John Fitzgerald GB 04 Great Bra (6 page)

Tom walked over and stood in front of the boy. “No-body calls T.D. Fitzgerald a liar and gets away with it,”

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he said. “You take that back or fight me.”

The boy was older and bigger than Tom. But it was as plain as a fly on your nose that he was a coward. His lips began to tremble.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I take it back.”

Tom accepted the apology and then faced the other kids. “Just so you all understand,” he said, “Father Rodriguez asked me if I had any candy. I told him I didn’t have any candy on me. I wasn’t lying because the candy was in my suitcase.”

Rory patted Sweyn on the back. “We’ll help your brother eat the candy so he doesn’t get into any trouble,” he said.

“If any of you kids want a bar of candy,” Tom said, “it will cost you a dime.”

“But they are only nickel bars of candy,” Rory protested.

“That is the price in a store,” Tom said. “Ten cents is the price in the academy.”

Rory was completely flabbergasted as he stared at Sweyn. “What kind of a brother have you got?” he asked.

“An eighteen-karat conniver,” Sweyn answered.

That for my money was a lowdown thing for Sweyn to say about his own brother. But he told me he had to do it so that once Tom started swindling them, the kids couldn’t say he hadn’t warned them.

Rory must have been peeved at not getting a free bar of candy. “Maybe you did put one over on Father Rodriguez,’* he said. “But smuggling candy into the academy is not only against the rules but also a sin.”

Tom knew right then if he expected to open a candy store he had to convince the kids of two things. First that

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buying candy from him was not a sin. And that having candy and eating it inside the academy wasn’t against the rules. His great brain began to work like sixty. He removed his catechism and his Bible from his suitcase and placed them on the bunk. Then he took the three silver dollars from his pocket and put them on the bunk.

“Now put your money where your mouth is, Rory,” he said. “I’ll bet those three silver dollars against just twenty-five cents of your own money that you can’t show me any place in the catechism or the Bible where it says that it is a sin for a fellow to have all the candy he wants in a Catholic academy.”

Rory must have known he would lose that bet. “So it isn’t a sin,” he said. “But it is against the rules.”

Tom had expected Rory to say this and already his great brain had figured out an answer. “Sweyn told me all the fellows are allowed to buy ten cents worth of candy once every tour weeks,” he said. “Is that right?”

Rory and the other kids nodded their heads.

“Now suppose,” Tom said, “that each of us bought ten cents worth of licorice sticks and we cut them up into twenty-eight pieces. And every day for twenty-eight days we ate just one piece of the licorice sticks. And when the four weeks were up we bought another ten cents worth of candy and divided it up so we could eat one piece each day until another four weeks passed. And we kept on doing this until school ended. We would be eating candy every day of the school year right here in the ‘academy without breaking any rules. Am I right?”

Tom knew when all the kids began to nod their heads that he had won his argument. “So,” he said, “there is no rule against any student eating candy any time he wants.”

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Jerry Moran took a dime out of his pocket and handed it to Tom. “I’ll take one of those bars with peanuts on top,” he said.

Tom sold three more bars of candy, including one to Rory Flynn, giving him a profit of twenty cents. He could have sold more but the rest of the kids had turned their money in to the superintendent, knowing they couldn’t spend any for four weeks. Tom knew they would all get money from their parents on visiting days or by mail once he got his candy store operating. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he would make a fortune.

He finished unpacking and then spent the next cou-ple of hours getting acquainted with his fellow seventh graders. He took a liking to three of them for three different reasons. He liked Jerry Moran because he believed the red-headed kid was the sort of fellow who would be game for anything. He liked Phil Martin because there was something about the blond boy that made him feel he could trust Phil implicitly. Tony Colacci was a tall boy with dark hair and a long nose. Tom believed he was a sensitive kid who would value his friendship to the point where he could get the boy to do anything he wanted. The four of them were sitting on Tom’s bunk talking when a bell rang.

Sweyn came over and told them that the bell was the signal for everybody to wash up for supper. Tom didn’t go to the washroom because he had washed the soot and coal dust from himself after arriving. Anyway he needed this opportunity to hide the candy. He remembered the statue of Saint Francis in the hallway. He waited until all the boys were in the washroom, and then went out in the hall. Saint Francis proved to be a good friend. The statue

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was set on a hollow base that had an opening in the back. Tom hid the candy there and then returned to the dormitory He wasn’t afraid of anybody stealing the candy. But he was sure that among the ten eighth graders and the other nine seventh graders there had to be at least one tattletale.

When the kids returned to the dormitory Rory Flynn began giving the seventh graders orders

“All you little seventh graders line up two by-two in the aisle,” he said

Tom walked over to Sweyn “What is this all about?” he asked

“It is called hazing,” Sweyn said “Ail seventh graders have to go through it for a week I did last year.”

Tom got in line beside Jerry The eighth graders began to inspect the hands, faces, and necks of the seventh graders

“Shame on you,” Rory said as he looked behind Tom’s ears “You didn’t wash behind your ears “

“I did so,” Tom said

“Seventh graders are forbidden to contradict eighth graders during hazing week,” Rory said “Go wash behind your ears “

The eighth graders made all the seventh graders go to the washroom and stood over them to make sure they all washed up again When they returned to the dormitory they were lined up again

“Stand at attention and salute the eighth graders,” Rory ordered

Tom stood at attention with his fellow seventh graders until the supper bell finally rang

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“At ease,” Rory said. “You may go down to the din-ing room now.”

The dining room had a long wooden table with benches. There were a tin bow), a tin plate, a tin cup, a napkin, and a knife, fork, and spoon for each student. Father Rodriguez was sitting on a high stool at the head of the table. He waited until all the seventh graders were standing on one side of the table and eighth graders on the other side.

“You may sit down now,” he said. “But there wit! be no talking. For the benefit of you new boys it is our custom to assign two seventh graders and two eighth graders for kitchen and dining-room duty each week. These four students will be excused from morning prayer and will report to Father Petrie at six thirty each morning. I will now call out the names of the first four boys in alphabetical order:

Harold Adams, Peter Brennan, John Burton, and Frank Carver. You four boys will remain after supper to help Father Petrie wash and dry the dishes and perform any other duties he may assign to you. For this one meal only Father O’Malley and Father Wegland will serve you.”

The two priests came out of the kitchen carrying large buckets with ladles in them. Father Wegland was a tall, thin-faced man who walked with a slight limp. Tom learned later that the priest had a club foot. They filled the tin bowls with vegetable soup. Two seventh graders grabbed their spoons and were about to start eating.

“You will not start to eat until I have said grace,” Father Rodriguez said.

Tom had to wait until Father O’Malley and Father Wegland filled the tin cups with milk, gave each boy two slices of bread, filled the tin plates with ham hocks and

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lima beans, and placed two sugar cookies by each boy’s plate. Not until then did Father Rodriguez say Grace Be-fore Meals.

Tom couldn’t honestly say the food was bad. He was used to Mamma’s and Aunt Bertha’s cooking and com-pared to theirs the food was bad. The soup was almost cold by the time he could eat it. And by the time he’d finished the soup, the ham hocks and lima beans were no longer warm. But he had to admit the sugar cookies were deli-cious.

When the meal was over Father Rodriguez said Grace After Meals and excused all but the four boys he’d named for kitchen and dining-room duty. The eighth graders had entered the dining room last and were the first to leave-Sweyn was waiting for Tom at the foot of the stairway.

“That kid Willie Connors who said you lied dropped out of line,” Sweyn said. “He is going to snitch on you so you had better get rid of that candy.”

“Let him snitch.” Tom said as they started up the stairway. “My great brain is a long way ahead of Willie Connors.” Then he changed the subject. “You never told me the kids have to work like dogs here even when they aren’t being punished. Our parents pay to send us here and Father Rodriguez expects us to do all the work.”

“Don’t be silly,” Sweyn said. “There isn’t a priest here who doesn’t put in at least fourteen hours a day. Father Petrie does alt the marketing and cooking and teaches when one of the other priests is ill-Father Wegland teaches and does all the carpentry and all the laundry and sewing for the kids as well as the priests. Father O’Malley teaches all day and takes care of the grounds outside and

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is the barber for all the fellows. Father Rodriguez teaches in addition to doing all the clerical and bookkeeping work himself and running the academy. If anybody works like a dog around here it is the Jesuit priests.”

Tom admitted that made him feel ashamed. “I didn’t know all that,” he said.

Upstairs Tom sat on his bunk talking with Jerry, Phil, and Tony. In a few minutes Willie Connors entered the dormitory. About five minutes later Father Rodriguez arrived.

“Stand at the foot of your bunks for inspection,” the superintendent ordered.

Tom couldn’t help but smile as he watched the priest make a rapid inspection of the lockers, desks, and suitcases of the other students. But when Father Rodriguez came to Tom’s bunk the priest made a very thorough search of everything, even pulling down the bed clothes and looking under the mattress. And then he searched Tom personally. Father Rodriguez looked even more mystified than the kids when he didn’t find any candy.

As he walked out of the dormitory Jerry patted Tom on the back. “You sure put one over on Father Rodriguez,” he said.

“You mean on Willie Connors,” Tom said as he started walking toward the snitcher’s bunk.

Willie backed up against the wall, looking as fright-ened as a mouse cornered by a tomcat. “You hit me and I’ll tell Father Rodriguez,” he cried.

“I’m not going to hit you, Willie,” he said. “That would be letting you off too easy.” Then Tom turned to face the other fellows. “I’m going to cure him of being a

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tattletale. That way we won’t have to worry about him snitching on us for the rest of the school year.”

“You can’t cure him,” Rory said. “He snitched on everybody all last year.”

“We have a cure for a tattletale back home,” Tom said. “It’s called the silent treatment. That means none of us will speak to Willie and if he speaks to us we’ll just pretend we don’t hear him. We won’t have anything to do with Willie Connors the snitcher. If we alt give him the silent treatment for a week maybe that will cure him. If not, we will give him the silent treatment for the rest of the school year. Are you with me, fellows?”

The rest of the seventh and eighth graders all pledged to give Willie the silent treatment.

“I won’t snitch anymore!” Willie cried. “I promise.”

Tom looked at the other fellows. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said- “Did any of you fellows?”

They all shook their heads. The silent treatment for Witlie had begun.

At seven thirty a bell rang. Sweyn came over to Tom’s bunk. “That is the bell for Saturday night confessions,” he said. “You seventh graders use the confessional on the right side of the altar and we use the one on the left.”

Tom marched down to the chapel and sat down on the right side with the seventh graders. He was plenty worried where it came his turn to enter the confessional. It would be just his luck for Father Rodriguez to hear his confession. He said the Act of Contrition. Then he decided he had to know which priest was hearing his confession.

“Father Rodriguez?” he asked.

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“Why do you ask, my son?” a voice he recognized as belonging to Father O’Malley asked.

“Well,” Tom said, “what might be called a sin by Father Rodriguez wouldn’t be called a sin by Father Joe, who heard my last confession,”

“A sin is a sin.” Father O’Malley said. “Can you explain exactly what you mean?”

“I know it is a sin to be angry at anyone or to strike anyone,” Tom said, “but you take a fellow like Sammy Leeds back home. He is a bully, I had to give him a whipping since my last confession for picking on a smaller boy. I know Jesus taught we should turn the other cheek. But you turn the other cheek to a fellow like Sammy and he’ll paste you one on it. Father Joe understood about Sammy and never gave me any penance for fighting him.”

“Go on, my son,” Father O’Malley said.

“I know it is a sin to tell a lie,” Tom said, “but it all depends on what you call a lie. I exaggerated a little bit to put over some deals. Father Joe never gave me any penance for that either. But he always caught me on one sin, I’m proud of my great brain and I guess I’m vain about it. Father Joe said that was a sin. But I think anybody who has a great brain has a right to be proud of it.”

“Heaven help us,” Father O’Malley said. “A doubt-ing Thomas. You are aptly named.”

“I know that I have committed one great sin,” Tom said. “I’ve broken the fourth commandment, which forbids all disobedience, contempt, and stubbornness toward our parents or superiors, and which commands us to honor and obey our bishops, pastors, magistrates, teachers, and other lawful superiors. I don’t think I can honor Father Rodriguez because I don’t like him and how can