Clarke Alan - Ross OCarroll-Kelly, The Miseducation Years: the Miseducation Years

To Laura and David Howard, for a life filled with love and laughter. You made everything worthwhile. There arent enough words. Mum, we miss you every day x

Thanks to my mother and father for it all. Thanks to Mark, Vin and Rich for the interest youve taken in your adopted brother. Thanks to Matt Cooper, Paddy Murray and Jim Farrelly for taking a chance on an obnoxious little south Dublin shit, and thanks especially to Ger Siggins, who was there for the conception, the difficult birth and did most of the initial breast-feeding. For a whole myriad of other reasons too numerous to mention, thanks to Lady Dowager Genevieve; Wally; Ro and Johnny; Mick and Lorna who saved me from leeches; Mousey; Walshy; Paddy; Risn; Dave; both Barrys; Fi and John and the lad Liam; Neil with the second name that goes on till Christmas and Liz; Karen with an e; Jenny Lowe and Claire Even Lower; Enda Mac; Lise with a totally unnecessary e; Fleur (!); Jimmy whos real name isnt Jimmy at all; Malachy; One F; at least two Michelles; Maureen, Deirdre and her south Dublin princess daughter Anne; Lisa and the Nordie Bogball Down Under Tour Party; and Dion and John from the cabal. Thanks to Ryle and Gerry for your restraint in never sending me a solicitors letter. Thanks to Michael, de, Mary, Ivan, Lynn and everyone at OBP for accepting Ross into the OBP family. Caitrona, I miss you. And lastly stay awake, these are the biggies thanks to Emma for making these books look edible, to Alan for capturing our hero with the genius of your pen, and most of all to Rachel (Dublin 24), a brilliant editor who knows Ross better than I do. The funny bits are hers.

Whats my name? I dont even bother answering him, just reef open the glove comportment and hand him my licence through the window, roysh, and he gives it the once-over and he goes, This is a provisional licence, making no effort at all to hide the fact that hes a bogger . Its like hes actually proud of it. I go, Your point is? and the way he looks at me, roysh, I can tell he just wants to snap those bracelets on me and haul my orse off to Donnybrook. Hes like, Provisional licences are issued subject to certain restrictions. One is that you have a fully qualified driver accompanying you at all times.

I turn around to the bird beside me and I go, Have you passed your test? and shes like, Oh my God, ages ago, and she storts rooting through her Louis V for her licence, which she eventually finds and I hand it to focking Blackie Connors through the window. He throws the eyes over it, roysh, then he hands it back to me and Im thinking of taking a sneaky look at it myself, maybe find out this birds name, because shes a total randomer and at some point between her telling me her name in Annabels and us doing the bould thing out in her gaff in Clonskeagh , Ive managed to forget what she calls herself. In the end I dont. The goy goes, Where are your L-plates? and I have to admit, roysh, that he has me there, although he knows he cant lift me for it, which is what hed really like to do. I go, Dont own a set. Never did. To me theyre a total passion-killer, and I smile at the bird beside me. Martinique rings a bell. The goy goes, Did you know that its an offence for a driver operating a vehicle on a provisional licence not to display Learner plates? but I dont answer because its not, like, a real question, and he looks at my licence again like its a forgery or something and he tells me to, like, stay where I am and then he walks back to his cor, roysh, and in the rear-view I can see him getting on the radio. The birds there giving it, OH! MY! GOD! Why are you giving him such attitude? I am SO not being arrested, Ross. HELLO? Ive got cello in, like, half an hour, and I tell her to drink the Kool-Aid, the goys only trying to put the shits up us.

Im always getting pulled over by the Feds, especially here, just after you go under the bridge at, like, UCD. Im too smart to get caught doing more than forty, but what happens is they see the baseball cap, they see the Barbie doll next to me and they hear Smells Like Teen Spirit blasting out through the windows at, like, a million decibels. Boggers or not, theyre not thick, these goys, and because its a focking Micra, they know straight away that its a young dude driving his old dears cor and probably out of total jealousy they end up pulling me over. Im still looking at the goy in the mirror. Hes finished talking on the radio and now hes just trying to make me sweat, which Im SO not.

People always ask me, roysh, how did I get this cool? Not being big-headed or anything, but they genuinely want to know how it is that I pretty much have it all Dead Eye Dick with a rugby ball and the stor of the school team, good-looking, amazing body, big-time chormer, great with the ladies and absolutely loaded.

But to be honest with you, roysh, I wasnt always shit-hot. Between me and you, when I was in, like, transition year I was actually as big a loser as Fionn. I used to basically get bullied. I remember the day I found out that we didnt always live in Foxrock. Two or three fifth years were in the process of, like, stuffing my head down the toilet one lunchtime when one of them happened to go, Go back to the focking Noggin. So that night, roysh, I went to the old man, whos a complete and utter dickhead by the way, and I go, Did we live in Sallynoggin? straight out with it, just like that and he looks at me, roysh, and he knows theres no point in lying, so he goes, It was more Glenageary than Sallynoggin, Ross, and he tells me it was a long time ago, before the business took off.

But that whole Noggin thing followed me around for years. If they werent stuffing my head down the pan and flushing it, they were giving me wedgies, or setting fire to my schoolbag, ha focking ha. Then one day, roysh, Im walking down the corridor, minding my own business and these two fifth years grab me in a headlock and drag me into, like, one of the locker rooms. They stort giving me the usual crack, roysh Are you getting a spice burger from the Noggin Grill later? and Are you going up to the Noggin Inn for a few jors? when all of a sudden, roysh, I hear a voice behind them go, To get at him, goys, youre going to have to come through me first, and I look up and its, like, Christian. So all hell breaks loose and the two of us end up decking the two fifth years and afterwards he tells me that Obi Wan has taught me well and I tell him hes the best friend Ive ever had, which he is, roysh, even if it sounds a bit gay.

Of course the word went around, roysh, that wed basically decked two goys who, it turned out, were on the S, and nobody laid a finger on me after that. Then the next year there was, shall we say, an incident that helped me complete the change from geek to chic basically I got my Nat King Cole before anyone else in our whole year. AND it was with an older woman.

To cut a long story short, roysh, our school arranged this thing called The Urban Plunge, which was basically an exchange programme between us and a school from, like, Pram Springs. It was typical of the Brothers in our place. They knew we were loaded, roysh, and most of us would never have to work for a thing in our lives, but it was their Christian responsibility to show us how people less fortunate than ourselves meaning skobies lived, as if we wanted to know.