to work on some problems.’

‘Hard ones, I hope,’ said Andy, who thinks he’s the coolest kid in the class and likes to be best at
everything
.

He ran his fingers through his hair, making it all spiky, and one of the girls sitting near him looked like she was going to faint from excitement. Andy smirked and did it again.

‘The questions we did last week were pathetically easy,’ he said.

Mrs Hegarty ignored him. ‘The first problem is very interesting,’ she said.

‘That would be a first,’ I whispered.

Ella laughed, but stopped quickly when she saw that Mrs Hegarty was glaring at us. Our maths teacher is not known for her sense of humour.

I read the words on the screen:

Last month, Maria spent a fifth of her pocket money on books and ½ on phone credit, and she put the remaining 12 Euro into her bank account. Now answer the following questions:

For one second, while we waited for Mrs Hegarty to reveal the questions, I sat up and began to pay attention. Maybe this wasn’t
going to be as boring as usual. But then she showed the questions and I sat back again.

Does it matter what fraction of her money Maria saved?

Who cares what fraction of her money Maria spent in total?

If I were in charge, I could think of
way
more interesting questions.

Why did Maria spend so much on phone credit when she could be using WhatsApp and FaceTime?

Since she manages to save 12 Euro a month, did Maria’s parents ever think that maybe they were giving her too much pocket money? (I haven’t saved a single cent for years.)

Did Maria ever think about joining the library?

I hadn’t even started the first part of the question when our scary principal, Mr Dean, marched into our classroom. I hadn’t done anything wrong (as far as I knew), but still I
felt guilty. Mr Dean has that effect on people.

Then I noticed that Mr Dean wasn’t alone. ‘Hurry along,’ he said to someone who was still outside the classroom door. ‘I haven’t got all day. I’ve got a school to run.’

A girl walked into the classroom. She was tall and athletic looking, and her uniform was a bit too short and a bit too tight – like it belonged to someone else. As she walked, her braids rattled together, making small clinky, clattery sounds. I wondered if the noise kept her awake at night.

I felt sorry for this girl I’d never met. I knew exactly how she felt, because it wasn’t so long since I’d had to start in a new school. When you’re new in a place, the last thing you want is to be marched into the middle of a class and have a whole crowd of strangers staring at you, judging you.

‘This is Aretta,’ said Mr Dean. ‘And she’s come aaaaall the way from Nigeria.’

Behind Mr Dean’s back, Aretta gave the tiniest roll of her eyes. I smiled to myself. This girl looked like she might be fun.

Mrs Hegarty went over to Aretta and shook her hand. ‘You are very welcome to Ireland,’ she said in a too-loud, too-slow voice. ‘I hope you will be very happy here. When did you arrive?’

‘Eight and a half years ago,’ said Aretta, and everyone except for Mrs Hegarty and Mr Dean laughed.

When Mr Dean left, Mrs Hegarty found Aretta a place to sit at the front of the room, and then she started on another totally stupid and impossible question about children and sweets and x’s and y’s.

After what felt like a hundred years, Mrs Hegarty gave us a mountain of homework I was never, ever going to be able to do, and the class was finally over.

I packed up my books as quickly as I could.

‘Come on,’ I said to Ella. ‘Hurry up. I can
still remember what it’s like to be the new kid. It’s not nice being the only one on your own. Let’s go over to Aretta, and ask if she’d like to hang out with us for a bit before going home.’

‘That’s really nice of you, Eva,’ said Ella. ‘Just give me a sec to get my stuff together.’

One minute later, we went over to where Aretta had been sitting, but there was no sign of her.

How had she managed to leave so quickly?

It was almost like she’d vanished into thin air.

‘That’s weird,’ said Ella. ‘She was here a second ago!’

‘Maybe she was rushing off somewhere,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to her.’

‘I guess,’ said Ella. ‘Do you still want to hang out?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to my place, and you can distract me from my maths homework.’

Chapter Four

M
um gave Ella and me a glass of home-made lemonade and we took them upstairs.

‘Your room is so great,’ said Ella, as she sat on my bed. ‘It’s like something out of a magazine. The rug your mum made for the floor is totally cool, and I love the way your dad painted those stripes on the wall.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, as I sat down next to her. ‘But you never saw my bedroom in my old house, did you?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t know you back then, remember – and you never talk much about those days.’

‘That’s not an accident.’ I said. ‘My life was very different then, and I was a bit of a princess. I don’t think you’d have liked me very much.’

‘And you think I actually like you now?’

She ducked to avoid the cushion I threw at her, and then I continued.

‘Anyway, back then I used to live in a house that was almost as big as a castle. My bedroom was
huge
, with its own bathroom and dressing room and heaps of cool stuff.’

‘Wow!’

‘I hated it here at first,’ I said. ‘I thought my life was over when Mum and Dad lost their jobs, and we had to move.’

Ella giggled. ‘Was that when you went to see Madam Margarita, the fortune-teller, and you thought she could solve all your problems?’

I giggled too as I remembered. ‘Yeah. Even though Madam Margarita turned out to be Ruby’s mum who had no special powers at all.’

‘I’ve never changed schools, and I’ve lived in the same house for my whole life. I guess all that moving around must have been hard for you,’ said Ella, when we’d stopped laughing.

‘It was – but that’s only because I was totally spoiled. Back then I didn’t know it was possible to live without fancy cars and exotic holidays.’

‘Do you ever wish you could go back to your old life?’

‘Sometimes – sort of. I wouldn’t mind having a few more nice clothes, and I’d
love
a new smartphone. Mostly though, I’m happy now.’

‘Good,’ said Ella. ‘And look on the bright side – if you hadn’t moved here, you wouldn’t have got to know me. Think what a disaster that would have been.’

‘You’re so weird,’ I said, laughing.

‘Speaking of weird,’ said Ella, taking her phone out of her pocket. ‘Have you heard this
song? It’s—’

‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘Listen.’

‘What? I don’t hear anything.’

‘There,’ I said. ‘There it is again.’

Ella rolled her eyes. ‘Sounds like a dog barking – how totally amazing is that?’

‘That dog belongs to Gemma, the woman next door,’ I said, ignoring her sarcasm. ‘And I’ve just had the most amazing idea ever.’

‘We’ll be back in a bit, Mum,’ I called as we went downstairs and outside.

Ella followed me without arguing. She trusts me, which can sometimes be a bit of a responsibility. She waited patiently on the footpath, while I ran into Gemma’s house.

‘What on earth
is
that?’ she asked when I came back outside a minute later.

I giggled. ‘It’s a dog.’

‘But it looks more like a horse.’

‘It’s a Great Dane,’ I said. ‘Her name is Jessie, and Gemma said I can borrow her for a bit. We can take her for a walk.’

Ella smiled. ‘
Now
I get it. You want to bring Jessie to visit Gigi?’

‘Exactly,’ I said, gripping the lead tightly and trying to stop Jessie from dragging me across the road.

‘That’s a really nice idea, but……’

‘Don’t worry – I know Jessie’s a giant, but she’s very gentle.’

‘That’s not what I’m worried about. Gigi loves all dogs, and they love her. I think she could tame a pack of wild wolves if she needed to.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘Have you forgotten Nurse Witch – the wickedest nurse in the world? There’s no
way
she’s going to allow Jessie into the nursing home.’

I shrugged. ‘We don’t know until we try, do
we? Now let’s go before Jessie pulls my arm off.’

We hesitated on the driveway of the nursing home. Inside we could see Nurse Witch sitting at the reception desk, like a sentry at a watch-post. She looked like she was just waiting for something to go wrong. I wondered if she had a loaded gun hidden under the desk. Maybe she had a walkie-talkie in her pocket so she could call helicopters and jeeps and armed men with funny nets on their helmets.

‘I’m not so sure about this,’ said Ella. ‘Nurse Witch is definitely going to say no when we ask if we can bring Jessie in.’

‘Maybe she will, but do you have any other suggestions?’

‘We could try smuggling her in?’

I giggled. ‘Sure. That sounds like a great plan. You create a distraction, and then no one
will
ever
notice me sneaking in with a Great Dane under my arm.’

Ella giggled too, but stopped suddenly. I looked up and saw Nurse Witch marching towards us. She flung the glass door open, and glared at us.

‘What on
earth
do you think you’re doing here with that … with that beast?’

‘Her name’s Jessie,’ I said, trying not to show how scared I was. ‘I thought we could bring her in to see Gigi.’

‘Gigi really, really misses her own dog,’ said Ella.

‘And there’s a lot of research that says animals can be a calming influence on old people,’ I added. ‘Jessie’s very sweet and gentle, and––’

As if she was trying to agree with me, Jessie lurched forwards and licked Nurse Witch’s hand. Nurse Witch jumped backwards, shrieking.

‘It’s attacking me! It’s attacking me! Get it away from me at once.’

‘Sit, Jessie,’ I said, and Jessie obeyed immediately, looking up at me with her huge brown eyes.

No one said anything while Nurse Witch ran inside and used about a litre of hand sanitizer to scrub her hands.

When she came back, her voice was hard and cold. ‘Under
no
circumstances is that monster going anywhere near my residents. If the fright doesn’t kill them all stone dead, they’ll probably catch some deadly disease.’

‘Jessie’s had all her vaccinations,’ I said. ‘Her owner thinks …’

I stopped suddenly when I saw that Nurse Witch looked really, really angry. I knew I was wasting my time. This woman was never, ever going to let Jessie inside. It was time to lower my expectations.

‘Maybe I could bring Jessie around to the
back door,’ I said. ‘And Gigi could come outside to see her there?’

Now Nurse Witch’s face went a scary purple-red colour, and I half-expected to see smoke coming out of her ears.

‘I have never heard anything like this in my whole life,’ she said. ‘It is completely out of order. Get that beast off this property before I call the police.’

For a second I didn’t move. She had to be bluffing, didn’t she?

‘You know you’re ignoring years and years of research?’ I said. ‘Dogs can––’

Nurse Witch pulled her phone from her uniform pocket, and started to press numbers. I don’t know if they actually send dogs or children to jail, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out.

‘You go on up to see Gigi,’ I said to Ella. ‘And tell her I said “hi”. Come on, Jessie. We know where we’re not wanted.’

‘Thanks anyway, Eva,’ said Ella, looking really sad and hopeless. ‘It was nice of you to try to help.’

‘Tell Gigi to look out her bedroom window,’ I called, as Ella and Nurse Witch went inside. ‘If that’s not against the rules!’

Nurse Witch turned and glared at me. If this was a fairy-tale, I think I’d have turned to stone.

A few minutes later I was standing across the road, looking up at Gigi’s window. Jessie was sitting on the footpath next to me, looking angelic. Upstairs, Gigi was leaning on Ella’s arm and waving out at us. I picked up one of Jessie’s huge paws and made her wave back. Gigi put her head down. It was hard to be sure from such a distance, but I think she might have been crying.