Boy Who Made It Rain by Brian Conaghan Page B

‘oh shite, oh shite’ then I realise that I’m right in the middle of a street where some of the teachers park their cars. They’re that close that I can hear them talking. Clem’s asking how many quotes he should be putting into his essay. I mean for God’s sake! By this time I’m shifting around the parked car in case they see me. But they don’t. It’s the next car down they’re standing at. Then something weird happened, they didn’t say anything at all. They just stood there and said nothing, which seemed to go on for ages and ages. I was like, hurry up and go because my legs were killing me hunched there behind that car. But they said nothing until Croal broke the silence. She said, ‘do you want a lift anywhere?’ Then there was more silence until Clem broke it and said, ‘no it’s alright, I’m good thanks.’ Or something like that. I was like, ah that’s my boy. Then he went home and she drove away in her car…no, I can’t remember what kind; I’m no really up with my car models. When I got home I had a pure red neck for what I did. But, at the end of the day, it put all that shite in my head to bed for a bit. So even though it was bad, it was a good bad. If you know what I mean. It confirmed everything to me.
    I felt great after that. It sort of brought us closer together in a strange way. I wanted to trust him, and I knew he trusted me. The rumours were still floating about but who cares, right? The thing is, I was wondering why nobody said anything to her, other teachers I mean. Or why she still came to school. Not that she shouldn’t have been in school because she’d done nothing wrong; it’s just that I couldn’t stand all those folk sneering at me all the time. I’d be pure stressed out of my nut. I’ve got to hand it to her she had balls of steel to continue showing her face in that school…well, because everyone gets a hard time…well, not everyone, but you know what I mean. Then all that changed, didn’t it?
    Clem didn’t say anything at first but I knew he was getting a hard time. It’s nothing new, anyone who dares to be a wee bit different, who likes a certain type of music or who wears a certain style of clothes or has a different hairstyle than everyone else even, gets a hard time. You see, you’re not allowed to be different from everyone else. You’ve all got to like the same things, do the same things, go to the same places, have the same opinions, have the same interests and have the same level of bitchiness. Schools are bizarre places because everyone is just a clone of everybody else. How depressing is that? It’s not as if I go out my way to be different, that’s just the way I am. In my mind I don’t consider myself to be different, it probably looks that way because I’m not like any of them. Obsessed with things like…crap TV. Who cares who’s in the final of Strictl y Come Dancing ? I mean, who gives a toss? Clem was totally different from everyone else, and I’m not just talking about his accent. He was way more intelligent also, which never goes down too well. It wasn’t really that much of a surprise that folk were slagging him all the time. Yes, it was mostly guys. I suppose it began with all the sixth-years, Conor Duffy and his cronies. Or ‘crew’ as they liked to call themselves. Clowns. It was mostly taking the piss and trying to imitate his accent. Cora told me most of what was going on. It wasn’t like vindictive stuff or anything like that it was more immature wee boys talking shite behind someone’s back stuff. I’ll tell you what though, they would never have said anything to his face because Clem could have taken them apart with his tongue. It was sharp. Razor sharp. No, he didn’t feel threatened by them. They weren’t dangerous or anything like that, they just thought they were great