Love and Other Drama-Ramas! (8 page)

“Which cousin’s that?” a dark-haired girl asks. “Tiffany?”

“No, Tiffany’s taking a cooking course in Ballymaloe, remember? Where they send all the Leaving Cert rejects. It’s costing Uncle Seb a fortune. He says if she can whack out a decent steak, she might just bag herself a rich husband. It’s the only hope for her. No, I’m talking about Cliona. She’s the editor, you dim sim.”

I give a tiny gasp. “She’s not talking about
your
Cliona, is she?” I whisper to Clover.

“You eavesdropping too, Beanie?” Clover nudges me before shaking her head. “It can’t be, though. Cliona might be a wagon of the highest order, but she’s a goth, and a goth being besties with a D4 is a step too far.”

“Cliona’s an inspiration,” Amber is saying. “It’s the first time a second year’s been made editor.” She lifts her hair off her neck, letting it fall back across her shoulders in a wave, and even several feet away, I get a whiff of expensive shampoo.

The D4 pack has reached some concrete steps to the right of a large modern building, and Amber suddenly stops dead. She lifts her hand like a traffic warden and swings round to face her tribe. (She’s much prettier than I’d imagined, with a heart-shaped face and wide-set hazel eyes, like a cat’s.) “Halt!” she says. “Makeup check.”

At her command, all the girls whip out cosmetic bags and hand mirrors and begin topping up their gloop.

Clover stops too and pretends to study her mobile phone. I linger beside her, watching the D4s from the corner of my eye.

“Remember, first impressions are, like, crucial,” Amber says, snapping her compact closed and slipping it back into her leather satchel. “Today is the most important day in your college career. Hit the stands with pride. We are Mounties, girls. We belong here. Heads up, shoulders back, boobs out. Let’s show them what we’re made of.”

And like a plague of rich, privileged locusts, they swarm up the steps, past a bronze globe sculpture, and into the college building.

Clover stares after them. “I can’t spend four years surrounded by Mount Rackville monsters, Beanie. Girls from that school think they’re so superior, and I hate the way they call themselves Mounties. I think I’ll just register, grab my student ID card, and then head in to the
Goss
office and get some work done.”

I look at Clover, but her eyes quickly dart away from mine. She seems nervous, agitated.

“Can we just have a quick look at some of the society stands?” I say. “There’s free pizza at the Students’ Union, and the engineers have a bungee run. Pretty please?”

We flicked through the Freshers’ Week program on the DART on the way in, and some of the societies sound fantastic. I know if I can just get her to look around, she’ll be excited again. I won’t let her be put off by a bunch of D4s!

She sighs and rolls her eyes at me. “OK, fine. But first I have to register in the exam hall and pick up my student card. You need an ID card before you can join any of the societies, anyway. Which way, bloodhound?”

“Follow the crowd, I guess.” I point at a group of Crombies (the male equivalents of D4s). They are all in matching jeans and Abercrombie & Fitch Ts and are jostling one another with their broad rugby player shoulders.

“It’s a sad day when I have to trail Crombies — but I guess you’re right, Beanie.”

We tail them but keep our distance. After walking through a narrow opening, we find ourselves in a huge cobbled square that is thronging with noisy students. It’s also heaving with stands — some are tented, some are decorated with colored banners, and all are manned by students in hoodies or tops printed with their society’s name.

We sniggle our way through the bodies. The air is thick with sweat, beer fumes, and aftershave so strong you can taste it. (The Crombies have obviously been dousing themselves as usual.) There’s a queue snaking outside one of the Georgian buildings to the left, so we weave our way in and out of the crush toward it. The sign on the wall says “
NEW STUDENT REGISTRATION.
” Bingo!

Luckily the queue is moving quickly, and within minutes we find ourselves inside, where we join another busy queue to the right, marked “
ARTS.
” The building is ancient, with huge wooden doors like a church and a soaring ceiling covered in fancy plasterwork. It smells of old wood and is pretty intimidating.

I look at Clover, all ready to give a low, impressed whistle, but her eyes are fixed ahead, to where Mountie Amber is posing for her ID photo. “One second, please,” she is telling the photographer. She shakes back her hair and smacks her lips together to redistribute her gloss. “Right, you can proceed . . .”

After the picture’s been taken, she holds out her hand. “Obviously I’ll need to approve it.”

The photographer is so stunned, she passes it over without a word. Amber takes a look. “That will be fine,” she says, handing it back and moving toward the registration desk, where a man looks up at her through half-moon glasses. “Name, please,” he says, sounding tired and bored.

“Amber Horsefell.”

“Subjects?”

“English and history of art.”

He ticks her off the list. “You can collect your student ID from the desk at the back wall in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Amber says primly with another flick of her hair.

“Did you hear that?” Clover hisses at me. “English and history of art. There’s a Mountie in both my subjects. Help, Amy!” She clutches my arm.

At the sound of Clover’s voice, Amber spins round. “I heard that.” She looks Clover up and down. “Newtown High? No, not scruffy enough. Weston Park. Nah, too quirky.” She narrows her eyes and then smiles. “I’ve got it: Saint John’s. I can spot a Saint John’s girl anywhere. You think you’re so hip and original, but you have such burning Mountie envy, it eats you up inside, like a parasitic worm.”

I wait for Clover to fight back — give Amber a good tongue lashing — but she’s gone mute. I’ll have to say something instead.

“Mountie envy?” I snort. “You have got to be—”

“How darling,” Amber says to Clover, cutting me off. “You brought along a Mini-Me to keep you company. No friends your own age. Saddo.” And with a toss of her mane, she sashays away while Clover stares down at the floor.

“You OK?” I ask her.

She nods but she’s biting her lip, and I can tell she’s not herself.

“Once I’ve registered, I have to grab some paperwork from the English department and then I’m outta here,” she says quietly.

“But I thought we were going to stick around, check out a few of the stands.”

“Changed my mind.”

“But, Clover—”

“Just leave it, Beanie. Tell you what, while I get my ID card and collect my schedule, why don’t you have a look around. I’ll meet you over by that funny-looking brass thing in ten minutes, OK?” She points toward the far end of the square.

“Clover, that’s a very valuable Henry Moore sculpture! And it’s bronze, not brass.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “You’re such a culture vulture, Beanie. See you in a mo’.”

As she heads away, I walk back outside into the thick of the crowd, picking my way down the stands. Everyone seems to be shouting.

“Join the Sailing Club,” a cute blond boy yells in my ear, nearly deafening me.

“Free foot massage at the Yoga Club,” a girl in a fluffy bumblebee scarf bellows, making me jump.

I walk back, away from the stands to get a bit of space and so I can read the banners above the tables: Hockey. Chess. Yoga. Scuba Diving. Judo. Photography. Science Fiction. Comedy.
An Cumann Gaelach
. Juggling. Juggling?

The whole cobbled square is buzzing, and I’m so disappointed Clover isn’t in the mood to hang out. Then I spot what looks like the college magazine stand, complete with an old-fashioned black typewriter sitting proudly on one of its many tables. The stand is covered in pink flags, each one has
Trinity Tatler
printed on it in thick black cursive script. Some of the students manning it are wearing pink fitted polo shirts, also emblazoned with the words
Trinity Tatler
.

I’m half walking away — no point in talking to them without Clover — when a singsong Galway accent mocks, “Don’t join
Trinity Tatler
, then. See if I care.”

A gorgeous black guy with melty chocolate eyes and a sky-high quiff of hair is talking to me. He’s certainly not wearing anything resembling a pink polo shirt. He looks Odd McOdd in his checked shirt, baggy shorts, shiny blue high-tops, and geeky glasses, but
très
cute. He’s perched on the edge of a table, and from the length of his amazingly strong-looking legs, he must be at least six feet tall.

“That’s right,” he is saying. “Walk away. We don’t want any riffraff. And D4s are banned. Quite enough of them perching on the mag’s desks and filing their talons already.” He sweeps his eyes left and right at the girls behind the desk, and then looks directly at me. “You a D4, doll face? Nah, you don’t have that pinched I’m-on-a-permanent-diet expression. And you’re looking far too funky. This is your lucky day. I might just let you join our band of merry men.”

I grin at him. “Sorry, but I’m not a student here. I’m just passing through.”

He winks. “I get it: spying for a rival college mag. Clever. Well, you won’t get a peep from these babies.” He pinches his lips closed.

I laugh. “I’m only thirteen. I’m still in school.”

“I never like to judge, doll face.” He smiles such a cute smile that my knees nearly buckle under me. “I’m Patrick Akinjobi. Paddy to my friends. Assistant editor and general gofer. And what are you doing here today if you’re not spying?”

“I’m with my aunt. She’s registering today. First-year English.”

“Mature student?”

I smile. “Very immature.” Then something occurs to me. Paddy seems really cool — Clover would love him, and if she got involved with the magazine, maybe college wouldn’t seem so daunting.

“She’s only seventeen,” I tell him, “but she’s already a very experienced journalist. She’s been working for the
Goss
during her gap year.”

Paddy looks impressed. “The teen mag? It’s always winning print and media awards. I’ve read some of their articles online.”

“Clover’s their agony aunt, and she also writes features,” I say, encouraged by his interest. “She interviewed Matt Munroe last summer.”

“Hey, I think I read that piece. The Hollywood actor with Irish roots? Exclusive interview, wasn’t it?”

I nod proudly.

“This Clover sounds like my kind of gal. The mag could sure do with some experienced journos. The current crop of writers are muppets. When can I meet her?”

“Right now.” And I jab a quick text to Clover.

“So what’s your name?” Paddy asks.

I’m opening my mouth to tell him when a girl appears beside him. She’s another mink-haired D4 and is wearing the pink
Trinity Tatler
polo shirt with denim shorts. She has orange legs up to her armpits and a face thick with makeup. And for some reason she looks familiar.

“Hey, Paddy,” she says, completely ignoring me. “My laptop’s acting up again. Can you, like, fix it?” She thrusts a pearly pink laptop into his hands and then sits down on the desk with her back to me. How rude!

“Sorry,” he says to me, putting the laptop down on the table and scowling at it. “Our editor’s very impatient. All hail our leader.” He puts both his hands in the air and pretends to kowtow.

“Just get on with it, please, Wimpy Kid,” the D4 snaps. “And stop with the moaning. I bet you’ve done nothing except chat with people all morning. Have you even signed up any new meat? And, like, someone who can spell would be a bonus. Amber’s grammar isn’t great, and she types like a snail.”

“So do you,” he points out.

She gives a laugh. “I think you’ll find writing’s my thing, not typing. That’s why we have minions.”

Paddy turns to me again, an amused look on his face. “Feel like dropping out of school to become a copy slave? Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Amy,” I say. “Amy Green.”

The D4 whips around and looks directly at me for the first time. My jaw drops. The hair’s utterly different, the goth makeup has been replaced with thick orange goo, and the accent has morphed into a mid-Atlantic drawl, but I’d recognize those piercing ice-blue eyes anywhere.
Pógarooney!
It’s Cliona Bang.

Cliona has only gone and reinvented herself as a D4. Horrifying! I have to warn Clover, but I’m rooted to the spot.

Cliona narrows her eyes suspiciously. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I’m with Clover,” I say, trying not to sound intimidated, even though I am. “You remember Clover, don’t you?”

Something flickers over Cliona’s face — worry, panic? It’s hard to tell. But within nanoseconds the frown is back. “So Clover’s finally decided to give college a try.” She raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Wonder how long she’ll last.”

Paddy is looking at me with interest. “How do you know our esteemed leader, then, Amy?” he asks.

“Cliona used to be a friend of my aunt’s,” I explain. “When she was still a goth.”

Cliona squeals. “I was never a goth.”

I stare at her. “You refused to leave the house without black fingernails and lips.”

“That’s just not true.”

Paddy grins. “Reinventing your past, Cliona? I like it. You have far more depth than I’d given you credit for.”

“And you used to wear black lace gloves and thick white—” I continue.

“Amy!” Cliona says strongly. “Stop or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” Clover appears behind me. She’s pale and her hands are shaking. I pray Cliona doesn’t notice.

There’s a loaded silence.

“So the college dropout is back,” Cliona says eventually.

Clover pulls herself up straighter. “I took a gap year, Cliona. It’s hardly unheard of.”

“She’s been writing for the
Goss
,” I say protectively.

Cliona’s face is a study in unimpressed. “The magazine for tweenies?”

Paddy coughs. “Cliona? Can I just say something? Obviously you two know each other from before, but we could use a decent writer on the mag, and it sounds like Clover’s got all the right credentials. How about forgetting the past and letting Clover join the team as our new features writer? I’m Paddy, by the way, assistant editor.” He gives Clover a lopsided grin.