When Mr. Dog Bites
Read When Mr. Dog Bites Online
Authors: Brian Conaghan
For Norrie
Contents
1
When I found out, the first thing I did was type “
100 things to do before you die”
into Google.
The Internet is, like, wow! How do those Google people make their thingy whizz about the world in mega-swoosh style before sending
me
, Dylan Mint, all this big-eye info? No one could answer that question—I know this for a fact because I’ve googled it myself, six times, and there is nada on it. Nothing that I understand, anyway. Frustrating or what?
But here’s the thing, which is capital letters FRUSTRATING: I was super disappointed with the info Google swooshed me because there were too many things on the list that I didn’t want to do.
Ever.
Who wants to “
write the story of your life”
?
Or “
ride a camel in the desert”
?
Or
“
go to the shops in your pajamas”
?
I mean, who wants to do
that
?
Not me, that’s who.
The three most bonkers things on the list were:
1.
Skydive naked with a video camera strapped to your head.
2.
Dive into a swimming pool full of beans.
3.
Have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend on a train
.
All of them meant taking your clothes off, and there was No Way, José I’d take my kit off so everyone could gawk at my willy. Number three was the one I really didn’t get: surely a bed would be a comfier place to do the dirty.
And
there would be millions of people on a train—going to work or going on a shopping spree—so it wouldn’t be a private moment.
I think whoever made up the list didn’t have the foggiest idea about cacking it. The info Google sent me was too Dire Straits, so I used my initiative and decided to do my own list. Special just to me. Not one hundred things, though—that was far too many, and there was no way on this earth I’d get through them all. Not in my state—are you mental? No, I’d settle for three: the magic number,
and
my number on the Drumhill Special School soccer team. For boys. (The team, not the school.)
Oh, shizenhowzen!
I lied. Not a biggie, but a lie is a lie is a lie.
*
When I found out, the
real
first thing I did was cling to Mom and wipe her tears from my face. She left my cheek all salty and yuckety. I’ve never understood why moms do that. Amir told me that his mom does that too when people shout “Paki” or “nig-nog” at them in the street. But Paki and nig-nog are opposites, so there’s No Way, José Amir and his mom can be both. I told him that, so I did. I also told him people who scream evil words like that have some brain-cell malnutrition and will probably end up living off welfare or working in the garden section of Home Depot or collecting shopping carts at Walmart.
Amir is my best bud. He knows all about me. I know all about him too. He goes to Drumhill for his mental problems, which are too many to mention, but let’s just say he does a lot of staring into blank spaces and making bonkers noises. He also has a wee bit of a stut-stut-stutter. He’s a nut-nut-nutter, though, in a good way. We have a secret pact to not call each other any of those evil names other people call us. Especially the ones we hate. The ones that make our throats have lumps in them the size of gobstoppers. We sort of look after each other, because that’s what best buds do, isn’t it? We’re each other’s homeboy even though Amir’s real
home is, like, on the other side of the world. But even if he had to go back there we would still be best buds, because we have a telepathic-brain thing going on.
We haven’t had any man chat about who will be his new best bud when I’m away. Some things we don’t chat about. Whose mom cries the most? We do talk about that. It used to be his.
Oh, shizenhowzen again!
*
When I found out, one of the first real things I did was feel for my wee stone and rub it through my thumb and fingers. It’s more like a piece of green glass, really. But it’s dead smooth and soooooooooo green that from a distance people might think it’s a precious emerald. But people never get to lay their peepers on my green stone because it always stays in my left pocket. To me it
is
a precious emerald. Green is sort of like my best bud number two. I know it doesn’t chat, but it keeps me safe and soothes the old head when things get hairy canary. But Amir is my best
human
bud.
I thought I might let Amir do some of the things on my list.
2
When Back to School Day came on August 12, I knew it would be a mighty problemo for me. A paradox even, which is a bit like a contradiction. When I was having one of my
normal
days during the school holidays, Mom said things like, “Dylan, go out and play for a while. You’re getting under my feet.” This drove me round the Oliver Twist because I was sixteen years old now and everyone knows that sixteen-year-old geezers don’t
play—
we hang out or chillax. Also, and this is a capital letter ALSO, if I really was “under Mom’s feet,” that would make me a carpet, floorboards, or some sticky linoleum. So Mom’s down a point for that one. But the morning of my return to school Mom lost some major pointage for seriously twisting my melon, man.
“Just what have you done with yourself over these past seven weeks, Dylan?” she said.
I stared at her like a true teenage rebel rooster, not really knowing how to respond.
“Eh?” she said. “Eh?” Ah, I got it! It was an actual question.
“Well .
.
. I .
.
.”
“That’s right. Nothing.”
Not true! I did mountains of brain-gym exercises, and on
Championship Manager
I got Albion Rovers all the way to the Champions League final, which took flippin’ donkey’s weeks to do. We lost 3–1 to Hertha Berlin. We had a tough time in that final.
“You’ve not done a thing, Dylan.”
“I’ve—’
“Sat up in that room most of the time. You’ve hardly been out the door.”
“Not exactly correct, Mom.”
“You’ll become obese sitting in front of a computer day in, day out.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Don’t think so.”
“You will, Dylan.”
“WON’T.” I didn’t mean to shout, but I don’t enjoy the feeling I have in my tummy when I’m made out to be an eejit. What Mom didn’t know was that I had a Strictly No Munching Policy when sitting at my keyboard, so the obese thingy was a fat red duck. Then I put my chin down on my chest and whispered to myself, “I won’t become obese.”
“And you know who they’ll blame. Eh?”
“Who?”
“Me, that’s who, and your father .
.
. if he was here.”
“Who’s ‘
they’
?”
“Your teachers, for a start. The folk at the clinic and the neighbors.”
“Mom, I’m a hundred and twelve pounds. I have to do the crucifix position when I’m walking over drains.”
Mom looked up at the ceiling. “Jesus! And now blasphemy.”
Blah-blah blasphemy. Mom lobbed in big mad words when she was losing the argument and wanted to teach me the lesson that
old people know the score
. But I knew what that word meant.
“Mom, I’m not going to become obese.”
“That’s what Tim Thompson’s mom thought.”
“Tim Thompson’s not obese.”
“No? You tell that to his trousers.” Tee-hee-hee. Mom cracked a funny. I love when Mom goes all stand-up.
“He’s just got a bit of a pudgy belly.”
Tim Thompson, a.k.a. Doughnut. Not because he shoves doughnuts in his gobby gob, but because his pouch looks like a massive round sugar-plum doughnut. Doughnut is the most horriblest person at Drumhill: he’s one of the baddies who love using the words nig-nog, Paki, mongo, and spazzie. This was another paradox (I think), because here I was doing a mad defending job on him when, really, I couldn’t stand him. If Doughnut went to school in America, he’d be known as the school dork or douche bag. At Drumhill he was just Doughnut the dick.
“Well, all I’m saying, Dylan, is that I don’t want you sitting up in that room all the time. It’s not good for you. It’s not healthy.”
“It’s not as if I’m hurting anyone.”
“You’re fading away.”
“Make up your mind! One minute I’m Blubber Boy and the next I’m Sammy the Stick.” Sometimes moms are real-deal barmy; no wonder someone invented the padded cell.
“I mean your mind is fading away, Dylan. Oh, you know what I mean.”
“Look, Mom, I wish I could stay here all day and do some chatting, but I have to boost or I’m going to be late.”
“So why are you still standing here talking? You don’t want to be late on your first day back. Good God in heaven, I don’t know!”
I made a grab for my brand-new bag.
Gray rucksack.
No name.
No logo.
Jaggy diggy-in straps.
Stiff zip.
Rough as an old potato sack.
A killer on the back.
Everyone would know it was out of Kmart, Walmart,
or some other nasty cheapo shop. Mom didn’t tell me where it came from. I didn’t ask.
See, I was one of those cats who began a new school year decked head to toe in new gear. I never understood why, though, because I liked the last set of clothes I had. I think it was just to show that we weren’t really,
really
poor and didn’t have leather carpets or empty kitchen cupboards. But they were bottom-of-the-barrel cheapo outfits whichever way you looked at them. My new clothes told me that we were a teeny-weeny bit poor. Not as poor as the mega-poor kids, though, the ones with a bad odor off them, the borderline bums—they’ve got zilch. Their pot to piss in has a hole in it. They never have new bags or shirts or shoes or anything. It’s a sin. I feel heart-sorry for them.