Communion day,you make the rounds of lanes and back streets and you get cakes and sweets and money,The Collection. That’s where poor Peter Dooley comes in.We call him Quasimodo because he has a hump on his back like the one on the hunchback of Notre Dame, whose real name we know is Charles Laughton. Quasimodo has nine sisters and it is said his mother never wanted him but that was what the angel brought her and it’s a sin to question what’s sent. Quasimodo is old, he’s fifteen. His red hair sticks up in all directions. He has green eyes and one rolls around in his head so much he’s constantly tapping his temple to keep it where it’s supposed to be. His right leg is short and twisted and when he walks he does a little twirly dance and you never know when he’ll fall.That’s when you’re surprised.He curses his leg,he curses the world,but he curses in a lovely English accent which he got from the radio, the BBC. Before he leaves his house he always sticks his head out the door and tells the lane, Here’s me head, me arse is coming.When he was twelve Quasimodo decided that with the way he looked and the way the world looked at him the best thing would be to prepare for a job where he could be heard and not seen and what better than sitting behind a microphone at the BBC in London reading the news? But  you  can’t  get  to  London  without  money  and  that’s  why  he hobbles up to us that Friday, the day before Confirmation. He has an idea for Billy and me. He knows the next day we’ll be getting Confir- mation money and if we promise to pay him a shilling each he’ll let us climb up the rainspout behind his house this very night to look in the window and see his sisters’ naked bodies when they take their weekly wash. I sign right away. Billy says, I have my own sister.Why should I pay to see your naked sisters? Quasimodo says that looking at your own sister’s naked body is the worst sin of all and he’s not sure if there’s a priest in the world can for- give you, that you might have to go to the bishop, who everyone knows is a holy terror. Billy signs. Friday  night  we  climb  the  wall  of  Quasimodo’s  backyard.  It’s  a lovely night with the June moon floating high over Limerick and you can feel a warm breeze off the Shannon River. Quasimodo is about to let Billy up the spout and who comes clambering over the wall but Mikey Molloy the Fit himself hissing at Quasimodo, Here’s a shilling, 188