Skippy Dies (13 page)

‘Sounds great,’ Howard agrees dutifully.

‘Doesn’t it? And what I want to do is include some kind of historical overview of the school. Put it in the programme notes,
even incorporate it into the show somehow. “140 Years of Triumph”, “Victory through the Ages”, something like that. With,
you know, amusing anecdotes from yesteryear, first use of an electric light switch, so forth. People like that sort of thing,
Howard, gives them a feeling of oneness with the past.’

‘Sounds great,’ Howard repeats.

‘Great! So you’ll do it?’

‘What? Me?’

‘Outstanding – Trudy, make a note that Howard’s agreed to be our “brand historian” for the concert.’ Restoring himself to
his position at the desk, the Automator straightens a sheaf of papers summatively. ‘Well, thanks for stopping by, Howard,
I – oh,’ as Trudy leans in and whisperingly points to something on her clipboard. ‘One other thing, Howard. You have a Juster
in your second-year class, a Daniel Juster?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Wanted to sound you out about him. He was involved in an incident today in Father Green’s French class, an incident of vomiting.’

‘I heard something about that.’

‘Who is this kid, Howard? Priest asks him a question, he vomits all over the place?’

‘He’s – well, he’s…’ Howard deliberates, summoning Juster’s from an image of thirty bored faces.

‘Apparently he likes to call himself “Slippy”. What’s that about? He a slippery customer, that it?’

‘Actually I think it’s “Skippy”.’

‘ “Skippy”!’ the Automator says derisively. ‘Well, that makes even less sense!’

‘I believe it comes from the, uh, television kangaroo?’

‘Kangaroo?’ the Automator repeats.

‘Yes, you see the boy, ah, Juster, has these buck teeth, and when he speaks he sometimes makes a noise which some of the boys
find similar to the noise the kangaroo makes. When it’s talking to humans.’

The Automator is looking at him like he’s speaking in tongues. ‘Okay, Howard. Let’s leave the kangaroos for the minute. What’s
his story? Ever had any trouble with him?’

‘No, generally he’s an excellent student. Why? You don’t think he got sick deliberately?’

‘Don’t think anything, Howard. Just want to make sure we’ve got the angles covered. Juster’s rooming with Ruprecht Van Doren.
I don’t need to tell you he’s one of our top students. Single-handedly raises the grade average for the year by about six
per cent. We don’t want anything happening to him, mixing with the wrong element, what have you.’

‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about as far as Juster’s concerned. Maybe he’s a bit of a dreamer, but…’

‘Dreaming’s not something we encourage here either, Howard. Reality, that’s what we’re all about. Reality; objective, empirical
truths. That’s what’s on the exam papers. You go into an exam hall, they don’t want to know what crazy mess of nonsense you
dreamed last night. They want hard facts.’

‘I meant,’ Howard struggles, ‘I don’t think he’s any kind of a subversive. If that’s what you’re worried about.’

The Automator relents. ‘You’re probably right, Howard. Probably just ate a bad burger. Still, no point taking chances. That’s
why I’d like you to have a word with him.’

‘Me?’ Howard’s heart sinks for the second time in five minutes.

‘Ordinarily, I’d send him for a session with the guidance counsellor, but Father Foley’s out this week having his ears drained.
It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good handle on him, and I know the boys relate to you –’

‘I don’t think they do,’ Howard interjects quickly.

‘Of course they do. Young man like you, they see you as someone they can confide in, sort of a big brother figure. It doesn’t
have to be anything formal. Just a quick chat. Take his temperature. If he’s got some sort of issue, set him straight. Probably
nothing. Still, best to make sure. Vomiting in the classroom is definitely not something we want catching on. Time and a place
for vomiting, and the classroom is not it. Think you could teach a class, Howard, with kids vomiting everywhere?’

‘No,’ Howard admits sullenly. ‘Though the way I hear it, it’s Father Green you should be talking to, not Juster.’

‘Mmm.’ The Automator withdraws into his thoughts a moment, spinning a fountain pen through his fingers. ‘Things can get a
little close to the knuckle in Jerome’s classes, it’s true.’ Again he pauses, the chair creaking as he shifts his weight backwards;
addressing himself to the portrait of his predecessor, he says, ‘To be frank, Howard, could be the best thing for everyone
if the Paracletes started taking more of a back seat. No disrespect to any of them, but the truth is that in educational terms
they’re outmoded technology. And having them around makes the parents anxious. Not their fault, of course. But pick up a newspaper,
every day you see some new horror story, and mud sticks, that’s the tragedy of it.’

It’s true: for ten years or more, a relentless stream of scandals – secret mistresses, embezzlement and, to a degree still
almost incomprehensible, child abuse – has eroded the power the Church once wielded over the country almost to nothing. The
Paraclete Fathers remain one of the few orders to remain untouched by disgrace – in fact, thanks to their role in one of the
top private schools at a time of spectacular wealth creation and even more spectacular conspicuous consumption, they have
retained a certain cachet. Nonetheless, once-simple things, such as dropping a child home from choir practice, have been thoroughly
removed from the priests’ gift.

‘Flipside of a strong brand is that you have to protect it,’ the Automator says, swivelling back to Howard. ‘You have to be
vigilant against ideas or values that are contrary to what the brand is
about. This is a precarious time for Seabrook, Howard. That’s why I want to be certain everyone’s singing from the same hymn
sheet. We need to make sure, now more than ever, that everything we do, down to the last detail, is being done the Seabrook
way.’

‘Okay,’ Howard stammers.

‘Look forward to hearing your feedback on our friend, Howard. And I’m glad we had this little talk. If things pan out the
way I think they will, I’m seeing big things for you here.’

‘Thanks,’ Howard says, getting to his feet. He wonders if he’s supposed to shake hands; but the Automator has already directed
his attention elsewhere.

‘Bye, Howard,’ Trudy looks up at him for one demure moment as he trudges out of the office, and makes a tick on her clipboard.

Carl and Barry spend their whole lunchtime down in the junior school playground, trying to find more pills. It is total bullshit.
You ask the kids a question and they just look at you, it’s like they speak a different language down here that over the summer
Carl and Barry have forgotten. And all of them act mental, so you can’t tell which ones might have prescriptions. After half
an hour, Barry’s got exactly one pill, which might just be a mint. He’s really angry. Carl wishes he had not thrown away their
pills! He doesn’t remember now why he did it, he doesn’t know why he does things sometimes. He thinks about Lollipop waiting
for him this evening and him not coming.

Now the bell goes and the kids run back inside in one big swarmy yell. ‘Fuck it,’ Barry says, and he and Carl begin the trudge
back over the rugby pitches towards the senior school. But then they see something.

The boy’s name is Oscar. Last year he was in third class, four below Carl and Barry, but he was already famous for the trouble
he got into. Not just messing in class – weird shit, like getting stuck in ventilation shafts, eating chalk, pretending he
was an animal and yelping down the corridors. Now, walking along with his bag trailing in the grass behind him, you can see
him talking to himself, the fingers of his hands flashing out again and again like little pink explosions. Then he stops,
and looks up, and gulps. That’s because Carl and Barry are blocking his way.

‘Hello there,’ Barry says.

‘Hello,’ Oscar answers in a small voice.

Barry tells Oscar politely that he and Carl are doing a science experiment in the senior school using these pills. But they
have run out! He shows Oscar the sweets they have brought for anyone
who can help them find new pills. Even before he can finish, Oscar is jumping up and down, shouting, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’

‘Shh,’ Barry says, looking over his shoulder. ‘Come this way a second.’ They bring Oscar behind one of the big trees. ‘Do
you have them with you?’ Barry says. ‘In your schoolbag?’

‘No,’ Oscar says. ‘My mum gives me them in the morning.’

‘In the morning?’ Barry asks.

‘After my Shreddies,’ Oscar says. ‘But I know where she keeps them! I can reach them if I stand on a chair.’

He is all ready to run off and get them right now! But Barry tells him to wait till after school. ‘You go home and bring us
back as many pills as you can. Don’t take them all or your mum will notice. We’ll wait for you over there in the mud-piles,
okay? And we’ll give you this whole bag of sweets.’

Oscar nods in excitement. Then he says, ‘I have a friend who gets pills too.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ Barry says. ‘Bring him too. But make sure you come as quick as you can. It’s urgent.’

The kid runs off, his schoolbag bumping along the ground after him. Barry’s eyes are shining with cleverness. ‘Back in business,’
he says.

At 3.45 Carl and Barry go down to the mud-piles, through the trees along the side of the pitches so no one sees them. Trucks
dumped the piles here two summers ago, a whole string of them from the long-jump sandpit right up to the back wall of the
school. Carl and Barry’s class used to play War on Terror on them every lunchtime until a boy from fifth class split his head
open and his parents took the school to court. Now no one is allowed to play on them, or even run in the yard any more.

Oscar waits for them in the very last of the mounds. Another even twitchier boy is with him. Oscar says his name is Rory,
his face is a weird fizzy white that reminds Carl of the drink his mom drinks for her stomach. Between them they have twenty-four
pills. But there is a problem.

‘We don’t want sweets,’ Oscar says.

‘What?’ Barry says.

‘We don’t want them,’ Oscar says.

‘But you made a deal,’ Barry says.

Oscar just shrugs. Behind him the chalky sick-looking kid folds his arms.

‘Look,’ Barry says, ‘look at all the sweets we have.’ He holds the bag open for them to see. ‘Mars Bars, Sugar Bombs, Gorgo
Bars, Stingrays, Milky Moos, Cola Bottles…’

The kids don’t say anything. They know it’s a shit deal. In junior school all anyone does is make trades, for football stickers,
lunches, computer games, whatever, you know when someone’s trying to rip you off. Above the black ridge, light is bleeding
out of the sky. Carl thinks they should just grab the kids and take the pills from them. But Barry has explained to him already
that what they want to establish here is an
ONGOING RELATIONSHIP
. If you
TAKE
the pills today, what will you do tomorrow? (Ever since last night when Carl threw away the pills, Barry’s been speaking
to him in a
SLOW, CAREFUL
voice, the same way Carl’s remedial maths teacher does when she’s telling him, Now say if you want to save for a new bike
that costs two hundred euro, and you put a hundred euro in the bank, and the
RATE OF INTEREST
is ten per cent, then it would take you… Carl, it would take you…?)

Barry stomps down to one end of the dugout, then comes back again and takes out his wallet. There is a twenty-euro note in
there. He waves it under Oscar’s nose. ‘Twenty euro, and the sweets.’ Oscar doesn’t even look at the money. Across the pitches
the clock strikes four. The girls will be arriving soon. ‘What is it you want?’ Barry shouts. ‘How can we do a deal if you
won’t say what you want?’

The two small boys look at each other. Then in the distance a banger goes off. Oscar’s face lights up. ‘Fireworks!’ he says.

‘You just thought of that now!’ Barry says.

‘Fireworks!’ the white-faced kid speaks for the first time.

‘Where the fuck are we supposed to get fireworks?’ Barry says.
But now the two boys are yapping away about what kind and how many – ‘Bangers – rockets – quartersticks!’

‘Okay, okay,’ Barry says. ‘You win. If you want fireworks, fair enough. But we can’t get them to you till tomorrow. So here’s
what we’ll do. You give us the pills now for our experiment, and then tomorrow we’ll meet you here again, same time, same
place, with the fireworks.’

‘Ha ha!’ Oscar laughs – actually laughs! ‘No way.’

Barry makes a noise like
Gnnnhhhh
through his teeth, and Carl can tell he is thinking, Fuck the deal, let’s teach these faggots some respect. But then he turns
to Carl and says, ‘Watch them,’ and he pegs it off across the rugby pitches.

‘Where’s your friend gone?’ Oscar asks. Carl says nothing, just folds his arms and tries to look like he knows what’s happening.

‘What’s your science project about?’ the white-faced kid Rory asks.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Carl says. He looks out into the going-dark evening. Maybe Barry won’t come back. Maybe he’s gone to meet
Lollipop on his own! This is all a trick, he arranged it with the kids, and –

Panting, Barry clambers back into the dugout. In his hand is a plastic bag. ‘Fireworks,’ he says.

Every kind: Black Holes, Sailor Boys, Spider Bombs and others. Barry fans them out on the ground. ‘You can’t have all of them,’
he says, like a dad in a shop. ‘Pick out three each.’ The boys stare, whispering the names to each other. ‘Today, arseholes.
And give me those pills first.’

They hand over the pills without even thinking – the white-faced kid’s in a Smarties box, Oscar’s wrapped in old clingfilm
that smells like sandwiches. Barry counts them into Morgan Bellamy’s tube. Then he nods, and the two kids snatch up the fireworks
before he can change his mind.

Now Carl and Barry are hurrying back over the pitches. The squishy ground is going hard with cold, the grass and trees are
dark like night is spreading up from below.