mother tells us. He said we have our troubles but it’s time for Malachy and me to start school because there’s nothing like an education, it will stand to you in the end, and you have to get ready to do your bit for Ireland. Mam says she can’t spend another minute in that room on Windmill Street. She can’t sleep with the memory of Oliver in that room, Oliver in the bed,Oliver playing on the floor,Oliver sitting on Dad’s lap by the fire. She says it’s not good for Eugene to be in that place, that a twin will suffer more over the loss of his brother than even a mother can under- stand.There’s a room going on Hartstonge Street with two beds instead of the one we have here for the six of us, no, the five of us.We’re get- ting that room and to make sure she’s going to the Labour Exchange on Thursday to stand in the queue to take the dole money the minute it’s handed to Dad. He says she can’t do that, he’d be disgraced with the other men.The Labour Exchange is a place for men not for women tak- ing the money from under their noses. She says, Pity about you. If you didn’t squander the money in the pubs I wouldn’t have to follow you the way I did in Brooklyn. He tells her he’ll be shamed forever. She says she doesn’t care. She wants that room on Hartstonge Street, a nice warm comfortable room with a lavatory down the hall like the one in Brooklyn, a room with- out fleas and the dampness that kills. She wants that room because it’s on the same street as Leamy’s National School and Malachy and I can come home at the dinner hour, which is noon, for a cup of tea and a cut of fried bread. On Thursday  Mam  follows  Dad  to  the  Labour  Exchange.  She marches in behind him and when the man pushes the money toward Dad she takes it.The other men on the dole nudge each other and grin and Dad is disgraced because a woman is never supposed to interfere with a man’s dole money. He might want to put sixpence on a horse or have a pint and if all the women start acting like Mam the horses will stop running and Guinness will go broke. But she has the money now and we move to Hartstonge Street.Then she carries Eugene in her arms and we go up the street to Leamy’s National School.The headmaster, Mr. Scallan, says we are to return on Monday with a composition book, a pencil, and a pen with a good nib on it.We are not to come to school with ringworm or lice and our noses are to be blown at all times, not 78