mornings. I counted myself lucky that I didn’t have to give those lessons. Ordinary religious instruction did fall under my duties, however. I had skipped it in the first week because I was too busy with other things and—if I was honest—because I had no qualms postponing it. I knew God wouldn’t punish me, confident as I was that he was a fabrication. Even so, I couldn’t shirk my responsibility any longer, if only to fire the boys’ imagination. I had resolved to take a strictly unbiased approach.
‘Sir, sir!’
‘Yes, Roger.’ The lesson was almost over and I didn’t regret it.
‘Surely God can’t be everywhere at once? Isn’t the world too big, and aren’t there too many people for that?’
‘It seems that there is a part of God deep inside each of us.’
‘How so?’
‘That is difficult to explain, Roger. Perhaps you should ask Father Storme.’
Roger looked disappointed.
‘What I can tell you, is that God is more present in some people than in others.’
‘But how do those people know? What does it feel like?’
‘You’re an altar boy, aren’t you? Then you should know better than even the teacher,’ Jef said.
‘Yes,’ Etienne said. ‘That’s true. Except he never sings along ’cos he still doesn’t know the songs by heart, and last week he told me he nicked some coins from Father Storme’s collection plate, and … ’
‘Not true! It’s not true!’
I could tell from the shrewd look on his face that it was.
‘You’re going to hell, you’re going to hell!’ Jef and Etienne taunted, and the whole class laughed nervously.
‘Come now, boys,’ I said calmly. ‘No one is going to hell.’
‘How so?’
‘Whuk?’
‘Father Storme says that if we eat too many marshmallows and cake during Lent, there’s a good chance we will.’
‘Or if we don’t say a Hail Mary and an Our Father on our bare knees each night before going to sleep, we could go to hell, too.’
‘No one goes to hell,’ I repeated calmly. ‘But if you eat too many marshmallows and cake, you might have to go to the dentist.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
That was Marcus. He had been listening silently the whole time.
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