school after lunch, that you went on the mooch with Paddy Clohessy. Your mother is going to kill you. Your father is out looking for you and he’s going to kill you, too. Oh,God,I feel cold and empty and I wish I could be in India where it’s nice and warm and there’s no school and my father could never find me to kill me. Paddy tells the Question, He didn’t go on the mooch and I didn’t either. Fintan Slattery starved us to death and we were too late for the bun and the milk. Then Paddy says to me, Don’t mind ’em, Frankie, ’tis all a cod.They’re always sendin’ notes to our house and we wipe our arses with them. My mother and father would never wipe their arses with a note from the master and I’m afraid now to go home.The Question rides off on the bicycle, laughing, and I don’t know why because he once ran away from home and slept in a ditch with four goats and that’s worse than mooching from school half a day anytime. I could turn up the Barrack Road now and go home and tell my parents  I’m  sorry  I  went  on  the  mooch  and  I  did  it  because  of  the hunger but Paddy says, Come on, we’ll go down the Dock Road and throw rocks in the Shannon. We throw rocks in the river and we swing on the iron chains along the bank. It’s getting dark and I don’t know where I’m going to sleep. I might have to stay there by the Shannon or find a door or I might have to go back out the country and find a ditch like Brendan Quigley with four goats. Paddy says I can go home with him, I can sleep on the floor and I’ll dry out. Paddy lives in one of the tall houses on Arthur’s Quay looking at the river. Everyone in Limerick knows these houses are old and might fall down at any minute. Mam often says, I don’t want any of ye going down to Arthur’s Quay and if I find ye there I’ll break yeer faces.The people down there are wild and ye could get robbed and killed. It’s raining again and small children are playing in the hallway and up the stairs. Paddy says, Mind yourself, because some of the steps are missing and there is shit on the ones that are still there. He says that’s because  there’s  only  one  privy  and  it’s  in  the  backyard  and  children don’t get down the stairs in time to put their little arses on the bowl, God help us. There’s a woman with a shawl sitting on the fourth flight smoking a cigarette. She says, Is that you, Paddy? ’Tis, Mammy. 163