James has heard of school, of course. He has seen pictures of schools in the books he keeps hidden under his floorboards, and looks at well away from his father's watchful, beady eyes. School is a place where children go to learn things, to prepare them for their future.
However, although James has heard about school, he never once dreamed that it could apply to him. He never thought about his future, or even whether he would have a future. He didn't even like to think about the next day, knowing that it, too, would bring only hurt and hunger.
Imagine his surprise, then, when one day a woman knocks on the door, with a posh hairstyle and a Dublin accent. His father answers the door gruffly, while James hovers at the top of the narrow stairs, spying in the dark without being noticed by either party.
The woman turns her heavily made-up nose up at the smell almost instantly, not entirely succeeding in hiding her disgusted expression. She introduces as being from the local school board, and says that there have been reports of a school-age child living in the house; and that if such as child existed, he should be attending school.
James' father denies having ever had a child. He sends the woman packing, not that she seems too eager to stay. He slams the door behind her, then turns to stare menacingly at the darkness at the top of the stairs.
James gulps and shrinks back into the shadows, hoping against hope that nothing will happen, that his father won't come upstairs. There is a pause, then his father shuffles back to the kitchen, leaving James heaving a silent sigh of relief. He creeps back to his bedroom to puzzle over his father's denial of his existence, and to think some more about the strange lady from Dublin.
