The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [102]
“That’s what it was!” whispered Finbar suddenly.
“What?” hissed Scully.
“They put all the sick and dirty-looking fellahs at the back for the inspection.”
“The sly bastards! They must be worried.”
“Very nice to meet you both!” called Brother Loughlin as he bustled round the car to shake hands with Mr. Nolan and Miss Moloney.
They each took his hand for an instant and nodded curtly. Mr. Nolan went back to the car and retrieved a very thick file. Brother Loughlin eyed it suspiciously, wondering where on earth Nolan could have got so much information on his school.
“May we begin?” asked Miss Moloney in a brittle, impatient voice.
“Oh yes. Of course. Of course. This way, please!” beamed Loughlin. Pollock nodded and smiled nervously at Mr. Nolan and Miss Moloney.
Mr. Nolan turned from the group and approached the boys to his left. He flinched slightly when he saw the boys recoil en masse as he came near.
“What’s your name, young man?”
“Martin Wardick, sir.”
“My name’s Martin too. Isn’t that funny?” Mr. Nolan smiled. Wardick stood blinking and bewildered. “Do you like school, Martin? Are you happy here?” he asked kindly.
Wardick continued to stare at the man. The incongruity of being addressed by his first name, combined with the alien concepts of liking or being made happy by school, succeeded in paralyzing his mind completely. He gawked helplessly and repeated: “Martin Wardick, sir.”
Mr. Nolan smiled painfully at the boy and moved to join the rest of the inspection team. He caught Brother Loughlin’s ingratiating eye and a dark scowl clouded his normally serene face.
“Mr. Nolan has just returned from investigating the Deargalstown Reformatory fire,” announced Mr. DePaor while the inspection team moved toward the school.
Brother Loughlin’s blood ran cold as he suddenly made the connection: this was the Mr. Nolan who had excoriated the nuns at Deargalstown when his investigation found that so many girls had died in the fire because the nuns insisted that they change out of their nightgowns before fleeing the building. The Mother Superior had said she’d been afraid their virtue might be put at risk. Nolan had scathingly concluded in his report that the nuns deemed it better that a girl be burned to death than risk an occasion of immodesty. It was creating quite a controversy.
“I thought we’d begin with a quick tour of our laboratories. I’m sure Mr. Nolan will find our school a very different proposition to Deargalstown,” Brother Loughlin informed the group as he ushered them into the school.
“It is clearly not a girls’ reformatory, but the rest remains to be seen,” replied Mr. Nolan coldly.
“The rest of you, back to your classes!” shouted Brother Cox once Brother Loughlin and Mr. Pollock had taken the inspectors into the lab.
Finbar’s sense of excitement mounted: “They’re the ones in trouble. Not us!” he explained eagerly to Scully on the stairs. “Did you see the way Loughlin was licking up to them? They’re shitting bricks.”
They walked into the classroom to find Brother Moody waiting for them. He was not supposed to be there. They were supposed to have Civics with Larry Skelly.
As the boys entered, Moody handed each one a rag: “There are tins of polish in that sack. You will work four to a tin and you will begin with this corridor. Now get to work! And put your backs into it, you lazy guttersnipes!”
The Brother walked along the corridor inspecting the boys’ work. Wherever he saw a missed patch he ground his foot on it to make it worse and told them to do it again. Suddenly Smalley Mullen sneezed and, his hands being otherwise occupied with polishing, delivered a generous dollop of snot onto the floor.
In a flash Brother Moody was beside him: “Lick that up, you disgusting little savage.”
Smalley looked up at him. “I can get a hanky and wipe it up, Brother.”
“You could, but