My Dating Disasters Diary (24 page)

There was a long silence as the boys looked at me; then
one of them said, 'You're that new girl from the Protestant
school, aren't you? Bet you're a bloody Rangers supporter
as well. Why don't you just shove off?'

Oh God, my first day was not going well.

Took sandwiches to school today but still had to eat them
in the dinner hall as it was freezing outside and they
don't have a social area. I sat with my back to the
crucifixion and tried not to think about it. Succeeded in
that but then started to feel uncomfortable as no one sat
at my table. I might as well have had a notice stuck to me
saying,
SAD PERSON WITH NO FRIENDS. DON'T COME NEAR HER OR YOU MIGHT CATCH THE UNPOPULARITY DISEASE AS WELL
.

After lunch I wandered about on my own, the shame
of my friendless state obvious to everyone. Tried smiling
at some people but they didn't smile back – just ignored
me or scowled back in a 'what are you smiling at, you
idiot?' way, so I felt like a retarded person smiling at
nothing.

Wanted to shout, 'Look, I'm not weird. I've got loads
of friends – well, some anyway. People do like me.
Normal people. Quite normal people anyway.' But that
would have made me look stupid and I'd be even more
unpopular if that were possible.

Since I'd nothing better to do, I found out from a passing
teacher where my next class was, then just went and
waited outside the door, even though the bell hadn't
gone. It was a personal and social development class
taken by a guidance teacher called Mrs McKind. She
came along early too, I suppose to prepare things for the
class. She had a nice, kind-looking face like her name, but
I hated the pitying look she gave me as she said, 'You're
the new girl, aren't you? Haven't you made any friends
yet?'

But it got much worse when the lesson started as she
went on at the whole class for being 'uncharitable' in
excluding me. She even said, 'Now I hope you are all feeling
thoroughly ashamed of yourselves and will make
sure Kelly Ann has someone to play with next lunch
time.'

Play with!
I mean, for God's sake. But, whatever, I
was socially doomed anyway. Mrs McKind had just
guaranteed my status as the saddest, most pathetic
person in the whole school. For ever.

Decided to eat my sandwiches in the toilets today so no
one would see that I was too unpopular for anyone to sit
beside. Went to the quieter ones, which were tucked out
the way behind the science block. There was another girl
in the cubicle next to me and, oh, thank God, she talked
to me.

'No one wants to sit beside you either?' she said.

'No.'

'Me neither. People say I'm too boring.'

'Yeah, well, what do they know?' I said. 'I'm sure
you're really interesting if they bothered to get to know
you properly.'

I decided to do exactly that.

Her name was Bernadette Donnelly. Asked her if she
liked Jason from Smashed and told her how gutted I was
that I was going to miss the concert, but she told me she
wasn't really interested in bands. She also didn't like
sport and never watched TV or listened to music. She
wasn't keen on boys, movies or games. This made
finding something to talk about a bit difficult but in the
end we had quite a long conversation about her lunch.

Bernadette always has her lunch in the same cubicle,
the second from the end. She has tuna and mayonnaise
sandwiches every day except Fridays, when she has ham
and tomato. She prefers ham and tomato to tuna
mayonnaise so Friday is a treat. One time, by mistake, her
mum made her ham and tomato on a Thursday. It was
such a surprise. How her mum and she had laughed and
laughed about it when she got home. And guess what?
Her mum made her ham and tomato sandwiches on
Friday again anyway. So she'd had ham and tomato
sandwiches twice that week. Wasn't that amazing? But
not as amazing as her birthday lunch, when she always
had roast beef sandwiches and two fairy cakes.

Yeah, amazing. Seems like I'd done the impossible and found
someone in the world even more boring than my sister.

Liz, Stephanie and Chris rang me tonight to ask how I
was getting on. They'd done this every day since I
started, and like every other time, I just said I was doing
fine.

Don't know why I'm lying to my best friends like this.
I suppose I feel a bit embarrassed about being such a
loser. Also, if I admitted to them how awful things were,
it would make it more real somehow.

I get the feeling Chris doesn't believe me as he
keeps asking questions about my day and ends every call
by saying, 'You sure you're really OK, Kelly Ann?'

However, Liz and Stephanie don't seem to have
guessed there is anything wrong and I just listen to them
babble on about school. How boring double maths had
been and how Conner is refusing to do the
Cinderella
pantomime this year because the story is sexist,
trivializes extended stepfamily problems and glorifies
monarchy.

Tonight Liz also told me that our head teacher read out
a letter from Prince Charles saying how much he had
enjoyed his visit, particularly meeting the wonderful
young people with interesting ideas and refreshing
candour.

'The head is really pleased now, Kelly Ann. Bloody
snob. And it seems that Prince Charles was impressed
with the pupils after all. Especially you. If only he'd said
this sooner you wouldn't have had to leave school.'

Yeah, if only. But it was too late now. Finished the call
quickly before I started to cry.

RE is even worse here than in my last school – all they talk
about is Catholic stuff. We also have a really awful
teacher, Sister Mary Benedicta, who is so old she makes
Miss McElwee look like a teenager and so bad-tempered
that Mr Smith now seems as jovial as Santa Claus in
comparison. And we have five periods with this
fossilized penguin person every week.

It doesn't help that she's taken a dislike to me. Just
because I had the nerve to correct her when she got my
name wrong. Not that she paid any attention to
my correction and insists on calling me Mary Ann.

Today she was banging on about hell. 'Don't listen to
these people who tell you hell is a myth. Hell is real. As
real as I'm standing before you. It's where God sends all
those evil souls who die in mortal sin to be tormented for
all eternity.'

And dying in mortal sin seemed scarily easy actually.
According to her anyway. Miss Mass on Sunday, then get
knocked down by a bus, and that was you. Thought this
was a bit harsh and said so, which earned me a punishment
exercise for insolence. Then she just went on about
what happened to sinners.

Father O'Reilly came in and interrupted her, thank
God, to make a collection for the church roof – and, I
suppose, to check on her teaching, although he didn't
seem that interested in the second bit. She filled him in
anyway.

'I was just telling the class, Father, not to listen to this
new-fangled nonsense about hell being a metaphor. As
Catholics, we know that hell is a real place of eternal
suffering and torment.'

'Listen to the good sister now,' Father O'Reilly said.
'It's just as she says. Hell is real all right. A terrible
place of perpetual pain and unimaginable agony.'

Bloody hell. Everyone started to look a bit worried,
except Sister Mary Benedicta, who smiled approvingly.

But then the priest went on, 'Not that our good and merciful
Lord would ever actually send anyone there, mind, but it's the principle of
the thing. Now, c'mon, I want you all to put your hands in your pockets and
give generously, for the Lord can't stand misers.'

Tiptoed quietly into the toilets at the beginning of lunch
and settled in the cubicle furthest from the one Bernadette
used. Tucked my feet up for good measure so she
wouldn't realize I was there.

No such luck.

'You think I'm boring too, Kelly Ann, don't you?' she
called through the cubicle door.

Oh God.

So relieved to get home tonight. A whole weekend before
I have to go to school again. I really hate it there; mostly
because I have no friends, but also because I hate Sister
Mary Benedicta and we have RE every day. She's mental
and really scary too. All that stuff about the afterlife.
Wonder if there really is anything in it.

I think Mum knows there's something wrong with me
– she's always asking what's up with my face – but
there's no point in talking to her about it. I mean, what
can she do?

She was nice to me tonight though and sent Dad out to
get a KFC for dinner, which is one of my favourites.

But even at dinner I couldn't stop thinking about
school. Mum looked over at me. 'Something wrong with
chicken? I thought you liked these. What's with the torn
face?'

'No, they're great. I was just thinking about stuff.' I
picked up a drumstick. 'Mum, do you think there's a life
after death?'

Mum shrugged. 'Don't know. I'm beginning to
wonder if there's a sodding life before death in this
house.'

'What do you think, Dad?' I asked. 'Is there an
afterlife?'

'No, love. It's all rubbish. Like your grandfather used
to say, "When yir deid, yir deid, jist like a dug."'

Hmm. I took another bite of my drumstick and
thought about this. 'But some people think animals have
souls. So maybe dogs have an afterlife as well.'

Dad laughed. 'Well, Kelly Ann, if that's what you
think, maybe you should leave that drumstick alone. The
chicken mightn't be too pleased with you when you meet
it in the afterlife.'

Looked at my delicious KFC drumstick. Have just
decided that animals don't have souls after all.

RE again. This time she was on about condoms. Yuck.
Someone like her even mentioning condoms is disgusting.
She's mental too, going on about how they're sinful
even for married people, and how if we all followed
Catholic teaching and practised chastity, then no one
would need condoms anyway.

Father O'Reilly came in halfway through the lesson
and again she turned to him to back her up.

'Isn't that right, Father? Abstinence from sin and the
avoidance of temptation is the Perfect Way to conduct
ourselves as good Catholics.'

'It is indeed, Sister Mary Benedicta. Of course, the
good Lord knows we're none of us perfect and
temptation is hard to resist.'

'I beg your pardon, Father?'

'Oh, not for you, Sister, of course not.' He stared at her
face, which was heavy and solid like a warthog's and just
as glum looking. 'The good Lord has been merciful and
made sure that you would never suffer temptation of the
flesh.' He turned to the class. 'But for others not similarly
blessed like the good sister here, well, it's a matter of the
lesser of two evils.'

'You're not condoning the use of contraceptives,
Father!' Sister Mary Benedicta said.

'Of course not, Sister. I'm merely echoing the teachings
of the great saint, Ignatius Giuseppe Marcellus of
Iquabeth. You'll be familiar with him naturally, Sister, and
what he said on these matters?'

'Oh, well, yes of course, Father, but perhaps you'll just
remind me—'

'Certainly, Sister. As the sainted martyr Ignatius
Giuseppe Marcellus was wont to say to all those
privileged to listen to his holy words of wisdom:
If you
can't be good be careful
. Or words to that effect anyway.

'Now, boys and girls' – he rattled his collection box –
'as the blessed saint also used to admonish the children of
his parishioners, if you can afford to buy those new
PlayStation and Xbox games, you can afford to dig deep
into your pocket and give from your hearts. And I don't
want to see any coppers, mind.'

RE again. Decided to do what I normally do at RE classes
and tune the whole thing out, so I was dreaming about
being back at my old school, where I had friends and
didn't have to eat in the toilet, when the penguin got at
me.

'Mary Ann, have you been listening to me?'

'What? Me? Um, yeah. Course, miss – I mean Sister.'

'Then you'll be able to tell us why the Holy Trinity is
like a shamrock.'

'Erm, yeah. Right. What was the question again?'

The old bat repeated her question while I thought
frantically. Hmm, Trinity. Had to have something to do
with three like a tricycle. Right. 'A shamrock's got three
leaves, Sister.'

'Yes. Go on.'

'And it's, um, green?'

Some people in the class started to giggle. The nun
scowled at them.

'Are you mocking me, child? Or is it the Good Lord
himself whom you're mocking? The Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.'

'I wouldn't take the p— erm, make fun of you, Sister. I
was just, er, thinking aloud. What I meant to say is, it's, er,
Irish.'

More laughter.

'Right, that's it. This is blasphemous. I'm sending you to
Father O'Reilly.'

But Father O'Reilly wasn't in so I had to wait until after
lunch time to see him. When I went into his room I saw
he was just finishing off some work on a spreadsheet,
which kind of surprised me. I thought priests would be
doing stuff like reading the Bible or praying maybe. Not
working on a computer.

He saved the file, then told me to sit down in the chair
opposite him.

'So, Kelly Ann, Sister Mary Benedicta tells me that
you're having some trouble with certain aspects of
Catholic doctrine. Seems you're a tad confused about the
Holy Trinity, and who can blame you? It's puzzled
theologians for centuries. Mind you, none of them have
suggested that God the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit
is a green Irishman yet. Still, is there any other part of
Catholic doctrine you're unsure of? Don't be afraid to
speak your mind now. I'd be interested to hear what
you've got say.'