Cecelia Ahern - There’s No Place Like Here

I reached the top and handed the watch to Grace. She studied it, but I questioned how on earth she was to know whether it was my watch or not. It all seemed so ridiculous. It was all an act. To make those who were unsettled here feel more secure so they wouldn’t rise up and demand to find a way out.

“How do we know it’s her watch?” one person shouted out, and I rolled my eyes.

“Her name is engraved on the back!” someone shouted, and my blood turned cold. There were only a few people who knew that. I looked immediately to Joseph, but from the look on his face I knew it wasn’t him. He was looking angrily at Helena, who was looking even more angrily to…Joan. Joan sat in the front row with a red face, beside the man who had shouted out. She must have overheard. She looked apologetically to Helena and me. I looked away, not knowing how to feel, not truly knowing what any possible outcome could be.

“Is this true?” the representative looked at me.

“I assure you it’s true,” the man shouted out again.

My face said it all, I’m sure.

She turned the watch over to look for my name at the back. She seemed pleased. “SANDY SHORTT is engraved on the back.”

There was a loud sigh and more talk within the audience.

“Sandy, thank you for cooperating. You may leave now and enjoy your life here with us. I hope people will be more welcoming toward you from now on.” She smiled warmly.

Stunned, I took the watch, unable to believe that Bobby had managed to engrave my name in such a short space of time. I quickly walked back down the aisle while people clapped and smiled at me, some apologizing, others still not convinced and probably never would be. I grabbed Bobby by the hand and led him out of the hall.

“Bobby!” I laughed once we were a safe distance away from the Community Hall. “How the hell did you manage that?”

Bobby looked horrified. “Manage what?”

“To engrave my name so quickly!”

“I didn’t,” he said in shock.

“What?” I turned the watch over. A clear metallic back stared back at me.

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Bobby said, unlocking the door to the shop while looking around him uncertainly.

In the shadows there was a noise and Jason stepped out.

I jumped.

“Sorry to startle you,” he said in his robotlike tone. “Sandy.” Emotion slipped into his voice and his body loosened as he stepped into the light of the porch. “I just wondered if you knew my wife, Alison?” he asked awkwardly. “Alison Rice? We’re from Galway. Spiddal.” He swallowed hard, his aggressive appearance softened and vulnerable, concern written all over his face.

Still taken by surprise at his sudden appearance, I ran the name through my mind a few times. Not familiar with it, I shook my head slowly. “Sorry.”

“OK.” He cleared his throat and straightened up, the hardness returning as though the question had never passed his lips. “Grace Burns wanted me to tell you that she requests a meeting with you in her office first thing in the morning.” And he disappeared back into the darkness.

Jack felt the anger pumping through his veins. The muscles in his face twitched as they jumped around under his skin, psyching themselves up for the big fight. He tried to control his breathing, control his temper. His back teeth felt like they’d been ground to the bone on the drive there. His cheeks were hot, and throbbed along with the rest of his body. He clenched and unclenched his fists while walking through the crowded Limerick city pub.

He spotted Alan sitting alone at a small table with a pint before him, a stool sat in front of him waiting for Jack. Alan looked up and waved, a smile stretched across his face, and in that face Jack could see the ten-year-old who used to drop by to their house every day. He prepared to fire himself at Alan but stopped. Instead he diverted to the toilet, where he stood at the sink, splashing water on his face, panting as though he’d run a marathon. It was all he could do to stop himself reaching out and wanting to kill Alan himself.

What had he done? What on earth had Alan done?

The week that Jenny-May Butler went missing, the Gardaí came to Leitrim National School. We were all especially excited because it was rare that our principal graced our humble selves with his presence, particularly in our classrooms. As soon as we caught sight of his stern, accusing face, butterflies fluttered in everyone’s stomachs, each of us instantly hoping we weren’t in trouble even though we knew we’d done nothing wrong. But such was his power. Our main reason for excitement was due to him disrupting our religion lesson to whisper loudly into Ms. Sullivan’s ear. Loud whispering in the classroom by teachers always meant something important was happening. We were allowed to abandon our studies that morning and told to line up in a single file at the door with our fingers on our lips. For teachers, our placing our fingers on our lips didn’t usually have the desired effect, the finger not being a suitable silencer as it was indeed a finger, not a zipper, and it was, more important, our own finger, which we had the ability to remove at any stage. But that day when we entered the school hall, none of us said a word, because at the top of the very unusually silent room were two members of the Gardaí Síochana. One woman and one man, dressed head to toe in navy blue.

We sat on the floor in the middle of the hall with the other fourth classers. Up at the front were junior and senior infants. The older you were, the further back you were allowed be. The sixth always coolly took their places in the back row. Very quickly the hall was filled. The teachers lined up against the walls on the outside aisles like prison wardens, and every now and then clicked their fingers with an angry face at someone who was whispering or who was trying to make themselves more comfortable on the cold and slightly dirty gym floor, but who was seen to be fidgeting too much.

Our principal introduced the two guards to us, explaining that they were from the local garda station and were here to talk about a very important issue. He told us that we would be asked questions by our teachers later in class about what they had said. I looked over at our teachers when he announced this and noticed a few suddenly straightening themselves up to listen. Then the male garda began talking, he introduced himself as Garda Rogers and his colleague Garda Brannigan, and while he slowly walked the width of the front of the room with his hands behind his back, he explained how we shouldn’t trust strangers, how we shouldn’t get into their cars, not even when they tell us that our parents have told them to collect us. That made me think of refusing to get into my uncle Fred’s car on Wednesday afternoons when he collected me, and I almost laughed out loud. He told us that we should always speak up if we notice someone getting friendlier than they should. If someone approaches us or we witness anybody else being approached, we should tell our parents or teachers straightaway. I was ten years old and I remember thinking about when I was seven and I saw Joey Harrison being collected by a weird man at school. I told my teacher at the time and she reprimanded me because it was his dad and she thought I was being rude.

Also, for those of us at ten years of age, almost eleven, this safety talk was old news, but I supposed that particular safety talk was especially for the five- and six-year-olds who sat in the front rows of the hall picking their noses, scratching their heads, looking at the ceilings. A front row of little grasshoppers. At that point I had no desire to join the guards. It wasn’t that day’s free lesson in safety that set off my ambition; it was the odd socks. I also knew the talk was because of Jenny-May’s disappearance that week. Everybody had been acting weirdly about it all week. Our teacher had even left the classroom in tears a few times whenever her eyes fell upon Jenny-May’s empty seat. I was secretly delighted, which I knew was wrong, but it was the first week of peace I’d gotten at school for years. For once I didn’t feel Jenny-May’s balls of paper hitting my head as she blew them through a straw, and whenever I answered a question in class I didn’t hear sniggers behind me. I knew that a really terrible and sad thing had happened but I just couldn’t feel sad.