That Wee English Fella

Father Peter

"Rolo, anyone?" Another one of the boys in our group, who's name tag said Dee, offered us. Clearly unsatisfied with what he recurved from Michelle and Erin.

"Okay, listen up people!" Sister Michelle yelled at everyone. "According to this, your gonna need a...well, they use the term 'buddy' for tomorrows activities"

"I bagsie Harry!" Michelle yelled, running past me and over to the brunette. "What?" Erin asked, totally flabbergasted. "That's not fair. He's the only good looking one!"

"The rest of us are right here." Dee, appalled by the Erin's nerve said making me feel bad for the rest of the boys.

"You snooze, you loose, Erin" Michelle teased Erin, wrapping her arm around Harry's as I turned back to face Alex who had a sheepish smile on his face as to say 'oh well, what can you do about'

"Well, I guessed we're partnered up together" he said, rolling his eyes pretending to be annoyed but the smile on his face gave the truth away.

"Feck sake. I really don't have a choice, do I?" I matched his smile, admiring his messy light brown hair and tall muscular physique.

"Don't worry" Alex said as he walked towards me. "I promise, I'll make it worth your while" my body tensed up at his closeness unsure of what to do with myself, I just arched my brow and smirked up at the taller boy.

The closeness broke off when Orla pushed past us to get to James and his partner, since she didn't have her own.

"Is she alright in the head?" Alex asked, whole we both watched as we watched Orla bop the tip of her and James partners noise. "Aye, sometimes" I replied smiling just as the doors of the hall opened and in walked a young priest who looked a little bit familiar and who seemed to have caught all of my friends eyes.

Alex and I sat down in the middle row with Orla, Jon, and James on one side and on the other, Erin and Dee.

"Okay, so I see a few familiar faces out there" The priest, who's name tag said 'Peter' told us after he ran his hands through his hair. " as some of you know, I know a bit about a sabbatical last year"

I suddenly remembered who he was. Father Peter. I read about him in the newspaper one day, he told a bunch of kids that their dog had arisen from the dead, which was false. And after that, he quit.

"Do you mean when you shacked up with the slutty hairdresser but then she dumped you?" Michelle asked...okay maybe I'm thinking about the wrong Priest.

"Miss Mallon, please" for a second it seemed as though sister Michael was about to chide Michelle for delving into father Peters personal life, until she added. "Raise your hand, if you want to ask a question." To which, Michelle's hand instantly shot up. "Okay, I think we should just move on" father Michelle continued, completely ignoring Michelle. 

"The hairdresser certainly did" sister Michael remarked, putting a smile on my face even though I didn't even know the story.

"Okay, so this is just a little exercise I like to kick off with." Peter continued, swerving from the topic that was his messy personal life that everyone seemed to know.

"I want you guys to give me examples of things that Catholics and Protestant's have in common. Let's start with similarities-" Peter scanned the room, looking for someone to ask. "Erin, why don't you get the ball rolling"

Everyone turned to look at Erin. "Okay, so we both..." Erin trailed off, trying to look at Dee for help. "Right, so we all...oh, this is actually quite hard"

"Anything at all" Peter tried to help. "A small thing, even"

"Okay," Erin nodded back at him. "So right, I'm actually drawing on a blank here, to be honest"

"Not to worry. Someone else, how about...Cara?" Father Peter asked me, reading from my name tag. I looked up from where I was playing with my gold rings and my eyes widened in shock. "Uhh...Catholics are Irish and Protestant's are British"  I held my tongue back from saying anything too offensive.

"See, that's actually a difference. Quite a, well, a very big difference" Peter clarified, looking at me judging.  "But that's okay, we can right that down" he said turning around to the blackboards to Jenny who picked up the chalk and wrote it down. "Now, back to similarities"

Then, Michelle raised her hand. "Protestant's are richer"  causing the father to sigh and me to admire the clothes on Alex, that I now noticed were all branded.

"Okay, so that's another difference and I'm not sure that's really.." he turned around to sister Micheal "I mean, is that true?"

"I would say so" sister Michael nodded , so then he turned to the other principal. "Mm, yeah, I suppose that's fair enough" she agreed as James and Orla's buddy raised his hand.

"Yes, great. Off you go" Peter told the wavy haired boy. "Catholics really get a bus off statues and we don't so much."

"I do enjoy a good statue, it has to be said" sister Michael agreed to his point. Causing me to look at Alex with a wide sheepish smile as to say 'what the actual fuck is happening right now'

"So, again. What we have there is a difference" Peter said, probably wishing he was with that slutty hairdresser right now.

We all began naming out random differences, Orla even said that Protestant's  don't like ABBA. So I looked at Alex then to ask and he just shook his head.

"Can you think of anything that unites every single person in this room?" Peter rephrased the question, hoping it to work.

"We all don't want to be here listening to you" I meant to say, to myself but my plan failed. As, everyone went quiet randomly and all heard my comment. Peter looked back at the principals, who were pretending that they didn't hear me.