When Mr. Dog Bites (35 page)

“A-mayonnaise-ing.”

She laughs. YEEEESSSS. I make Michelle Malloy laugh.

“You are fucking mad as a bottle of crisps, aren’t you, Mint?”

I want to make her laugh again. I want to make her laugh all night. “A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, ‘Sorry, we don’t serve food in here.’”

She doesn’t laugh.

I jump off the bed. “Want to listen to some Marvin Gaye?”

But it’s too late—Michelle Malloy clocks it. Her eyes aren’t on my eyes. No siree. She’s staring at my Matalan jeans, which are a crap fit. I’ve forgotten all about my willy.

“Wow, Mint. I am impressed.”

“No .
.
. Shit .
.
. Sorry .
.
. I didn’t mean .
.
. It’s not mine .
.
. COCK .
.
. Shit!”

“Relax, Mint. I’m paying you a compliment.”

“You are?”

“A fucking big one.”

Her fucking big compliment matches her big smile.

“So will I put Marvin Gaye on, then?”

“You’d better do it quick.”

*

I’m not going to talk about the nitty gritty or any Dirty Biz, but know this: it was capital letters

RUDETUBE

A-MAYONNAISE-ING

BONKERINOS

SHIZENHOWZEN

JEEZE LOUISE

and

NO WAY, JOSÉ

all rolled into one.

Afterward we did some hugging and holding of each other while looking at the stains on my ceiling. Not even the twenty-watt could hide them. Under the covers I rubbed my foot up and down Michelle Malloy’s misshapen foot. Her foot felt as though it had been made out of a big piece of clay, her toes like little zucchinis poking out from the bottom of it. I sooooooooooo badly wanted my foot to transmit to her foot that I’d always be there for it, that I’d always take care of it, and that I’d try to protect it from any badasses out there. I wanted to kiss Michelle Malloy’s misshapen foot all over, play tongue sword fighting with her wee toes, and tell all five of them that I’d love them forever. Maybe even tell Michelle Malloy, MY gf, that I loved her forever as well.

“Babe?” I said.

“Yes, hun.”

“Did I tell you that I met a Dutch girl with these mega inflatable shoes last week?”

“No.”

“I phoned her up for a date but she’d already popped her clogs.”

My gf lay beside me laughing.

Heart rate: normal.

Actual heart: swollen.

*

Once it was just me and Amir. A best-bud twosome. But now we’re a foursome, like
Friends
except without Phoebe and Ross. And we know that what doesn’t kill
us
will make us stronger.

Now that’s what I do call Billy Blazing Bonkers.

Eh?

What?

Life!

30

Good-bye

77 Blair Road

ML5 1QE

December 15

Mr. Mint,

Mom told me everything, so don’t try to deny it. I’m not writing this to tell you about the pure brilliant things I have been getting up to; all I will say is that there have been millions. But you’ll never know what they are, ever. I’m not going to talk about soccer, school stuff, girls, or my future plans either. I just wanted to write so I could get something off my chest. I want to tell you that you are the baddest man I have ever known, possibly even badder than that mad doc in England who killed all his patients because they were too old and therefore a pain in his arse. But the thing about that psycho doc is that he didn’t use his wife as a human punching bag every other week and leave her black and blue, lying in her own blood and tears on the living-room rug. Did he? No he didn’t, because I checked it out on Google and it said “
he was a loyal and loving husband
,” which is something you definitely were not, and I feel heart sorry for Mom for having to put up with you for all those years. If it were me instead of Mom that you were punching for fun, I’d have had your arse for garters and dragged it down to the nearest cop shop quick style. No man has the right to lift his hand to any woman. No man. Even if he is a frustrated dad on the dole with no job prospects. Okay? Mom agrees with this.

I also think that you must be one of the stupidest robbers, if not
the
stupidest, that Scotland has ever known. I mean, who goes to do a post-office job using their own car
and
without a mask? What a wally! If we had been born in Ohio, Utah, or North or South Dakota, I would have entered you in that program,
America’s Dumbest Criminals
, so you’re lucky we weren’t. But what you did to that poor man and woman who ran the wee post office makes you much more evil than Evel Knievel ever was. I was ashamed to be associated with the name Mint when I heard that story.

Amir said you were a gutless wonder because you didn’t have the balls to write back and tell me the truth about where you are now living. Living; that’s a laugh! I felt worse than a gutless wonder, because I thought you were an actual war hero fighting the Axis of Evil, but all along you were in Barlinnie doing a fifteen-year stretch for aggravated robbery because YOU were Evil. You made me feel like a pure zoomer. Amir was right about you. I also told Amir that you are a nasty racist pig because you called the guy who has the corner shop down the road from us horrible names all the time, and whenever people with different-colored skin came on the telly you called them “
apes”
and “
jungle bunnies
.” Amir agreed with me, and he should know, because he has to face nasty racist pigs every day of his life. So you better watch it when you get out of that place, because me and Amir hate nasty racist pigs and aim to hunt them down and run them out of town. Miss Flynn said that society has no place for racists and I agree with her, but that’s all I’m going to tell you about school. For the record I also think that society has no place for racists and robbers and men who use women as human punching bags and dads who can’t be arsed to play with their children. I think you are in the best place for people like you.

If you really weren’t arsed with having a son, then you should have said so when I was in Mom’s belly. I’m sorry that me being a Tourette’s sufferer was such a mega embarrassment for you. I didn’t ask to have it. It wasn’t my fault. You can’t just catch it like the sneezes. You don’t get it because you have been bad or are ugly or something—you’re just born with it. It’s just your Donald Duck! I was innocent, unlike you, you guilty man. I was the one everyone stared at and laughed at and took the piss out of, not you. Anyway, things have changed now: my Tourette’s goalposts have been well and truly shifted. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but I will: I went to see this amazing new doc who has developed this super-duper mouth brace that stops all the tics and twitches and grunts and barks. It’s utterly mind-blowing. I bet if you were here and loved your son, you would be dead proud, because no one can tell the difference between a normal guy walking down the street and me, but you will never get to see the new me, ever, not after what you’ve done.

I’ve got, like, a new dad now. Well, I know he’s not my blood dad, but we do things that other dads and sons do, which means we are just the same as a dad and son. No one can tell the difference. He’s got a job as well. A cool, proper job. See, when the soccer is on the telly I’m now allowed to shout at it and have an opinion about formations and tactics, and we play a brilliant new game called
If I Were the Coach
during the match. We also listen to all this new music like Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Button Up, and the Jam. It’s twenty-five times better than that doof-doof music you used to listen to all the time. We read cool books about cool stuff, like Friedrich Nietzsche—you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s this brilliant philosopher. I think I might even do something like that myself when I finish school. We also go for long drives in his groovy car up the Trossachs or the Campsies, which I never even knew existed before now. Wonder why? He also takes me to the industrial estate, where he teaches me to back up, do three-point turns, and parallel park. His car is in your parking space, which is now his parking space; it looks really good from the living-room window. We don’t miss your car any longer. Our new house is going to have driveway space for TWO cars—his and mine—when I pass my test. I’ll probably get an old banger like yours to start off with. Best of all, though, is that he DOESN’T use Mom as a human punching bag.

I’m going to go now, because I’ve a million and one things I need to be doing and I can’t be spending all my precious time writing letters to someone who never thought of writing back. Not even once. The bold Amir says that maybe you can’t actually write. And when I reread that letter you wrote me last December I thought,
Mmmmmm, maybe Amir is right about that
. I ripped it up, by the way. I don’t want letters from you now. This will be my last one to you. Last night I typed “
100 things to do before you die”
into Google and it came up with tons of really cool stuff for me to be cracking on with, so me, Amir, this girl called Priya (you wouldn’t like her, because she’s Indian), and Michelle Malloy (my new angel g
f
) are going to try to do as many as we can. But the belter thing is that none of us is actually going to die. Well, we will one day, but not for a

long

long

long

time.

Good-bye and Good Luc
k
.

Dylan Mint

(No xxx this time)

Acknowledgments

You wouldn’t be reading this book right now without the following people. My wonderful and inimitable agent, Ben Illis at The BIA, for his savvy eye, support, and continued guidance. The whole crew at Bloomsbury, who have worked diligently on the novel, especially my editor, Rebecca McNally, who took my hand and walked me through the murky waters of Mr. Dog; her suggestions throughout were brilliant. Helen Garnons-Williams and Madeleine Stevens, whose kind words, graft, and guile made Dylan and his cohorts shine even brighter.

I’d like to thank Sinéad Boyce for casting her beady eye over early drafts of the book; her work continues to be invaluable to me. And Yvonne Kinsella at Prizeman & Kinsella for recommending
When Mr. Dog Bites
as a possible title . . .
I wish I could take the credit for this, but I can’t. So thanks for allowing me to use it.

I would like to thank my friends and family.

Finally, I’d like to thank my great friend Norrie Malloy, who I knew was deeply proud of his mate’s writing career, even though he took to calling me Jessica Fletcher from
Murder, She Wrote
. Just sorry you couldn’t have held a copy in your hands. This book is dedicated to you.

Copyright © 2013 by Brian Conaghan

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise

make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,

printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication

may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published as When Mr Dog Bites in Great Britain in January 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Published in the United States of America in June 2014 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

E-book edition published in June 2014

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books,

1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Conaghan, Brian.

When Mr. Dog bites / Brian Conaghan.

pages       cm

Summary: All seventeen-year-old Dylan Mint wants is to keep his Tourette’s in check

and live as a normal teen, but during a routine hospital visit he overhears that he is going

to die, and in an attempt to claim the life he has always wanted he makes a list of

“Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It” and sets out to have some fun.

ISBN 978-1-61963-346-9 (hardcover)  •  ISBN 978-1-61963-347-6 (e-book)

[1. Tourette syndrome—Fiction. 2. Terminally ill—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—