None of us had ever heard a name like it before. Seb-asti-an. The boys have all stopped their football in the school playground since he came, now they stand around whispering to Sebastian about The Plan this The Plan that, real serious like as if it was war. The Plan means who is he going to chase around the playground next, out of us girls. He nods, standing in the middle of them, his hair gelled lovely, his arms folded like he couldn’t care less what they’re saying, like he already knows himself what he’s going to do and they’re all just bores he puts up with in case they’re useful, which is something I know something about.
I don’t want Sebastian to chase me, and I’m not even thinking of whether I might be next in the running or not. But anyway. The other thing to think about is that I’m the best runner in school. Well, the best if you don’t count your wan Gráinne. She has those runners with stripes on them everywhere, except the soles, I don’t think they’re there, but I’m not sure because I never seen those soles, never got near enough to them and not for the want of trying, always just saw flashes of them running ahead of me. But I’m Second-Best, at least there’s that.
I look over to where he’s standing, just in case, and he doesn’t look like he’s looking at me. He’s beyond, on the boys’ side of the playground, with all the lads in a circle around him as if they own him, which they don’t, even though they think they do. They can think it all they like. He belongs to whoever he decides. And he hasn’t decided yet.
The girls spot me looking and they say what are you gawking at him for, are you thinking about kissing him, do you fancy him or something, do you like his hair is it, are you thinking about him chasing you, do yous want to get married or what? And I tell them he can chase all he likes but there’s no way he’ll catch me and of course I don’t fancy him but don’t I have to watch out because wasn’t I one of the wans not yet caught and mightn’t he decide to try and catch me today. And there was no way I was going to let that happen, on account of being the second-best runner, ever, so, no. That’s more or less what I say to them. And they all start sniggering and that makes me so mad after all my explaining about Sebastian, so I decide I better say something really bad to Gráinne because that’ll be sure to stop their sniggering at me as if I’m a liar, too scared to tell the truth.
Gráinne the Best Runner is the one that decides who’s allowed be friends with who, the one who’ll tell any of your secrets to anyone but you still better have a few secrets to tell her or she’ll think you’re being smart-arsed, so the best thing to do is tell her something she’ll think is good. She’s the one who’ll laugh at your lunch because you just have the stupid gooseberry jam sandwiches that your mother said don’t come home with those good sandwiches still in your bag but you can’t flush them down the toilet because the tinker kids have blocked the drains with throwing in the free buns they get because they don’t care about buns and they don’t care about trouble and the tinkers are the only ones Gráinne is afraid of because they don’t care about her or her stripey runners.
So I turn to Gráinne who’s standing there with her fists on her hips, all ready to have a good laugh about me looking over at Sebastian, and all the girls behind her saying that they seen me gawking over at him and why should Gráinne put up with a sneaky liar like me? And I say to her, right there in front of everyone, ‘I didn’t see you sprinting away top-speed yourself when he was chasing you yesterday, Gráinne, no, I didn’t see you breaking your heart to get away from him with your big fat pink legs, now, did I, Gráinne?’
She goes pure wild at how I could say that, like as if I’m not afraid, like as if I don’t realise I’ll be hammered saying stuff like that about her, and the others listening with their stupid mouths open and their eyes flittering between the two of us.
She makes a grab for me and with a raging head on her she roars ‘Wedding Bells for this wan! This wan wants to kiss him! This wan wants to marry Sebastian!’ She drags me by the hair to the big red fuchsia bush beside the field at the edge of the playground, with the swarm of girls running behind shouting ‘Wedding Bells! Wedding Bells!’ over at Sebastian and saying things to Gráinne like ‘That boy is so speedy Gráinne! Nobody blames you if you got caught by mistake!’ talking like this as if they’re the ones in trouble, as if they’re the ones with a wad of hair caught in her hot fist and her dribbling crossways at having been caught out by the likes of me.
She doesn’t listen to any of their soft talk. She pushes me onto the wet ground in front of the red fuchsia bush and grabs its old droopy branches, swinging them over me and hopping up and down with the rage. I stay dead-still on the ground, the cold muck coming up on me. I’m level with her runners and I can see now there’s no stripes on them soles. I’m thinking ‘Don’t get up, wait ‘til she’s gone, she doesn’t matter.’ The others are joining in, pulling at the poor fuchsia and shouting ‘Wedding Bells, Wedding Bells’ while its branches lash down their tiny red flowers on me like confetti. I play-act like I’m sorry, so she’ll quit and leave me be, drenched as I am with this muck and broken bits of flowers as if the birds shat berries all over me.
I hear some kind of whistling, like a signal. I look through the pack of girls to where Sebastian has been standing. And isn’t he staring right back, getting ready to run at me, and all the boys lined up behind him ready for The Plan. I know what’s coming next, what’s happening at last, and I don’t care about Gráinne nor the muck nor the banjaxed flowers stuck to me nor all the roaring girls in the world. I get up and shove through the lot of them, and they all laughing because they think I’m scared of them and their Wedding Bells.
I run, and him after. I run like hell to show him what a good runner I am, to show him only someone really fast could maybe catch up, not like the snot-lads racing behind him pushing and pulling at each other. I run, looking back to make sure he’s still there. I run past the bicycle shed where the tinkers play and they all stop and look and cheer and I don’t know which one of us they’re cheering for. I run into the field beside the playground because, if he’s going to catch me, that’s the best place. That’s The Plan I’d made, ready if this ever happened, ready for a long time now.
He’s close. I’m trying to rub off the muck still stuck on my arms and he grabs me. I fall face forward, he falls right on top. Sebastian is right on top of me.
I lie there, head in the grass, not sure what to do, my heart nearly bouncing out, everything quiet like it doesn’t exist. The two of us. We lie together like that for a while, enough time to get the feel for it.
He says my name. I can’t believe he says my name, just like that. I turn to face him, the other boys miles behind, stuck at the bike shed where the tinkers have caught them, the girls all still by the fuchsia, afraid to run past the tinkers, craning their necks to see what will happen so they can tell each other.
I want to say his name back but nothing comes out except ‘Yeah.’ I look at him and the truth is he’s so lovely and I smile at the good of it and then we kiss on the lips as if we’re married.
And when I hear the boys roaring that Sebastian got me, Sebastian caught me, I roll away and shout, roar at the top of my voice ‘Sebastian! Let me go! Let me go, Sebastian! Sebastian!’ his lovely name flashing around me like hundreds of bangers going off.
An earlier version of this story, entitled “The Good Of It All,” was a Finalist in Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Writing Award, in 2015, and was originally published in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual 2016. It was also published in The Leitrim Guardian, in 2019.
Niamh Mac Cabe is published internationally in numerous journals and anthologies, including Narrative Magazine, The Stinging Fly, The Offing, Aesthetica, The London Magazine, The Forge Literary Magazine, Mslexia, Southword, The Irish Independent, The Exacting Clam, and Minor Literature[s]. She writes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and hybrid prose.
She’s won many awards, including The London Magazine’s Short Story Prize, the Wasafiri Prize, the John McGahern Award, and the Molly Keane Award.
She’s been placed or shortlisted in several contests including the Costa Short Story Award, Glimmer Train Press Award, American Short Fiction’s Prize, Harvard Review’s Chapbook Prize, New Ohio Review’s Editor’s Award, Lit Mag’s Virginia Woolf Award, and SoA’s ALCS Tom Gallon Trust Award.
She’s represented by Marianne Gunne O’Connor at MGO’C Literary Agency, Dublin.
She lives in Leitrim, Ireland.
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NiamhMacCabe
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/niamhmaccabe.bsky.social
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