Maggie's Breakfast by Gabriel Walsh Read Free Book Online Page A

skin was boiling and I felt as if my hair was on
fire. I could hardly breathe. I was convinced I was committing sin.
    A week after I made my Communion I went to Confession and told the priest that I wanted Sister Charlotte to be my mother. The priest told me I had a mother and I shouldn’t be thinking of
having another one. I told the priest that I was always wishing I could see Sister Charlotte in a dress instead of the black habit she wore. And I wondered if she painted her legs brown like my
oldest sister Mary did before she left home and got married. I told the priest that I had a dream when I imagined Sister Charlotte wearing almost no clothes at all. For the act of committing sin by
“thought” the priest told me to say the rosary every day for two weeks as well as six Acts of Contrition.
    Sister Charlotte was the nicest person I ever met. The more I got to know her the more I believed she was a real saint who should have been living up in heaven. She told me she prayed for me and
hoped that I would find everything I ever wanted out of life. She said she prayed that I would even find my lost sandal. “Gabriel, you will find your sandal. You will have new sandals with
silver buckles on them as well.”
    I had fantasies of kissing her but I knew that was a serious sin. Nuns didn’t kiss or be kissed. But I think I was the only boy in her class that she held hands with. Every day she’d
look into my eyes and smile and say nice things to me. In the back of my mind I kept telling her I loved her and that I wanted to see her every day for the rest of my life.
    Sister Charlotte was talking about how a star in the sky guided the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem when another nun came rushing into the class and whispered in her ear. The two nuns then walked to
the classroom door and opened it wide.
    “Everybody go home and quickly!” they said.
    The room emptied in a hurry. I didn’t know what was going on and most of us in the class started to cry. One boy who wasn’t crying said the Devil had escaped from hell and he was
being chased all around Dublin by Catholic angels. That bit of information made us feel better. We knew no devil could beat up God’s angels and when the Devil was caught he would be sent back
down to hell and Dublin would again be safe for us to sit in school or do anything we wanted. Then in a fit of panic Sister Charlotte started to herd us out of the convent. When we got to the
school gate another nun yelled out, “Infestation!” The boy who said the Devil had escaped from hell said “infestation” meant mortal sin. There was no escape from that unless
you went to Confession and confessed all your sins and really meant it. I was trying to think of how many mortal sins I had committed when another nun called out to the Mother Superior of the
convent: “Lice! Lice!” The Mother Superior blessed herself in a hurry. Lice weren’t mortal sins. They were bugs with legs growing everywhere that crawled on your head and in your
hair. The dogs and cats and the birds in the trees had lice. Mice had lice. Somebody said the cause of the lice was eating the dead rabbits the dogs dropped on the street.
    When I got home my sisters and brothers were sitting outside on the kerb. They had been told the same thing in their schools. My sisters and brothers and all the boys and girls on the street had
lice in their hair. A man came by and left a big bottle of Lysol outside our hall door. He was from some government agency and he said there was a state of emergency in Dublin because of the lice.
The government handed out fine-toothed combs and paper with drawings of the lice on them. I think they drew the picture of the lice so the mothers wouldn’t confuse them with mice or rats or
stray kittens or anything else that was on the loose in Dublin. All the mothers in Dublin had a big combing job every night after dinner. My mother searched our hair for lice then crushed them with
her thumbnail. Crack