down her nose at the earl who spurned her because she’s happy tend- ing  her  roses  on  her  twelve-thousand-acre  estate  in  Shropshire  and being kind to her poor old mother, who refuses to leave her humble lit- tle cottage for all the money in the world. Paddy says, I don’t want to read nothing, it’s all a cod, all them sto- ries. Fintan removes the cloth covering his sandwich and glass of milk. The milk looks creamy and cool and delicious and the sandwich bread is almost as white. Paddy says, Is that a ham sangwidge? and Fintan says, ’Tis. Paddy says,That’s a lovely looking sangwidge and is there mustard on it? Fintan nods and slices the sandwich in two. Mustard seeps out. He licks it off his fingers and takes a nice mouthful of milk. He cuts the sandwich again into quarters, eighths, sixteenths, takes The Little Mes- senger of the Sacred Heart  from the pile of magazines and reads while he eats his sandwich bits and drinks his milk and Paddy and I look at him and I know Paddy is wondering what we’re doing here at all, at all, because that’s what I’m wondering myself hoping Fintan will pass over the plate to us but he doesn’t, he finishes the milk, leaves bits of sand- wich on the plate,covers it with the cloth and wipes his lips in his dainty way, lowers his head, blesses himself and says grace after meals and, God, we’ll be late for school, and blesses himself again on the way out with holy water from the little china font hanging by the door with the lit- tle image of the Virgin Mary showing her heart and pointing at it with two fingers as if we couldn’t make it out for ourselves. It’s too late for Paddy and me to run and get the bun and milk from Nellie Ahearn and I don’t know how I’m going to last from now till I can run home after school and get a piece of bread. Paddy stops at the school gate. He says, I can’t go in there starving with the hunger. I’d fall asleep and Dotty’d kill me. Fintan is anxious. Come on, come on, we’ll be late. Come on, Fran- cis, hurry up. I’m not going in, Fintan.You had your lunch.We had nothing. Paddy explodes.You’re a feckin’ chancer, Fintan.That’s what you are an’ a feckin’ begrudger too with your feckin’ sangwidge an’ your feckin’ Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall an’ your feckin’ holy water.You can kiss my arse, Fintan. Oh, Patrick. Oh, Patrick my feckin’ arse, Fintan. Come on, Frankie. Fintan  runs  into  school  and  Paddy  and  I  make  our  way  to  an orchard in Ballinacurra.We climb a wall and a fierce dog comes at us till 160