The Blue Horse (7 page)

Mam talked to one or two of the neighbours and to Miss O’Gorman to get advice about school. The social worker agreed that James Searson was a fair and sensible man. Twins were often split up so maybe it would be for the best. She gave Katie the application forms for the Community School but Katie wasn’t that much bothered. Tom was staying home, maybe she would too.

The first day of September was on top of them before they knew it. Brian was all excited and Miss O’Gorman surprised him with a vivid blue schoolbag that strapped over his shoulders and a grey school jumper and tie. Paddy went off into the bedroom in a huff.

When Mam walked with Brian down to the national school, half the neighbourhood seemed to be heading in the same direction. Brian was very nervous, but relaxed a bit when some of his football pals fell into step with him.

Mam came back almost sick with worry, but praying that Brian would be okay.

Half-an-hour later a red and grey bus stopped almost outside the door. The driver, a burly red-faced man, got out holding a list in his hands. Paddy and Hannah were the only two from their road going.

Mam and Katie went out to the bus with them. About eight other children were on it already. Hannah was crying a bit and showing all the signs of getting herself in a right state. Mam was trying to hurry her along.

‘Come on, I haven’t got all morning, Missus,’ said the driver. ‘Tell her to make up her mind if she’s coming or going. I have another twenty at least to pick up.’

Hannah looked over at Katie beseechingly. ‘Katie, come with me, please.’

Katie hesitated. She had barely washed herself this morning she had been so busy getting the rest of them ready. She had brushed Hannah’s hair and picked out two green clips, one for each side.

‘First day is it?’ the driver said, a little more kindly. ‘The older girl can come if she wants to, but she’ll have to walk back.’

‘Please, please, Katie. I want you to see our school. Please come, just this morning.’

Mam nodded in agreement and Katie jumped up and grabbed a seat beside Hannah. Hannah always got her own way in the end, where Katie was concerned.

The bus journey was fairly long. They turned back onto the main road and then into a neighbouring estate, where about ten young travellers got on. They seemed to know the other children on the bus and just ignored the newcomers. The bus called to a halting site and
seven more youngsters got on, their parents waving goodbye from the three trailers parked on the concrete yard. One of the boys, a cheeky fellow with a mop of blond curls pushed in beside Paddy and was trying to chat to him. The last call was to a roadside. Behind a clump of hedgerow, a caravan roof peeped through, then two little girls appeared out of nowhere and climbed up on the bus.

The bus finally turned off the main roads and headed up a bumpy sideroad. Two or three times the driver shouted to the kids to sit down. ‘Any trouble on the bus and that’ll be the end of it,’ he kept threatening. ‘I’m watching you all.’

Katie hoped she would remember the way back to the main road. As they turned around the corner she caught a first glimpse of the neat, whitewashed building with the brightly coloured yellow windows.

‘It looks lovely, Hannah, doesn’t it?’ Her sister looked a bit doubtful.

Paddy was standing up ready to get out quickly. Katie went up to the school door with them, where a teacher welcomed all the pupils into a large open hall and began to tell them some of the things they would be doing during the year.

Katie had to stay outside but through the long window she could still make Hannah out, her white-blond hair making her stand out from the rest of them. They were singing, the sweet clear
voices swelling together. Hannah loved singing.

Katie walked around the place. Through every window she could see bright classrooms, with coloured posters, painting sets, games and books. It was just the sort of school that her little brother and sister would love. She could go home now, they would be fine.

That night there was nearly a fight, with the three of them trying to tell their news and about their new friends all at the same time. Katie was proud of them, but in a way felt a bit deflated. Besides going with Hannah, she hadn’t done much all day. She had brought Davey for a walk up to the shops and back. To be honest, it wasn’t much fun just hanging around.

Tom didn’t know what to do with himself either. He took Duffy for a short walk, and then he was up and down the stairs and seemed very restless.

Katie knew how he felt.

‘Hi!’

Katie swung around. A plumpish girl in a denim jacket was walking towards her, pushing a battered-looking navy pram.

‘You’re a traveller too, aren’t you?’ she asked breathlessly. Katie nodded.

‘My name’s Sally, Sally Ward. My Mam told me she met your Mam down at the welfare office. We live at the back of Ashfield, our road is the Grove.’

The two of them fell into step. Sally wheeled her little sister Bonnie. Katie wheeled Davey in the buggy. Davey loved being on the move and chatted to every bird or animal they met along the way. Duffy ran on ahead, sniffing every gateway or tree they passed.

‘How long have you lived here?’

Sally thought for a second.

‘About three years, I suppose. Yeah, because Martin and Bonnie have been born since then.’

Sally was a nice girl, two years older than Katie and she seemed to have a great sense of humour. They walked around for about an hour, killing time. The baby had woken up and was looking for a feed.

‘I’d better get home and give her a bottle or she’ll scream her head off.’

Katie hoped they’d bump into each other again. As it turned out, most mornings they did meet and fell into step. One day it lashed rain as they crossed the open green.

‘Hey, Katie, do you want to come up to my house? My mother’s gone off for the morning with my Dad.’ They ran until they came to a house with a small caravan parked on the grass outside the door. Inside it was nice like their own house, but full to bursting with furniture and heaps of clutter all over the place.

Katie moved a pile of clothes for washing to get a space to sit down.

‘Throw them over here, Katie. I’ll do them later and put them out on the line before the others get in.’

‘Sally, did you go to school?’

The other girl threw her chestnut-coloured hair back over her shoulder. Her green eyes sparkled and she opened her mouth wide to laugh, a strange mocking laugh.

‘School! Yeah, I went to school – reading, writing, years of primary, I was the brains of the family and then we settled here and I got a place in the convent. Oh there was great excitement. My Mam and Dad were right proud. They got me a uniform and then the big day came.

‘I went into that beautiful red-brick building …’

Katie leant forward, anxious to hear about it.

‘Go on, what happened?’

‘I’ll tell you what happened. I stood in that big
school with its stairs all over the place and its long corridors. I didn’t know which way to turn. None of the girls knew me and I didn’t know them, so not one of them said a word to me. Not a word!’

‘They must have said something.’ Katie couldn’t believe it.

‘No. Not one word for four whole days. They walked in gangs up and down and I … well, I walked alone. They knew I was different from them and they made it clear I wouldn’t fit in. They realised it straight away and after four days so did I …’

‘Oh Sally.’ Katie didn’t know what to say.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ Sally was upset.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Come on upstairs! I want to show you something.’ Holding Bonnie in her arms, she raced up ahead of Katie.

It was clear that four sisters shared the bedroom as there were two sets of bunk beds. Clothes hung from the pine bedposts and a battered-looking pine wardrobe stood in the corner.

Sally grabbed the handle and pulled it open. She rooted through the racks and took out a wire hanger. The convent uniform – school blouse, white with small buttons, bright red jumper and navy skirt – hung abandoned from it.

‘My uniform!’

Katie touched it. Sally sat on the bottom bunk,
the uniform swinging from the knob of the open wardrobe door.

‘I keep that uniform and every now and then take it out and look at it.’

Katie felt embarrassed. She barely knew this girl and yet she was willing to share such a secret with her.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘Maybe you should know, understand why I’m just hanging around.’

‘But so am I,’ Katie admitted.

‘Listen, that uniform is a reminder of what might have been. I go over and over it again and maybe if I hadn’t been so scared, maybe if I’d laughed and joked, maybe if I’d just given it five days or six days, been a bit tougher, just brazened it out, it might have been okay. Surely in the whole of that school there was one girl, just one girl who might have been a friend. I’m not that bad a person, am I?’

She turned to Katie, her eyes sad and a frown creasing her forehead. Katie felt totally at a loss as to what to do or say.

‘Don’t be sad, Sally, something will turn up for you.’

‘Yeah, I can see it all ahead. Dossing about the place, maybe training, get a job in a factory if I’m very lucky and then before you know it I’ll be married …’

‘You can’t map things out just like that,’ argued Katie. ‘No one knows what lies ahead of
them.’

‘Well,’ joked Sally, ‘some of us have a fair idea,’ but she couldn’t disguise the bitterness in her voice.

‘Sally, why in heaven’s name do you keep that uniform thing if it upsets you like that?’

‘You don’t understand. There are times you need to be upset, to be reminded. Anyway I know at least I was good enough to go to school and get a uniform. Who knows, maybe Bonnie will wear it in a few years’ time, maybe she’ll get to do things I never did?’ Her baby sister lay half-asleep, gazing up at her.

Something fell downstairs with a crash.

‘Oh gosh. I’d better get down to Davey, he’s up to some tricks.’ Katie was glad of the excuse to get out of the bedroom and back downstairs.

Sally cheered up. They enjoyed the rest of the morning together. The heavy rain clouds had blown away and the sun was making feeble attempts to come out. At lunchtime Katie ran back home as Mam would be looking for her.

It was strange, but that afternoon Katie found herself walking in a round-about way towards the large Community School. It was set on a slope and from outside she could see the heads of girls and boys in various classrooms. The bell went and she sat by a garden wall. A few minutes later gangs of teenagers began to stream out. They were chatting and laughing and walking in groups. Some were collected in cars and others
made their way to the bus stop about a quarter of a mile away. The rest walked. She recognised a few of them from her estate, and one of the girls even waved shyly at her. She blushed. It wasn’t that she was spying on them, she just wanted a chance to get a feel of the place.

She turned for home finally and began to jog. Her heart was pounding, her breath jerky. It was just the running, she said to herself, yet she knew she couldn’t deny the excitement she felt inside. Secondary school! – she was going to talk to Mam about it.

She’d be like the rest of them, provided they had a place and that they’d take her. Maybe it was too good to be true. Don’t get your hopes up, Mam was always telling her. But at that moment her hopes were flying high … as high as a seagull in the open sky.

‘Well, Mrs Connors, are you happy with what you’ve seen?’ asked Mrs Quinlan, the Principal.

Katie could tell that her mother was ill-at-ease. ‘It’s lovely, Mrs Quinlan,’ she interrupted.

Mrs Quinlan was very different from the other teachers she’d met over the years. Her blond hair was cropped short and she wore huge red-framed glasses that made her look like a big round owl.

‘Now, I know you’ll be at a disadvantage starting late, Katie, but as they say, better late than never.’

Mam was sitting very quietly. The huge corridors and classrooms and science labs and sports hall had taken her breath away, and they had only been shown a small part of the Community School.

Katie herself felt a little bewildered and hoped she would be able to find her way around.

‘Here’s your booklist. There’s a second-hand bookshop in town, you’ll get most of them there. This is your daily timetable and an information sheet about classes and after-school activities. A lot goes on here after the bell rings, you know.’

Katie glanced at it. Judo, dance, tennis, drama, hockey, computers – the kind of things you dream about doing but would never get the
chance.

‘Now, I’ll show you the way out.’

She led them down a long yellow-painted corridor with a polished tiled floor. The wall was covered with framed photographs of hockey teams, a group of students dressed up as Vikings, two boys in judo outfits and a smiling girl holding a shining silver trophy. Katie slowed down and trailed behind her mother and the teacher, trying to read the inscriptions and dates. An image of herself holding a tennis racquet and smiling into the camera made her giggle.

They reached the main door and said their goodbyes.

‘I’ll see you here on Monday, Katie,’ said the Principal, ‘and remember to be on time.’

They walked back down past a row of parked cars. Katie could tell Mam was worried.

‘Do you think you’ll manage it, pet?’

‘The rest of them do, so why shouldn’t I?’

‘But, Katie, we’re not the rest of them. Are you sure you’re not taking on too much?’

‘Mam, stop worrying, I’ll be fine.’

‘Well, do your best and your Da and I will be right proud of you, one way or the other. Did I ever think I’d see the day when one of my own went to the secondary!’

On her first morning, Katie walked up and down the girls’ locker room trying to find her locker.
There were so many of them and every one of them grey! The key said number 102. Down at the bottom of the room there was a large mirror and a row of basins, and through a door beside these were the toilets. Crowds of girls hung around chatting and pushing and shoving, so that it was impossible to see which grey door was hers. A sharp bell rang and the crowd heaved towards the door and set off in the direction of the sports hall.

Number 99, 100, 101, 102 – great! The key was tiny and hard to turn, but she managed it. She stared in. The locker was so small! How would she fit everything into it? She hung her jacket from the metal hook and dumped the bag on the shelf. She tried to open the stiff buckle on the bag to find her timetable to see what classes she had. On her way in she had noticed timetables sellotaped on the insides of locker doors. She’d do hers tomorrow. She grabbed some of the books she needed and tried to push the locker shut. That stupid bag was jamming it. On Saturday in the shop it had looked ideal – now she wasn’t so sure. One more push and she was able to turn the key. She followed the others towards the sports hall. The hall was packed and she manoeuvred her way to the back of the line where a crowd of her own age stood.

Mrs Quinlan was announcing something about an art club and a sponsored swim. Katie relaxed – it didn’t concern her. She tried to pull the elastic on her ponytail tighter.

A boy with a book of names came down the line. He put a tick opposite each name.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘My name is Katie – Katie Connors. I’m new. This is my first day.’

He scanned the list.

‘Well, you’re not down here.’ He stopped and stared at her. ‘What year are you in?’ He had raised his voice and a few heads turned to stare at her.

‘First year.’

‘Wrong line, this is third year. Anyway, you’re too late now – get the first teacher to mark you in.’ He turned and walked away, leaving her standing between the lines, in no-man’s land. Then, as if by magic, the whole assembly turned around and started to make their way out the door. It was like a stampede and she was swept along in it.

Luckily, a few minutes later, Mrs Quinlan spotted her.

‘Ah Katie, good morning. Now let me look at your time sheet. Yes, your first class is maths, that’s upstairs in room 4. Mr Byrne will be taking you.’

When she reached the classroom door, Katie was tempted to take to her heels and run, but instead she took a deep breath and opened the door. Mr Byrne stopped in mid-sentence.

‘Ah, the new girl. What’s the name again?’

‘Katie. Katie Connors.’

‘Ah yes, I have it here on the list. Now find a seat for yourself.

All eyes turned and look at the new girl. A girl in the third row grudgingly moved a pile of books from the empty chair beside her and Katie sat down. Her name was Natalie, written in big letters on the book cover, and Katie noticed that she bit her nails. Her face was hidden by a curtain of straight brown hair which she used to avoid looking at Katie.

The blackboard was covered in numbers and Katie got out her pen and began to copy them down as the teacher explained what he wanted them to do for homework. As soon as the bell rang, everyone pushed back their chairs and headed out through the open door and down the corridor. Katie followed behind as they all went into another classroom. A tall, dark-haired teacher had already started class when she walked shyly in and was reading a passage from a book called
The Diary of Anne Frank.

Natalie sat beside another girl now and avoided even looking at Katie. She whispered to her friend and they giggled. There were only two vacant desks, one on its own, practically under the teacher’s nose, the other right at the back. Katie opted for the latter and sat down beside a boy with glasses and a rash of pimples all over his neck. He smiled at her, then turned his attention back to the teacher.

Katie listened too. She became wrapped up in the world of this girl Anne, hidden in an attic room.

The teacher suddenly stopped. He began to go around the class asking questions at random. Everyone seemed to know the answers and be familiar with the book. Katie hoped above hope that he wouldn’t come to the back row, but like a strange homing device he must have read her mind and pointed at her.

‘The new girl. Yes, I mean you – Katie, is it? My name is Sean Ryan. Now with our introductions over, will you be so kind as to tell me why Anne and her family were hiding?’

Katie could feel her mouth go dry. She had missed the start of the story and she wasn’t sure. She tried to flip her memory back over his words in search of a clue. Two or three people tittered. The boy beside her coughed. Seconds were ticking away. The boy coughed again making her look slightly over at him and on his open pad he had written the word:
Jewish
.

Like a lifeline Katie grabbed the word. ‘Jewish, Mr Ryan, her family, they were Jewish.’

The teacher, satisfied, moved on to question someone else.

A wash of relief flooded over her and she murmured ‘Thanks’ to the boy.

‘My name is Paul. Welcome,’ he wrote in large round letters in the pad. At the end of class he pointed her in the direction of the computer
room.

It was miles away and up two flights of stairs. The girls – there were mostly girls – sat in lines hitting the keyboards. They were all so busy concentrating they barely noticed her slip into her place.

Katie sat down in front of a machine. Jeepers, she thought, I haven’t a clue what to do. She had never used a computer before. The minute you barely tipped a letter with your finger it was printed up on the screen.

The teacher came up quickly.

‘Welcome, love! Have you ever used one of these wordprocessors before?’

Katie shook her head.

‘Well, I’ll just set you up.’ The teacher pressed two or three keys. ‘Now, see those lines there?’ She pointed to the screen. ‘It is taking you through the start-up programme. Try not to use just two fingers. Here, spread out your hands, each finger on a letter. Try and type this paragraph, okay?’

Katie had to concentrate really hard to find the right letters. The others around her were quick as lightning. She’d never be that quick.

The teacher, a tall freckle-faced woman with an easy smile, came back every now and then to check how she was getting on.

It was lunchtime before Katie knew it and she had to rush down to the locker-room. She had a sandwich and a can of orange, but no one
stopped to tell her where to go to eat. She spotted Natalie and a crowd of other girls from her class heading for a large room, so she just followed. The walls were covered in noticeboards with posters advertising all kinds of activities in the school. As she ate her sandwich, squashed on the end of a bench with a crowd of second- and third-years who ignored her, she pretended to study the posters.

The afternoon passed, more classes and more people and more rooms until the final bell went. One or two from her class nodded at her as they headed for the bus stop.

Mam was waiting to pounce on her the minute she got home.

‘Well, pet! How did it go? Was it all right?’

Katie felt whacked. All she wanted to do was sit down and relax, but she could tell by Mam’s face that she expected a blow-by-blow account of it all. Katie couldn’t disappoint her.

‘What about your class? Did you make any friends?’

‘Yeah, Mam, I had lunch with a big crowd of them,’ she lied, ‘and we did computers and all sorts of things.’

Mam smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day long, worrying about you. When we were young they used call us the Black Wagons and no one in the class wanted to sit near us. The teachers never paid much heed to us. I suppose they thought a few days in from the cold and wet
was as much as we deserved. I didn’t bother with schooling so I’m proud of you trying to get an education, Katie love. I know if your Da was here he would be too. He’s just a bit ignorant as my grandmother used to say, but he has a family to make him proud.’ Mam chattered on and on excitedly. ‘I’m glad they were all nice to you in that big school.’

The next few days things didn’t get any easier. She got some of her books second-hand and the headmistress gave her the rest.

The school day was so long. Most of the time she just felt really tired.

‘Knacker.’

‘Tinker.’

She heard them, the names they called as she walked by. Did they think she was deaf?

Natalie and her friends began to hold their noses and say ‘Phew, what a pong!’ when they were near her.

The classes and the teachers were all right though. Even in a week or two she had learned so much. Her head was bursting with it all and she wished there was someone at home to share all this with. She was surprised to find herself saying, ‘Francis would be interested in that’, and ‘I’ll tell Francis about that in the summer’.

The boys in class never said much to her. Paul, who was about the nicest of them, would explain
what homework she had i f she didn’t understand.

She especially loved PE. It was great to get a chance to run around and move instead of just sitting at a desk all the time. Also she could run fast and had good ball control. But when they picked teams for basketball, why was she always picked last? One by one the team captains chose until only the ones who were no good at sports and Katie were left at the bottom of the pile.

Funny, but once she started to play she didn’t care how or why they had picked her. She just loved playing the game and could run rings around most of them. She tossed her long red hair in their eyes to annoy them.

‘Keep your filthy hair away or you’ll give us all nits,’ Natalie shouted at her during one game.

‘Cut it out, Natalie.’ A strange-looking girl called Brona Dowling came over. She had short spiky hair and a row of earrings up one ear.

‘Yeah, leave her alone,’ one or two of the others added.

‘Ah! Now we know why Brona’s hair is cut so short,’ jeered Natalie, flouncing off the court, pretending to scratch her head.

Katie was often tempted to just not go back to school, to shout, ‘
STUFF IT
’, ‘I hate your school’, ‘I hate all of you’, to walk out through those doors, but the thought of Sally and that uniform hanging like a ghost in her wardrobe haunted her. She would not be beaten. She was a Connors
and her people had survived a lot worse than this crowd could imagine.