You couldn’t really say that the trip to Fota Island was a total disaster.
It was much worse than that.
First Alice’s dad showed up at school in really gross shorts, and a revolting purple and green striped t-shirt. That was bad enough, but even worse was the fact that he wasn’t wearing runners and sports socks like a normal person. Instead he was wearing thick, brown sandals with socks under them – green and grey stripy socks like someone’s grandad would wear.
After living with my mum for twelve years, I knew plenty about bad dressing, but this was surely beyond a joke.
Peter came over to me.
‘Hi, Megan,’ he said. ‘Where’s your dad?’
I could feel my face going red.
‘Er, he… I mean… did I tell you he might have an important meeting? Well, he did… so… er… he couldn’t come. He wanted to though.’
Peter didn’t seem to mind much.
‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘That’s his loss. Now I’d better go over to Miss O’H and tell her I’m here.’
As he turned to leave I noticed that there was a huge hole in his left sock, and his big toe was poking out, all hairy and red and curly. Totally, totally gross.
I turned to Alice in horror. I was surprised to see that she seemed quite calm.
‘Look at the state of your dad,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you mad at him?’
‘Of course I’m mad at him.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
She sighed again.
‘There’s nothing I can do, is there? It’s too late for him to go home and change, and a big row wouldn’t help anything.’
‘But how is Miss O’Herlihy going to fall for your dad if he dresses like that?’ I asked.
Alice shrugged.
‘Lighten up, Megan. It’s not his fault. He thinks he’s going on a school tour. He doesn’t know he’s meant to be impressing anyone. And anyway, without Mum to boss him around, he has no idea of how to dress himself properly.’
I wasn’t letting her off that easily.
‘Well what about you? Have you no control over him? Couldn’t you have made him wear something a bit less embarrassing?’
Alice shrugged once again.
‘I didn’t know, did I? I stayed with Mum last night. I just saw him now, same as you did. That’s what this is all about, remember? This whole plan is to get my family back together so fashion disasters like this will never happen again.’
I nodded. I was so shocked at the sight of Peter, I’d kind of forgotten what this was all supposed to be about.
Alice smiled suddenly.
‘Anyway, like I said, there’s nothing we can do now. Let’s hope Miss O’Herlihy can see past the horrible clothes to the nice man inside.’
I glanced over at Miss O’Herlihy who looked quite pretty (for a teacher) in a pale blue dress and sparkly flip-flops. Next to her stood Peter, looking like a very bad joke. I didn’t feel like laughing though. This was so not a laughing matter.
* * *
As soon as everyone arrived, we all got onto the bus. Miss O’Herlihy sat in the front seat with Rachel, the class assistant. Alice and I sat on the other front seats, with Grace and Louise just behind us. Melissa and her four buddies grabbed two whole rows of seats. Peter went down to the back seat with all the bold boys. I wondered if maybe it would be best if he jumped out of the emergency door before the bus even got going. Already I had a very bad feeling about the day.
As we drove away from the school, the boys started singing really loudly. Alice nudged me without turning around.
‘Just listen to them. Boys can be so immature sometimes.’
I laughed when I heard what they were singing—
‘Oh you have a lovely bottom… … … set of teeth.’
Miss O’Herlihy wasn’t very happy though, and she turned around and shouted,
‘Really, children, that’s hardly appropriate behaviour. You’re letting the school down before we even turn the first corner. At your age you should know better. We…’
She suddenly stopped talking, and I turned around to see why. Peter was right in the middle of the group, singing louder than any of the boys. Miss O’Herlihy’s face went a sudden pink colour, and she sat back in her seat.
Alice put her head in her hands.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘He’s showing off. He’s trying to impress a bunch of bold kids. What have I done?’
* * *
Twenty minutes later, when we were well on the road to Charleville, we came to a huge traffic jam. Cars and lorries were stopped for as far as we could see. Miss O’Herlihy kept looking at her watch.
‘We’re going to be late. We’ll miss our seating for lunch,’ she said, ‘And then what will we do?’
Just then Peter stood up. Leaving the boys alone in their version of ‘You should never push your granny off a bus’, he came up to the front of the bus. He tapped the bus-driver on the shoulder.
‘I know a short cut,’ he said.
The driver scratched his head and said nothing.
‘Really,’ said Peter, ‘We just have to edge forward to this turn here on the left, and then we can by-pass Charleville altogether. We’ll save loads of time.’
I leaned over and whispered in Alice’s ear.
‘Didn’t you say your dad has a rotten sense of direction? Didn’t you tell me he always gets lost when you’re on holidays?’
She made a face at me.
‘That’s different,’ she whispered. ‘That’s on holidays. He knows this road too well to get lost on it. It’ll be fine. Dad will get us out of all this traffic, and Miss O’Herlihy will think he’s great. This is the best thing that could have happened.’
Still the traffic didn’t move, and still the bus driver said nothing.
Peter gave a big long sigh.
‘I worked in Cork for years,’ he said. ‘I know all the back roads.’
Alice grinned at me.
The driver looked back at Miss O’Herlihy. Miss O’Herlihy looked at Peter. Peter gave her a charming smile.
‘Trust me,’ he said.
So Miss O’Herlihy trusted him. She nodded at the driver who edged the bus forwards and took the left turn.
It was a big mistake.
The first thing that worried me was when the driver started to mutter rude words under his breath.
The next thing that worried me was when Peter went back to his seat saying,
‘You’re the driver, you figure out where we are.’
I could have given Alice a hard time, but I didn’t dare. She was sitting looking out of the window, like none of this had anything to do with her.
I knew things were really bad when the driver pulled into a field and tried to turn the bus around to go back the way we came.
When the bus got stuck in a patch of mud, and we all had to get out and push, it was almost funny.
Only problem was, Miss O’Herlihy didn’t seem very amused. She stood under a tree with Rachel, and looked like she’d love to kill someone. Maybe it was just me, but I had a funny feeling that person was Alice’s dad.
Alice saw me watching them.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s happier when they have a full stomach. Miss O’Herlihy will be fine once she’s had her lunch.’
She wished.