by Ann
It was early evening by the time Mark finally got back to his house, but
he didn't really worry because he always came home that late. But as he was
on his way up to his room, a sharp voice came from the living room.
"Mark! Is that you?" his mum called.
"Yeah, it's me, mam," he answered back before continuing up the stairs.
"Well, come in here for a minute, your father and I want to talk to you."
Mark shrugged and made his way back down the stairs. Barry, who had come
out of the kitchen, shook his head gravely at Mark before disappearing back
into the kitchen. Mark gave him a funny look and then poked his head inside
the living room. "Yeah?"
"Come in here son," his dad instructed. "We've got some talking to do."
Still confused, Mark sat down on an armchair and surveyed the solemn
faces of his parents, who were seated on the sofa. "So what's up?"
Silently, Mrs. Feehily picked up a piece of paper which was laying on the
table and handed it to Mark so he could read it. When Mark was finished, he
looked back up at his parents with a sheepish expression.
"I'm sorry about that," he apologized as he set the letter back down.
"Mark, it's going to take more than an apology to make up for the marks
that you've been getting in biology," Mrs. Feehily said severely. "This is
quite serious, dear. This is your future we're talking about, and you can't
keep getting marks like this. Your exams are coming up and how you perform
on them is going to be crucial in getting into university."
"Ah, Mam, do we have to think about that right now?" Mark complained.
"I'm only sixteen yet. It's too early for me to be concerned with stuff like
that."
"Well, Mrs. Montgomery seems to think it's pretty important, or else she
wouldn't have sent us this letter," Mr. Feehily.
Mark sighed. "I know�" he said guiltily. "I mean to study, I really do
but�I tend to get, erm...sidetracked."
His dad raised an eyebrow and looked at him knowingly. "Sidetracked eh?
By what?"
Mark blushed. He didn't think that his parents would think the way he
spent his time, like today for instance, would be an acceptable excuse for
his marks in biology, so he shrugged, avoiding their eyes. "I dunno�" he
trailed off.
His mum gave him a significant look. "Would trying to talk your way into
Farley's Pub be one of those sidetracking activities?" Mr. Feehily coughed
into his hands, trying to disguise a laugh. He cleared his throat and put on
a stern expression when his wife shot him a look.
"Umm�how do you know about that?" Mark asked plaintively, not bothering
to deny it. He was no use at lying in general and lying to his parents was
not an option because there was no way he could get away with it.
"You aunt Cynthia was in the grocery store today when she saw you and
Matthew Gallagher trying to convince the doorman to let you in, when you
SHOULD have been in school."
"Oh," Mark said in a guilty little voice. "Sooo�what are you gonna do to
me?"
Mrs. Feehily sighed. "Mark, dear, we just want the best for you, and we
want to you have as many opportunities as you can. And that includes getting
the marks you need on your exams to get into a good university. So your
father and I have been talking�and we've decided to hire you a tutor."
Mark's eyes widened. "A tutor?! Aw, Mam, is that really necessary? I
promise that I'll do some more studying by myself, and I'll pull my grade up,
I swear!"
Mr. Feehily shook his head. "It's past the point where you can do that
by yourself, son," he said. "You're too behind with all your work to try and
catch up on your own. Your mother called Mrs. Montgomery this evening after
we received the letter and she's the one who suggested that we get you a
tutor. In fact, we've got one lined up for you already."
"What?! How can you have one already?" Mark looked a bit panicky.
Mrs. Feehily smiled at her son. "I called up one of my friends because I
remembered that her daughter was quite good at biology. She won second place
at Summer Hill's Science Fair earlier this year." (side note: I almost wrote
Science Fairy. lol)
Mark looked confused. "We had a science fair?"
Mrs. Feehily sighed deeply and gave her son a look. "Yes, you did Mark.
Anyway, we think that she'll be able to help you."
"Whose daughter is she?" Mark asked.
"Do you remember Mrs. Callaghan? From across town?" Mark shook his
head. "Well, it's her daughter. She goes to Summer Hill as well, maybe you
know her. Her name escapes me at the moment, but she'll be coming by
tomorrow, so I reckon you'll be getting to know each other soon enough."
"Tomorrow?" Mark said forlornly. He could see the days of carefree
freedom disappearing form view, replaced instead by afternoons spent poring
over biology texts and learning about the internal workings of amphibians and
amoebas, probably with some girl who was as dull and boring as the biology
itself. "This sucks."
Mr. Feehily smiled. "I know it does Mark, but it's only for a little
while. Just until you catch up."
Mark grimaced. "Well what if I don't want to do it?" he declared
cheekily. "What if I don't happen to be here when she shows up tomorrow?"
"You watch that sauciness, or I'll give your backside a tanning that you
won't forget, sixteen years old or no. If you're going to act Colin's age,
I'm going to treat you like you're Colin's age," Mrs. Feehily warned. "And
as for trying to skip out on your lessons, if I hear that you've missed even
one, then you'll be spending your evenings at home instead of at the Grease
rehearsals." Mark's eyes widened.
"Aw, Mam!" he complained. "This is so not fair. Fine! I'll do it!" He
got up and stalked out of the room, grumbling under his breath. Mr. And Mrs.
Feehily smiled at each other when he left.
"All knowing, all powerful parents, one - peeved, grudging teenage son,
zero," Mrs. Feehily said with a grin.
Matt and Mark had a glorious afternoon of mucking about around Sligo.
They went around to the shops and tried to get into the pubs, even though no
one would let them in. Sixteen was still a bit too young yet, much to their
dismay, and they finally gave up and went to get a fry-up at the Carlton Caf�
instead. By then, school had been out for a while, and like always, Shane
was there dutifully serving the customers. The three of them screwed about
for a little before Mrs. Filan had had her fill of hormonal teenage boys and
sent Matt and Mark home and banned Shane to service behind the counter.
Mark plopped on the couch and flicked on the telly, flipping through the channels at random, trying to find something interesting. He shot a depracting look at his biology materials, which were sitting innocently on the coffee table. Right at this moment, Matt and Shane and the lads were probably having a grand old time wreaking havoc across Sligo, and he should have been with them, but noooo, he was stuck at home waiting for this tutor girl to come round. The only bright spot of the day Mark was looking forward to were the rehearsals for Grease that began at six every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Mark sighed. Sometimes he thought he really got the crap end of the stick, but this time he had to admit that he had brought it on himself. "Stupid amoebas!" he shouted to no one in particular. Only Barry was home at the moment, locked away in his room doing whatever ten year olds did. His dad was still at work and his mum had taken Colin to the doctor's for a checkup. Mark looked up at the clock on wall. It was already four. She should have been here by now. Mark looked closer at the clock. It was four oh two! This girl was obviously very irresponsible. In fact, Mark didn't think that such an irresponsible girl should be teaching him Biology. Some of her bad influence could rub off on him. He clicked off the telly and grabbed his jacket. If this girl didn't care to show up, then he wouldn't bother sitting around at home waiting for her either. He was going to find the lads and maybe salvage what was left of the afternoon before rehearsals started. Mark pulled on his jacket as he strided purposefully towards the door. If his mum asked why he hadn't had a tutoring session today, he would just tell her that this girl hadn't shown up. And it was the truth, anyhow! He looked at the clock again for good measure. It was four oh four! He shook his head sorrowfully.
"Shame how teenagers shirk their responsibilities these days," he said regretfully. He kept his eye on the stairs, lest Barry come out of his room and find out he was leaving. Stealthily, Mark opened the door, still watching the stairs, and quickly stepped outside.
"Augh!" A cry pierced his eardum as he collided with someone on the porch. Before Mark could even see who it was, he had tripped over the person and the both of them went crashing down to the ground in a tangled heap. The person underneath him shoved him away.
"Will you watch where you're-" she began in an irritated tone. She broke off when she looked up and was met with a pair of wide blue eyes, which were staring like her like she was the first person they'd ever laid eyes on. For a moment, the blueness of those eyes rendered her speechless, but she collected herself quickly.
"Could you get off of me, please?" she said in a more pleasant tone. Mark just stared at the girl. It was her. The girl from the cafeteria yesterday. Rachel. He couldn't forget that name. Ever since yesterday the name had been ingrained in his head. He hadn't seen her at all today in school, although he had looked. And now she was here. And she was saying something to him.
Mark shook his head. "I'm sorry, what was that?"
Rachel gave him an exasperated look. "I said, I'm beginning to lose feeling in my leg."
Confused, Mark looked down and saw that he was practically sitting on her. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry," he apologized quickly, cursing himself silently. He got up and reached a hand down to help her. Rachel waved him away.
"I can get up by myself," she said. She stood up and dusted herself off. She sighed when she couldn't seem to get a smudge off of her pants. "I just bought these last week," she said regretfully.
Mark immediately felt guilty. "I'm really sorry about that. If it doesn't come out, I'll get you a new pair."
"Don't bother," Rachel said. She didn't mean to be rude, but that's what it sounded like to Mark. Immediately, he was on the defensive.
"Well, excuse me, I didn't mean to, okay?" he said. He didn't mean for that to come out as rudely as it sounded either but Rachel gave him an icy look anyway. Just then she remembered that she had not come empty handed.
"Oh no," she groaned when she saw that her papers and her books were scattered all over the ground. Mark looked down and noticed them also. With a sigh, Rachel got down on her knees to retrieve her papers and Mark bent down also to help her hesistantly. He gathered a sheaf of papers in his hands and gave it to her.
"Thanks," she said, although it didn't really sound like she meant it. Mark stopped himself from rolling his eyes. This Rachel's personality wasn't really what he had expected. She pushed back her mahogany colored hair and Mark couldn't help but admire how it shined in the light as it fell over her shoulders. She gave her pants one last pat to dust it off before she walked up to the door and knocked on it. At that moment, Mark realized that she must be his tutor. He immediately felt incredibly stupid for not realizing it earlier.
"Um, are you looking for someone?" he asked her tentatively.
"Well, I don't see how it's any of your business but I'm here to tutor someone named Mike. He does live here, doesn't he? Or have I come to the wrong house?"
"Are - are you sure you're tutoring someone named Mike? Are you sure his name isn't Mark?"
Rachel stared at him for a minute. Then she smacked herself on the forehead. "I am so dumb. I probably heard wrong." She looked him over. "So I'm going to be tutoring you? Great." Mark bristled at the sarcastic undertone in her voice.
"Hey, you know I don't want to be here either," he said defensively. "I could have better things to do."
"Oh, no I didn't mean-" she blushed. But Mark cut her off.
"Whatever. Let's just get started." He turned around to open the door.
"Were you going to go somewhere?" she asked, noticing that he was wearing a jacket. "You did seem to be in kind of a hurry to get out." Mark pushed the door open and stepped inside, and Rachel followed.
"Well, I was going to go because YOU were late, and I didn't feel like waiting around." He knew he was still sounding rude, but she had been rude as well, so he was justified.
"I was not late!" she protested.
"You were supposed to be here at four, and it was four oh two and you still weren't here."
Rachel gave him a strange look. "Well, I didn't know that the person I was tutoring was some kind of neurotic, anal FREAK or I would have come earlier."
Mark ignored her comment and sat back down on the couch. Rachel also sat down on the couch but sat a safe distance away from him. She placed her materials on the table and looked at him expectantly. "Well, shall we begin?"
Mark continued to ignore her and Rachel rolled her eyes. Men. They could be SO pig headed when their egos were wounded. "Look," she said firmly. Mark looked at her. "I know we've gotten off to a bad start, and I'm sorry about that. I don't want to be on bad terms with you." She laughed. "You know, I just realized that I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Rachel Callaghan." She stuck out her hand.
"I know," Mark said as he took it. That was out before he could stop it and he cursed himself again when she looked at him curiously.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Um..erm...me mum told me," he said quickly. Mark couldn't very well tell her he had been eavesdropping on her lunch conversations. But he had to know something else. "Rachel?"
"Yeah?" she said as she picked up a folder and opened it.
"How did you know I was Mark?"
"What?"
"Before, when I asked you if you were going to be tutoring someone named Mark, instead of Mike, and you knew already that I was Mark."
"Oh." Rachel blushed. "Well, you're Matt's friend, aren't you? Matt Gallagher?"
"Oh." Mark sat back, dejected. In a flash he remembered the way Rachel had looked at Matt in the cafeteria, like he was the only person she could see. The image of her adoring eyes looking so longingly at Matt tugged at Mark's chest, and he tried to banish the memory from his mind.
"Mark?" Rachel's voice broke into his thoughts and he looked up at her.
"Yeah?"
She held up the biology book. "Ready to get started?"
Mark shrugged, his mind still preoccupied with Rachel's obvious crush on Matt. "Whatever."
Rachel frowned. He certainly wasn't going to make this easy. She moved closer to him on the couch and opened the book before putting it in front of him on the coffee table. "Should we start with the amoebas?"
"NO!" Mark said quickly, and Rachel looked up at him in surprise. "I mean, I think I know all I need to know about amoebas."
"Are you sure?" she asked as she flipped through the pages. "If you're still fuzzy on them we could just-"
"Look, if I said I don't need to learn about amoebas, then we don't need to learn about amoebas," Mark said irritably. Rachel narrowed her eyes at him.
"Well, you don't have to be rude about it!" she said angrily. "What's wrong with you anyway? I tried to be nice after you practically crushed me to the ground and stained my brand new pants AND caused my notes to scatter in wild disarray, but are you bothering to reciprocate that niceness? Noooo."
He stared at her incredulously. "Nice? You think calling me a neurotic anal freak NICE? And what the hell does reciprocate mean, anyway? Is that some kind of intellectual cuss word?"
Rachel slammed the book shut. "Okay, you know what? I think I've had enough. I thought fifteen pounds an hour was decent pay, but you'd have to pay me twenty times that to deal with the likes of you three times a week." She gathered up the things and stood up to leave.
"Wait, you can't go!" Mark said, standing up frantically. "My parents said if I skipped a session I wouldn't be able to go to the Grease rehearsals!"
"Well, tough cookies, mate," Rachel said as she stalked out the door.
"Hold on!" Mark ran after her and caught her by the arm. "Please don't leave. I'm sorry, really. I CAN'T miss another rehearsal, or I'm out of the musical." He looked pleadingly at her, but Rachel wasn't meeting his gaze. "Please?" he tried again.
Rachel sighed. "You know what? Just tell your parents that I had to cancel today's lesson, okay? Then you won't get in trouble and you can go to your rehearsal."
"Will you come back?" Mark asked her.
"Why should I?"
Mark grimaced. "Because I really do need your help. If I fail biology my parents will kill me." And because I want to see you again, Mark added silently.
Rachel studied his face to see if he was sincere. She sighed again. "I don't know�"
"Please?" Mark asked again.
"I'll think about it." She gently extracted her arm from Mark's hand and began to head towards the sidewalk. Mark watched her until she was no longer in sight, then turned back to the house.
"Good work Feehily," he admonished himself. "The girl of your dreams comes right to your door and now she may never come back. You're a real deutz and a half."