When Mr. Dog Bites Page 10
“Michelle Malloy gave you a big giant rubber ear. HA!” Charlotte said, a witch cackling.
Charlotte Duffy and Michelle Malloy weren’t big boob-buddies, so I didn’t know how she knew all the juicy gossip. I’d say that Michelle Malloy’s brain was way too advanced for her and Charlotte Duffy to be anywhere near friends. I was positive Charlotte Duffy’s brain was half the size of a normal brain. She used to pick at her bogging ears and chew the wax, and before that she used to say to the boys in the normal school that she’d yank their ying-yangs so hard that their goo-goo would come out. Crazy with a capital C.
I couldn’t Adam and Eve it that she knew about Michelle Malloy. News spread around school like a gaggle of One Direction fans.
“Who told you that pish?”
“Everyone knows.”
“Bet they don’t.”
“Bet they do.”
“I don’t give a hairy arse, Charlotte.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“DO!”
“DON’T.” I think my shout silenced her a bit.
“I don’t blame her. I mean, look at the state of you,” she said.
“Look at the state of you,” I said.
“State of you.”
“State of you.”
“STATE OF FUCKING YOU!” she roared.
“STATE OF FUCKING YOU!” I roared back. The pressure was rising. Mr. Dog was simmering. I’d never wanted to scud a girl as much in all my puff.
“Look at you. You’ve got a face like a painter’s radio, Mint.”
“So, you’ve got a fanny like a ripped-out fireplace.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“NO, YOU SHUT UP.”
“YOU’VE GOT AN ARSE LIKE A BAG OF WASHING,” I shouted for real—it was nothing to do with Tourette’s. I didn’t mean to say these awful things. I only said them because Charlotte was being vile to me. I wasn’t even the one who threw the lion book at her in the first place.
“SHUT UP, HORRIBLE BASTARD!” she screamed, before smashing her head on the desk. I think she was bubbling away to herself; her shoulders were doing the crying boogie dance. I felt the opposite of a love song, but Charlotte Duffy bloody well deserved it. It wasn’t my fault that she’d decided she was going to be in a mental mood all day. Before I had the chance to turn back to Amir, she popped her head up from the desk and bawled, “DYLAN MINT, YOU’RE A DIRTY FUCKING SHITBAG, AND I HOPE YOU DIE!” She would regret saying that when March came.
I didn’t know what annoyed me most, being called a “Paki shagger” or everyone knowing that Michelle Malloy had given me a Big Knock-back. I wasn’t an expert in social things, but I was pretty sure Charlotte Duffy was being an atrocious racist beast when she said that I was a “Paki shagger.” I’m only saying this because I don’t think she meant that I had actually shagged someone from Pakistan, which I haven’t, and that’s not because I’m racist—I just hadn’t met anyone, other than Amir and his family, whom I hadn’t officially met met, but I knew they were from Pakistan, and I knew for a fact that I hadn’t shagged Amir or anyone from his family. So far I hadn’t shagged anyone from any country or any city in the world. Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It: Number one clearly said this. I did hope Charlotte Duffy didn’t think Amir and me were bare-arse boxers. I hoped nobody in the school thought that way.
Aaarrrghhh. I was boiling mad.
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists because I didn’t want to pounce on Charlotte Duffy, kick her desk, lob chairs at her, or introduce her to Mr. Dog. I kept my eyes tightly closed. Miss Flynn told me to try to solve random problems in my head when I got stressed out or felt like I wanted to freak out with my hands or tongue. Since I was rank rotten at math I did other problem-solving things. Miss Flynn called them brain-gym exercises.
So with my eyes in the darkness, to cool the jets, I did some brain gym. I tried to find another team in the Scottish, En-glish, Welsh, or Irish soccer leagues with the letter J in their name—apart from St. Johnstone, that is.
I couldn’t find any.
With my head on my desk I imagined scoring the winner for Scotland in the World Cup final after diving to get my noggin on the end of a rapido counterattacking move. I knew this wasn’t a brain-gym exercise or the solving of a difficult problem, but it put a supercharged brake on my jets.
*
When I opened my eyes I noticed that Amir’s shoulders were also doing the crying boogie dance.
“Are you okay, Amir, me old mucker?”
“I can’t believe you said that to her.” He was giggling; his shoulders were doing the cheery boogie dance.
“Said what?”
“That her fa-fa-fanny was like a ripped-out fireplace.”
“Did you not hear what she said to me?”
“Classic.”
“She deserved it.”
“I know.”
“What was up with you this morning?” I asked him, which seemed to bring back all his memories from earlier.
“Same old shite.”
“What same old shite?”
“All the stuff about curry breath and stop stealing our jobs and Pakis can’t play soccer. I’m sick of it.”
“Who was it? Doughnut again?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“Snot Rag and Skittle.”
“Snot Rag and Skittle?”
“Skittle, mainly.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t take any crap from him.”
“What can I do?”
“Just nudge that wee clown, and he’ll fall over.”
“It’s every day now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Amir?”
“Because you have your own things to worry about.”
“So?”
“And Michelle Malloy gave you a big rubber ear.”
“Okay.”
“Well, she did.”
“Okay.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I heard you, Amir, for the love of f . . . ,” I said.
“What can I do, Dylan?”
“What about?”
“All the Paki stuff.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, you could have a square go with Skittle.”
“Have you seen me fighting, Dylan?” Big miserable face had returned to Amir.
“I wasn’t serious, Amir.”
“I don’t think I want to come to school anymore.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I wish I was a top scrapper; then I’d just give them a dink to the jaw and that’d be the end of it.”
“They never say anything to you when I’m around,” I said.
“They wouldn’t dare,” Amir said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go.”
“Do you think I smell of curry?”
Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, what a question for one best bud to ask another best bud. If I gave my honest answer, it would have made a meteor dent in our best bud days. My eyes flicked like a camera.
“Do you?”
“Erm, of course not.”
“Really?”
“Don’t listen to any of those plebs, Amir.”
“So, no curry smell?”
“No, none.”
“You m-m-mean that?”
“’Course I do.”
“So I don’t stink of curry, then?”
“No, Amir, you don’t stink of curry.”
“But Skittle said—”
“Next time you just ask them why they always reek of grease and chips and pish and farts, then see what they have to say.” I had to tell porkies through my teeth so Amir wouldn’t tell me that he didn’t want to be best buds anymore, which was too scary to think about.
Imagine it!
I’d be left to kick stones about the playground on my own, and I’d have nobody t
o send text messages to, and nobody to talk dirty to either. I had to porky pie. Mine was a white lie. I felt rubbish after saying it to him, but the truth truth was that the bold Amir came to school loads smelling like he’d just popped out of Korma Chameleon’s kitchen after a twenty-four-hour sweaty shift. I didn’t mind—I quite like the smell of curry in the classroom. It was one of my fave foods anyway, and the reek always got me in the mood for my din-dins. The curry smell sure as hell beat the constant whiff of bum pong that hovered about the school. Almost every student at Drumhill reeked of something ming, like cabbage, farts, grease, and damp towels. Give me Amir’s smell any day. I used Axe Apollo every day, sometimes twice a day, so I was all right in the pong department.
“But why does everyone keep saying it, Dylan?”
“I think it’s the color of your skin, Amir.”
“The color of my skin?”
“Yes.”
“What’s up with the color of my skin?” Amir asked, as if he didn’t know. Honestly, butter wouldn’t have dissolved in the mouth of that laddie.
“I think some people don’t like it.”
“But why?”
“Some people are scared of it.”
“How the bloody hell can you be scared of someone’s skin?”
“I don’t know, mate, but some people seem to be offended by other people’s skin color.” Amir looked at me similar to the way I look at Mom when the sad clouds float over me and she makes everything A-okay by giving me one of her hug specials. I wanted to give him a hug special, and then perhaps he’d return to sunshine and happy Amir. If I did hug him, though, Charlotte Duffy would probably put it all over Facebook that I was a Paki shagger for real.
“But how can you be offended by something like skin, Dylan?”
“I don’t know, Amir, but some evil people are.”
“But skin doesn’t even t-t-talk.”
“It’s crazy, I know.”
“You bet it’s crazy, Dylan. You bet it in the nearest bookie shop it’s crazy.”
“It’s Billy Bonking Bonkers.”
“I j-j-just don’t understand it.”
“It’s like one of those mad questions that we can never answer,” I said to Amir.
“Like why do we have the same word for bark on a tree and bark for a dog’s talking?”
“Or why ‘gay’ means to have it off with another guy and to be dead happy?”
“Exactly, Dylan. Exactly.”
“I mean, how can you be dead happy if another guy is putting his ting-tang in your bu-bu-bumbaleery? Eh? Answer me that, Amir?” There was no answer, as the world was off its rocker.
“I don’t really know, Dylan,” he said.
Sometimes me and Amir would go off on one and say the barmiest things that would never ever enter the minds of normal human beings. “Normal people don’t ask such things,” Mrs. Seed always said to Amir in class when he asked his Whack Attack question.
“No, I don’t know either, I suppose.”
“I do know it’s not normal to hate people just because of their skin,” Amir said.
“I know.”
“I mean, you’d need to be mentally retarded to hate skin.”
“But Skittle and Snot Rag are retarded, Amir,” I said.
“Suppose.”
“See? No need to worry.”
I knew we were all retarded, but those two were more retarded because they did extra-retarded things like seeing who could hold their pee in the longest before shooting it out pretending that it was a fireman’s hose, or seeing who could pee the highest in the bog stalls, or seeing who had the smelliest finger after sticking it up their own bum. Me and Amir never did anything as batty as that.
“Yeah . . . but . . . still.”
“I agree, it’s not right.”
“I think I want to go home,” Amir said.
“Don’t do that, Amir.”
“You did it when Michelle Malloy gave you a massive ru-ru-rubber ear.”
“Aw, cheers.”
“Sorry, but you know what I mean. I’m fed up with it all.”
“Yes, but I got into mega trouble, and I didn’t really do anything when I went home.”
“What did you do?”
“Mainly sat in my room.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing really, just random stuff.”
“Nude girls?”
“No.”
“Bet you were.”
“Bet I wasn’t.”
“I bet you were all over the Internet.”
“Bet I wasn’t.”
“Bet you were looking at blow jobs and pumping,” he said, looking around before he said the words “blow jobs” and “pumping,” which he whispered.
“Bet I wasn’t.” This was a proper LOL moment, but I didn’t LOL.
“Bet you were.” I was just about to give Amir a dead arm, in a best-bud way, when out of the corner of my left eye I saw him.
Skittle.
He hobbled into the classroom dragging his wonky legs behind him. Amir put his head on the desk. Charlotte Duffy took her head off her desk and blew me a colossal raspberry and did a man-fiddling-with-himself gesture with her hand, as if to say that I was a masturbator.
I twirled my index fingers around my temples in return.
Touché, Charlotte Duffy!
I walked over to Skittle’s desk. The bell was about to go, and people were streaming and shuffling into the room. I had to make this quick. Darn snaptastic quick. I still had to keep my promise to help my best bud Amir and remember Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It: Number two: Make Amir a happy chappy again instead of a miserable c***! This was a perfect moment to prove to him what I was all about, to show him what he’d be missing when I was gone.
“Skittle, I’ve got a wee bone to pick with you,” I said, trying to act all cool and hard like the T-Birds from Grease.
“What?”
“What’s with you taking the piss out of Amir all the time?”
“What?”
“You heard, Skittle. You’ve been ripping the piss out of Amir.”
“What are you on about, you mongo?”
“You’d better well pack it in,” I said, putting on my best Hard Man Who Doesn’t Take No Shit from Nobody face, which we learned to do in Mr. Grant’s drama class.
“Or else what?”
“I’m just saying, pack it in, all right?”
“Shut your gub, cock-bawz.”
“If I see you doing it again . . .”
Then Skittle stood closer to me and puffed his wee chest out like people do when they want a piece of the action or want to go to town, which we also learned in Mr. Grant’s class. Come to think of it, Mr. Grant’s class was all about standing up for yourself and taking no crap from no one and having a go and duffing up folk.
“. . . Or what?” he said.
This was exactly the same as our drama class improvi-sations (which I loved), except this was for real. I could smell the grease off Skittle’s breath. Oh, sugar of a shitey stick, I thought. What now?
“I’m telling you, Skittle . . .”
“What are you going to do about it, Dildo, eh?” he said, and moved even closer so that we were touching man boobs.
That was when Skittle made me majorly nervous. I’m not that comfortable with people I hardly know being so close to me. I cleared my throat so aggressively loudly it made him back off a smidgen. When I say cleared my throat, it was more like a wolf pack clearing their throats. When Skittle backed off a smidgen, this told me that I had the upper hand in our tussle, and I remembered that Dad always told me whenever I had the upper hand in tussles: “Never, NEVER back down. Stand your bloody ground and then always, ALWAYS advance.” This was invaluable advice from the military, coming direct from top brass, so it had to be good advice. I took it. Just like Dad did when guys inside and outside the pub “fucked with his karma.” Bad move to do that when mili
tary experts are involved.
“I’ll knock your bloody racist block off, that’s what I’ll do,” I said. At the same moment my head started twitching and ticcing.
“Shut up, Tic Tac, and go back to your fucking monkey,” he said, nodding to Amir.
“What did you say?”
“I said . . .” He moved closer to me again, meaning my advance was rubbish. “. . . Shove it up your mom’s stinking kipper, Tourette’s Boy.”
Wow!
Wait a blinking minute!
Hold the Goddamn press!
Un-be-liev-able.
A comment like this was a red carpet to a bull shopping in a place that sells nothing but mountains of cut-glass crystal.
Always advance.
“You gammy-legged wee twat.” I cat-pounced and grabbed him so tight around the neck with one hand that I felt his Adam’s apple wobble in my thumb. I squeezed hard until his face went alcoholic-nose red. Then I booted one of his gammy legs below the knee, and that was it. Skittle fell to the floor like a sack of spuds.
Crash!
Bang!
Wallop!
Amir was groaning and whooping up the back. Charlotte Duffy screamed and pulled at her hair, mad excited. Mentalist.
“What do you have to say now, you wee tosspot?” I shouted down at Skittle.
He was curled up in a ball and shaking uncontrollably. I was thinking of taking a penalty, but that would have been taking liberties, and I am not a liberty-taker. In any case, before I could cock back my left foot (that’s my strongest), Mr. Comeford roared, “ENOUGH, DYLAN MINT!” into my face, grabbed me full force by the collar, and huckled me really aggressively out of the room Flash Gordon–style. My shirt collar ripped. And, because I tucked my shirt into my pants, my pants got yanked right up my bum, and my bum and ball-sack hurt like a mofo. I thought of having Mr. Comeford charged with Grievous Bodily Harm and the ripping of private property and the hurting of my bum-hole/ball-sack combo. But damn! Blast! Mom and I didn’t have a brief or the brass to get me any of the top legal minds in Scotland. The upshot was, I didn’t do anything else about the issue of Mr. Comeford’s assault on me. But the more I thought about it, the more I could have had that man’s arse on a plate. I could see the headline: Teacher Tampers with Terminal Teenager.