Read Online The Brothers' Lot by Kevin Holohan - Free Book Online Page B

bit his lip.
    The note was in Irish and informed Spud that Brian Egan was indisposed and would be going home for the rest of the day, and that the bearer of the note was to be allowed to remove his things from class. Spud smiled wryly. For all the effort and beating that seemed to go into teaching the boys Irish, it was ironic that the Brothers still felt certain it was an impenetrable code for confidential messages.
    “Where does Brian Egan sit?” he asked.
    A chill silence fell over the class and Halloran, who sat beside Egan, raised his hand. Scully stared straight ahead of him into some unfocused distance that he wished was about four hours ago. Spud packed Egan’s things into the large bag and gave it to the first year.
    “Can you manage there?” asked Spud.
    “Yes sir,” squeaked the boy, and lurched out the door. Spud closed the door behind him and turned to the class. “What kind of ‘indisposed’ was Brian Egan?” he asked levelly.
    They all looked at him blankly.
    “What happened to him?” Spud asked again.
    “Brother Mulligan …”
    “Vocations …”
    “Put his name down …”
    “Cox came …”
    “Out in the corridor …”
    “Lost the head …”
    “Don’t know …”
    Spud shook his head sadly. “So what the hell happened? Brian put his name down for a vocation? Was he off his head?” He looked from face to evasive face. The boys avoided making eye contact and exuded silence like waves of heat off a road. “Oh no! Don’t tell me! Did one of ye put his name down? Is that what happened?”
    There was an involuntary tightening of the boys’ silence.
    “That’s it, isn’t it? One of ye put his bloody name down as a joke! Jesus wept! Have ye no sense? I mean lads, really, what were ye thinking?” He walked to the window and leaned his forehead against the glass.
    Scully glanced up at the teacher and then back down at his desk. Bad sweat gathered in his armpits.
    Spud pulled away from the window and sat down heavily on the radiator. “What did ye think would happen? Eh? Ye know what they’re like, don’t ye? Did ye really think it would be just a quick joke and then all over with?”
    The fog of silence reluctantly admitted that was what they thought would happen but should have known better.
    “Did ye have it in for Brian? Did ye want to see them beat the lard out of him for some particular reason? Did he do something to ye? Or was it just plain stupid badness?”
    Spud paused and walked to the center of the class. He faced the boys and waited for his own silence to make them look up.
    “All right, I know ye’re not bad kids. I know ye like to mess around and have a laugh. There’s no harm in that, but this sort of thing? This is stupid, thoughtless, and if ye think about it, sly and cowardly. If one of ye has something against Brian Egan or anyone else in the class, have it out with him, don’t do this sort of crap. Look, lads, it’s bad enough for ye without ye turning on one another like that and offering the Brothers easy targets. Just think before ye do things, can ye? Everything has consequences. Try to see them before ye act, will ye?”
    The boys nodded reluctantly and Spud walked to the cupboard to retrieve and distribute The Harbingers of the Age of Reason , which would be their History textbook for the next two years.
    When Spud left, Brother Walsh came in and launched straight into dictating his Geography notes from teacher-training college fifteen years before, which the boys had to copy down verbatim. After a double class of that, Larry Skelly arrived to give them their Civics lesson. Skelly had once been a French teacher, until a lot of expensive audio-visual equipment that the Department of Education had forced on the unwilling and suspicious Brothers had found its way into his car. Tenured, unfireable, and a cousin of the secretary of the Department of Education, Skelly was relegated to teaching Civics and giving career guidance.
    He was not a bad sort and was