When Mr. Dog Bites (5 page)

Something rattled in my head. Why did the doc say that in
March
“
life as he knows it will come to an abrupt end
”? Then I understood why Mom was at the same thing she was when her and Dad used to shout at each other: breaking point. I was there now. She also said she was “totally scunnered,”
but she never told me what “totally scunnered” actually meant. My brain cells told me that it meant totally effing peeved off.

With my quick rapido thinking powers I cracked it. When the doc said, “prepare him for the inevitable,”
I didn’t need to be the Bourne Identity or Mr. T. J. Hooker to figure out what the bloody hell was going on. I hadn’t reached the point of being totally scunnered, but I surely would have if I hadn’t been ace at figuring things out.

“AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG” happened.

Then “WWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAA” followed.

The doc and Mom did some sitting and staring. They didn’t even reach a hand out to show me that everything was A-okay. They didn’t smile as if to say,
Don’t worry, Dylan, everything’s A-okay. You’re in safe hands with us.
I suppose Mom was used to me being the way I was, so she let me get on with it.

“FUCKING BASTARD. SPECCY WANK.”

My blurt was directed straight at the doc. But, and it’s a capital-letter BUT, the doc was a Pakistani, which made the rant ten times worse. Or maybe he was an Indian? Or perhaps a Bangladeshi? He was definitely one of those things. I couldn’t really tell which, though. All those evil things that Amir has to listen to because his skin is not chalk-white came bolting out of my mouth and blootered the doc full force in the face. Tears waterfalled from my eyes and flooded my cheeks, not because I was calling the doc these racist thingies, but because I knew that I was hurting my best bud, Amir, and best buds never, ever hurt each other. Ever. Unless one of them tampers with the other’s gf or bf—only then is it okay. Then everything started to go blurry because I couldn’t see through the water in my peepers. I was like a Fiat 500 in the rain with its wipers gubbed.

At the same time that I was turning into a racist, I said in my head,

Please don’t let Mr. Dog get out,

please don’t let Mr. Dog get out

over and over again.

And guess what happened?

Mr. Dog came out.

It was what Mr. Comeford, our PE teacher, called Murphy’s Law. He put his hands on his hips, looked up to the sky, and said, “Murphy’s bloody Law” every time we went outside to play soccer and it started raining or when we were stuck inside the gym doing somersaults and the sun was splitting the trees . . . and the somersaults were splitting my head. Wee Tam Coyle, who also had Tourette’s, used to bark and growl like a boy (or dog) possessed. He’d growl so much that spit would be dangling off his two front teeth. Amir was terrified that Wee Tam Coyle would pounce on him and chew his face off or something mad like that. Amir was sure that Wee Tam Coyle had been brought up by a pack of wolves sometime in the past. But I told Amir to knock it off, because I knew what was going through Wee Tam Coyle’s head while he was doing his dog-wolf growl. The school eventually got rid of Wee Tam Coyle ’cause his level of Tourette’s was too bonkers for them; the teachers just didn’t have a clue how to deal with him. So they booted him out.

I started barking and growling at the doc and Mom. There was no spit dripping from my teeth or anything yuck like that, but the last thing I remember was putting my hands up as if I had these giant paws, like the daft lion in
The Wizard of Oz.
That had never happened before. And when I was doing the barking it got so bad that it began to make my head

thump

hump

bump.

It was as if someone had put a balloon in there and blown it up. I thought it was going to pop. Honestly, I did.

And then darkness.

*

“It’s okay, darling. It’s okay.”

When I opened my eyes, Mom was standing at the side of the bed.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Negative. I groaned.

“You had one of your turns. Nothing to worry about. It was just a little one.”

She smiled, and I could see her teeth. When I saw Mom’s teeth smile I knew that she was telling porkies. It was all in the eyes. There was No Way, José that this was “just a little one.” I was lying on this weird bed that had a huge toilet roll as an undersheet. I didn’t say anything, but closed my eyes and counted to ten. The rule was that when I got to ten I had to return to one again, and so on. I learned this at school. It seemed to work for me. In total I counted to about 2,047. Until, abracadabra! I was back at home.

*

“Mom?”

“Yes, love.”

“What’s happening in March?”

“March?”

“Yes.” Mom’s brain spun, I could tell.

“St. Patrick’s Day. You like that.”

“No, I mean, what big thing is happening?”

“Well, we don’t have a holiday to go on or anything like that. Do you have a school trip?”

“Don’t think so.”

“It might be the start of springtime that you’re thinking of.”

“No.”

“And I know you like spring.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, Dylan, you like spring.”

I had to think about this for a second.

“Suppose I do.”

“So maybe that’s why March is on your mind.”

“No, there is definitely a special thing happening in March.” I was quizzing Mom in the way people do when they’re playing the I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know game. This, however, was what’s called a stalemate.

“Well, I’m stumped,” she said. Her voice changed from lovey-dovey to
it’s time to put a sock in it
. “Now, do you want your favorite?”

“Is Dad coming home in March?”

“Jesus, Dylan!” When Mom Uses Our Lord’s Name in Vain, it’s time to put socks
and
sneakers in it. “Look, do you want soup or not?” Her totally scunnered voice. When my eyes did their traffic-light blinking, Mom went to Voice Level One, which was like a whisper. Voice Level One was supposed to calm me down. “I’ll put some tomato sauce in it, just the way you like it.”

“Okey-dokey,” I said. When Mom was in the kitchen stirring my soup, I shouted at her in a Level Three voice, “Maybe I’ll write to Dad to see if he knows what’s happening in March. Maybe he’ll have some good news for us.”

The Voice Levels at school only go to four, but if I had some voice-recording equipment with me on the couch I’m sure Mom’s level would have been about Level Seventeen when she came in from the kitchen.

“Can you stop fucking talking about this, Dylan? Can’t you see I’m at the end of my tether here? Jesus Christ! I don’t need this shit right now.” Then the phone rang, and Mom said, “Saved by the bloody bell.”

When I went into the kitchen to check on my soup, Mom was in the hall talking on the phone in Hush Voice. An adult voice. She turned her back on me as though she didn’t want me to see her, but I could tell that her peepers were raw red. I stirred the soup two times clockwise and three times counterclockwise, but something had pressed my curious brain button, so I turned off the soup and did the glass-to-ear-to-door thing that kiddie spies do.

“. . . Hmm . . . Hmm . . . I don’t know how to even approach this . . . Hmm . . . See, that’s the thing, isn’t it? . . . Hmm . . . I should’ve told him about this situation long before now . . . Hmm . . . I wish I’d done that . . .”

The glass slipped from my ear, but I caught it in my hand. It was hard not to head bang the door ten or twenty-six times.

“. . . I know. I know . . . He’s always been my little baby, my little Dylan . . . Hmm . . . Hmm . . . It’s not fair to land this on him now . . . I’m terrified for him . . .” Then the tears again and again and again.

I couldn’t remember her hanging up the phone. I screamed. The sound hurt my ears. Then everything became black.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

“Dylan?”

Nine.

Ten.

One.

Two.

“Dylan?”

Three.

Four.

“Dylan?”

Five.

“Dylan, I’m sorry.”

Six.

“I didn’t mean to shout.”

Seven.

“I love you.”

Eight.

“It’s been a crazy week.”

Nine.

“I’m sorry, Dylan.”

Ten.

“Mom loves you.”

One.

“Open your eyes.”

Two.

“Open your eyes, love.”

Three.

“Your soup’s ready.”

Four.

“Mom’s sorry, Dylan.”

Five.

“Mom loves you more than anything else.”

Six.

“More than anyone else.”

Seven.

“Come on, sweetheart.”

Eight.

“Your soup will get cold.”

Nine.

“Open your eyes, Dylan.”

Ten.

“That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry for shouting, love. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s A-okay.”

“Okay, I’ll bring in your soup.”

“Thanks.”

I sat up and waited for Mom to bring me my chicken soup and tomato sauce.

9

Plans

When I was a pup, like, super wee, I thought that after you cacked it you simply jumped on a bus and traveled up to heaven, munched on a huge ice cream with a gigantic cherry on top, and chilled out with the other cackees. Everyone would be sitting on big fluffy white clouds singing songs, telling funnies, and just enjoying the day. If you wanted to, you could play soccer, watch films, muck about on video games, have a hairdo, or cut your toenails. It would be up to you to choose. Everything would be whiter than snowflakes. A magic place.

But now that I was more grown-up, every time I thought of the land of the cacked I didn’t see white stuff anymore; everything now was much darker, and the cackees were sweaty and dirty and some had cuts on their faces. Nobody was having fun; instead everyone was digging, shoveling, or hacking at something. The sound, too, was brutal; it was like being in the shittiest disco in the afterworld. That place terrified me. When I thought of it, I had to tuck
both
ears into my head, which was hard, so my technique was to lie on my left side with one ear pressed hard to the mattress and use a pillow to force down the right ear. When I did this, all the disco noise flew away, and in came the white clouds again.

In that first week back at school I found it hard to clamp my gob closed. I didn’t have that oh-I-so-need-to-get-this-off-my-chest-or-I’ll-end-up-setting-myself-on-fire desire, but I really wanted to have a man-to-man with my bff, my Phone-a-Friend.

Amir didn’t Adam and Eve me at first. In fact, he was downright RudeTube about it.

“Don’t ta-ta-talk poo piss, Dylan.”

“I’m not joking, Amir. Honestly I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not.”

“You bl-bl-bloody are, and if you keep going on about it, I’ll be forced to speak to Miss Flynn and tell her you’re off your rocker.”

Miss Flynn was the counselor at Drumhill; you only went to see her if you had been super-duper mad loopy, or if you wanted to slit your wrists, or slice open your arms or thighs, or wanted to rape someone, or someone wanted to rape you, or if a dirty old man showed you his willy on the Internet. Even though we all had her cell number (only to be used in school hours, not for fun texts) in case we needed to speak to her in a super hurry, I hardly ever went to see Miss Flynn. It was weird that we didn’t go to see her more often, because we thought she was the real-deal Sssseeexxx on Lllleeegggsss. And she wore red lipstick.

“Well, I’ll just tell her that you made the whole thing up and I haven’t a Jimmy Choo what you’re blabbing on about, and then she’ll think you’re off
your
rocker and she’ll phone your mom and dad, and then your dad will play human pinball with you when you get home.”

Amir said nothing. He scrunched up his face. He does this when I’ve done him like a smelly kipper. Amir has that dead-famous Greek guy’s heel, which is threatening him with his dad. I hated doing it, but sometimes it had to be whipped out of the bag. I only did it on special occasions, which this was. A very special occasion.

“This isn’t easy for me, Amir. I’m telling you because you’re my best bud, and at times like this a man needs a best bud . . . Are you still my best bud, Amir?”

There was, like, this four-hour-long pause. Amir put his finger in his ear and shuffled it around a bit.