Laethanta Saoire holiday-themed reads: Green, by John Patrick McHugh 

Beneath a canopy from the full trees outside the school gate, you ruminate about all this as you wait to be collected. The late August sun is softening one side of your face and a breeze whistles by. The sleeves of your babyblue shirt are rolled up and the pocket is freshly ripped off because of a good humoured hilarious joke that was not bullying or personal. A single strap of your bag is in use and the other strap taps periodically against your elbow. And it is in this contemplative state, when you are surveying life and whether, you know, it is actually worth the effort, that they appear around the corner.

A ruck of girls from your year and they are approaching.

Instinctively, you suck in your stomach, raise your tongue to the roof of your mouth, and when they call your name, you tilt a perplexed surprised expression at them as if you actually didn’t hear the gentle slap of their loose fitting Dubarry loafers, as if you didn’t hear their hiccupy laughter, as if you aren’t always acutely aware when one of those tartan skirts enter into your perimeter. ‘Well,’ you say, and lift your chin at them.

Five girls and at the rear is Seóna Fahy. Your one true and ultimate love. Wavy hair the colour of a woodgrain desk. Full lipped like a rubber band stretched out flat. Cheeks that glow painfully when asked a question in class. Her eyes are green and far apart and kind of like an insect’s: but in a good way.

And of course, she isn’t the girl talking to you. It is one of the others who presently asks, ‘Are you waiting for your Mam?’ You are, and so obviously you snap back, ‘No.’ Shrieks at this and you stiffen.

They aren’t quite beside you. No. A good spit away, you reckon, and they are huddled and talking to one another now in the low evil volume where you cannot make out specific words but can still hear the hum and droop of conversation. You peek over at them, at her. She is hugging a folder flat against her chest and one foot fusses atop the other. And her hair is in a ponytail today. And her tights are sparkling from the sun. And her woollen jumper disguises everything you desire most. And now Seóna covers her mouth with her hand as they call your name once again: brightly this time, cheerfully.

You meet their gaze for a moment, and you can smell the question before it is even asked.

It reeks of snatched cigarettes, strawberries, pretty flowers, scooped lipbalm.

It is ‘Are you a fridget?’ You immediately shudder and turn away. In front of you are a row of semidetached houses and boy, do you stare at them as if your life depended on it. Your mind is blank. The squelch of drying saliva in your mouth as your tongue won’t even wriggle and allow you to half-heartedly chirp a denial. You hear the nasal squeak of a stifled laugh, another after that, and then one of the girls says, sweetly, ‘Well. Are you?’ 

You swallow, must swallow again, and finally you can answer, ‘I’m actually not. No, I’m not a fridget.’

 To further prove you are telling the truth, that you have indeed kissed someone real and breathing, you proceed to sniff loudly.

The girls pass a secret look between themselves, and you remind yourself to study the houses opposite. You admire the gutters, the pebbledash wall, the wide front windows and how the sun is a flipped copper coin reflected in each successive pane, and all the while, your face feels like it is on fire. It feels like your cheeks are melting to waxy glop – and maybe they are? It would be like you, wouldn’t? To spontaneously combust right here, right now: that be you all over. You shove your hands down into your pockets and make fists of them and try not to breathe for ten seconds in an attempt to cool yourself. Fifteen. Twenty seconds.

‘Who did you shift?’ another girl asks. ‘Do we know her?’ 

You shake your head and face them, and they are closer to you, and when did they move? Like teeny birds swarming upon something peckable, they surround you and you say, ‘You wouldn’t know them, no. I shifted them on holidays. My summer holidays, like. During the summer.’ You suck your teeth and conclude, ‘Yeah. No. Unlikely you know her.’ 

‘Oh,’ the girl says softly. ‘And where were you on holidays?’ ‘Where?’ you repeat and she nods, and you say, ‘Macroom.’ 

You’re in deep now. It feels like you are trembling, shaking all over, and you fix your eyes back on the houses, the nice peaceful and unexciting and undimpled houses. You continue, ‘I was in Macroom on holidays. Met her up the town, you know. And like, my cousin set it up.’ You point down the road as if that is where Macroom is currently situated and say, ‘My cousin’s from Macroom, like.’ 

One of the girls says, ‘What’s her name?’ There is a long, long silence before your mouth blurts, ‘Seóna.’ The girls turn to Seóna and over the chorus of trilling Ooos, you speak awfully quickly as you try to salvage the situation: ‘Obviously a different Seóna. It’s not that Seóna. Her name is Seóna, too, but she’s from Macroom.’ The girls are back looking at you and you say, ‘And she doesn’t have a phone so that’s why we haven’t been texting. Me and the Macroom Seóna. Why I haven’t told anyone till now.’ A beat and you clarify, ‘Like, she’s not poor or anything, just Macroom Seóna has really strict parents.’ 

Nodding to yourself, you gracefully add, ‘Anyway, I shifted Macroom Seóna a good bit. So, honestly, I’m hundred percent not a fridget.’

 The girls are not laughing, are not calling you out, but smiling pleasantly, cryptically. You crane your neck and take in the splendour of the chimneys across the road, the ariels. The feeling of sweat furring your lower back and you would do anything now, offer up skin and bone, to see your mother’s Volvo chug up the hill. ‘She sounds really nice,’ one of the girls says then, and you steadfastly agree. ‘She does, yeah.’ 

And then as swiftly as they arrive, they depart. A procession of goodbyes are fired your way and even one from Seóna. They walk by you and then past: perfume lingering after like mass and incense, and you watch them amble down the hill. You imagine what they are saying. You picture their mouths opening and shutting and the sheen of their lips and you are shocked when the horn from your mother’s car blares. ‘Alright, calm down,’ you say to no one.

In the car, your mother asks how your day went and you give a one word answer and the same to her next question and then your phone dings.

A text from an unknown number and it reads: ‘ugh my dad brought us to mitchelstown this summer .. almost as bad lol xXx S’ 

You stare at the message, read it over and over, until your mother asks after Maths and you smile widely at her and answer elaborately, thoroughly. The sun is shining, the trees are green, and if you crank down the window you bet you could hear birds. It felt like the end of your life, that encounter after school, but really, it’s just the start, isn’t it.

• John Patrick McHugh is from Galway. His collection of stories, Pure Gold, was published by New Island