Rupert used calming hands to settle everyone.
Kelly nodded down the corridor. ‘The ghost of Lockie’s personality.’
‘Would you please just shut up?’ said Lockie. ‘Seriously.’
Kelly’s eyes registered a sting.
‘Well, this is not to scale,’ said Rupert, holding Johnny’s directions under the light. ‘There’s nothing on this to indicate a corridor so long that it leads us back to Dublin.’
‘I wish,’ said Kelly. She turned to LB. ‘Sorry… it’s just… Irish.’
‘We get it,’ snapped Lockie. ‘We got it in first year, second year—’
‘We get it,’ Kelly mimicked. She reached over to her suitcase, yanked up the handle, and dragged it towards her.
‘Come on,’ said Lockie, walking up to Rupert. ‘He drew that in ten seconds. It looks like there’s literally a T on it. How hard can it be?’
‘And some Xs and not a very clear distinction between his 1 and his 9,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ve got it now. We walk down there, to Dublin, and split off, into another corridor, boys to the left, girls to the right.’ He looked at Kelly with an apologetic face. ‘I’m afraid he forgot to mark which end of the corridor is the door to 3A.’
‘Yeah – “forgot”,’ said Lockie. He picked up his bag. Kelly kicked it as he walked away.
Amber darted in front to Rupert, hooked her arm into his.
‘Everything OK?’ said Rupert. He glanced down at her. She looked up at him with huge, fearful eyes. He squeezed her arm with his. ‘It was not a sign,’ he said, nodding down to her bare wrist.
Amber smiled up at him. ‘Thanks.’ She looked down the corridor. ‘What motion do you think that was sensing?’
‘My shadow side,’ said Rupert. ‘Fly, my pretty, fly. Find your spirit friends.’
Amber gave a nervous laugh.
‘Stop scaring her,’ said Kelly, walking behind them. She loved Amber. Amber was amazing. But Anxious Amber was like being at a funeral but no one knew who’d died. Not even Amber.
‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ said Rupert. ‘Amber’s used to my ghostly ways.’
Amber glanced back at Kelly. ‘I am. I just don’t want to experience any.’
Kelly let out a weary breath. ‘I love you, Ambs, you know I do. But you really don’t make a lot of sense as a person.’
Amber squeezed Rupert’s arm, gritted her teeth.
LB walked quietly behind them, head down. This was all her fault. Kelly being horrible to Lockie, Lockie hating Kelly, Amber terrified, and Rupert already deploying his calming hands. And they hadn’t even got to their rooms.
First to their room were Lockie and Rupert. Lockie went straight for one of the two king-sized beds, and lay back, hands behind his head, legs crossed. Rupert did a full three-sixty at the centre of the room.
‘I’m not sure what they were aiming for,’ said Rupert, ‘or if they even pulled the trigger.’
‘It’s got two beds,’ said Lockie.
‘So they were aiming for you,’ said Rupert. ‘Bravo, Johnny Owner, and your possibly mummified-in-the-attic wife.’ He took in Lockie’s frown. ‘He pointed upwards when he mentioned his wife!’ said Rupert. ‘And why wasn’t she there to greet us, if she was alive?’
Lockie laughed. ‘That is definitely some English politeness rubbish.’
‘Worldwide!’ said Rupert. ‘Etiquette! My dad thinks we have all been wired for disappointment, to automatically ask for something different, or something more. Before we even allow the first thing to settle.’
‘If you settle near me tonight…’ said Lockie. He rolled onto his side, pulling the covers with him, then stuck his head up over them and smiled.
Rupert narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m wired to be deeply disappointed with whatever you have to offer.’
Réiltín sat cross-legged at the centre of her queen-sized bed, dressed in a navy tank top and matching shorts, leaning over her clipboard, her arms toned, her thick hair piled into a topknot. Even seeing Kelly Warner’s name tightened her chest. She was constantly braced for Kelly’s smirks and overlong looks and glances flashed at whomever she wanted to turn against her. Who could she turn against her here? Not Johnny. She knew Johnny liked her. And he actually paid attention to her. He had recognised the name of her school when he saw it on the others’ applications. And even though she had never said anything to him about being bullied back in Dublin, he clearly picked up on how happy she was to be away. Réiltín knew she’d originally got the job through a friend of her mom’s, so she worked extra hard to prove she deserved it. And she wasn’t going to screw that up because of Kelly Warner.
Knowing she was coming back to the Gaeltacht was the only thing that got Réiltín through fifth year. She was expecting the same summer she had last year, and with the best friend she had ever made. They had met on their first day the previous June, when they were both cuinteoirs for the younger kids. And in August, they both switched to working for Johnny. She felt like a completely different person with him. Her real self. She had never talked to her new friend about Kelly and the others – he thought she was fierce and she didn’t want to change that. Because allowing someone to bully her didn’t feel very fierce— She stopped… Well, not allowing her. Just doing everything she possibly could to avoid her. Like spending her summer three hundred kilometres away, in the last place on earth she thought she would ever turn up. And in a cruel twist her best friend was the one three hundred kilometres away.
Réiltín felt a stab of anger. She jumped up, stormed across the floor into the bathroom, slammed the door and screamed. Thank you, Johnny, for your soundproofing. And your scissors. She grabbed them from the shelf above the sink, beside the one photo she hadn’t shredded. She went over to the toilet, stood over it, and cut Kelly Warner’s paper face into tiny pieces. Why shred when you could go snip by satisfying snip?