‘Cassie, I’m going out to collect the class, say hi to the parents, all of that. Would you mind taking two kids down to the small classroom when we get back? They’re excused Irish, so you can do some extra reading practice with them.’
Cassie agreed readily. She was a little crestfallen at her loss of autonomy with the class but, hey – reality check – she was the rookie and Marie was turning out to be much nicer than she’d feared. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
For most of the next hour, she worked patiently with each child, then headed back to classroom 4B, only to hear eager voices coming from inside. She pushed open the door and saw a group of children enthusiastically doing a role-play that was exactly the same as she’d described to Marie. Cassie felt sick, not just at the deliberate plagiarism of her idea but also the sense of betrayal from somebody she’d chosen to trust in spite of her misgivings.
‘Hi, Cassie, Miss Upton did plays with us too, even better than last week,’ volunteered someone.
‘Really, they seem so familiar.’ She stared at Marie, who met her gaze without a flicker. For a second Cassie wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. Did she spot the ghost of a smile? But what could she do? Just then the bell went for break, and they headed out to the yard.
‘Er .?.?. Marie, can I just check something with you? You used my material .?.?. I mean, the role-plays I told you about, but I thought you said .?.?.’
Marie turned to her with an almost amused expression. ‘It’s all about being flexible in this work .?.?. all about collaboration. That’s just how it works.’
She sounded so reasonable that, in the moment, Cassie felt guilty for even mentioning it and found herself agreeing hastily. It was only afterwards that she began to ask herself when something shifted from collaboration to plain old ripping off of someone’s ideas.
At lunchtime, in the staffroom, a small group of teachers seemed to crowd around Marie to welcome her back and protest that the place hadn’t been the same without her. Well, that was for bloody sure. This was all too familiar from her own school days. It still was with her old gang, if she were being honest. Marie was the popular girl in the class, and popular girls existed in staffrooms just as they did in schoolyards. But was she the person everyone wanted to be friends with or just the person they least wanted to dislike them? A bit of both, possibly. Even Maggie seemed less available, so Cassie ate her lunch quietly at the end of a table and tried to stay inconspicuous.
* * *
Driving home that afternoon, she scanned her contacts at the traffic lights for someone to buzz for a bit of reassurance. Josie – no, she was deep in baby-land; Mam? No. The person she really wanted to text was Finn, but he’d be at work. So, that left Philip. Would phoning him be overstepping professional boundaries? At the same time, he’d sent her for the job, so presumably she could check in with him. She found herself hitting call, her heart pounding a little.
‘Cassie, how are you? It’s great to hear from you.’
She sighed with relief. There might have been times in her life when she’d have thought of someone like Philip as ‘uncool’, but right now his warmth and enthusiasm felt like balm to her jangled nerves. She burst out about Marie and how she’d confided in her, only to find she’d shamelessly nicked her idea and then behaved as though nothing had happened.
‘She gaslighted me, Phil.’
‘Don’t talk to me, you wouldn’t believe how common that is. Boardrooms, presentations, pulpits even .?.?. I’m hearing about it every day.’
‘But what can I do? I can’t stop her, I haven’t even any qualifications. I’m a nobody in there. I’m powerless.’
‘Ah now, go away out of that. You’ve just had a bad day,’ he said kindly. ‘You’ve learned the hard way to keep your ideas to yourself. But now you come to mention it, an SNA qualification wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. You could do it online in your own time.’
‘Really, do you think so?’
‘Sure, Google it. You could start any time and do it from home. It’d push your pay up too.’
Philip had an uncanny way of making everything a bit more manageable. As Mam said, he was a lovely guy. What was it about Phil? He felt like the sort of person you could confess your darkest fears to without being judged. He was handsome, in an almost old-fashioned, genteel sort of way. He was kind and interesting, and what was more, he seemed very interested in her. What was not to like if you’d half a brain?
* * *
That evening Cassie was curled up on the sofa in the sitting-room-slash-pole-dance-studio, munching her way through a black bean burrito bowl she’d treated herself to from the local deli, when Ramona trailed into the room. At first Cassie thought she was on the phone to a particularly exuberant friend. After a few moments of earwigging, she determined that her flatmate was recording a post and was preparing her fans for a big treat.
‘Instagram?’
‘Insta, TikTok, YouTube, everything .?.?.’ Ramona was dressed in what was, for her, a casual outfit: red tracksuit bottoms and a matching crop top with a tatty dressing gown thrown over it.
‘Are you working tonight?’
‘Sister, you have got to be shitting me. It’s Monday night, not even the cats work on a Monday night. No, I’ve got a date.’
‘Savage, where did you meet him?’
‘Tinder.’ So that’s what all the build-up was about. It struck Cassie that Monday was an ideal night for thousands of followers in their PJs to watch Ramona hauling herself into high-octane glam and heading out to meet a complete randomer for the first time.
‘You going out dressed like that?’
‘Babe, are you kidding? This lot? I have to start from here so my story has a dramatic arc and the guys can travel with me.’
