At twenty past nine, Mr Donnelly comes into our classroom. For a few minutes he tidies things on Miss Collins’ desk, takes things out of her top stationery drawer and puts them back in. Then he speaks.
‘Miss Collins is sick and while she’s getting better you’ll have a new teacher who will be starting today — as soon as he can get here. The new teacher is a nice man from Dublin. His name is Mr Roche and he will be your substitute until Miss Collins is made better and back on her feet.’
Now he stuffs his hands in his pockets.
I stop listening and look out the window.
Mr Donnelly tells us to play outside. ‘And pray for Miss Collins until your new teacher arrives.’
It is another clear day and the sun is out. I walk down by the edge of the playing field and run a stick along the fence. I don’t look back at the school building or to see what Brendan and Kate are doing.
I see Joseph with his horse on the other side of the fence near the road. He’s with another man. I go up to the gate to say hello.
Joseph’s friend says, ‘Would you like a ride on my horse? His name is Zorro.’
I don’t know Joseph’s friend’s name, but he is friendly and shorter and fatter than Joseph. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Yes, please.’
I go out through the fence and Joseph’s friend helps me on. This horse is sick, and covered in sores, but it is too late to say I don’t want to ride. When I climb on, I can feel his ribs against my calves.
I’m riding along by the edge of the road, with Joseph and Joseph’s friend chatting and joking, and I feel like the world belongs to me. I don’t feel nervous and I don’t mind that Brendan and Kate are playing together without me. I don’t care that I am like Osmond, playing on my own. At least when I talk to myself I do it quietly without waving my hands about and nobody can see my lips moving.
I get hungry after a while. ‘I better go back now,’ I say. ‘I better eat my lunch.’
I get down from Zorro and look at him. I want to stare into his eyes the way I do with Joseph’s horse, Neddy. But Zorro doesn’t want to stare and he turns his face away. I suddenly feel nervous again, and I wonder if it’s because I can only see one of Zorro’s eyes and I don’t know what the other eye is doing.
‘Thanks Joseph,’ I say. ‘Bye now.’
‘Bye now young John,’ says Joseph’s friend.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask him.
‘Joseph. Same as him.’
‘So long,’ I say. ‘I’ll say hello to Granny for you.’
‘Yes. Bye now.’
‘Be good, so.’
I sit on the bench under Mr Donnelly’s office window feeling happy and begin to eat my jam sandwich. I should have given the Josephs some biscuits and I look up to see if they are still out by the gate.
I see Kate. She is coming towards me, pulling Brendan’s jacket. ‘Come on, Brendan,’ she says. ‘Let’s get his sandwich.’
Kate looks around after she shouts at me. She wants to be watched. Brendan looks down at his feet, and leans in close to Kate, as though for warmth, or in case he falls. And he puts his hand over his nose, the way he does when he’s embarrassed.
Kate stands over me. ‘Have you wet your pants today?’
I put a crust into my mouth and try to chew, but it feels as big and dry as a sock. I push it between my bottom lip and my teeth but the piece of crust gets stuck there.
‘Pants-wetter! I’m talking to you!’ she says.
My penis tingles as though somebody has touched it. I squeeze my thighs together.
‘Get his sandwich off him,’ she says as she grabs Brendan by the jacket. ‘Kick him in the kneecap. Get both his kneecaps.’
Brendan kicks my knee and I let him. I could fight back, but I won’t. I will act as though they don’t exist. I will watch Brendan as though he were a picture on the television.
After he has kicked me, he staggers and needs to step back to get his balance. And because I don’t react he seems confused. He looks down at his shoe.
I stare at him, and he kicks me again, in the other knee, harder this time. Maybe to show he doesn’t need orders from his master. He’s quite strong, so the kick is hard. I look at him. I look at them both as though I don’t care what they do. My face is blank. I put my hands on my knees and the heat from my palms helps the pain. But I show nothing. I’ll say nothing; like the caretaker.
‘Get it now!’ Kate says. ‘Get the sandwich!’
Brendan takes the rest of my jam sandwich and without meaning to says, ‘Thanks.’ He looks confused, as though he wants to change his mind.
I stand up and walk away.
I go back to the classroom and sit and read my geography book. But after a few minutes, when I turn the page, I see that there’s sticky blood on the end of my finger. I’ve been scratching my scalp so much that there is a small hole in the crown of my head. I scratch it at night when I can’t get to sleep and I dig at the hole, sometimes without noticing, until it bleeds. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. The hole doesn’t exactly belong to me.
After lunch, Mr Donnelly orders us back inside. He stands in front of our classroom, but he doesn’t speak. He holds the blackboard duster in his hand and it looks as small as a biscuit. He puts the duster down and, when he tries to stuff his hands into his pockets, only the tips of his red fingers fit and the rest of them poke out, squashed, full of blood and shiny. They are red fingers, just like my father’s, but fatter.
Kate stands up and yells, ‘If the new teacher is so late, he should get the cane!’
The cane is leaning up against the left-hand corner of the blackboard and Mr Donnelly looks at it for a moment before turning to face the window.
I look out the window too, at the playing field, the school gate, and the narrow, tree-lined country road.
It is nearly two o’clock when a man gets out of a taxi at the gate and walks across the field towards us.
He is young — younger than my father — and, although not tall, he looks strong, with black hair to his shoulders. I have never before seen a man with long hair, or a man getting out of a taxi at our school gate.
He looks made of hard materials, steel and iron, not easily broken. Most of the men in our town seem like they are made of sponge cake or leftover turnip, like my uncles, Jack and Tony, who are overweight around the stomach and chin. Their blotchy skin is like turkey stuffing.
Most of the men in our town not only look the same, they act the same too; even my father becomes more like my uncles when he’s with them. But at least my father is more handsome than they are.
The man comes closer and I am full of hope: I have always wanted a smart man for a teacher, a man with mettle and brains, and as I watch him disappear from view I can hardly stop myself smiling.
Mr Donnelly seems confused and wipes the teacher’s desk back and forth with the blackboard duster, as though erasing a mistake.
A minute of silence, and then the man walks through the door and to the front of our classroom. Mr Donnelly puts the duster down and stands next to him.
They speak for a minute or two and then leave the room together. Mr Donnelly ducks his head and shoulders under the doorway and they are gone.
Sister Ursula comes to keep watch. She stands by the blackboard and tells us to read. ‘As quiet as mice,’ she says.
Thirty minutes later, the man returns alone and Sister Ursula leaves without speaking.
‘You’ll call me Mr Roche, not sir,’ he says.
We snicker and fidget and stare.
He walks along by the blackboard.
‘You live in a beautiful town. I bet if you were quiet enough you could hear the boats rub against the pier and the fish burp and the seagulls snore.’