The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [77]
“Metempsychosis, that is,” Con added with a smile.
“Don’t you two start,” cautioned Matt. “I’m sorry, Brother, they’re forever going on like that. I blame night school.”
“Indeed. Here’s Mr. McDermott now. He’ll open the gate to let you out.”
“Game ball, Brother,” said Matt.
Loughlin shook his head and pulled Boland, who was staring open-mouthed at the three men, after him.
“Stop that carry on, Brother Boland, or I’ll have you locked in your cell!”
“But it’s them! It’s them! They’re part of it all. I’m sure of it.”
“Part of all what? Stop your nonsense or you’ll end up raving and covered in your own spit in the attic like Brother Garvey. Go sweep out your tuck shop. I’m sure it’s filthy.”
“Part of the sadness in the walls.”
“I’ll give you sadness in the walls! Go sweep out your shop!”
“What time is it?” shouted McDonagh above the buzz of voices.
“Nearly half ten.”
“Deadly!”
“Betcha he was out drinking again.”
There was no sign of Mr. Devlin and the intoxicating smell of double free class wafted through the air. The Biology lab was the best place for a free class. It was tucked into a disused part of the monastery and apart from the rest of the classrooms.
By eleven o’clock they were fully convinced Devlin was not going to show up. McDonagh put his head down on the workbench and went to sleep. Lynch dug the stolen Naughty Night Nurse Confessions out of his bag and flicked through the pictures of near naked women with an intensity of purpose unusual for him. Scully looked around him for something to do. Finbar started to doodle aimlessly in his copy while furtively staring at the women in Lynch’s magazine. Egan calmly walked to the back of the lab and started to go through the cupboards, occasionally returning to secrete something in his bag.
“Yeaw! Ego! Bringing home yer homework?” called McDonagh. Egan looked at him blankly and went back to the cupboard.
Suddenly bored, Lynch handed the Naughty Night Nurse Confessions to Ferrara and walked to the teacher’s desk.
“Now, this morning we’re going to perform an experiment of picking our holes and doing nothing until lunch time,” began Lynch in a near perfect imitation of Mr. Devlin, “cos I was out last night getting locked and woke up under a car and have a head like a balloon on me this morning. While I fall asleep, I want yiz all to pick yer holes and keep quiet. When yiz are done yiz can write a fourteen-page essay about it. When—”
“Sketch!” hissed McDonagh, who could see out into the corridor through the partially open door.
Lynch calmly stepped away from the desk and feigned dropping something in the wastepaper basket.
“It’s okay. It was only Frawley,” said McDonagh after a moment.
Lynch resumed his teaching post: “If yiz have any questions, yiz can ask me hole.”
The mood of a free class could change from one of somnolent laziness to one of giddy messing in a flash, and taking off the teachers was almost guaranteed to make it happen.
Gradually, almost organically, the noise level increased as more and more boys had a go. The scene reached a fever pitch when Lynch as Mr. Devlin was threatening to vomit all over McDonagh as Mr. Pollock, while Scully as Brother Boland gibbered, shook, and drooled all over the floor and Ferrara did a passable parody of Father Flynn trying to calm them all down. So carried away did they get that they lost track of who was keeping watch and it took a couple of seconds for it to dawn on them that the “What in the name of God is the meaning of this outrage?” actually came from the real Brother Kennedy.
Lynch, McDonagh, Scully, and Ferrara were caught. There was no pretending to be looking for a pen or putting something in the bin. Brother Kennedy grabbed them roughly by the arms and put them out to the line by the door.
“The rest of you can write this out fifty times while I deal with these baloobas. Take out your copybooks!” he shouted, and wrote on the board:
If I had given the slightest bit of thought to my fortunate position as a pupil in this school, I would have taken advantage