Eighteen Kisses

I smiled.

James worked in an art gallery in Sligo. He was seventeen, very cute and Colin had been crazy about him for the past six months.

‘This is brilliant!’ I said. ‘What are you going to say?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sat down beside me on the floor.

‘This is so exciting!’ I said, bouncing up and down on the spot.

‘I know.’ Colin was smiling, but I could sense that he was a bit nervous.

‘Reply!’ I said, prodding him on the shoulder.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to seem too keen. I figure I should wait at least half an hour.’

‘Then it might seem like you’re over-thinking your reply though,’ I said, resting my guitar against the bookshelves.

‘Oh my god, you’re right,’ said Colin, his eyes widening. ‘What should I say?’

‘I dunno, er… yes?’

He suddenly looked concerned. ‘What if he means hang out just as friends? What if he doesn’t actually like me? What if I’ve made the whole thing up?’

‘Colin, I had to look at art I didn’t understand for an entire hour last Saturday because he wouldn’t stop talking to you.’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he said, taking a deep breath.

James seemed lovely. I had high hopes for him and Colin. It would be great if they went out – Colin deserved a nice boyfriend, and lately he was always complaining about the fact that he’d never had one. James has curly blond hair and is a little bit taller than Colin. I thought they would make the cutest couple.

‘What should I say?’ asked Colin. ‘What says I like you, but not a scary amount?’

I considered this carefully. ‘Hey, James, I’m great, how are you? Yeah, sure, that sounds fun… smiley face.’

‘You’re a genius, Jacki King,’ he said, his thumbs quickly tapping across the phone’s screen.

‘I try,’ I said with a laugh. ‘This is so exciting!’

‘I can’t believe I met someone as awesome as James,’ he sighed. ‘Isn’t it funny how you can just end up in the right place at the right time?’

‘Colin, you stalked him for six months. You made me visit that Matisse exhibition four times just so you could look at him!’

‘Whatever. It worked, didn’t it?’ he said and then turned his attention to the phone.

I watched as he reread his text a couple of times before sending it. I considered telling him about Kayla Edwards and the case I was now working on, but I didn’t want to wreck his fun. He’d only start to worry. I’d tell him tomorrow – I’d have to. He was my self-appointed sidekick, after all, and he’d been such a support to me last year, when even I didn’t believe what was happening to me. I’d also have to tell Mum. They both knew that I’d met Detective Sergeant Lawlor when he’d first asked me to help the police, but they didn’t know that I’d heard from him again – or that I had met him that morning in Dublin as well.

‘I better go,’ said Colin, after he’d pressed Send.

‘OK,’ I said, jumping up to hug him. ‘Text me if he texts you.’

‘I will,’ he said. ‘Sweet dreams.’

I grimaced. I knew I wouldn’t be dreaming anything sweet for quite a while.

The next morning I found myself standing outside Miss Jennings’s office. I had no idea why I was there. I assumed I must be in some kind of trouble – that’s usually why people were summoned over the intercom to the principal’s office. I frantically got rid of any ‘customizations’ I’d made to my uniform. I rolled down the sleeves of my blazer, then took the Thin Lizzy badges off my lapels and stuffed them into my pocket. My skirt was at least five centimetres shorter than the required length, but there wasn’t much I could do about that now. I pulled up my knee socks, trying to minimize the amount of flesh that was showing. Miss Jennings was equal parts pleasant and terrifying. I suppose you had to be if you were in charge of 500 teenage girls. I tried to figure out what I could have done lately that would land me here. I couldn’t really think of anything though. It was especially difficult to get into trouble in transition year – it was pretty laid back and we didn’t have exams. Maybe it was because I’d been a few minutes late to music class this morning. Or because I wore too much eyeliner. Or because I’d signed Emily’s petition protesting about the ratio of male to female authors stocked in the school library. Whatever it was, I hoped my punishment wouldn’t be too severe. I was supposed to be meeting Nick after school, so I really hoped I’d be able to talk my way out of detention.

I listened closely, trying to catch what was happening on the other side of the door with whichever unfortunate person was in there before me. I couldn’t really hear properly, only catching snippets of the conversation – ‘self- destructive behaviour’, ‘I promise it won’t happen again’, and so on. I distracted myself from the agony of waiting by looking at the photographs on the wall, some of which I featured in. There was a picture of me on the hockey team and in the cast of Grease. The musical had been so much fun – the whole of transition year had been really. I couldn’t believe it was nearly over; we had less than a month left.

The office door swung open and a second-year girl, whom I vaguely recognized, walked past, looking kind of traumatized. She gave me a sympathetic smile; a show of solidarity to a fellow comrade destined for similar torture.

‘Come in, Jacki.’ Miss Jennings knew the name of every single pupil in the school, which was incredibly cool, but also a bit weird.

‘Take a seat,’ she said. She was wearing a black trouser suit and her auburn hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. She looked surprisingly cheerful for someone about to give detention. I settled down on the chair opposite her. Her desk was arranged in neat piles – paper, pencils, Post-its and two silver frames facing her.

‘First of all, I would like to say congratulations.’

‘Er… thanks?’ I said, with absolutely no idea why I was being congratulated. As far as I was aware, I hadn’t entered any competitions. I’d come second in an open-mic contest in Sligo a few weeks ago, but I was pretty sure Miss Jennings hadn’t heard about that. She tilted her computer screen towards her and started to read.

‘We are pleased to inform you that your student Jacki King has been chosen to intern at our magazine. Her application for work experience was successful and she is invited to begin a two-week internship in our Dublin offices, starting on May the fourteenth. We do apologize for the late announcement of our chosen interns. This was due to an administrative error. If Miss King is still interested in the placement, she should contact us as soon as possible.

‘Yours sincerely, Tim Kavanagh, Deputy Editor, Electric magazine.

‘Isn’t that wonderful news?’ said Miss Jennings. My brain was working really fast, trying to figure out what was happening before my body gave a signal that showed I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Then it struck me – Sergeant Lawlor had arranged this. Wow, Matt worked fast – I was impressed. But had I really heard that right? Electric magazine?

‘Are you not excited?’ said Miss Jennings.

‘Yeah… no, I’m… I’m really excited. Sorry, I’m just so shocked.’

‘That’s the music magazine, right?’

‘Yes. The music magazine!’ The one I read from cover to cover in Nick’s mum’s shop. The magazine whose first cover was a black and white portrait of Phil Lynott, the lead singer of my favourite band – Thin Lizzy. The magazine that so many people I knew would kill to be mentioned in. I’d heard they got sent twenty demos a day – mine was buried somewhere in their stack. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to be spending two weeks in their office. Miss Jennings’s phone started to ring.

‘Well done again, Jacki,’ she said. ‘Best of luck with it.’

As I left the office, I felt excited, but also a bit anxious. I couldn’t wait to see inside Electric magazine, and two weeks in Dublin would be great. But it also meant two weeks apart from Nick. I already saw him much less than I wanted to with all his band practice and our gigs at weekends getting in the way. I took my badges out of my pockets and fixed them back on to my blazer. I headed down the corridor to maths class, trying not to think about what Nick might say when I told him after school.

We lay on Nick’s bed, propped up by pillows, our legs outstretched. Nick wasn’t saying much at all, offering