Chapter 40

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Sunday 29 January (continued) 

2:10 p.m.

I have a sneaky suspicion that my Irish Dance career might be well and truly over. Oh well, I’d better get my make-up off and take my hair down then. I can’t start my new life with this amount of facial glitter on, can I? From where I am backstage, I can hear the results coming through. I have my fingers crossed. For Anya, that is!! Why, what did you think I meant? Oh no, here comes Siobhan. I’m sure she’ll have something to say about ‘my performance’. Well, whatever she says I hope she’ll like the present I’ve got her –well, at the very least I can use it to defend myself against her Hard Stare.

2:15 p.m.

Siobhan said I was amazing. Her words. Ali too, he said what I did showed I had guts, because I did it my way. I guess it’s true, I finally did what I wanted to do rather than what everyone else thought I should do. ‘No,’ Siobhan said, ‘I meant being seen in that outfit.’ Lol. They even want to work with me again on the Transition Project, which is sweet. Siobhan said, ‘maybe, if we saw you in half two Aislings can cope with the workload’ but I realized there’s no need. If I’m not running around trying to please everyone then I should have plenty of time to do everything.

Siobhan was really touched by her backgammon set. Hopefully she’ll be able to play with her Mum and Dad now. It would be great if she was involved with her family’s hobbies like mine are. Well, my old hobby anyway.

Talking of families, Mum, Dad and Granny Nora were right behind Siobhan and Ali. Granny Nora could not stop smiling. I had to stop Rory from selling the rights to my performance to a big music label, he’d definitely got a little bit over-excited about the possibilities for Irish Dance Fusion. Dad looked really proud and Mum apologized loads for putting me under so much pressure. The thing is, I really don’t think it was her fault. Her putting me under pressure only made me work harder at the Irish Dance and without knowing Irish Dance back to front there’s no way I could’ve funked up the Irish Dance with Fusion. Without that and Murphy, anyway.

Two more people I needed to see before I awarded myself a Queen-sized ‘Aisling Goes Bananas’ ice-cream sundae. First, Killer Kennedy. Gulp.

I didn’t have to look far for Kennedy, she stopped me on the way out of the theatre. Amazingly, she said the judges were willing to overlook my ‘little experiment’ and she wanted me to come back to class on Monday. But I know deep down, Irish Dance is over for me. Thanks for asking, Mrs Kennedy, but no thanks. You won’t be seeing any more of Aisling Fitzsimons in the Irish Dance classes. My dancing destiny lies else where.

So that just leaves …

… Murphy.

3:35 p.m.

I didn’t have to look far for Murphy – he was waiting for me in the corridor. He did, as usual, look off the scale of gorgeousness. But I played it cool, because after all, how hard is it to deal with just one Murphy when you’ve danced mad hip-hop fusion in front of an audience of hundreds? I was the coolest in this particular set-up, thank you very much. My play it cool attitude lasted all the way down the corridor. It lasted all the time it took to stand next to him and I was still working the cool stance right up until the time he came up really close to me, and looked me straight in the eye. Then it seemed to melt away, and I found myself rambling like a mad woman, again. This time though, I didn’t care what I looked like or what he thought, I was just being me.

He said he wanted me to join his crew again, they’re gearing up for another competition. Just because I’ve given up Irish Dance for the time being, it does not mean I’m taking up flashmobbing full time. Oh no. I’m still not over ‘the library incident’. But hey, that doesn’t mean that nothing Murphy’s got isn’t of interest to me. If you know what I mean! In fact I’m really hoping that dancing isn’t the only way we can spend some time together. After all, we are neighbours.

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