The Dog that Dumped on my Doona (4 page)

Not that there is much glory involved in my play.

I am a hopeless goalkeeper.

It doesn't help that I am short for my age. It doesn't help that most of the other players are two years older than me and built like road trains. If they kick the ball just a little off the ground it goes over my head. The only reason I get picked for the team is that no one else wants to be goalkeeper.

There's a reason for that.

It's dangerous.

At every game you risk becoming eligible for the next Paralympics.

So I stood in front of the goal, soaking wet, taking up very little space and sizing up the opposition. They were big. And mean. You could see it in their eyes, which glowed red when the light struck them just right. Their very first attack was a one-on-one. A giant charged towards me. I could feel the ground shake. But I didn't have a choice. I had to advance, narrow down the angles. As it turned out I didn't get near him, which, to be honest, was a relief. It would have been like getting in the way of a tank. He belted the ball from about twenty metres and it fizzed past me into the roof of the net. Lucky I wasn't in the way. The net would have bulged twice. Once with the ball, once with my head.

As I picked the ball out, I noticed Blacky sitting by the touchline, looking amused.

‘Your balance is all wrong,' he said. ‘If you'd had your feet planted right, you could have got to that.'

‘What?' I said. ‘Now you're a football coach?'

‘I am a student of the game,' he replied in this snotty voice.

I kicked the ball back towards the centre circle.
It isn't a good idea
, I thought,
to be seen talking to a dog on the sidelines
. It was this kind of behaviour that earned you the reputation of a fruitcake. I already had the reputation of a short goalkeeping disaster area and didn't need any others.

A soccer game lasts ninety minutes. This one seemed to take three days. Every time I picked the ball out of the net – which was often – Blacky would point out exactly where I went wrong.

‘You are not dominating the area.'

The ball whizzed past my head again.

‘You are not communicating with your defence.'

Bang. There went another one.

‘Close in on the striker. That way, he has less room to get the ball past you.'

Yet another ball rocketed into the net.

‘You're going to ground too early.'

By the twelfth goal, I'd had enough.

‘Oi,' I said. ‘Give it a break, willya? You are not helping me here.'

‘You want help?' he said. ‘I'll give you help, tosh.'

And he did. In the next attack the lumbering giant was through again and heading straight for me. It was like being in the path of a very large meteor. The guy was a human eclipse. And it was obvious he was going to take me out. Probably for good. I could see it in his eyes, so I closed mine and waited for the pain. But when the scream came, it wasn't mine.

I felt the ball bump gently against my ankles. When I opened my eyes I saw the big kid rolling around in agony. Not surprising, since he had a small, dirty-white dog attached to the front of his shorts. I winced. After that it was mayhem, with players, officials and fans (actually, my dad and a couple of other losers) trying to separate Blacky from the guy's groin. Blacky, in the meantime, was trying to separate the guy from his groin.

They had to abandon the game and call it a draw because the ref turned out to be the kid's dad and he had to take him to hospital. The other team wasn't pleased, especially as they were 12-0 up and it wasn't even halftime.

But officially, I had kept a clean sheet. First time and, I dare say, the last.

Blacky trotted up to me as I got my towel from the back of the goal.

‘That's the way to tackle,' he said.

‘You're suggesting I bite attackers in the you-know-where?'

He tilted his head to one side.

‘Well,' he said. ‘It certainly slows them down.'

One advantage of the game finishing early was that I could start on my mission earlier than expected. Dad had shopping to do in the town centre, so he left me outside the pet shop while he braved the crowds in the supermarket. He'd be at least an hour, so I rang Dylan who lived fairly close. He said he'd get there in ten.

There was a bunch of people milling in the street, stopping passers-by and giving them leaflets. I picked one up when some guy just dropped it on the road after glancing at it. It was about the mineral mines in the Queensland bush. It asked people to write to the Premier, expressing their opposition. I folded the leaflet and put it in my pocket.

I examined the contents of the pet shop's windows while I waited for Dylan. I was waiting for Blacky as well. I'd been forced to leave him at the football ground. It was unlikely Dad would be thrilled to have the crotch-gnawing dog in the car with him.

It was the biggest pet shop in my town. It must have been one of the biggest in the state. I watched the kittens in their glass cabinets. Most were asleep in the sun's warmth – as soon as the soccer game had stopped, the clouds had cleared and the sun had broken through – but a few were climbing over each other and playing. There were dogs in the window too. And fish and snakes and other reptiles. It was like looking into Noah's Ark. So it seemed no time at all before I felt Dylan tug at my arm.

‘Yo, Marc,' he said. ‘The Dyl reporting for duty. What's happening?'

‘This is a reconnoitre,' I replied.

‘Excellent,' he said.

‘You don't know what it means, do you?' I said.

‘Nope.'

‘We are checking things out, scoping the lie of the land, having a stake-out. Research, mate. Planning. Infiltrating enemy terrain.'

‘Oh.'

Dylan sounded disappointed. He doesn't like looking at things. He's into action. Preferably involving lots of noise and plenty of stuff breaking. I couldn't find it in myself to tell him this mission was going to be boringly simple. I'd thought it over last night. All that about kidnapping God. I was overcomplicating the problem. The solution came to me in a blinding flash. Too easy.

We weren't going to kidnap God.

We were going to buy Him.

‘Behold the face of God,' said Blacky.

I beheld it.

Kind of ugly, with a beard. Not long and white, but short, stumpy and grey. Big, lidless eyes set far apart. Leathery skin. The sign on the tank said PYGMY BEARDED DRAGON.

‘And that's God, is it?' said Dylan, his face pressed up to the glass.

‘Apparently,' I said.

‘Not really what I was expecting,' said Dylan. ‘Hey, look at him move! He went up that twig like lightning.'

‘He's moving in mysterious ways,' I said.

That went pretty much over Dylan's head.

‘So, what's the plan?' said Dylan. ‘We've got to get the lizard out of the tank, right? Return him to his family in the wild, right? That's the mission the dog's set us, right?'

‘Right,' I said. I'd already passed on the basics of what Blacky had told me. Not even Dylan could have failed to grasp them.

‘Okay,' said Dylan. ‘I've got a plan. It's a good one, too. You and Blacky the white dog create a diversion. You go into the pet shop and ask them some tricky questions about terrapins or something. That'll be your job, Marc, 'cos dogs aren't real good at asking questions, even simple ones. So while you're distracting them … Better still, Blacky can chase a cat or something, knock over a few displays. That way, we've got two diversions – you and your terrapin questions, the dog wrecking the joint. Meantime, I put a brick through the window, grab the lizard and leg it. It's brilliant. It's simple.'

‘Why am I not surprised that this fruitloop is your friend?' asked Blacky. I ignored him.

‘I've got a simpler plan,' I told Dylan.

‘What?'

‘I go in and buy it.'

Dylan thought about this for a while.

‘Yeah,' he said eventually. ‘I admit it's simpler, but it's unbelievably boring.'

I had a hundred bucks saved up from my pocket money and birthday gifts from rellies who had no idea what eleven-year-old boys were into. The money was in a box under my bed. Dad had tried to convince me to put it in a savings account and I was glad I'd ignored him. I'd been saving for a hand-held games console, but that would have to wait. I wasn't thrilled by this, but what could I do? Turn my back on God?

It's weird. Everyone reckons Rose is a saint. And here I was giving up something I
really
wanted and no one would ever know. Life isn't fair, I guess. But then life certainly hadn't been fair to God.

I'd have explaining to do, true. Mum and Dad would want to know where the money had gone. I thought it unlikely they'd be thrilled to hear I'd spent it on a lizard. I could always tell them I'd bought God and that would be ten out of ten for cool. Unfortunately, it would also be zero out of ten for believability. Nonetheless, I was confident I could make up something.

Me and Dylan entered the shop. We left Blacky on the footpath. There was a sign on the door that said pets weren't allowed, which struck me as somewhat strange as well as destroying Dylan's brilliant plan. If the owner was being fair he'd have to move his entire stock outside onto the road. Anyway, I pointed my finger at Blacky's face.

‘Sit,' I said. ‘Stay. Good boy.'

‘Talk to me like that again,' said Blacky, ‘and you'll be minus an important part of your anatomy. I kid you not.'

‘I'm trying to act like a responsible dog owner,' I hissed. ‘Otherwise, someone might report you to the local council as a stray.'

He sighed inside my head, which is a very peculiar experience, believe me.

‘All right,' he said. ‘Just this once, though. I hate all that macho, man's-best-friend garbage. It's demeaning. And don't you
ever
ask me to play dead, shake your hand or roll over. I know where you live, remember?'

But he did sit. Reluctantly. Dylan and I pushed open the door of the pet shop but before we got in, I could hear words ringing in my ears.

‘Fetch,' said Blacky in my head. ‘Good boy.'

I really disliked that dog's attitude. Particularly since I was the one doing him a favour.

‘
How
much?'

I nearly yelled it. Surely he couldn't be serious?

‘Two hundred and sixty dollars. It's a pygmy bearded dragon, you know. Quite expensive.'

‘At that price, you'd expect it to be a fully grown bearded dragon,' I pointed out.

The guy behind the counter chuckled. He was short and bald with a long bushy beard. It was like someone had put his head on upside down. If he could breathe fire, he'd be a pygmy bearded dragon himself.

‘You don't know much about reptiles, do you?' he said. ‘Bearded dragons are not generally expensive. You can get them for about sixty bucks, normally. But the pygmy is the most expensive of the lot. And this specimen has rare markings which puts the price up even more. You won't find one like this cheaper anywhere.'