Free The God Squad by Paddy Doyle

water in preparation for another journey. The room I was in was so close to the station and the day so still, that I could hear the driver and his mate discussing where they would go for a drink.
    On the stairs I heard the dull thud of heavy boots, I knew it wasn’t a nun, because of the absence of the jangle of her long rosary beads hitting off her habit as she walked, but just as a precaution I got back into bed. John Cleary came into the room carrying a tray with a plate of pandy on it. He mimicked Mother Paul as he left it down on my bed, first puckering his mouth, then squinting his eyes and, in a squeaky high-pitched voice, saying, ‘I want to see every bit of that eaten, not a trace is to be left on the plate. Do you understand, child?’ Before he left the room he asked me to breathe on him so that he would get the measles too.
    Gradually the sick bay filled with red-faced boys; some really sick, others just with a rash. It was not usual for us to have pillows on our beds; we didn’t have any in the main dormitory, and as more of us became bored just lying in bed with nothing to do, I decided on a pillow-fight. I challenged one of the boys and when he refused, stood on my bedshouting, ‘Coward, coward,’ to provoke him. He couldn’t resist swinging his pillow at me and, as I stooped to pick up mine, he hit me and knocked me onto the floor. I attempted to get back into bed while he belted me to the encouragement of the other boys. Eventually I managed to get back onto the bed and was caught up in the excitement and anger of the fight. I gripped the corners of the pillowcase firmly and dug my feet into the mattress before swinging as hard as I could. He ducked and the pillow crashed into the iron-framed head of the bed, its light cover bursting open and the feathers floating around the room. I was left holding an empty pillowcase.
    Some of the boys laughed. I panicked and asked them to help me put them back. I pleaded that if they didn’t I would get into awful trouble. Realizing I wasn’t going to get help, I rushed around the room gathering fistfuls of feathers and stuffing them into the cover they had exploded from. Those I could not collect I blew along the floor until they were underneath the beds. Mother Paul arrived into the dormitory to enquire how we were. Nervously I told her that I was feeling a bit better before adding that I thought my pillow was torn.
    ‘I tried to fix it,’ I said, ‘but some of the feathers fell out.’ She looked at me suspiciously, but said nothing, took the pillow and walked out of the room. I wondered if she would bring a different pillow. She did not. Once better, I was immediately doing my usual jobs around St Michael’s, polishing floors, looking after Eugene, and doing messages for the nuns. One evening as I was polishing the boots, not long after being sick, I developed a severe earache, but was afraid to say anything in case I would be accused of trying to get back into sick bay or escape doing my jobs. It was difficult to concentrate as the pain intensified. I cried as I polished the boots, occasionally rubbing my ear violently.
    ‘What is the crying for, Pat Doyle?’ Mother Paul asked.
    ‘I have a pain in my ear, Mother.’
    ‘You are just over the measles – you couldn’t have a pain.’
    ‘But I have, Mother, honest,’ I pleaded.
    She admonished me, suggesting that if I concentrated more on what I was doing the pain would vanish.
    ‘Offer it up for the Holy Souls in Purgatory,’ she said before leaving me to finish the boots.
    In bed the pain worsened. I pulled at my ear and swayed my head from side to side in an attempt to get relief. Eventually I screamed: ‘My ear, it’s killing me.’
    Mother Paul ran into the dormitory.
    ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, child,’ she exclaimed, ‘what in God’s name are you trying to do?’
    ‘I can’t help it,’ I said.
    ‘You’ll get nothing for the pain until you stop that crying,’ she insisted.
    ‘I