Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin (9 page)

W
hen I woke up I was in the sick room.

“Rachel! Rachel!” Miss Rose’s face was an inch from my nebulizer. I shrieked when I saw her, took the mask off, sat bolt upright and nearly head-butted her.

“Where’s my shopping?”

“I put it in your room,” Miss Craig said. “We’re going to take you to the hospital, Rachel.”

“No, no, no!” I said, probably too insistent, looking back. “I’m fine. I really feel fine. I just shouldn’t have walked to the shop.”

What if they took me to hospital? What would I do then? What would happen to the baby? Its mother?

“Honestly,” I said, putting on a calm, I-can-breathe, voice. “I think I just need some sleep.”

They looked at me for a few moments as I tried hard to make my breathing sound normal. With each tiny gulp of air, I
sensed
the baby. It wasn’t that I saw it in my mind, or that I smelled or
felt or heard it. It was all my senses prickling together, asking:
Is it all right? Am I mad keeping this a secret? Am I doing the right thing? Please let it be safe.

Miss Rose’s voice whooshed me back into the real, non-baby world, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to be fine by morning. I’m going to do the speech and my English exam.”

“Don’t worry about that now.”

“I’m not. I’m not. But I will.”

“If you’re well enough.”

“I will be well enough.”

“All right then. But I want to ring your mother, just to let her know. She’s been leaving messages for you, Rachel. You should call her back.”

My mother and my father were the last people I wanted to talk to. Hadn’t they gotten the hint? I just couldn’t let them distract me, judge me, or get me down. Too much was at stake.

“Nurse, you take Rachel to her cubicle,” Miss Rose said.

I started to feel angry after Nurse Craig finally left my cubicle. The last thing I needed was pressure from my parents, as well as someone else’s (massive) (incredible) (baby-shaped) problem. I looked at the speech I’d written for the pre-exam assembly. I was pleased with it. It went like this:

Girls of Aberfeldy Halls, it is my privilege to stand among you on the eve of our adult lives. The following weeks will determine our success and our happiness. And we should ask ourselves: Are we proud? Have we done everything we can to achieve our goals?

It’s because of this fine school that I’m sure each one of us can answer:

Yes, I am.

And: Yes, I have.

Good luck, girls.

I put the speech down, glanced at my English notes, and smashed my fist on my desk in rage. How was I ever going to make the speech and excel in my higher exams? This could ruin everything. My chances of getting into uni. My chances of leaving the island that had straight-jacketed my life-so-far.

I waited about half an hour and then warmed a bottle of milk using a saucepan of hot water from the communal kitchen. The dorms were still eerily empty and quiet. The television had been switched off. As I approached the darkroom, I could hear it. A faint cat noise, like the one I’d first heard.

It was awake.

I locked the door from the inside and picked the baby up,
holding it in my arms as it guzzled three quarters of the bottle. I put a nappy on it, wrapped it in a sheet, and plugged in the baby monitor. Once it was settled, I went back to my cubicle, turned on the receiving end of the baby monitor so that a light came on if it made a noise, and began my investigations.

My very own
Who-Had-It.

A
melia O’Donohue is
so
not a virgin.

It could be her, I thought as I sat at my desk making notes. I’d been on watch for her secret rendezvous at least twice a week during the first few months at Aberfeldy Halls.

Her boyfriend, whose name turned out to be Piers—a suitably posh name for a posh chinless dick—would arrive ALO and text her (illegal) mobile to indicate that he was on the fire escape. A few seconds later, she’d pop her head over the top of the cubicle wall and look down at me while I said the words:
If I tell, I’ll go to hell.

She couldn’t even be bothered coming into my cubicle after the first couple of times, so I’d have to stand on my bed for the cheek-slap and nose-pull.

I’d listen as she sprayed perfume, changed clothes, and then I’d do everything in my power to stop people from going out on the fire escape or entering her room.

After a while, she stopped asking me to guard her room. She
felt confident, I suppose, as no one had tried to find her after the first few times I stopped them.

I’d snuck peeks several times and knew they’d been going all the way for some time now.

And she’d put on weight. “It’s the stodge they feed us,” she’d say. “I’m on a carrot diet! Anyways, shut up, like, who are you to talk? You’re hardly catwalk material yourself.”

Come to think of it, I’d heard her vomit in the loos a while back. When I asked her later if she was feeling all right, she was like, “None of your business, stalker!”

Oh, and I’d heard her crying last Sunday. When I asked her what was wrong, she was like, “Piss off!”

Could be her.

Probably was her.

The bell rang. I watched the girls head back into the dorm building, taking note of anything unusual. There were pale girls, tired-looking girls, worried-looking girls. There was Amelia O’Donohue. I listened as she came into her room, turned her music on, and changed out of her uniform. I heard Taahnya knock, come in, and whisper something. Eventually, they both left. I stood on my bed to look into her room. Her bed was unmade. Her desk was a mess. Her clothes were strewn all over the floor. Unable to see any incriminating
evidence, I climbed over the wall, landing on her bed harder than I’d anticipated.

In her cupboards were clothes and more clothes.

In her drawers were bags and bags of chocolate Flakes and licorice all sorts and five large bars of Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate and peanut butter and actual butter and four loaves of crusty bread, one of which had been disemboweled so it was only a crust now. There were underpants (lacy, frilly, see-through…) and a stethoscope!

In her toilet bag was an unopened,
untouched
, packet of tampons.

In her handbag were lipsticks and eyeliners.

On her desk was a diary…

Footsteps. I jumped back over the wall so fast I surprised myself, and huddled in bed, frightened…

…with Amelia O’Donohue’s secret diary in my hot little hands.

Dear diary,

Friends:

Rachel Ross (though I wouldn’t admit this to anyone but you, diary. She’s a bit of a Keener, but the only trustworthy person in the whole entire school)

Mandy Grogan (dumb, but fun)

Louisa MacDonald (Brain, but funny)

Enemies:

Tanya Nairn (keep ’em close)

Sluts:

Tanya Nairn (She denies it, but I know for a fact she had an abortion last year)

Boyfriends:

Piers Watson-McInerney

Secrets:

1. See above re Tanya Nairn—Whose was it: John McDonald or William Collier?
   
2. 2. I am in love with Piers Watson-McInerney.
   
3. I’m going to move in with him in three months time!
   
4. I can’t write this last secret down. I haven’t even told Rachel.
   

Amelia was calling to me. I slammed her diary shut, pulled my head out from under the duvet, and said “Yeah?”

“Tonight at 10:00?”

She hadn’t asked me to watch out for ages. “Why?” I asked.

She opened my door. I hid her diary under the sheets just in time.

“God, you look bloody awful,” she said.

“You’re always really mean, Amelia. Why should I?” I wouldn’t usually question her like this. But in her diary she said I was her friend. If so, why did she treat me like dog crap?

“Rachel…Rachel…You know why. Because if you don’t I’ll make your life hell.”

“I don’t care if you make my life hell. I really don’t care.”

“Oh, please, Rachel. The matrons are onto the smoking. They’re checking the fire escapes each night. I’m sorry I’ve been nasty. I really am. Mum says it’s my default position. It’s just what I do. Plus that Mandy Grogan gets me going. She’s got it in for you. It’s hard not to get involved, you know. I’m weak. I’m sorry. Please…”

“Ten it is,” I said. She gave a pleading smile, said thanks (I hadn’t seen this smile before…so unlike her…she was acting very oddly indeed), and shut my door gently.

Thank god she hadn’t noticed her diary was missing. I went under the covers again and looked at the page I’d read. There were so many things about it that startled me. I was her friend! Taahnya was her enemy! She was moving in with Piers after school finished! She had a secret too big to write down! Add this to the stethoscope in her room (maybe she’d used this to check the baby was okay?) and I had suspect Number One.

I was absolutely sure it was her.

I didn’t go to dinner. I put Amelia’s diary back where I found it and thought hard about how to confront her. I waited till everyone got back, waited as everyone studied and showered and got ready for bed, took a puff of my ventolin and another two painkillers, and knocked on her door.

When she opened it, she had a green silk dressing gown on. Underneath I could see the frilly underwear set I’d found in her cupboard. It was red and lacy. “Can I talk to you, Amelia?”

She screwed up her face. The old horrible Amelia had returned already.

“I’m going to anyway,” I said with unusual assertiveness, sliding the door shut behind me and sitting on her bed.

She was like, “What’s wrong with you? You’re white as a ghost.”

“I have asthma, but that’s not what I want to talk about.”

“Whatever,” she said, returning to the mirror to retouch her lips.

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Have you got anything you want to tell me?”

She didn’t turn around.

“Amelia…I
know
.”

“What?” she said, turning to face me, her expression shocked, scared.

“I know what’s happening and I want to help you.”

She sat down on the bed beside me, floppy and weak, the silk of her dressing gown and the frills of her lingerie suddenly flat and formless.

“How’d you find out?”

“No one knows,” I said. “I’ve taken care of things. But you need to decide what you’re going to do now.”

“I know. I know I do.”

She started to cry. I found my arms lifting and hauling her in. I found myself holding the popular Amelia O’Donohue as she sobbed and sobbed in my arms.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, not wanting to push her, not wanting to make her feel even worse.

“I do. I do, Rachel. I really do.”

“Tell me.”

“It started to get bad about six months ago. I found myself eating a lot more than before, feeling down…puking.”

“It’s okay,” I said, as her tears fell on my shoulders.

“I prayed it’d go away. I prayed it’d just disappear, like, but it didn’t. It got worse and worse. What’ll happen if everyone finds out? What’ll happen to me?”

“You have to go to the hospital.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want everyone to know.”

“There’s no way around it. You could be in danger. You must be hurting like mad.”

“Not really…”

“Girls,” Miss Rose announced over the loudspeaker. “Time for bed now. Sleep well, and don’t be nervous. You’ll all do really well tomorrow.” The lights went out as soon as the announcement was finished.

“Shit!” Amelia said, moving away from my hug and coming-to suddenly. “Is that the time? Piers’ll be here any second.”

She picked up her mobile phone and checked he hadn’t texted yet.

“Amelia, you have to deal with this now.”

“No, I don’t,” she said, returning to her ice-queen former self.

“What does Piers think?”

“God, Piers doesn’t know!”

“Really?”

“Now say it,” she ordered.

“I don’t need to say it. But I can’t deal with this alone. It’s not my problem. You have to fess up.”

“Say it then piss off,” she said.

So I did the usual cheek-slap, nose-pull, and recital, annoyed and amazed that this girl could be so self-centered and so screwed-up that she could just go on as if nothing had ever happened.

• • •

When I got back to my room, the light of the baby monitor was flashing. I tiptoed downstairs with a saucepan of hot water. The television room was dark and quiet. Some girls were snoring. Some were giggling. I snuck in the darkroom, locked it behind me, fed the thing some warm milk, changed its nappy, and looked into its eyes.

He didn’t look anything like Amelia O’Donohue, this boy
I’d named Sam. His eyes were blue. At first I thought this was strange, as Amelia and Piers both had brown eyes, but then I remembered that most newborns have blue eyes at first. It seemed sad that they would change, as blue eyes suited this baby somehow. Shiny little eyes that looked hard into mine. I had to go.

Amelia was still outside on the fire escape. I opened my window and took a look. jesus, wouldn’t that
hurt?
She was unbelievable. I couldn’t help but yell at her.

“Amelia, come in here now!”

A few moments later my door flew open.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m your friend and you need help.”

“My friend!
Hardly
…And you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said.

“A molehill?” I whispered, moving towards her angrily. “You’ve just given birth and you call it a molehill?”

“What?”

“Your baby needs you,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Amelia. You’re confused. Remember our talk? I know all about it. I know everything. He’s in the darkroom.”

“Who?”

“The baby.
Your
baby.”

“Rachel, are you mad?”

“Are
you?
”

“I asked you first,” she said.

“No. I found your baby. In the linen cupboard.”

“It’s the medication. What are you on? Has the studying gotten to you?”

“It’s not yours?” I asked.

“It’s not anybody’s, Rachel. It doesn’t exist.”

“Right, come with me,” I said, grabbing her hand and dragging her to the second floor.

We’d almost reached the darkroom when Taahnya caught us. She was sneaking into the television room.

“Hey, Amelia, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” we both said at the same time.

“
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’
s on. You wanna watch? Or we could watch
CSI
if you’d rather.”

“Maybe later,” Amelia said.

“Yeah, maybe later,” I said.

“Not you, retard,” Taahnya said to me, one half of her lip curled so spectacularly that it almost touched her nostril. She shut the television door behind her.

I checked the hall. With no one in sight, I unlocked the door of the darkroom.

Once locked inside, I opened the cupboard door, turned on my flashlight and shone it at little Sam, lying there, eyes open, gurgling happily on his towel.

Thud.

Amelia had responded in the same way I had. I waved her unconscious face with my hand, slapping her cheek gently.

“Amelia! Amelia!”

She opened her eyes and stared at me for a second before the image flew back at her and she sat upright.

“What the fudge! There’s a baby in the cupboard!”

“It’s really not yours?”

“NO!”

“Then why did you tell me it was?”

“I didn’t. I’m bulimic, idiot. I barf after dinner.”

“So…if it’s not yours…”

We both looked down at the little one, our faces huge against his. I’m sure he smiled at me.

“…then whose is it?”

“We have to tell Miss Rose,” Amelia said.

“But the poor thing. Don’t you think whoever the mother is might need someone to talk to first? What if she’s terrified?
What if they take him from her? What if they send her to jail? Shouldn’t we try and help her?”

“But she might be really sick.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find her tonight. One night. If we can’t, we’ll tell the teachers after assembly. Long as we know the baby’s safe, and that no one’s bleeding to death in the dorms, then there’s no danger, is there? Just imagine how scared she must be.”

“You’re right,” Amelia said. “Okay. One night.”

“Deal. Right after my speech, we go to the office. Slap my cheek,” I said. This was the first time I’d ever said those words. I was surprised that Amelia complied immediately. She slapped my cheek, pulled my nose and said: “If I tell, I’ll go to hell.”