Brigid Feehan - The Life and Times of Eddie McGrath

What was I going to do stuck here for at least ten more minutes? I took some deep breaths. I didnt want to use up any unnecessary juice on my phone (you never knew what fresh hell the next hour or so might hold) so reassuring myself with it was out.

The deep breaths werent working. Unless they were supposed to make you feel like you are going to scream.

What would Hermione do?

Ron was usually my favourite, but he would have been worse than me. Hermione, on the other hand, she would have

An inhuman yowl of terror rent the air. Then another.

First published by OneTree House Ltd, New Zealand

Text Brigid Feehan, 2021

978-1-9900350-0-5 (print)

978-1-99-003508-1 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Contents

What is wrong with you? Beth snarled at me as I entered the kitchen. Doom. Complete doom. I didnt think shed be home. I so wasnt in the mood for her. I started to back out, balancing my book on the palm of my left hand with two apples wobbling on top of it. My cat Olaf was firmly tucked under my right arm and he stopped purring at Beths mean voice and made a questioning squeak.

Eddie! Come back! Beths voice followed me as I reversed into the hallway. Olaf started squirming and an apple rolled off my book onto the floor. I bent down to pick it up and the other apple rolled off. Olaf bit me. I dropped Olaf. I said a bad word.

Beth was in the hallway when I straightened up. Do you have any idea how incredibly weird you are?

Is that a rhetorical question? My glasses were smeared, and Beth was all blurry, which was nice.

Its an insult to the school, you know, went on Beth furiously. Notice how she ignored my question about whether her question was a rhetorical question.

Youre talking about the prize. I sighed. You found out I turned it down.

Yes! Im talking about the prize! The only Wellington school to win a Member of Parliament for a Day award and you say no. Actually, youre
letting Wellington down. My sister, the apathetic freak. And Mum and Dad, theyll miss their chance of going to the Beehive, being the proud parents. Theyll be so angry.

Mum and Dad wouldnt be angry. They arent like that. It was such a ridiculous thing to say I couldnt help starting to smirk. Mum and Dad wouldnt...

Okay, okay! Maybe not Mum and Dad. But Claire will be gutted. Claire was our oldest sister and very serious. She was studying politics at university.

I had to admit she would be disappointed in me. She would think I was letting womanhood down. I looked down at Olaf who was now sitting on my feet. He was a funny-looking cat, mainly white but with random black patches, including over one eye, which made him look nice and piratey.

And Aunt Ruth. Shell be so upset, she continued.

Thats stupid! I said. Aunt Ruth will just say something like listen to the trees .

Aunt Ruth lives with us and shes a Druid. Druidism is a sort of ancient Celtic religion and Druids are a tiny bit magic (Aunt Ruth denies the magic but, trust me, Id seen some things). Anyway, she could always be relied upon to say something lovely and gentle if a little bit unusual about pretty much anything.

How did you find out about me turning it down anyway? I havent told anyone except Ms Blair, I said.

We were going to publish the story about you winning the prize in WhatsUp. I had written it and everything. But Ms Blair came in at lunchtime and told us to pull the article because it looked like you wouldnt accept the prize, Beth said. Course I should have known. It was too much real life for you. Youre only interested in life when it comes safely between the pages of a book. You dont care about anyone but your stupid imaginary friends!

The penny dropped. This was why Beth was so angry. I could imagine her before she heard I wasnt going to accept the prize, preening herself, the editor of the school quarterly magazine,
the older sister of the award-winning essay writer, Eddie McGrath. Of course a little sister
is always influenced by her older siblings and I
myself am a published journalist and very passionate about my principles. It was almost too easy to imagine, Beth staring at herself in the scuzzy mirror in the toilets at school, practising for TV interviews. Tidying her ponytail with her long, thin hands. New Zealands Greta Thunberg.

Sorry to ruin your glory. Im going up to the
turret now. Goodbye. I clutched Olaf, apples and book to my chest and started to climb the staircase, trying to make my departing back look dignified. The staircase, unfortunately, is spiral, so as I turned I could kind of catch Beths death stare out of the corner of my eye. The blurriness of my glasses help-ed a bit but the vibes coming off her were scary. Its not nice being hated for thwarting someone elses dreams.

To explain about this prize business: it started when we had to write an essay for English entitled The Future, about, well, you can work it out. Some people wrote about how well all have to move to Mars (my permanently anxious best friend Liam), other people about how one day youll only need one lip gloss which will last forever because it will keep regenerating in its tube (my other, probably-not-anxious-enough, best friend Meri). Id written about how the voting age would be lowered to 15 and there would be youth seats in Parliament which could only be filled by people under 20. I only picked the topic because I thought it would be an easy one to get marks on. Everyone goes on about our generation being the future (like, duh?). But you know they really mean its all on us.

Anyway, our English teacher Ms Blair asked three of us (not, sadly, Mars Liam or Lip-Gloss Meri) if she could enter our essays in a national competition called Our Future Now being run by Parliament. We all said yes, because why not? The prize was to be announced. I forgot about it. Then, out of the blue the news. I had won first place, along with three other entrants from around the country.

At first I was pleased. And then... I wasnt.

The prize was to be a Member of Parliament (MP) for a day. You sit in your local MPs electorate office (which will be somewhere in your community, not in the Beehive) with the MP for a whole morning during one of the community sessions they run on Mondays and Fridays. You listen to the problems that the local people bring to their MP to sort out. Out of all the problems that the people come in with, you have to find one that you would try and solve yourself. The MP was to help with wise advice of course. It would be a project, but a real life one.

A month later, all four award winners, and three of their whnau, would go to the Beehive to meet the Prime Minister. We would each make a speech in which we would talk about our experiences of how the democratic system could be used to help solve problems.