The Brothers' Lot by Kevin Holohan Read Free Book Online

Pullin’ me, ehm, the rope, like, tug of war!” announced Scully triumphantly.
    “That is not a sport, you stupid amadhán!” shouted Brother Kennedy.
    “But it’s in the community games, Brother,” protested Scully.
    “I’ll community-games you! Out to the line!”
    Scully joined O’Connor beside the climbing ropes. They both started rubbing their hands together behind their backs.
    “You, boys! Hands by your sides!” called Brother Kennedy across the hall. He knew well what they were doing. He had not spent thirty years leathering recalcitrant thugs without learning a thing or two.
    Scully and O’Connor sullenly complied.
    “You, boy, there, what’s your name now?”
    “Finbar Sullivan, Brother.”
    “Oh, the new boy. Quite a Gaelic footballer and a hurler, I believe,” mused Brother Kennedy approvingly.
    Finbar felt himself severely on the spot. He could sense the swell of scrutiny press around him. He had to do something or he would be marked as a “good pupil,” and it would be doubtful if he could make it through the week.
    “Only when the soccer season is over, Brother,” he found himself saying. It was like someone had gotten inside his head and was finding new circuits in his makeup that he had never known before. It was by equal measure exhilarating and frightening.
    Brother Kennedy stared at him in disbelief. This was inconceivable. It was all very well for Dublin guttersnipes to know no better than the street game of soccer, but for a boy from the noble County of Cork to not only know how to play Gaelic games but to turn his back on them deliberately in favor of the foreign evil of soccer was beyond perfidy.
    “Out to the line, you ingrate!” he barked, the veins in his forehead showing dark blue against the bright red of his skull.
    In twenty minutes all except Maher, who’d had polio and wore braces on his legs and thus could not reasonably be victimized for his lack of sports playing, at least not on the first day, were standing on the line.
    Brother Kennedy contemplated the group. He walked right up to Finbar, his eyes gleaming malevolently. “Go to Brother Loughlin and ask him for the extra leather,” he hissed, and frog-marched Finbar to the door. “And no delaying or I’ll have your guts for garters.”
    Finbar stood outside Mrs. Broderick’s office and tapped lightly on the door frame.
    “What is it you want?” Mrs. Broderick lifted her head and brought the full force of her cold, empty stare to bear on him.
    “Ehm, Brother Kennedy sent me to, ehm, get a leather, the extra leather.”
    “Brother Loughlin is in the monastery.” She pointed across the yard with her twiglike fingers and offered no further explanation.
    “But, but—”
    “No buts, young man. You were sent to Brother Loughlin and to Brother Loughlin you will go. I’m sure he’ll have some words of advice for you.”
    Finbar walked heavily across the yard and past the downstairs lab. He edged in the door, and just beyond the corridor that led to the back lab he saw the big double door to the monastery. He pushed it open carefully and was assaulted immediately by the smell. The predominant odor was one of floor wax, but within it were tinges of old cabbage, sweat, and whatever toxic thing Mrs. McCurtin, the housekeeper, used to polish the brasses. Finbar breathed as shallowly as his mounting unease would let him. His shoes squeaked on the polished floor. The silence around him seemed to be weighing the moment, gauging when the best time would be to pounce and devour him.
    Finbar glanced down the dim corridor toward the end, where there seemed to be some kind of atrium presided over by an altar to Our Lady of Indefinite Duration, a sort of theological by-product of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and much beloved of the Brotherhood. He had no idea where he was going but the atrium seemed to promise more light than any of the other options and certainly the stairs to his left did not seem at all