read his favorite book, John Mitchel’s Jail Journal, which is all about a great Irish rebel the English condemned to exile in Van Diemen’s land in Australia.The English tell John Mitchel he’s free to come and go as he pleases all over Van Diemen’s land if he gives his word of honor as a gentleman he won’t try to escape. He gives his word till a ship comes to help him escape and he goes to the office of the English magistrate and says, I’m escaping, jumps on his horse and winds up in New York. Dad says he doesn’t mind if I read silly English books by P. G.Wodehouse as long as I don’t forget the men who did their bit and gave their lives for Ireland. I can’t stay at home forever and Mam takes me back to Leamy’s School in November. The new headmaster, Mr. O’Halloran, says he’s sorry, I’ve missed over two months of school and I have to be put back in fifth class. Mam says surely I’m ready for sixth class.After all, she says, he’s missed only a few weeks. Mr. O’Halloran says he’s sorry, take the boy next door to Mr. O’Dea. We walk along the hallway and I tell Mam I don’t want to be in fifth class. Malachy is in that class and I don’t want to be in a class with my brother who is a year younger. I made my Confirmation last year. He didn’t. I’m older. I’m not bigger anymore because of the typhoid but I’m older. Mam says, It won’t kill you. She doesn’t care and I’m put into that class with Malachy and I know all his friends are there sneering at me because I was put back. Mr. O’Dea makes me sit in the front and tells me get that sour look off my puss or I’ll feel the end of his ash plant. Then a miracle happens and it’s all because of St. Francis of Assisi, my favorite saint,and Our Lord Himself.I find a penny in the street that first day back at school and I want to run to Kathleen O’Connell’s for a big square of Cleeves’ toffee but I can’t run because my legs are still weak from the typhoid and sometimes I have to hold on to a wall. I’m desperate for the Cleeves’toffee but I’m also desperate to get out of fifth class. I know I have to go to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi. He’s the only one who will listen but he’s at the other end of Limerick and it takes me an hour to walk there, sitting on steps, holding on to walls. It’s a penny to light a candle and I wonder if I should just light the candle and keep the penny. No, St. Francis would know. He loves the bird in 204