All right, read it. This is my composition. I don’t think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it’s always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers.When you look at pictures of Jesus He’s always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains  there  and  you  never  hear  of  anyone  coughing  or  getting  con- sumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions. Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was walk up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they’d give Him His dinner no questions asked and He’d get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene’s hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don’t think is fair.Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sis- ter sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It’s a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he’d catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn’t be any Catholic Church and there wouldn’t be any Commu- nion or Confirmation and we wouldn’t have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.The End. Mr. O’Dea is quiet and gives me a strange look and I’m worried because when he’s quiet like that it means someone is going to suffer. He says, McCourt, who wrote that composition? I did, sir. Did your father write that composition? He didn’t, sir. Come here, McCourt. I follow him out the door, along the hall to the headmaster’s room. Mr. O’Dea shows him my composition and Mr. O’Halloran gives me the strange look, too. Did you write this composition? I did, sir. I’m taken out of the fifth class and put into Mr. O’Halloran’s sixth class  with  all  the  boys  I  know,  Paddy  Clohessy,  Fintan  Slattery, The Question Quigley, and when school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi to thank him even if my legs 206