They inhale again, and Carl feels the pills burn at the top of his nose like pure glowing energy that wants to lift him up and throw him all around the sky! So for a second he doesn’t realize that the door of the Doughnut House has opened. Then Barry says, ‘Well well.’ Carl looks up and sees two girls, the same two girls he noticed a minute ago. They are just standing there in the doorway, looking across the road at Carl and Barry. Then, when they see the boys staring back at them, they start walking away.
‘Looks like they want to party,’ Barry says. He hops down from the wall. Carl hops down too. Energy shoots through his arms, the pills make you feel like you are on a mission.
The girls are talking to each other in a loud, fake sort of way, like they know someone is listening. They are from St Brigid’s, he has seen them before in the mall.
‘Hey!’ Barry calls after them. They ignore him.
‘Oh my God, she is such a leper,’ the shorter girl is saying.
‘Hey!’ Barry shouts again. This time the girls turn round and wait. ‘How are you doing,’ Barry says, catching up with them. The girls don’t say anything. ‘I’m Barry,’ he says. ‘This is Carl.’
‘We’re off our heads,’ Carl says. The shorter girl leans up and whispers into the ear of the other one and both of them start giggling behind their hands. Barry glares at Carl.
‘So, what are your names?’ he asks them, which sets off another explosion of giggles, like this is the most spastic thing you could ever ask someone. Classic girl behaviour: Carl is not going to let it throw him off. He pictures Morgan sprawled out on the waste ground, thinks about standing above him with the furniture-polish flame-thrower.
‘What have you guys been doing tonight?’ Barry says.
‘Uh… eating doughnuts?’ the shorter girl says, with a duh expression. She’s not actually short, it’s more that the other girl is tall. Both are thin. The short girl has crinkly hair and glasses like someone on TV, Carl can’t remember who. The other girl has long dark hair and pale skin. Her lips are a shiny lollipop-red. She is wearing mittens and looking at Carl.
‘Did you know tonight is your lucky night?’ Barry is saying.
‘Why, because we get to meet you?’ Crinkly-Hair says.
‘Not just that,’ Barry says. ‘We have a once-in-a-lifetime offer to make you.’
Crinkly-Hair laughs a sarcastic laugh and looks at Lollipop-Lips. ‘We have to go.’
‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’
‘What is it?’
‘We can’t show you here.’
She laughs again. ‘We have to go,’ she says, and turns away. But they don’t go anywhere, and a second later she turns back again and says, ‘Okay, what is it?’
‘Follow me.’ Barry leads the girls up the road. Carl wonders where he is taking them and what the once-in-a-lifetime offer is. He wants to ask Barry but Barry has walked on ahead of him, down a long driveway belonging to one of the new apartment blocks. The girls are dawdling behind Carl, talking to each other about something completely else as though they don’t care about what Barry has to show them and have almost forgotten about it. The pills are making Carl’s hands shake and want to do things.
Barry has stopped under a lamppost and is waiting for them there. They catch up and Crinkly-Hair looks at Barry like she’s saying ‘So?’ Carl is looking at him too but Barry pretends not to see. Lollipop waits a little way back with a mysterious smile as if she is thinking of a secret joke. Now and then she flicks back her hair with a white hand so the light goes shooting through it.
Barry takes the orange tube from his pocket. Wait, what?
‘Diet pills,’ he says. ‘The best you can get.’
The crinkly-haired girl’s face goes dark. ‘Are you saying we need to go on a diet?’
‘You will soon if you keep eating doughnuts,’ he says as a joke, but she doesn’t laugh. ‘Relax,’ he says. ‘I’m not saying that at all. These are designed so that you won’t ever need to go on a diet. They’re actual medical pills developed by doctors. Take one of these a day and you’ll never have to worry about your weight again.’
Crinkly-Hair takes the tube from his hand and examines it. ‘Ritalin,’ she reads. ‘That’s the stuff they prescribe for ADHD.’ She turns to Lollipop. ‘It’s what they gave Amy Cassidy after she smashed up the nature table.’
‘You can take it for different things,’ Barry says.
‘If you snort it you can get really high,’ Carl says, looking at Barry. But Barry acts like he doesn’t hear. What is he doing? Is he trying to sell the pills to these girls? They are supposed to be for him and Carl, they have been planning to get them all week! Carl starts to get angry, but he keeps it hidden for now. Maybe Barry has a plan, like he is planning for them to fuck the girls.
‘Morgan Bellamy,’ Crinkly-Hair is reading from the label. ‘I thought you said your name was Barry.’ She lifts her eyes to Barry challengingly. Lollipop is hotter but Crinkly-Hair is sexy too, Carl thinks, he would ride her if the other one wouldn’t do it.
‘Barry is my middle name,’ Barry tells her. ‘Nobody calls me Morgan except my grandparents.’
‘Where did you get these?’
‘The doctor prescribed them for me. But now I don’t need them any more.’
‘Oh, you’re cured, are you?’
‘That’s right,’ Barry says, smiling at her. She tries to stop herself smiling back at him but she can’t. ‘So what do you think? I’ll give you this entire bottle for thirty euro. That’s only fifteen each,’ he says to Lollipop, trying to bring her into it. But she hangs back and doesn’t speak.
‘We don’t have any money,’ Crinkly-Hair says.
‘Or I’ll give you five for five,’ Barry says, deliberately not looking at Carl while he is saying this. ‘This really is a great offer, ladies. Normally you can’t get this stuff without a prescription. Here, take a look.’ He takes the tube back from Crinkly-Hair and pours some of the little skin-coloured discs out onto his palm and holds it out. Crinkly-Hair hovers over it, like she’s breathing in the smell of the pills, though they don’t smell of anything. Then suddenly light flashes over them. Barry folds up his hand. A car comes up the driveway, a grown-up face suspicious in the window as it goes past.
Lollipop tweaks her friend’s elbow. ‘We should go,’ she murmurs. Her voice is low and soft like cat’s fur.
Crinkly-Hair nods. ‘It’s getting late,’ she says, and steps back.
‘Wait,’ Barry says. ‘Why don’t you take a couple of these, as free samples? I’ll give you my number, and if you like them I can get you some more.’ He holds out the pills. The girls look at him, swaying slightly from side to side.
‘Or, okay, why don’t you give me your numbers, and I can call you to see if you changed your mind?’ He takes out his phone. Carl takes out Morgan Bellamy’s phone and flips it open too. He points it at Lollipop but doesn’t speak. She gazes back at him, biting her bottom lip gently.
‘Okay,’ Barry shuts his phone without stopping smiling. ‘How about this, how about we just come and meet you tomorrow? You two are in St Brigid’s, aren’t you?’
The two of them look sideways at each other then back at Barry.
‘How about we come and meet you after school, and we can talk about it some more. Maybe we can work out a better deal. Like if you don’t have enough money right this second, we can work something out. How about behind Ed’s, say we meet you there, at four o’clock?’
The girls swap glances again and shrug their shoulders.
‘So see you tomorrow?’ Barry calls after them as they walk off down the driveway.
‘Definitely,’ Crinkly-Hair says, without looking back. Then she and Lollipop burst into giggles again.