M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

I see Kate. She is coming towards me, pulling Brendan’s jacket. ‘Come on, Brendan,’ she says. ‘Let’s get his sandwich.’

Kate looks around after she shouts at me. She wants to be watched. Brendan looks down at his feet, and leans in close to Kate, as though for warmth, or in case he falls. And he puts his hand over his nose, the way he does when he’s embarrassed.

Kate stands over me. ‘Have you wet your pants today?’

I put a crust into my mouth and try to chew, but it feels as big and dry as a sock. I push it between my bottom lip and my teeth but the piece of crust gets stuck there.

‘Pants-wetter! I’m talking to you!’ she says.

My penis tingles as though somebody has touched it. I squeeze my thighs together.

‘Get his sandwich off him,’ she says as she grabs Brendan by the jacket. ‘Kick him in the kneecap. Get both his kneecaps.’

Brendan kicks my knee and I let him. I could fight back, but I won’t. I will act as though they don’t exist. I will watch Brendan as though he were a picture on the television.

After he has kicked me, he staggers and needs to step back to get his balance. And because I don’t react he seems confused. He looks down at his shoe.

I stare at him, and he kicks me again, in the other knee, harder this time. Maybe to show he doesn’t need orders from his master. He’s quite strong, so the kick is hard. I look at him. I look at them both as though I don’t care what they do. My face is blank. I put my hands on my knees and the heat from my palms helps the pain. But I show nothing. I’ll say nothing; like the caretaker.

‘Get it now!’ Kate says. ‘Get the sandwich!’

Brendan takes the rest of my jam sandwich and without meaning to says, ‘Thanks.’ He looks confused, as though he wants to change his mind.

I stand up and walk away.

I go back to the classroom and sit and read my geography book. But after a few minutes, when I turn the page, I see that there’s sticky blood on the end of my finger. I’ve been scratching my scalp so much that there is a small hole in the crown of my head. I scratch it at night when I can’t get to sleep and I dig at the hole, sometimes without noticing, until it bleeds. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. The hole doesn’t exactly belong to me.

After lunch, Mr Donnelly orders us back inside. He stands in front of our classroom, but he doesn’t speak. He holds the blackboard duster in his hand and it looks as small as a biscuit. He puts the duster down and, when he tries to stuff his hands into his pockets, only the tips of his red fingers fit and the rest of them poke out, squashed, full of blood and shiny. They are red fingers, just like my father’s, but fatter.

Kate stands up and yells, ‘If the new teacher is so late, he should get the cane!’

The cane is leaning up against the left-hand corner of the blackboard and Mr Donnelly looks at it for a moment before turning to face the window.

I look out the window too, at the playing field, the school gate, and the narrow, tree-lined country road.

It is nearly two o’clock when a man gets out of a taxi at the gate and walks across the field towards us.

He is young — younger than my father — and, although not tall, he looks strong, with black hair to his shoulders. I have never before seen a man with long hair, or a man getting out of a taxi at our school gate.

He looks made of hard materials, steel and iron, not easily broken. Most of the men in our town seem like they are made of sponge cake or leftover turnip, like my uncles, Jack and Tony, who are overweight around the stomach and chin. Their blotchy skin is like turkey stuffing.

Most of the men in our town not only look the same, they act the same too; even my father becomes more like my uncles when he’s with them. But at least my father is more handsome than they are.

The man comes closer and I am full of hope: I have always wanted a smart man for a teacher, a man with mettle and brains, and as I watch him disappear from view I can hardly stop myself smiling.

Mr Donnelly seems confused and wipes the teacher’s desk back and forth with the blackboard duster, as though erasing a mistake.

A minute of silence, and then the man walks through the door and to the front of our classroom. Mr Donnelly puts the duster down and stands next to him.

They speak for a minute or two and then leave the room together. Mr Donnelly ducks his head and shoulders under the doorway and they are gone.

Sister Ursula comes to keep watch. She stands by the blackboard and tells us to read. ‘As quiet as mice,’ she says.

Thirty minutes later, the man returns alone and Sister Ursula leaves without speaking.

‘You’ll call me Mr Roche, not sir,’ he says.

We snicker and fidget and stare.

He walks along by the blackboard.

‘You live in a beautiful town. I bet if you were quiet enough you could hear the boats rub against the pier and the fish burp and the seagulls snore.’

We laugh because Courtown’s sandy beach and Courtown Bay are four miles from Gorey and we cannot hear the seagulls or the boats. This is a lie, a story, told for fun and I like it; I like him.

I watch as Mr Roche moves between our desks, and I can smell him. Perhaps he stood in manure in his walk across the field; it’s the same smell as the farmers who have breakfast at Kylemore’s in town. It doesn’t suit his fancy clothes and posh voice to have this smell on his shoes and I wonder when he’ll notice and clean them.

‘Now, I’m going to have a short quiet chat with every one of you,’ he says and he crouches down at each desk in turn, asking questions in a whisper.

I wait anxiously for my turn, thinking that he’ll soon discover me and know that I’m different. I’ll tell him about my gift.

At Brendan’s desk, Mr Roche crouches down and this time he does not whisper. We can all hear him say, ‘Are you easily influenced, Brendan?’

Brendan shrugs, then Mr Roche puts his mouth against Brendan’s ear.

‘OK, I will,’ Brendan says and then he drops his head and keeps it down, as though looking for an important message written on his desk.

Mr Roche reaches Kate’s desk, but he doesn’t kneel down to whisper in her ear. Instead, he sits on the empty desk behind hers, taps her on the shoulder and says, ‘And who might you be?’

Kate turns to look at him. ‘I’m Kate Breslin,’ she says. ‘I’m an only child from Dublin and my family has taken over a deceased estate.’

‘Well, Kate, I believe you’re the clever one. That must make you feel quite special?’

And then I know it: Mr Donnelly took Mr Roche away to talk about each of us. Now I am sure Mr Roche will realise who I am.

‘Not really,’ says Kate, her voice trembling.

‘Clever or not,’ Mr Roche says, ‘I hope your coffin is airtight.’

He laughs and the whole class laughs with him, because what he has said makes no sense. Even Brendan turns round to show me his laughing teeth.

Mr Roche walks to the front, sits on the edge of the teacher’s desk and smiles directly at me. Although he didn’t come to my desk, I’m sure he knows. I’m sure he will help me.

As soon as I get home, I make a toasted ham sandwich and then I lie on my bed and spend two hours writing another letter to the Guinness Book of Records . I’m confident I’ll get a reply this time.

Dear Guinness Book of Records ,

My name is John Egan and I have written to you once before .

I am the boy with the gift of lie detection. I have now read all of the books on the subject available on the East Coast of Ireland and I have tested my talent a few more times since my first letter .

I am even surer that my gift is rare and unusual to say the least .