3 Months Later
"Ah, Elsie. Sorry for the wait, you can come in now."
Elsie looked up from her phone, turned it off and followed Max into her principals office, closing the door behind her.
"I see your parents aren't here today", the overly enthusiastic man said as he sat down. "Nice to see you again, Max."
"It's a pleasure, Mr Maguire.", Max replied flatly.
"Anyways, the reason I called you in is because, well, myself and your teachers have noticed that in the last few weeks, your performance has been slipping. You've always been a capable student, but the last few weeks, it's like you haven't been trying. You've only handed in two homework assignments, both science ones, but asides from that, you've been more irritable with your classmates and teachers. We're just worried, is all."
Elsie rolled her eyes, wanting to slap the smile from his face.
"Sir, we're all having a hard time at home at the moment. As you may know, our mam is sick. Early stages but she's getting quite worse every day. Elsie is only 14, she's really upset about this. I'm not surprised that school isn't her main priority right now.", Max interjected.
Mr Maguire adjusted in his seat and took a sip of tea. "I'm aware, and I'm sorry about your situation. But this is a crucial year of education for Elsie. She has her Junior Cert exams next year. Missing school and assignments may mean missing essential information for the exams."
Max scoffed. "Sir, I'm long gone from secondary school. I did journalism in UCC and I have a great job. I happened to get a pretty disappointing Junior Cert, but that didn't really matter in the long run. Why scare the child about the exams when she can do just fine without it, and when there's more important stuff happening in her life than an irrelevant exam."
"Well, Max, as you say, the results don't matter. It's more to get students prepared for a state exam setting, which is rather important for the Leaving Cert, which does matter."
"Sorry, sir?", Elsie interrupted. "I'm not sure if you know fully, but my mother is dying. She probably won't be around when I sit the Leaving Cert, if I do sit it. I'm sorry if I can only focus on that and not Romeo and Juliet or whether 2x + 15a = 69xxx." Max snorted. "Look, you know I'm a good student otherwise. I can do some assignments here and there, but my head isn't there at the minute. I'm fully aware that I have exam years coming up, I'm as stressed about that as any kid my age. Now add knowing my mother is dying. I'm 14, not a machine."
Max looked at his sister proudly as she sat back in her chair and the principal lost the smile from his face. A few moments later, he cleared his throat. "How about this, Elsie? You try and come in as many days of the week as you can, whether that's all five or just a few hours. You can keep up with the material online and catch up on the assignments. There's only a few weeks left until the summer tests and holidays so just try and get through that, and we can plan more of this out by the time third year comes along. How's that sound?"
Elsie sighed and rolled her eyes slightly. "Sure, I'll do as much as I can. But I can't promise I'll be a star pupil or anything."
"You don't have to be. You just have to be a pupil. I know it may be a bit early to start thinking about it, but do you have any idea of what you'd like to do after school?"
Elsie shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not really thinking about goals and dreams right now. The only dream I'm thinking about is that I hope that this is all a nightmare I'll wake up from soon."
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"You know, Zo, we really have everything under control here, you should go home and rest."
