Foreseeing the Future

Grammar school seniors Nick and Mick were altar boys that month for early mass. They played a game. First to the sacristy each day signed in for both of them, inserting profane or scatological nickname for the latecomer.

Midmonth they came to their senses. Sister Cunégonde would expel them if she survived discovery of the unholy mess.

Ever ingenious, they filched blank sheets and recreated the defiled pages sans profanity and scatology, deep-sixing the evidence. Phew. Silence. Success.

At graduation, smiling Cunégonde congratulated them: “Good luck lads, whatever your paths forward. I can see the priesthood’s not one of them.”