Skippy Dies (8 page)

He picks himself up. The toast-sound echoing through his head again,
Scccrrrcccchh, scccrrrrcccchhh, scccrrrrcccchhh
. The pill’s already wearing off! Shh, I know, calm down!

Down the steps through the waves of bodies. When he came back from summer holidays this year the boys had changed. Suddenly
everyone was tall and gangling and talking about drinking and sperm. Walking among them is like being in a BO-smelling forest.

The basement is crammed with narrow aisles of lockers. They remind Skippy of coffins, cheap wooden coffins with combination
locks. To one side there’s a patched pool table, on which Gary Toolan is crisply, blondly annihilating Edward ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson,
while Noddy the janitor looks on, leaning on his broom, cackling approvingly. A few doors up from Skippy, a small group has
gathered furtively around Simon Mooney’s locker, indicating the presence of contraband.

‘Atomizers. Black Holes. Fifth Dimensions. Sizzlers,’ Simon Mooney is reciting, poring over a plastic bag. ‘Then we have rockets,
bangers – these are like the loudest bangers you’ve ever heard.’

‘What’s this one?’ Diarmuid Coveney points.

‘Don’t touch.’ Simon whisks the bag primly out of reach and reopens it at a safer distance. ‘That, my friend, is the infamous
Spider Bomb. Eight individual fireworks in one.’

There is a murmur of awe and appreciation. ‘Where d’you get them?’ Dewey Fortune asks.

‘My dad bought them in the North. He goes up there all the time on business.’

‘Wow – do you think he could get me some?’ Vaughan Brady suggests breathlessly.

Simon considers this with a drawn-together mouth, like he’s sucking a sweet. ‘No,’ he says.

‘Well – how about you sell us some of yours?’

‘Hmm…’ Simon does the sweet face again. ‘No.’

‘Why not? You’ve got loads.’

‘Can we at least set a couple of them off now?’

‘Come on, think of what Connie’d do if you let off a banger under his chair.’

‘No.’

‘Well, what did you bring them in for, if you’re not going to set one off?’

Simon shrugs, and then, noticing Carl Cullen and Barry Barnes lurking in the vicinity, hastily stuffs the fireworks back in
his locker and snaps shut the lock. The circle reluctantly disband, and head towards the stairs as the final bell goes.

Skippy closes the door of his locker and leans back against the door.

SCRRRRCCCHHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHHHH!

Hot tub? Minibar? Sweat drips down his back, everything’s moving in jumps and rushes, like the moments are connected by waterslides
and each time he blinks he’s hurtled out into a new one not knowing where he is –

Shh, take it easy.

– and little particles of memory appearing out of nothing and exploding like fireworks against the inside of his eye, little
sparks of images that are gone too quick to see, like dreams are gone the second you realize they’re dreams – but dreams of
what
? Memories of
what
?

Shh. Deep breaths.

He takes out the amber tube and swallows a pill with some flat Sprite. Okay. Slowly and calmly he takes the books he will
need for the morning’s classes from his locker, and places them in his bag. He is late for Science but he does not hurry.
Already things are feeling more normal again, see? The pills moving through you like sleep, like eating ice and feeling your
insides freeze. Weird that the cure should just appear like that at the same time as the sickness –

‘Hold it right there!’ Mr Farley exclaims as Skippy comes through the door. He turns to the class. ‘Which of the seven characteristics
of life can we see Daniel exhibiting right now?’

Thirty grinning eyes swivel onto him. Skippy stands there like an idiot with his hand on the door. There is some snickering,
and some shouted suggestions from the back of the room (‘Excretion?’ ‘Gayness?’) before Mr Farley steps back in. ‘ “Breathing”
is the answer. Oh yes, now you all know it. Breathing, or as it’s known scientifically, respiration, is one of the seven characteristics
of life. Thank you, Mr Juster, for that very elegant demonstration. You can take a seat now.’ Skippy, blushing, hurries down
to his desk beside Ruprecht. ‘Every living thing on the planet breathes,’ Mr Farley continues. ‘However, not everything breathes
the same thing, or in the same way. For example, humans breathe
in
oxygen and breathe
out
carbon dioxide, but plants do the opposite. That’s why they’re so important in combating global warming. Aquatic organisms
breathe oxygen the same as humans, but they extract it from the water, through gills. Some organisms have both gills and lungs
– can anyone tell me what these are called?’

Flubber Cooke puts up his hand. ‘Mermaids?’

‘No,’ Mr Farley says. ‘Anyone else – thank you, Ruprecht, the correct answer is
amphibians
.’ He turns to chalk it up on the board. ‘The word comes from the Greek
amphibios
, meaning “double life”. Amphibians, for instance frogs, are organisms that can breathe on land and in water. They’re important
in evolutionary terms, because life on Earth began in the sea, so the first vertebrates to crawl out onto the land must have
had amphibious
tendencies. And each of you has a more recent amphibious past, because babies, when they are in the womb, actually breathe
liquid oxygen through gills, just like fish. The presence of gill slits on the foetus, furthermore, is taken by some to be
evidence of our aquatic prehistory…’

‘I wonder why they don’t just let you stay amphibious,’ Ruprecht ponders as they rejoin the throng of the corridor after class.
‘So that it’s up to the individual to choose where he wants to live, on the land or in the water.’

‘Regarding the whole mermaids issue, being amphibious would certainly make it easier to have sex with them,’ Mario says.

‘Mermaids don’t have beavers, you clown. Even if you were amphibious you couldn’t have sex with them,’ snaps Dennis.

‘What’s the point of mermaids if you can’t have sex with them?’

‘Well, I suppose the key thing to remember is that mermaids are imaginary,’ Ruprecht notes. ‘Although interestingly, some
marine biologists speculate that the legend may have arisen from large aquatic mammals of the sirenian class like dugongs
and manatees, which have fish-like bodies but human-like breasts, and nurse their pups on the water’s surface.’

‘Von Blowjob, find a dictionary and look up “interesting”.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Geoff says, ‘is
why
did the first fish, like the one who started land animals, suddenly decide one day to just leave the sea? Like, to leave
everything he
knew
, to go flopping around on a land where no one had even evolved yet for him to talk to?’ He shakes his head. ‘He was a brave
fish, definitely, and we owe him a lot, for starting life on land and everything? But I think he must have been very depressed.’

Skippy doesn’t contribute to this. That second pill is beginning to seem like a really bad idea. He’s getting a weird feeling,
a sort of sleepiness, but not nice sleepiness like earlier – this time it’s pricklier, hotter, with a taste in his mouth.
Then he remembers he’s got religion next, and he feels even worse.

Religion class is chaotic at the best of times, but Brother Jonas’s is like a circus where the animals have taken over. The
brother is
from Africa and has never quite caught on to how things work here; on Dennis’s Nervous Breakdown Leaderboard he’s usually
near the top, along with Ms Twanky (Bus. Org.) and Father Laughton, the music teacher. Taking his seat, Skippy notices that
Morgan Bellamy, who usually sits at the next desk, is out today. Why does this feel like a bad sign?

‘Who does the world belong to?’ Brother Jonas is asking. He has a voice that is soft and dark and rough like the pads on a
dog’s paw, and his sentences go up and down tropically, like music: difficult to understand and easy to make fun of. ‘To whom
has God promised the world?’

No answer; the hum of conversation continues as before, but the instant the brother turns to drag the chalk shrieking across
the blackboard, everyone jumps out from behind their desks and starts hopping about and flailing their arms. This is a new
routine – a kind of a rain dance, performed in absolute silence, at the end of which, when Brother Jonas begins to turn round
again, you jump into somebody else’s desk, so that he’s confronted with thirty serene and attentive faces patiently awaiting
his words, but all in different places from before. The chalk scrapes and squeaks. Around Skippy, bodies whirl and jig. Skippy,
however, stays where he is. Suddenly he is certain jumping around would not be a good plan. Even watching the others makes
his stomach lurch.

Now the Brother has finished writing and everybody’s scrambling into their seats.

‘Juster!’ Lionel Bollard, 140 pounds of creatine and ski-tan, is trying to shove him out of his chair. ‘Juster! Move!’

Doggedly, Skippy hangs on. Brother Jonas faces the class again. He begins to speak, then pauses, aware that something is amiss,
but not sure what. Lionel has ducked into a desk behind and to the right; Skippy can feel his eyes crawling over him.

‘The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth,’ Brother Jonas pronounces, pointing to the words written on a gradually sloping incline
on the blackboard, a caravan of letters going down a hill. ‘We may believe that the world belongs to the merchants,
who can purchase it with their wealth. Or to the politicians and the judges, who decide men’s fates. But Jesus tells us that
in the end…’

‘
Dan-ielllll
…’ Lionel starts to sing, ever so softly. ‘
DAN-iellll
…’

Skippy ignores him. Ignoring is what you are supposed to do with bullies, so they get bored and leave you alone. But the problem
in school is they don’t get bored, because whatever else there is to do is more boring still. The chalk squeals over the board
again, and boys leap up and cavort like they’re possessed. Skippy’s head spins like a top. Lights are flashing on and off
in the corners of his vision. Now Lionel’s right beside him. ‘
Daniel
,’ he whispers, so low it can barely be heard, like it might just be happening in his imagination. ‘
Daniel
…’

His eyelids are so heavy, but he knows that if he closes them he’ll get those whirling pits that make you feel even worse.

‘So we must ask ourselves: what is it to be meek? Jesus tells us that whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn
to him the other also. The meek man – yes, Dennis?’

‘Yes, I was wondering… roughly how big would a soul be, roughly? I’m thinking, bigger than a contact lens but smaller than
a golf ball, would that be about right?’

‘The soul does not have a weight or a size. It is a bodiless manifestation of the eternal world and a most precious gift from
the Almighty Father. Now, everyone, please open your books to page thirty-seven – am I meek in my own life?’

‘Daniel… I’ve got a present for you, Daniel…’ Lionel starts hacking up phlegm from the depths of his throat and gurgling it
in his mouth.

‘Am I meek in my own life? Do I listen to my teachers, my parents and my spiritual advisors? Am I a – Dennis, is your question
about how to be more meek?’

‘Would it be fair to say that Jesus was a zombie? I mean, he came back from the dead, right? So technically, couldn’t you
say he was a zombie? I mean, wouldn’t that be the correct term, technically?’

Sweat breaks in waves over Skippy’s zombie flesh. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how often he wipes it away. Every
noise in the classroom is amplified: Jason Rycroft’s syncopated pencil-tattoo, Neville Nelligan’s snuffling nose, the escalating,
bee-like
hummmmmm
arising from Martin Anderson, Trevor Hickey and unidentified others, the hideous gurgling of Lionel and above it all inside
your head the terrible carcinogenic
SCRRRRCCCHHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHH, SCRRRRRCCCHHHHH
–

The first thing that strikes a visitor to the Seabrook staffroom is the predominance of beige. Beige armchairs, beige curtains,
beige walls; where it’s not beige it’s buff, or fawn, or tan, or manila. Isn’t beige the Greeks’ or someone’s colour of death?
Howard is fairly certain it is, or if it isn’t it ought to be.

Three years have passed since he could accurately describe himself as a visitor to the staffroom, but the surreality of being
here, amidst these figures of terror or hilarity from his youth – these imagos, these caricatures, now ambling around him,
saying good morning, making tea, acting as if they were
normal people
– still descends on him from time to time. For a long while he found himself expecting them to give him homework, and being
surprised, unpleasantly, when instead they would tell him about their lives. But every day it feels more ordinary, which he
finds more unpleasant still.

Before he started teaching, he never would have guessed how much the staffroom resembled the rest of the school. The same
cliquishness applies in here as it does among the boys, the same territoriality: that divan belongs to Miss Davy, Ms Ni Riain
and the witch-faced German instructor; that table to Mr Ó Dálaigh and his Gaelgoir cronies; the high chairs by the window
are reserved for Miss Birchall and Miss McSorley, the bluestocking spinsters, currently slumming it over a women’s magazine;
God help you if you use someone else’s mug, or mistakenly take a yoghurt from the fridge that isn’t yours.

A good portion of the staff are old boys. Policy is to hire alumni whenever possible, even at the expense of more talented
teachers, in order to ‘protect the ethos’ of the school, whatever that may be. It seems to Howard like a raw deal for the
students, but
it’s the only reason he got the job, so he doesn’t complain. For some teachers, Seabrook is the only world they have known;
the female staff can only partially offset the atmosphere of clubbiness, if not downright infantilism, that this creates.

As for that female staff. A stringent policy is in effect here too. The Paraclete Fathers view women and womankind with a
certain amount of unease. While recognizing their great contribution to society and the furtherance of the species generally,
the order would be quite happy for the fairer sex to continue to do so elsewhere; the presence of a girls’ school right next
door has long been lamented by the order as a particularly cruel twist of fate. Of course, the profession being mostly composed
of women, some incidence of female teachers at Seabrook is inevitable; it is only by a painstaking filtering process that
Father Furlong, the school principal, has mitigated the inherent dangers of this tendency, assembling a staff that even a
fourteen-year-old boy would have difficulty construing as sexual entities. Most are comfortably into their fifties, and it
is debatable whether they were setting hearts alight even in their heyday, if they had a heyday.