Free Boy Who Made It Rain by Brian Conaghan Page B

not to make a sound. My red Diadoras ready to block any entry. Or boot him full force in the balls if he dared try to enter. My red Diadoras covering the first and last words of the phrase CORA KELLY’S SEEN MORE JAPSEYES THAN AN ORIENTAL OPTICIAN . Poor Cora. ELLY’S SEEN MORE JAPSEYES THAN AN ORIENTAL OP sounded much better.  
    I could feel my heart beating faster and faster, which made me even more nervous in case it revealed my position. More whispers. Whispers. Whispers. The idiot was pure making all these mad whispering noises as if he was talking to himself. I listened carefully and realised what he was doing was reading all the graffiti on the doors. I heard The Smiths being read. He’d know that that was my handywork. I didn’t want him to see his influence staring right at him. Validating him.
    My legs were shaking so I had to release them. God, I was so unfit. Bugger it, if he ’ d peeked over it was his funeral. I could have had him frogmarched out of this school with a blanket lobbed over his dome for perv actions in a flash. I could have screamed rape, sodomy, burglary, anything. I had him by the short and curlies. Then just as I pulled my red trainers off the door and relaxed them on the smelly floor the main door swung open. And what did the bold Clem do? He only shot into the cubicle. Clem shot into the cubicle next to mine. I could make out his breathing. I gave a wee hee hee to myself. That’s what you get arsehole! The sound of heels clicked off the floor. I could tell they were cheapo shoes. The click was a cheapo click. Instinct. Probably Primark or Dunnes. They clicked into the cubicle next to Clem’s, two down from me. The Mamas and the Papas go to the bog. I was quiet mama. Clem was terrified papa.
    The sound of the knickers being taken down sounded familiar. Please don’t be a shite. I kept saying in my head. Then the pssssshhhhh sound started. Music to my ears. It was a relief. I imagined what Clem was thinking during all of this. Was he finding all this arousing? The thing is, and this is the totally pure weird thing, I recognised the sound of that piss. I wasn’t buzzing. I did. If memory served me right it was the bold Cora in there. It was Cora. Defo. It was confirmed when she didn’t wash her hands (Cora for some reason never washed her hands) and left humming that dire Oasis song Wonderwall , which she loved. She always hummed because her voice sounded like a dog ripping a couch apart.
    As soon as Cora left the toilet Clem scarpered as well. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I put the thing inside me and flushed away the old one that had been floating in the water all that time. I washed up and bolted out of there. I figured I’d go find Cora and tell her how her piss sounded. Tell the minging cow to wash her hands after touching her fandan as well. She wouldn’t be that difficult to find. Then I had another great art project idea, I thought I could do something on toilet graffiti, questioning the salacious (a Clem word) writings with a more subtle and positive type of graffiti art. A kind of Banksy for the school generation. I could have had the good things written on the left wall and the bad things on the right wall of the cubicle. I’d call it toilet tennis. Brilliant idea! Was it too late to change? I put it out of my mind for the time being. So I shifted out the bogs and bumped into this pure weirdo of a wee lassie. A future NED in the making.
    â€˜Ir you Rosie Farrell?’
    â€˜Who wants to know?’
    â€˜Ir you Rosie Farrell or no?’ She barked back. ‘It’s a simple question.’
    â€˜Aye, what of it?’
    â€˜That Inglish guy is lookin fur ye.’
    â€˜Clem?’
    â€˜Aye, that’s it. The guy wey the funny name.’
    â€˜Where did you see him?’
    â€˜He wiz hangin roon the fird- an fourff-year lassies’ bogs.’
    â€˜What did he say?’
    â€˜Nuffin, jist asked if ye