Free The Changeling by Helen Falconer

your fault. It was me crashed the car, and now he’s got no wheels apart from the tractor and I owe him, that’s all.’
    She said fiercely, ‘You don’t owe him, he’s a brute.’
    Shay’s face closed down; he looked off to the side. ‘He’s not, he’s just mad strong and he forgets his own strength. And I do owe him. He’s minded me since I was five years old. The social had foster parents lined up for me. He was only seventeen but he fought for the right to raise me, and he got me back after a year and I was right happy to get home.’
    ‘OK, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.’ Though it didn’t really change her mind about John Joe.
    He said, ‘I can work off what I owe him by doing stuff around the farm. I’m good at lambing. I never lose a lamb, never.’
    Aoife felt even worse now about giving the fifty euros to Sinead. If only she’d known that she’d had it and that Shay needed it. She longed to stroke the dark cut on his mouth, to heal it somehow. She shoved her hands hard and deep into the pockets of her school trousers, to keep herself from touching him. ‘I want to help.’
    ‘Aoife, it’s not your problem. I’ll sort it.’
    In her pocket, her left hand closed on a slim packet. She fingered it – absently, and then with growing puzzlement. She pulled it out. An envelope full of hundred-euro notes.
    For a long moment she just stared, incredulous. This finding money was getting . . . ridiculous. She flicked slowly through the thin sheaf of notes. Three, four . . . Her heart gave a frightened thump . . . Six, seven, eight . . . Twelve hundred euros? What . . .? Where . . .? She looked up at Shay; he seemed dazed yet transfixed by the sum of money she was holding. On a wild impulse, before she could think about it, she thrust it at him. ‘Here. There’s plenty enough there to buy a decent secondhand car.’
    He came to with a start, pushing it back at her like it might burn him. ‘No! Jesus! Where did you get that?’
    ‘I don’t know. Take it!’
    ‘You don’t know ?’
    ‘I mean it’s . . .’ She scrabbled in her head for inspiration. ‘It’s an early birthday present! From an aunt! Take it. ’
    Shay’s green-brown eyes grew hot, cheekbones flushed. ‘I will not – are you cracked? I don’t need your money.’ He said ‘money’ in a fierce voice, like he really meant ‘charity’.
    ‘Look—’
    ‘Aoife, leave it !’ And he was gone, striding away round the corner towards the gym.
    He should have been in the next class, business, but he wasn’t. He must have been so annoyed with her that he’d walked out of the school.
    Aoife sat scribbling flowers in her copy and thinking very seriously about the money. As much as she’d wanted Shay to take it, it was probably just as well he hadn’t. It couldn’t have come out of nowhere. It must be the money Declan Sweeney owed Maeve for doing his accounts, and somehow she had picked it up, thinking it was a note for school. She did most things on auto-pilot in the morning. Her mother would be going demented, turning the house upside down – hysterically berating herself for always putting things in a safe place and never being able to find them again.
    When the bell rang between classes, she went to the school secretary, a maternal pinkish woman. ‘Rose, I feel really peculiar – could you phone my mam and ask can she come and sign me out?’
    Reaching for the phone, Rose said, ‘You should eat more, Aoife. You’re too thin. You teenage girls are always on a diet, and then you wonder why you get tired and have headaches. Have a proper breakfast tomorrow.’
    Aoife, thinking of everything she had eaten at first break, said earnestly, ‘I will, I promise.’
    Maeve arrived with her dark blonde hair tied up on top of her head and wearing the shabby old green cardigan that she’d owned ever since Aoife could remember. She seemed very relaxed; clearly she hadn’t yet noticed that she’d mislaid a