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wraps and unwraps the cord of the whistle around his hand, everyone gathered round him like the Apostles with Jesus
     in old paintings. If you look closely you can see how his body’s all twisted up even when he’s standing still. ‘You lads did
     good work on Saturday. But we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. The next meet is on 15 November. That might sound like
     a long way away. All the more reason for us to work hard and keep our momentum going. I want to see us in the semi-finals.’
     He tosses his head towards the changing room. ‘Okay, off you go.’
    The showers never feel like they’re making you clean. The tiles are lined with scuzz, the footbath half-full of brackish water;
     hair shivers in grey clumps in the grating, like drowned mermaids.
    ‘You swam like a turd today, Juster,’ Siddartha says. ‘What’s the story? Were you up late last night bumming Van Doren?’
    Skippy mumbles something about pulling a muscle at the meet.
    Siddartha wrinkles up his nose, sticks his upper teeth over his lip and makes the kangaroo noise: ‘
Tcch-tcch-tcch
,
I think I pulled a muscle at the meet
. Well, you’d better speed up. Just because you fluked through on Saturday doesn’t mean you’ve got a right to a permanent
     place on the team.’
    ‘Don’t mind him,’ Ronan Joyce says, when Siddartha turns round. ‘Dickhead.’
    But Skippy doesn’t mind him: the pill he took when he woke
up takes care of that. The sleepy feeling threads through him, wrapping around him like a blanket. Noises, images, the things
     people say, come to him all broken up and slowed down; the needly water of the shower, hitting his body, turning from cold
     to hot, he hardly notices, nor when he steps out again into the freezing changing room.
    Ruprecht and the others are already eating by the time he gets to the Refectory. Monstro is behind the counter, ladling scrambled
     eggs like some kind of giant infection from a steel vat. The food in the Ref is always gross, the cheapest stuff they can
     get. Today even the toast is burnt.
    Crowd-cheering noises from Geoff as he sits down. ‘This is very exciting, sports fans – we’ve just been joined by champion
     swimmer Daniel Juster, direct from his gruelling training regime! How are you feeling today, champ?’
    ‘Sleepy.’
    A chorus of baa’s proceeds from a far corner as Muiris de Bhaldraithe, Seabrook’s biggest bogger and self-alleged lynchpin
     of the clandestine Real IRA Juniors, Dublin Brigade, enters the room.
Scccrrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh
, Ruprecht meticulously scrapes the burnt from his toast.
    ‘ “Sleepy.” That’s top athlete Daniel “Skippy” Juster, ladies and gentlemen.’
    Scccrrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh, scccrrrrcccchhh
, goes Ruprecht’s toast. Skippy stares into his breakfast as if it’s appeared out of nowhere.
    ‘I could probably be a top athlete if I wanted to,’ Mario puts in carelessly. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to.’
    ‘Oh yeah, Mario, that’s why,’ Dennis says.
    ‘Up yours, Hoey, that
is
why. For your information, this summer two different Premiership teams rang me up to offer me trials.’
    ‘The Premiership of masturbating,’ Dennis says.
    ‘If there was a Premiership of masturbating, you would be David Beckham,’ Niall adds.
    Seizing an imaginary microphone, Dennis adopts a limp
Estuary accent: ‘Masturbating’s changed a lot since I were a lad, Brian. In my day, we masturbated for the sheer love of it.
     Day and night we did it, all the kids on our estate, masturbating on the old waste ground, masturbating up against the wall
     of the house… I remember me mam coming out and shouting, “Stop that masturbating and come in for your tea! You’ll never amount
     to anything if all you think about is masturbating!” Masturbating crazy we were. Your young masturbators today, though, it’s
     all about the money, it’s all about agents and endorsements. Sometimes I worry that the masturbating’s in danger of being