Made Up Friends

I was the first to burst through the door of the resource class, onto the cold corridors. The monotonous hour of being allowed to study anything we wanted seemed useful in theory - especially considering the fact that we spent it in the computer room - but completely blew when put to practice.

Our teacher, or 'supervisor', as I call her (no teaching took place) must have taken a pledge to make our lives as boring as she could during resource class. You see, resource class took place at the same time as the Irish class. There was a lucky few students, with me among them, that didn't have to take that class and did whatever for an hour in resource. These consisted mostly of foreign students, like me, and Irish people with dyslexia. There were of course other reasons to be exempt from Irish, but those cases were rare.

Mrs Kennedy allowed us to only use the computers if we needed them for work, which was really annoying, considering we were allowed to do anything on them last year. She would spend the entire hour watching everyone's shared screen on her own monitor, as the school software allowed her to do that. If she found some website that she deemed not worthy of her dear pupils, she would proudly stand up on her high heels, and march over to that person, giving out to them for the next five minutes of class, taking their journal if any resistance or argument was made.

Sometimes I actually felt sorry for her. She as a teacher, had the most to do out of all of us, yet she wasted her time trying to make our lives worse than they were. It was her who should be given out to for not using her time creatively.

If a student was caught, she would tell them to take out their work, and study. This was often followed by them saying they already did all their homework, and that they had nothing to do, to which she would respond by telling them to look over their notes. If that student then said they left all their books in their locker, you could observe Mrs Kennedy blowing steam out of her ears. 'Find something to do, or I'll give you work to do for homework.' - Was what she said then, and the conversation was usually over by then, ended with a sigh of the student, as they took out any book and blindly stared at its pages.

Today, I decided to put her words to the test, and see if the work she gave for the dreaded homework was really that scary. I didn't do anything for five minutes, and the usual scenario followed as usual. She waltzed over to me, but when she told me that she will give me work, I paused for a second, and responded with a single word. "Fine" - I said to her, equally puzzling her, and the entire class, just as intended. She scratched her head, looked off into the distance, returned to her desk and started aggressively punching text into the computer, all the while I calmly stared at her patiently, apparently stressing her out, judging from the nervous glances she took at me in the process, to which I responded with a neutral smile every single time.

The problem was, she was the physics teacher. I don't do physics.

Guess what she gave me for homework. Go on, take a wild guess. A fucking word search puzzle. That's right. I was holding back laughter more than the people that caught me sleeping in music. I quickly lost my good humour though, realising she actually wanted me to do the word search. I exited the room swiftly, to avoid more eye contact with her.

The resource class, instead of relaxing me as always for the end of the day, put me in a tipsy mood. I just wanted to talk to my friends to blow off some steam, and ask Francis if he could walk home with me. We did that often, as we lived on the same estate, and he was great company to me. Although shy and introverted, he let loose when friends were around, and, we had a lot of common interests that others in the school didn't share with me.

I decided to walk through the outside of the school to take a shortcut to the lockers. Outside, I ran into an old friend.

"Nick!" Carl yelled towards me. "Didn't see you around for a while." He lowered his voice as I came closer. He was two years younger than me, currently in his fourth year of secondary school.

"Well, you know, school and stuff." I said, looking at his cart. Carl did an odd job at our school. He called himself the school journalist, but he didn't actually do anything remote to journalism. It was his duty to go out early from class on each Thursday, take the cart of newspapers refilled every week by the City Council, and sell them outside the main entrance. The newspapers weren't of course popular among the students, in the era of internet, but a lot of kids actually picked up the weekly issue of Killeaney Times for their parents, as the community news garnered some popularity over time.

"You're still doing this, huh?" I asked, after a short bit of silence.

"Well I do get paid." He answered, accepting a two euro coin from some young student, and handing her the thin, folded newspaper. "It's something."

I said goodbye to him, as the students started to pour out the front door. He was one of the people I wished to spend more time with, yet I could never find the right moment.

The main lobby was full of life as I walked through it. Teenagers of all ages, all of them in monotone black uniforms walked by me, minding their own business, most of them heading for the main exit, as I headed to my locker. I allowed myself a slight smirk, seeing my group of friends all gathered around our usual spot. I saw Kian, Mark, Gabriel and Francis down there, all taken over by some community news.

After dealing with my locker, I went over to them.

"What's good boys?" I asked, joining their circle, but haven't been granted any answer thanks to James joining in, and forcing his way between me and Kian. He had an issue of Killeaney Times in his hands, and his fast walking pace made us all cautious.

"Did you hear what's been going on?" He asked us, fiddling with his bag, trying to handle the paper in his hands.

"Yep." Mark said, and the other three nodded their heads, only leaving me confused.

"I haven't." I said, and James immediately stuck the newspaper up to my face.

"It's the mayor again." Kian sighed, as I read the headline on the newspaper.

Our town was special. Most small Irish settlements like ours, never interacted with its politicians and the council, but we have to thank our dear mayor, for making everyone's lives more interesting. He attended every gathering in the community centre, and daily talked to his citizens on the street.

But that didn't make him a good leader, and definitely not a good politician. All agreed, that he wasn't okay in the head, with all the things he tried to pull off. He tried his best to abuse his power, but as a mayor of a small town, he was very limited. He passed a lot of laws to the Kerry County Council, most of them to make his life better. He overall thought that he had power to do anything.

There was a scandal once where he 'borrowed' somebody's car. It was found under his office, and he swore he was going to give it back. He avoided all the charges, as the family he stole from felt sorry for him, and believed he had a mental condition, like the majority of the village. Every store owner would roll his eyes when they saw him enter. He believed as a mayor he shouldn't be obligated to pay for small products, bypassing all of the laws, getting into fights with shopkeepers.

"Mayor Padraig Ó Riagáin wants to legalise human x companion marriage." I read aloud.

"It sounds even worse as a news heading." Said Gabriel, looking up from his phone. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was just like when he tried to legalise incest in Ireland, he was rejected by the County Council, but no one was surprised, as he has done worse before. I thought the following events would be similar to those of that day, but with less backlash towards the mayor, as everyone was tired of chasing after him.

"It's disgusting, like. He's outta control." James said, taking the paper from me, bringing it closer to his face, reading a fragment of the article. "...Mayor Ó Riagáin is back with yet another trial to pass a controversial law to the Kerry County Council. In an interview with Killeaney Times, he said: 'Marriage is a sacred ritual performed by humans for millenia, to seal their love for each other with a simple vow. We, humans, have recently been blessed with companions we never expected, and I feel, we are obligated to show our love for them in any way, shape or form.'" He finished, and looked around.

"I never thought people even thought of imaginary friends that way." Said Kian, rubbing his chin. "They're here for our kids, not for us to romanticise."

"Romanticise? I think this guy just wants to score, if you know what I'm saying." All heads turned towards James. He continued to speak. "I heard his daughter got an imaginary pony lately, lovely mare, everyone liked her around the house, and she helped a lot with cleaning and work, as she's one of those unicorns that can levitate things. The thing is, rumours say, our boy Padraig has feelings for the pony. But I just think he's a deviant." James finished, and rolled the newspaper into a paper pipe and stuck it on a side pocket of his backpack.

"Well he IS divorced." I said, and everyone looked at me.

"So what?" Countered James. My thoughts quickly went back to Brad the Dog, my earlier acquired friend. He could hold up a conversation with an entire family. He had charm to him, and a distinct personality. Would it be that weird if a human woman had been wooed by such an individual? Probably. Still, such a relationship could theoretically take place.

"So maybe there's really something going on there." I said, and everyone blinked in confusion.

"They're animals, Nick." Said James, putting his hands into his pockets, and resting his weight on his right leg in a relaxed position.

"Sapient, intelligent animals. I wouldn't have anything against companion - human marriage actually." I said, as it started to make sense in my head. I also wanted to disagree with James on something - he was the least open minded person out of all of us, and sometimes it was annoying how little he wanted in common with us.

"Still, animals. Nick, would you go to your house, and fuck your dog?"

"No. That's completely different, James."

"What's different about it? The mayor just wants to fuck a horse. He needs a therapist. And of course you're one to agree, because you're a fucking brony."

"Wh..what?" I retaliated. "That show hasn't been mentioned anywhere for way over a year now! And so what if I was a fan of it?"

"Whatever do you mean 'so what'? All of you kiss the hooves of all those damn ponies that started appearing in kids' beds. And I'm sure that's not the only part of them you'd like to..." James was abruptly stopped.

"Oh shut up. That entire fandom is all but nonexistent. People just like to go after the made up things. I also hate the word 'brony' by the way. It's so overused."

"Say whatever you want. I won't listen. You said it yourself, that fandom is dead, and I don't know why you're trying to defend it. You're quite literally beating a dead horse." He walked towards the exit door.

"Even if he's right, mayor Ó Riagáin surely wasn't a huge fan of My Little Pony when it was popular. If this is all driven by feelings, why make it all worse?" I spoke, still a little heated from my argument.

"I agree." Said Kian. "Look at Brad. He's more inteligent than most of the people in our school."

"That's exactly what I've been thinking about." My friends looked at me curiously.

"Yeah well of course a normie like James considers sex to be the only important thing." Kian continued, as the others went to their lockers.

"Yeah. Wow. Can't believe we're agreeing with the mayor for once." I smirked.

"Could it be that we only had to put ourselves in the old guy's shoes?" He wondered. Mark called him from the other side of the locker area. It was time for them to go.

"Then what was up with that incest thing?" I tilted my head, smiling playfully at him.

"Nevermind. Scratch all I said. He's not okay." He turned around towards Mark. "See you tomorrow man."

I felt sad again. I would be going with them, to spend more time preparing for the party, but as it was cancelled, I had to return home. I went over to Francis. His locker was right beside mine. He was tall and skinny, with complicated eastern heritage, longish black hair, and a dark skin tone.

"Wanna walk through town with me?" I asked him as soon as our eyes met.

"Hm? I thought you're going with Mark and Kian." He said and looked down at my shoes.

"Yeah... We had to cancel the party."

"Oh. Well sorry, but I gotta get my little brother, I can't go today." My smile was gone. "If you told me earlier..."

"It's fine, Francis."

He said goodbye, and walked to the main exit, leaving me alone with my thoughts by the lockers. I checked my pockets, and cursed when failing to find my earphones. I had to make my way home in complete silence.

Nothing went my way that day. Even the smallest of things failed. And it started to rain.