Decisions which have to be made
Chapter 6: Eileen McFurrin
A/N: I know that she had already been introduced in the last chapter, but in this one Harry will get to know her better.
"Harry, come on, I know you'll be able to do this!" Eileen said, pulling Harry up the stairs to the top floor of the junior building.
"I - I can't!" Harry wailed, trying to pull away. But her grip was too strong.
"If you can't do it yourself then Yoshida will do it," Eileen said firmly, opening the door to the roof. she pulled Harry out onto it.
"NOOO!" Harry screamed as she pulled him over to the end of the roof. He managed to pull away and raced into the building and downstairs again.
Eileen sighed, looking over the top of the flat roof. This would be harder than she thought. she walked back inside.
Harry sat in a corner of the staircase, his arms around his head, whimpering.
"Harry," Eileen whispered, crouching down next to him. "I didn't want to scare you. But the only way to overcome your fear is to face it."
Harry had been at CHERUB campus for two weeks now, and was nowhere near being able to even stand on the flat roof of the junior building. All his friends had tried something, but none had succeeded. Only Eileen was stubborn enough to try over and over again.
"C'mon, Harry," Eileen whispered into his ear. "We go downstairs again, OK? Away from the roof. We can practice speaking Spanish if you want to."
Harry stood slowly up, nodding silently. He let Eileen grab his hand, and together they walked back to the room he was sharing with Cieran and Hilary.
"You tried again?" the boys asked in unison as Harry and Eileen entered.
"Yeah, but still no success."
"He needs time," Hilary told his friend. "If you're gonna rush this, he's only gonna be more scared, Eileen."
"Just to remind you, we only have two-and-a-half months left," Eileen snapped. "What else do you want to do? Lie around and ignore the fact that Yoshida won't be as pleasant as we are? He won't be trying anything we haven't tried so far. He'll beat the living crap out of Harry, Hilary."
"Mac won't allow it," Cieran pointed out.
"I'm sure you know which tactics Yoshida uses, don't you?" Eileen questioned, helping Harry to sit down on his bed. "First he threatens you, then he makes the threats become true to make you more scared of him than you already are, and then you'll be free of any fear, except the hugest fear anyone could have: the fear against this bully. Mac won't be going between because he knows that Yoshida's method works, but we all know that Harry won't be able to go through it. He's too weak."
"Stop it!" Harry screamed, holding his hands over his ears. "Stop it!"
"I think we should let him be for a while," Hilary said. "This was too much for him. First you trying to pull him out on the roof and now talking about how bad it will be if Harry doesn't overcome his fear of heights. All you do Eileen is put pressure on him. It does not help."
"Let's see if Fergal already did his English homework," Cieran decided. "Maybe he can help me."
The three exited the bedroom, leaving Harry on his own.
"Mummy...," he whispered, rocking back and forth on the bed. "Daddy... help me!"
Eileen thought harder than ever of how to bring Harry on top of the roof of the junior building without him screaming the place down. Then she suddenly knew what to do.
"I got it!" she exclaimed loudly.
Her Spanish teacher looked at her with raised eyebrows. "You figured out what La casa está hecha de ladrillos, y detrás de la casa es un gran jardín. means?"
Eileen looked perplex at her. Then she remembered that she was in her Spanish lesson. "Er - no, miss. I just figured out... a maths question," she stammered.
"I know what it means," Fergal said in his high-pitched voice, waving his hand around in the air. "It means The house is made of bricks, and behind the house is a large garden.!"
"Yes, Fergal, you're right," the teacher smiled at him. Then she glared at Eileen for interrupting the lesson.
"Harry!" Eileen said, standing up. She had been sitting on the floor in front of Harry, Hilary and Cieran's room, waiting for her friends to appear.
"No," Harry wailed. "Not again!"
"Only one more time," Eileen begged. "If it doesn't work, then I'll leave you alone, promise!"
"Don't you see?" Hilary snapped.
"You've done more than enough damage," Cieran finished his sentence off.
Eileen stared shocked at them, her mouth wide open. "Damage!?" she cried furiously. "Harry, have I done any damage to you?"
Harry looked away.
"See?" Cieran said triumphantly.
"You talk to him as if he's some kind of object," Hilary finished his sentence off.
"And now if you'd excuse us - we've got to do our homework." The boys walked past her. Harry looked sympathetically at her, shaking his head. She just stared at them, not believing what they had said to her.
"Guys, I've gotta go somewhere," Harry said, putting his pen down. He hadn't been able to concentrate, not since the conversation they'd had with Eileen earlier. She was actually the only of his friends who truly believed that he could overcome his fear of heights. She was the only one who hadn't given up on him. And how had he treated her? Like dirt. He should have said something in her defense to Hilary and Cieran.
"Yeah, we'll finish the homework," Hilary said absentmindedly.
Cieran looked at him. But he didn't say anything, though he had an idea what Harry wanted to do.
Harry exited his bedroom and looked to either side, making sure that no-one was coming. Then, his heart beating fast and hard, he slowly walked up the staircase to the rooftop. Step for step. Heartbeat for heartbeat. Breath for breath.
He reached the door which led out onto the roof. He clawed to the door frame, trying to walk one more stop.
Harry knew he couldn't. He sunk down onto the floor. He knew that he could not do this without Eileen's help.
He walked back downstairs. In which room did Eileen live?
A nearby door opened and Fergal came out.
"Fergal!" Harry said. Fergal turned around. "Do you know which Eileen's room is?"
"Course I do," Fergal replied, pushing his glasses backwards. "Down the corridor, third last on the right."
"Thanks!" Before he could say anything else Harry was running down the corridor. Fergal shrugged and walked out of the junior block, not thinking anything about it.
Harry knocked on the door which should lead to Eileen's room.
"The door's open," he heard her voice. He exhaled in relief.
"Why, what are you doing here, Harry?" she questioned as she saw him. Her eyes were reddish from crying. She looked more than upset. "Don't you have homework to do with Cieran and Hilary?"
"I - I'm sorry about earlier," Harry said hastily. "I want you to help me. I know I can't do it without you. At least not the first step."
Eileen smiled broadly, picked a scarf up and they both went back to the staircase leading to the rooftop.
"So, what do you plan to do?" Harry asked as she was blindfolding him, feeling quite uneasy.
"I thought that maybe if you can't see where you're going and how high you're standing, you might not care about it," Eileen explained. "I'll lead you up. If you can't do it tell me. Ready, Harry?"
"Ready," Harry said. He felt Eileen take his hand.
"OK. There are five steps in front of you," she said. "Slowly walk them up. Good. Not too fast. Alright. Turn left. Three steps. There are seven more steps in front of you."
She told him exactly where to go. Sooner than they both expected they were standing in front of the door leading out onto the flat roof. Until now Harry hadn't said a word of feeling scared. Things were going much better than Eileen had imagined.
"Now, Harry. we are standing in front of the last obstacle. Tell me when you're ready."
"I - I - I'm ready."
"Are you sure? We won't go until you are totally, utterly sure that you are ready to do this."
"I am sure," Harry repeated, his voice sounded stronger. He took a last breath. Eileen opened the door and they walked onto the roof.
"You know," Eileen started talking, "my parents died when I'd been three. In a train accident. Their parents had died years before I'd been born. They didn't have siblings. There were no relatives of mine still alive. Well, my parents had both been forty already when I'd been born, so it's kind of understandable. All of my grandparents had been in their late seventies, early eighties. I think that's a long time to live."
Harry took one step after another, following Eileen's lead.
"I was sent to an orphanage," she continued, her voice slow and soothing. "Then I got recruited. My IQ is 149." She paused. "Harry, can I tell you something?" They stopped walking.
Harry took off the blindfold, not looking down. He knew that they stood at the edge of the roof.
"You can tell me anything you want to," Harry muttered. "Anything you wish me to know, Eileen."
"When I first saw Fergal, I immediately had a crush on him. But somehow... since you arrived I started to develop some kind of feeling for you too. I know, we're only nine, and we both don't actually know anything about love, but... but I have a crush on Fergal and on you, Harry. What shall I do? I don't want to hurt Fergal's feelings, but somehow... somehow I think my love for you is stronger than the love I have for Fergal."
Harry looked thoroughly at her. His whole life had changed so suddenly. Not only had he somewhere to stay where people liked him, but also he had a girl with a crush on him. What was he meant to do or say? He'd never been in a situation like this.
He did the first thing he thought of doing.
Fergal could not believe his eyes. He stared up at the junior building. Were that Harry and Eileen? What were they doing? Then he saw it. And hatred started to form inside him. Hatred towards the boy who was on the roof
with the girl.
Kissing! Harry was kissing HIS Eileen!
