I do, Declan. Boys in my section tell me that prefects get rewards if there is per- fect attendance. Declan wants to get out of school as soon as he can and get a job selling linoleum at Cannock’s big shop on Patrick Street. His uncle, Foncey, sold linoleum there for years and made enough money to start his own shop in Dublin, where he has his three sons selling linoleum. Father Gorey, the director, can easily get Declan the reward of a job at Cannock’s if he’s a good prefect and has perfect attendance in his section and that’s why Declan will destroy us if we’re absent. He tells us, No one will stand between me and the linoleum. Declan likes Question Quigley and lets him miss an occasional Fri- day night because the Question said, Declan, when I grow up and get married I’m going to cover my house in linoleum and I’ll buy it all from you. Other boys in the section try this trick with Declan but he says, Bugger off, ye’ll be lucky enough to have a pot to piss in never mind yards of linoleum. Dad says when he was my age in Toome he served Mass for years and it’s time for me to be an altar boy. Mam says,What’s the use? The child doesn’t have proper clothes for school never mind the altar.Dad says the altar boy robes will cover the clothes and she says we don’t have the money for robes and the wash they need every week. He says God will provide and makes me kneel on the kitchen floor. He takes the part of the priest for he has the whole Mass in his head and I have to know the responses. He says, Introibo ad altare Dei, and I have to say, Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. Every evening after tea I kneel for the Latin and he won’t let me move till I’m perfect. Mam says he could at least let me sit but he says Latin is sacred and it is to be learned and recited on the knees.You won’t find the Pope sitting around drinking tea while he speaks the Latin. The Latin is hard and my knees are sore and scabby and I’d like to be out in the lane playing though still I’d like to be an altar boy helping the priest vest in the sacristy, up there on the altar all decked out in my red and white robes like my pal Jimmy Clark, answering the priest in Latin,moving the big book from one side of the tabernacle to the other, pouring water and wine into the chalice, pouring water over the priest’s hands, ringing the bell at Consecration, kneeling, bowing, swinging the 148