makes the world laugh. It’s a mystery. That’s what the priests and the masters tell you, everything is a mystery and you have to believe what you’re told. I could easily have Uncle Pa for a father.We’d have great times sit- ting by the fire in the range drinking tea and laughing over the way he farts and says, Light a match.That’s a present from the Germans. Aunt Aggie torments me all the time. She calls me scabby eyes. She says I’m the spitting image of my father, I have the odd manner, I have the sneaky air of a northern Presbyterian,I’ll probably grow up and build an altar to Oliver Cromwell himself, I’ll run off and marry an English tart and cover my house with pictures of the royal family. I want to get away from her and I can think of only one way, to make myself sick and go to the hospital. I get up in the middle of the night and go to her backyard. I can pretend I’m going to the lavatory. I stand out in the open in the freezing weather and hope I’ll catch pneu- monia or the galloping consumption so that I’ll go to the hospital with the nice clean sheets and the meals in the bed and books brought by the girl in the blue dress. I might meet another Patricia Madigan and learn a long poem. I stand in the backyard for ages in my shirt and bare feet looking up at the moon which is a ghostly galleon riding upon cloudy seas and go back to bed shivering hoping I’ll wake up in the morning with a terrible cough and flushed cheeks. But I don’t. I feel fresh and lively and I’d be in great form if I could be at home with my mother and brothers. There are days when Aunt Aggie tells us she can’t stand the sight of us another minute, Get away from me. Here, scabby eyes, take Alphie out in his pram, take your brothers, go to the park and play, do anything ye like and don’t come back till teatime when the Angelus is ringing, not a minute later, do ye hear me, not a minute later. It’s cold but we don’t care.We push the pram up O’Connell Avenue out to Ballinacurra or the Rosbrien Road.We let Alphie crawl around in fields to look at cows and sheep and we laugh when the cows nuzzle him. I get under the cows and squirt the milk into Alphie’s mouth till he’s full and throws it up. Farmers chase us till they see how small Michael and Alphie are. Malachy laughs at the farmers. He says, Hit me now with the child in me arms.Then he has a great notion,Why can’t we go to our own house and play a while? We find twigs and bits of wood in the fields and rush to Roden Lane.There are matches by the fireplace in Italy and we have a good fire going in no time.Alphie falls asleep and soon the rest of us 247