The school concert hall is absolutely rammers this afternoon. We’re talking, like, 1,000 students and parents crammed between the walls to hear the result of the election for Mount Anville Head Girl for 2024-2025 and I haven’t seen Honor looking so pleased with herself since the time she swapped her old dear’s hair conditioning mask for Veet.
I’m there, “You seem confident.”
And she goes, “Granddad says I have it in the bag.”
The old man is – yeah, no – working the room. He’s walking around, shaking hands with people and you can see them checking their jewellery afterwards, such is his reputation.
‘When they see the copper, the triplets think it’s about them gobbing on the cauliflower and turmeric latte crowd - which I’m not even sure is a crime’
‘We’ve no idea what caused the fire. And we’re sticking to that story’
‘People in the crowd are staring at Honor like she’s a cold sore on debs night’
‘The thought of booking a table for one at Shanahan’s on the Green got me through my prison sentence’
Sorcha goes, “If you do lose, Honor – ”
But Honor’s like, “I’m not going to lose.”
“If you lose,” Sorcha goes, “I hope you’ll have learned the lesson that honesty and civility still have a place in politics – even if the world is falling down around our ears.”
Honor’s like, “Yeah, thanks for that, Hillary Clinton,” then off she goes for a last-minute briefing with my old man.
Honor and Liesel are both smiling and it’s like driving towards a cor with its lights on full-beam. I end up having to turn away
“Don’t worry,” Sorcha goes, putting her hand in mine. “She’s not going to win. The unofficial polling – based on soundings I’ve taken from the other moms – has Liesel Stapleton heading for a landslide. Let’s just say that the dirty tricks your dad used in forcing Sincerity Matthews out of the race have not gone down well with the vast majority of the parents.”
Miss Fosbury-Joyce, who’s going to be in chorge of the sixth years next year, steps up to the mic and asks the candidates for the position of Head Girl to join her on the stage, which they do.
Honor and Liesel are both smiling and it’s like driving towards a cor with its lights on full beam. I end up having to turn away.
“The ballots have been counted,” Miss Fosbury-Joyce goes, “and I can now declare the results in the election for our Head Girl for 2024-2025. Liesel Stapleton – 794 votes,” and there are, like, gasps in the concert hall. “Honor O’Carroll-Kelly – 58 votes. So I can declare that Liesel Stapleton is the winner!”
There’s, like, a machine-gun burst of applause, although I think it’s basically an outpouring of relief that our daughter won’t be representing the students of this school next year. I look at Sorcha and I can’t help but notice the smug grin on her face.
Liesel is like Alexandra Burke when she won The X Factor. She’s like, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” and she drops to her knees with her hands over her face, while four or five of her friends rush the stage to congratulate her.
Sorcha goes, “I hope this will be a fork-in-the-road moment for Honor.”
But I’m looking at her standing there on the stage and she doesn’t seem too upset?
Liesel suddenly has the mic in her hand and she’s going, “Thank you – oh my God – so much! This is, like, a dream come true? It was the late, great Madeleine Sophie Barat who said – ”
“Are you finding it difficult to hear me, Miss Fosbury-Joyce? Would you prefer to continue this conversation in a room with better acoustics? One on Inns Quay, perhaps?”
— Chorles
And that’s when I hear the old man’s voice – like a loud rumble of thunder – go, “Not ... so ... fast!”
I turn around and the dude is on his feet and there’s suddenly an air of tension in the room. I haven’t seen the teachers look this nervous since the old man went to the High Court to appeal the results of Honor’s Junior Cert mocks.
He walks to the front of the hall with his thumbs in his ormpits, like I’ve seen Hennessy do in court. Then he goes, “Do these results include the results from the postal vote?”
Everyone’s like, “Postal vote? The fock is he on about?”
He goes, “You do know that, under the rules of the contest, drawn up by Arthur Cox back in the year nineteen-hundred-and-thirty-seven, past-pupils of the school are permitted to vote.”
I can see all the teachers and parents looking at each other. Miss Fosbury-Joyce is, like, red in the face. She goes, “We don’t usually count postal votes. We don’t often receive them.”
The old man’s there, “You don’t often receive them?”
“No.”
“What about this year?”
“I beg your pordon?”
“Are you finding it difficult to hear me, Miss Fosbury-Joyce? Would you prefer to continue this conversation in a room with better acoustics? One on Inns Quay, perhaps?”
The poor woman suddenly turns to jelly. She’s there, “W ... w ... we did, yes. We received s ... s ... s ... some postal votes, yes.”
There’s, like, mutters throughout the hall.
He goes, “How many?”
She’s like, “I would say substantially more than usual.”
“Substantially more?” he goes. “Enough to sway the contest, would you think?”
There’s a lot of parents telling the old man that he’s an absolute disgrace for bringing the law into this, while Sorcha goes, “He’s dragged us all into the gutter with him”
She’s like, “I can’t say,” and then she looks across at Sr Belina, the Head of Electoral Oversight, for a dig-out.
Sr Belina stands up and goes, “I had absolutely no idea that postal votes by past pupils were part of the process of electing a Head Girl.”
“Well, you know now!” the old man roars. “From one who’s read rules and can quote them to you verbatim! I suggest you go and count those votes! Otherwise, I shall have to seek an interlocutory injunction like I did to overturn the result of the egg-and-spoon race at the 2019 sports day.”
I forgot about that one.
Miss Fosbury-Joyce and Sr Belina leave the room together and there ends up being absolute pandemonium in the hall. There’s a lot of parents telling the old man that he’s an absolute disgrace for bringing the law into this, while Sorcha goes, “He’s dragged us all into the gutter with him.”
This whole time, by the way, Honor is standing on the stage, with the kind of grin on her face that infuriates people. In fact, it’s not long before the slow handclap storts, along with chants of, “Cheat! Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!”
Eventually, Miss Fosbury-Joyce and Sr Belina return. Miss Fosbury-Joyce steps up on to the stage, grabs the mic and goes, “The result of the recount in the election for our Head Girl for 2024-2025. Liesel Stapleton – 794 votes. Honor O’Carroll-Kelly,” and then she pauses for, like, five seconds, before going, “6,155 votes.”
There’s, like, gasps from the crowd. Liesel’s old man is straight on his feet, going, “That’s not fair! Liesel won the popular vote!”
Honor turns to Liesel and goes, “See you next year – loser!”
And Sorcha’s like, “Oh my God, Ross. What has your dad created?”
