Free The Brothers' Lot by Kevin Holohan

fairly easygoing about his annual career assessment of the boys who came to his office one by one and told him they wanted to be brain surgeons, freelance astronauts, messenger boys for grocery shops, firemen, and gang lords. He knew and they knew that most of them would never get anywhere beyond the lowest levels of the Civil Service or the Electricity Supply Board or the rare Gaelic football prodigy who might get slid into a sinecure in the bank.
    Skelly sat at his desk with a big tired sigh, dug out his Civics book, and started to read aloud. It was with great relief that the boys realized he was quite happy to let them put their heads on their desks while he did this.
    Around the whole school the desultoriness of last class gasped its way toward the final bell.
    “Ethanol is a colorless, tasteless liquid with a very low boiling point …” Scribble, scribble, scribble . “The common chemical formula for ethanol is …” Scribble, scribble, scribble …
    “A, ab, absque, coram, de, palam, cum and ex, or e, sine, tenus, pro and prae, super, subter, sub and in, when rest not motion ’tis they mean. Now, these are the prepositions that take the ablative case. There is no other way to learn this except to learn it …”
    “Now, the main fishing ports of Portugal are? … Aherne?”
    “So taking x squared y and dividing across both sides we get the solution y=3x4 and from that we plot the curve. Any questions?”
    “Ye’re nothing but a pack of guttersnipes and I don’t know why I even bother wasting my time trying to teach ye! I’d get better results from a pack of monkeys!”
    It was twenty-five past three and there was only one fixed idea in everyone’s mind: in five minutes the bell would ring and it would all be over for another day. That was what mattered. The fishing ports of Portugal and the properties of ethanol could go fuck themselves, along with the dative case in Irish, the poetry of Sebastian Cathach, Venn diagrams, the terrors of Hell reserved for those who touch themselves improperly, and all the other guff that was filling the air as the clock counted down. Two minutes before the bell the surreptitious packing up began. Scully was already completely packed and was sharing the Civics book with the reluctant Leake in the desk beside him.
    Five, four, three, two, one … Nothing. The seconds began to crawl by. The boys grew edgy. This was not right. Valuable seconds of their misspendable youth were being stolen from them.
    In the yard the clock above the main door sat silent, the seconds whirring away but no sound of release from the bell.
    “Ignore question 3 and do questions 4, 5, and 8 on page 13 and also question 12 on page 15,” called Mr. Pollock as he wrote the homework out on the board for his sixth year Geography class. He turned and flicked through his book looking for more questions.
    “Sir …” said Molloy tentatively.
    “Mr. Molloy?”
    “Ehm, the bell didn’t go.”
    “Correct, Mr. Molloy.”
    “Ehm, but it’s twenty-five to four, sir.”
    “Question 11 on page 15 and question 14 on page 16,” continued Mr. Pollock dismissively.
    The boys sighed and glowered at Molloy. Now he’d made it worse.
    While Mr. Pollock flicked through his book, a slow sound grew from two floors below on the ground floor where Brother Mulligan was taking a free class. “OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT!” The chanting got louder and louder until it could not be ignored anymore. Then it stopped suddenly and was replaced by the cheering rush of boys into the yard. That was it. Someone had let a class out. There was no stopping the domino effect. Bell or no bell, they had to let them out.
    Tired, dispirited, and almost numb from the tedium of writing down book lists, class rules, and special prayers to Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly for help in each subject, Finbar stood at his front door and lazily rapped the knocker. Through the knobbed glass pane he saw his mother bustle down the