Summary: Chapter VI
At school, Frank is now in the fourth form, which is taught
by Mr. O’Neill, a tiny man with a passion for geometry. Mr O’Dea,
the fifth-form master, is infuriated when he finds from Paddy Clohessy that
Mr. O’Neill is teaching the boys about Euclid and geometry, because
geometry is not supposed to be taught until the fifth form. The
headmaster orders Mr. O’Neill to stop teaching it.
Every day, Mr. O’Neill gives his apple peel, a great
delicacy, to the boy who correctly answers a difficult question.
One day, this honor falls to Fintan Slattery, whom Frank describes
as a dandified do-gooder. Fintan goes to church every day with his
mother; he curls his blond hair and answers taunts with a saintly
smile. Fintan shares the peel with Frank, Quigley, and Paddy Clohessy.
This humiliates the boys, who do not want to be associated with
the feminine Fintan. Fintan invites Paddy and Frank to his house
after school, luring them with promises of food. Fintan’s mother
serves milk and sandwiches with mustard, luxurious treats for the
boys. Paddy and Frank are worried, however, by the fact that Fintan
goes with them to the bathroom and says he enjoys looking at them.
A few days later, Fintan invites the boys home with him
for lunch, but instead of feeding them, he eats his sandwich by
himself. Angry and hungry, Paddy and Frank don’t return to school
after lunch, but cut class to steal apples and milk from a nearby
farm. Quigley sees Frank and tells him his parents are looking for
him and are going to kill him. Scared, Frank goes home with Paddy,
who lives in unbearable squalor. Paddy’s father is consumptive and
lies in bed coughing up green fluid into a bucket. The next morning,
Angela appears with the school guard and tells Frank how worried
she has been about him. Mr. Clohessy reminisces with Angela, remembering
how they used to dance together. Angela sings for the dying man
and cries as she leaves his home, sorry for Mr. Clohessy’s sickness
and sad to remember the carefree times they had when they were young.
Frank is sorry for Mr. Clohessy, but he is mostly relieved not to
be in trouble.
Summary: Chapter VII
Malachy continues to drink away his dole money. The brothers, even
three-year-old Michael, take their cue from Angela and refuse to
talk to Malachy during the weekend after he drinks the dole.
Frank has a friend named Mickey Spellacy whose siblings
are dying of consumption one by one. Everyone envies Mickey because he
gets a week off from school for every sibling that dies, and money and
sympathy from grown-ups who feel sorry for him. Mickey asks Frank
and Billy Campbell to pray that Mickey’s sick sister will not die
until September, so that Mickey can get a week off from school. In
return, Mickey promises Frank and Billy that they will be invited to
his sister’s wake, where there will be food and singing and stories. Although
Mickey gets his wish, and his sister dies during the school term,
the boys are not invited to the wake. Frank is satisfied when Mickey
himself dies of consumption the following year and doesn’t get any
time off from school.
Grandma decides Frank should help Uncle Pat deliver newspapers.
Uncle Pat mistreats Frank, making him run about in the rain, and
paying him poorly. Frank delivers the paper to an old man named
Mr. Timoney, and agrees to read to him for money. Mr. Timoney is
a smart, well-traveled, crotchety old man, and he takes to Frank.
At Timoney’s request, Frank reads John Swift’s satirical essay “A
Modest Proposal.” Angela tells Frank that Mr. Timoney served in
the English army in India and married an Indian woman who was accidentally
killed by a soldier. Angela is thrilled that her son now has two
jobs, but Frank gets in trouble with Declan Collopy for missing
the Confraternity’s Friday night meetings. Declan insults Uncle
Pat, and Frank fights Declan. Mr. Timoney vows to talk to Pa Keating
about Declan’s bullying. It is a relief to Frank to have the companionship
of Mr. Timoney, who talks to him like a friend would. A little later,
however, Mr. Timoney is pronounced demented and taken away to the
City Home because he laughed when his dog bit three people and when
a priest pronounced his Buddhism a danger to Catholics.
