Rebecca is Always Right (6 page)

But anyway! Drums forever! I am so happy, even though I now have to write a very boring fake e-mail for German homework about booking a place in a youth hostel.

I have found out why Mrs Harrington has been so quiet lately. She is writing a book! Apparently, she has been writing for hours every night and is too tired in our classes to do anything but actually teach us, which is fine by me. God knows how much time she wasted last year going on about my mother’s books. Usually I am all for teachers wasting time talking about other things besides the subject we’re meant to be studying, but not when they’re raving about my mother. Though of course Mrs Harrington hasn’t forgotten about Mum, because she is her great inspiration!

It all came out at the end of class today. I was walking out of Room 7 and looking forward to eating my ham and salad sandwich when Mrs Harrington said, ‘How’s your mammy’s writing coming along, Rebecca?’

Sadly, I couldn’t ignore her, so I said, ‘Oh, fine.’ And then I thought of something that might cheer Mrs Harrington up. ‘She’s finished writing the book with Patricia Alexandra Harrington in it!’

Months ago, in a moment of madness, I told Mrs Harrington (whose full name is Patricia Alexandra Harrington)
that my mother was going to name a character after her. Of course, then I had to make sure my mother actually did it, which was much easier said than done. But she did it, in the end, so it all worked out, but it was very stressful at the time. Still, all’s well that ends well. And Mrs Harrington looked delighted when I mentioned it.

‘Oh, I can’t wait to read it!’ she said. ‘Me, in a Rosie Carberry book!’

‘Well, just your name,’ I reminded her. ‘I mean, Patricia Alexandra is the villain.’

‘That makes it even more fun,’ said Mrs Harrington happily. ‘I can’t believe my name has inspired your mammy.’ Then she looked at me pointedly. ‘And actually, she’s inspired me!’

‘How?’ I said nervously. Was Mrs Harrington going to start dressing like my mother in a scary stalker way or something? I wouldn’t totally put it past her, given her behaviour in the past.

‘I’m writing a book!’ said Mrs Harrington.

What is it about my English teachers and writing books? The reason we got Mrs Harrington as an English teacher in the first place was because our original teacher went off to write one! Though she actually had a book deal, which is how she could afford to leave her job. It turns out Mrs Harrington is writing one just for fun and it’s all down to, well, you can guess.

‘Your mammy made me realise the power of stories,’ she said, which is a bit worrying considering she’s an English teacher. I would have hoped she’d been aware of the power of stories before she started reading my mother’s books. ‘And now I want to follow her brilliant example.’

So I presume Mrs Harrington’s book is all about a cosy little village with a bakery and a smiling granny and some Irish-dancing kids in it. That more or less sums up most of my mother’s books. Then Mrs Harrington told me that she’s been working on it for three hours every night, which is pretty impressive. I have never spent so much time on my homework, even though it’s Junior Cert year.

Anyway, I told my mother about it this evening and, to my surprise, she was absolutely delighted.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ she said. ‘Tell her I wish her the best of luck.’

I will pass this message on to Mrs Harrington. Maybe she really will become a best-selling author. In fact, maybe she’ll become more popular than my mother. Bet Mum wouldn’t be so pleased then.

Before I went to bed, I asked Mum how she would feel if Mrs Harrington became more successful than her by copying her and she just laughed. She has never taken my interest in her career seriously. I don’t know why I bother, especially as she reminded me today that the sequel to her teen book about Ruthie O’Reilly will be out in a few months.

‘I know the last one took you by surprise,’ she said. ‘So I thought I’d give you lots of warning.’

The new book is called
Ruthie’s Rules for Life
(what a ridiculous title), and Mum swears that she will make it very clear this time that Ruthie has nothing in common with me or Rachel. And she has promised that she has not ‘borrowed’ any more real-life incidents from our lives. I was hoping she might just not do any interviews at all, but she says that she can’t afford to turn down any publicity requests. Anyway, it can’t possibly be as bad as the last time. At least I know she’s not going to let any newspapers print pictures of me as a kid dancing about in ludicrous pink shorts. I still feel a bit sick when I remember that.

Oh my God. Something awful has happened. Not to me, and no one has died or been hit by a car or anything, but it’s quite awful and I’m kind of surprised at how upset I am. And I still can’t totally believe it’s true.

Tom broke up with Rachel.

I know! Saint Tom the Perfect Boyfriend! It’s shocking. I genuinely thought they would stay together forever and get married or something. Well, maybe not get married – as someone, possibly my mother in one of her rare moments of wisdom, pointed out when Paperboy went off to Canada, most people do not stay with their first boyfriend or girlfriend for the rest of their lives. But I really couldn’t imagine them breaking up. I mean, they’ve been together for nearly two years! I was barely thirteen when they got together and now I’m practically grown up. I just can’t believe it. But it’s definitely true.

I don’t know exactly how or why it happened, or anything like that, because I haven’t actually seen Rachel yet. I was in Cass’s house this afternoon and stayed there for dinner, so it was quite late when I got home – her mum gave me a lift. As soon as I came in the door, I just sensed something was wrong.
I called ‘Hello?’ and no one answered, but Mum and Dad were in the kitchen talking quite seriously when I walked in.

‘Oh, hi love,’ said Mum, in a distracted sort of way. ‘I thought I heard someone come in.’

‘Is everything okay?’ I asked, because she didn’t look upset enough for, you know, a sudden death, but she did look a bit stressed. ‘Where’s Rachel?’

‘She’s in her room,’ said Dad. ‘But she’s quite upset.’

‘About what?’ I said, starting to feel nervous. All sorts of things immediately sprang into my mind (though not the actual truth, as it turned out – the thought that Tom might have dumped her didn’t even occur to me). What if Rachel had a terrible illness or something? But I knew surely if she did, my parents would look more worried themselves.

Mum and Dad looked at each other.

‘It’s Tom,’ said Mum. ‘He’s, well, he’s broken up with her.’

‘Tom?’ I said, and I must have kind of shrieked it because Mum immediately went, ‘Sssh! Not so loud.’

‘But why? How?’ I said. I felt stunned, and I still do, really. Tom and Rachel were (and even writing ‘were’ there looks weird. Like their relationship is now officially in the past) so … solid. One of those things that never change, like Miss Kelly going on about natural disasters in geography class, only
more boring and less scary. I just took them being together for granted. I never actually thought about it much, apart from when Rachel was annoying me (like last week) or when I was feeling bitter after Paperboy went to Canada. Rachel going out with Tom was always just … there. A fixed thing in my world. And now it isn’t.

‘I don’t know any details,’ said Mum. ‘I just know she was meeting him this afternoon and she came back in a bit of a state.’

‘But what did she say?’ I said.

‘Not much, Bex,’ said Dad. ‘And we really didn’t want to push her. So don’t go up to her. She’ll talk to us when she’s ready.’

‘But why?’ I said again. An awful thought struck me. ‘Is there someone else?’

But they really didn’t know anything more. And there wasn’t anything I could do. I went upstairs and I was going to knock on the door, but I could hear her crying and it made me feel all weird and awful. I’m used to Rachel being, well, sorted, especially in comparison to me. In fact, sometimes it’s kind of annoying, when she’s being all wise and sensible. But her being really upset is much worse. I feel terrible for her. I’m almost taking it personally, in a strange way – like, how dare Tom do this to her? Who does he think he is?

Oh God, I can’t just ignore her, even if she wants me to. I’m going to go and knock on her door and see what happens.

Well, not much happened. I could hear Rachel sniffling in there when I knocked on the door, and then the sniffling noises stopped and she said ‘Go away!’ in a choked-up voice.

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’ I know it was a stupid thing to say because clearly someone who has shut herself up in her room and is still crying is not okay, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

‘No!’ cried Rachel. ‘And I don’t want to talk to anyone.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I wasn’t exactly surprised. ‘Okay. Well, um … I’m sorry. About … whatever happened.’

I paused for a second in case she changed her mind and decided she wanted to see me, but she didn’t say anything. A second later, she put some sad-sounding music on, so I gave up and came back here. I want to go downstairs and watch telly – there’s a good film on tonight – but I feel a bit guilty enjoying myself with my big sister sobbing away upstairs. There’s not really anything I can do, though, is there? I feel
really rotten. Stupid Tom. So much for him being the perfect boyfriend. I think I might hate him now.