When Mr. Dog Bites (11 page)

“Well, I’m Man United delighted you’re here, Amir. That’s what best buds do.”

“Cheers.”

“So that makes you, like, the best of the best buds.”

Amir shrugged.

I sang “
This Is the One”
by the Stone Roses in my head. I wanted to psych myself up before the big event. I’d seen all those soccer players psych themselves up by listening to music while getting off the team bus, and they had gladiator looks about them. Dad used to say they were overpaid twats who couldn’t string a sentence together between them if their life depended on it and that a good stint in the army was what most of them needed. He said he’d like to see them with no food, water, or sleep in the jungles of Sierra Leone for five days and see how fucking cool they looked then. That wasn’t part of a conversation me and Dad were having—that was just Dad being Dad. I preferred to watch soccer alone in my room.

“What are you going to say to her, then?” Amir asked.

“I dunno; ask her out straight, I suppose.”

“Bad move.”

“What do you mean, bad move?”

“That wouldn’t be the approach I’d take.”

“Tell me then, Valentino, what would you do?”

Amir gave me one of the looks he gives when he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which is loads of times. I know that Amir look like the back of my hand.

“Who’s Va-Va-Valentino?”

“Some ancient guy from Italy, I think, who did it with heaps and heaps of cracking-looking women.”

“Over ten?”

“I think so.”

“Wow, he must have had some size of tinkle.”

“I’ll say.” You could see that Amir enjoyed being in the same sentence as Valentino. “So what’s your advice?”

“Well, if I were you, I’d try to make some small talk before diving right in.”

“Small talk about what?”

“Oh, I dunno. Talk about bands or shoes or films. Films are a good one to talk about.”

“Could be,” I agreed.

“What’s your fave film?”

“Easy.
The Sound of Music
.”

“Maybe don’t talk about films, then. Talk about
Britain’s Got Talent
and all the pure mad mental crap people who go on it.”

“That’s a shite idea, Amir. No, I’m going with Plan A.”

“Which is?”

“Just be myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Fair doos.”

From miles away I saw Michelle Malloy’s cool red Adidas sneakers and her dinky Converse bag. The sneakers looked all duffed up, and the bag was decorated with all this graffiti stuff. If my new bag and giant shoes had been in this state, Mom totally would have gone crackpot and probably scudded me around the dome and forced me to take a plastic bag to school as a punishment and screamed at me something like, “Do you think money grows on trees, Dylan? Well, do you?” And I’d have stood shaking my head and trying not to swear at her. It’s IMPOSSIBLE for dosh to grow on trees, as dosh is a nonliving thing and therefore CAN’T grow anywhere, never mind trees. Parents always ask these weird, stupid questions. “Do you want the back of my hand on your jaw, Dylan?” “No, Dad, I don’t.” Silly billy! Michelle Malloy’s mom must have been chillaxed out of her nut about these things.

My heart was beating so fast it was as if it were trying to escape from my body, or like some tiny person inside me was using it for trampoline practice. Amir whooped, but I couldn’t decide if it was an Amir whoop or just a whoop of delight. In any case it made me want to shout something really bold boy bad at him. So bold boy bad that I couldn’t even say it out loud. Mr. Dog was trying to make me howl “SLAPPER” and “BUCKET CUNT” to Michelle Malloy. AAAARRRRHHHH! It was Torture with a capital
T
trying to keep it all in. My head twitched from side to side. I flicked at my ears, tucked them in. Rubbed Green till my palm became sauna hand.

I wanted to Usain Bolt.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to be normal.

I wanted to go to the other school.

I wanted to chat with girls without screaming “SLUT,” “COW,” or “WHORE” into their face before I’d even said “howdy.”

I wanted Mom to start loving and snuggling me again.

I wanted Dad to come home and be a family man once more.

I wanted the docs to find a mega cure for me, and then the cure-finder and I would become worldwide celebs and be on the celeb scene and go to all the celeb parties and be given lavish gifts like DVDs and cell phones and get to meet other celebs like Simon Cowell and Kevin Costner.

No doubt this was the biggest case of cacking myself that I’d ever had. Even more than when I did shit myself for real in my first year at secondary school. How the devil’s haircut do real players do it?

“I can’t do it, Amir.”

“You can. Be br-br-brave.”

“I can’t! My heart is pounding so much it hurts, and I want to swear out loud like a mofo.”

“So swear, then; she’s heard it all before,” Amir said in an aggressive voice. “Look, if you don’t, I will.”

“What, ask her out?”

“No, you dumpling, I’ll ask her out for
you
.”

We were now in the school cafeteria watching all the poor people queuing up for their free breakfast: mainly smelly fruit that supermarkets chuck out, dry eggs, soggy toast, and oatmeal. Yuck-a-duck! The noise was humongous. All these mad maddies in the same place making a major racket. It was worse than the worst disco on earth. Thank the lucky stars I wasn’t poor enough to ever have to come in here for scran; God bless the good old-fashioned packed lunch.

Michelle Malloy was sitting in a corner with her hooter deep in a magazine. Probably a magazine about cool fashions or groovy pop bands or hot hunks or makeup. A magazine I would know heehaw about.

“There she is,” Amir said, shoving me in the back.

“All right, Amir, I’m not Stevie Wonder.”

“Go,” he said, shoving harder, dead excited.

“Calm down to a riot, Amir.”

“Go.”

“A player’s got to play it cool, you know.”

“Well, you better hurry up or you’ll miss the opp-opp-opporchancity.”

“I’m just composing myself.” No tics, no swearing, no slapping. Just a wee bit of nerves and heart hammering, that was all.

“Come on,” Amir urged. “I didn’t get out of my scratcher mad early for bugger all. Go on.”

I shuffled toward her. All the noise, all the deadbeats, all the pongo of the stinking breakfast food disappeared. It was only the two of us: Michelle Malloy and me. Just like a duel from the Western films that Dad liked to watch when he came home from the pub with his takeout. In my head I kept thinking
Just say hello, just say hello
over and over again. And before you could say, “Hey, Big Mama!” I was standing at her table.

Time stopped. Frozen stiff. I could hear nothing at all except my own head. It was as if I were playing statues. Michelle Malloy didn’t look up to welcome me; she just kept reading her magazine as if it were the last thing in the whole wide world with words in it, and she only had two more minutes left in the world to live. BIG GIANT
wave
coming with a naked surfer riding on it. Nightmare. Amir, bud, please come and rescue me Pakistan-superhero style!

“SNOBBY BITCH . . . Shit . . . Fuck . . . Sorry, Michelle, I didn’t . . .”

“What do you want, Mint?” she said, not taking her peepers off the magazine.

“FUCKIN’ TEASE .
.
. Shit .
.
. Sorry, Michelle .
.
.”

“You’d better get it out, Mint, because I’ve no time for your Tourette’s crap.”

Amir was spot-on about her knowing what I had and not really caring too much about it. She was mega cucumber. I was a turnip.

“I was just wondering what magazine you were reading.”

She looked at me. Wow! Michelle Malloy was s­o­o­o­o­o­o­o­o­ close to me right now that I could have reached out and stroked her. I could have smudged her bright-red lipstick and dark mascara with my thumb. Man alive, I could have flicked her earrings with my pinkie. My super smell sense told me that her deodorant was the same as Mom’s, Sure for Women. I was 117 percent Sure of it. When it wafted up my snout I didn’t think of those minging breakfast smells anymore.

“Go away, Mint. Don’t you have some puerile stuff to be getting on with, with that friend of yours?”

What did “
puerile”
mean? What an incredible babe. But this was
Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It
,
so I had to get a move on. I had to get my game head on.

“You mean Amir?”

“I don’t give a shit what he’s called.” She flipped a page over in her magazine.

“What’s your magazine about?”

She looked up at me again. Oh, my good God in heaven! Those eyes! They were like two wee jewels peeking through her black eyeliner. Emeralds. But Michelle Malloy didn’t have sparkle happy eyes.

“Why do you care?”

“Just interested, Michelle.”

“Well, don’t be.” My heart was boom boom booming about, all Batman and Robin throbbin’. “Look, what is it you want, Mint? I’ve no time for all this crap.”

“It’s just . . . I’m dead interested in your magazine . . . Magazines in general.”

She puffed out in the same way athletes do when they finish a tough old sprint.

“It’s about body art.”

“Really?” I said, as if I knew what she was on about.

“Happy?”

I was happy so I nodded my head.

“Now piss off.” This wee honey said some great stuff, so she did.

“I just wanted to ask you something else, if that’s okay with you.”

“What?”

But I couldn’t get it out. I needed to scream something, to shout at her or to slap myself on the noggin. I could feel my face burning with trying to hold it in. To normal people it would have been like trying to speak with a ginormous gobstopper stuck in their throat. That was every day for me.

“I’m waiting, Mint.” And she waited.

I tried, I really tried.

She waited. “See, this is the problem with you, Mint. You just can’t get it out there, can you? Why don’t you just go back to your weirdo pal?”

Then it all came out like projectile vomit. I had entered the Speed-Speaking World Championships.

“Would-you-like-to-come-to-the-Halloween-disco-with-me? FUCKING BITCH.” Oh, please tell me she didn’t hear that last bit. But there was No Way, José she didn’t. Michelle Malloy stared at me for what seemed like yonks. I was rubbish at staring games.

“If, Mint, by some chance, I have a lobotomy and decide to go to the Halloween disco—which I’m not going to anyway because it’s for major losers, but if I
was
going—there is no way on this earth I’d go with someone who calls me a bitch and a tease every second sentence.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“Now blow town.”

“I only ever say those things when I’m nervous, Michelle, you know that.”

“Whatever, Mint. I’m still not going to some infantile Halloween disco. Now make like Michael Jackson.”

“What?”

“Beat it!”

“We don’t need to go to the disco. BIG VAG . . . Sorry . . . SOCK-FACE . . . Sorry.” Oh, someone please put me faceup on a guillotine right now.

“Not even if you were the last man standing, Mint. Not even if you—”

“But I don’t have much time left.” This was a silly line, as it made me sound crazy mental. Michelle Malloy shook her head, the very same shake you do to pathetic people when you think they are super-thicko stupid, but for a nano-nanosecond I was about to tell her that I was soon to perish.

“Yeah? Join the club,” she said, and waved me away with her hand. “If you’ll excuse me, Mint, I have a multitude of miscellaneous crap to do before class.” And, just like that, her eyes flipped to her body-art magazine.

I plodded back to Amir. The long walk of shame. Everything in the cafeteria was in super slo-mo; all the voices were muffled, and I sensed everyone’s blurry peepers gawking at me. Then I felt Mr. Dog coming again, a great big giant of a dog. Only this time he was coming to bite the dome straight off me in one gulp. My head twitched and almost shook straight off my shoulders. I couldn’t control anything. Sweat soaked my stomach. Was this the moment the doc was on about? Was THIS my time? Without me achieving any of my wishes?

I made out the figure of Amir walking slowly toward me. He was major easy to make out. His teeth were chalk white and he had a big banana smile. You’d think he’d scored the winning goal in a cup final, or saved a last-minute penalty with a salmon leap to the top corner (or “postage stamp,” as Dad calls it). There was more chance of winning the EuroMillions lottery, though.

“Well, is she?” he said, all googly excited. “Is she going to have it off with you?”