Free When Mr. Dog Bites by Brian Conaghan

GROUND AND STAND OVER THERE,” he said, pointing to a part of the field that was far away from where I was. “MANZOOR, STOP ROLLING AROUND IN THE GRASS LIKE A BLOODY STUPID STRAY DOG AND GET ON YOUR FEET, SON.”
    I heard him say, “Fuckin’ ******” under his breath as Amir was getting up. I wasn’t 100 percent sure if the “******” was “Paki,” “darkie,” or “spazzie,” but I was almost 85 percent sure that whatever it was, it was a shocker word. A word like that could have made the papers, coming from a teacher. I don’t think Mr. Comeford cared that much for the students at Drumhill.
    “GAME OVER,” he shouted into the air, then blew his whistle really loud.
    The Shawhead teacher shook his head as if this were a ploy to have the game abandoned. But the game was abandoned for real. Would that mean we wouldn’t lose the points?
    As the Shawhead team was hobbling off to get the bus back to their school, Doughnut dished out some flying kung fu kicks to any Shawhead player near him. Skittle and Snot Rag weren’t too far behind him, but they were just dishing out pretend kicks, as if they were playing the Keeping Up with the Joneses game. Being a lover and not a fighter, I decided to do no violent acts.
    But I couldn’t stop me being me.
    “FUCKING SPAZZIES . . . SHAWHEAD SPAZZIES.” My hands were hurting because of all the tight fist-clenching. “KNOB SUCKER,” I screamed at Comeford. My knees hurt from the banging; two wee twigs crashing against each other, sore as hell. “KNOB NUZZLER.” It was painful, but the words kept coming.
    “YOU, GET INTO THE SCHOOL,” Comeford said, pointing his finger at me and wiggling it toward the school building. “NOW, MINT.”
    And I sprinted there like a young Allan Wells (who won the gold medal for Great Britain in the hundred meters at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 with a time of 10.25 seconds, which is a rubbish time that wouldn’t even get him into the semis nowadays. And he only won gold because all the good sprinters boycotted the games—well, their countries did—because the Soviet Union in 1980 was a place for mentalists). When I got into the school building, I didn’t know what to do or where to go or who to speak to. The place was silent. I took myself to the nearest corner and stood really close to the angle of the corner’s V shape, counted to ten, said all the consonants in the alphabet, then tried to say an animal beginning with each consonant, did my breathing exercises, and played a tune from the air that was streaming out of my nose. The William Tell Overture. We do that in music with Miss Adams—well, we try to, but we end up sounding like the Bonkers Orchestra for the Deaf. I wished I had Green to move between my fingers, but it was in my blinkin’ school trousers.
    No one came for ages. I was on the letter X .
    Tap.
    I was on the letter X for ages.
    Tap.
    I couldn’t think of an animal with the letter X . Or a word.
    I thought of Michelle Malloy, because X reminded me of the word “ sex,” and Michelle Malloy reminded me of sex.
    Tap on the shoulder.
    Woman smell gusted up my hooter: makeup and perfume mixed together.
    Boy, was I glad to see Miss Flynn. So glad that I flung my arms around her neck, like when I score a goal. But there was no goal joy. I belted it all out into her chest. Which was mega weird because I could feel her boobs against my own boy boobs and I was worried in case my willy was going to get angry, but this took my mind off the incident with Doughnut. I continued to bubble, though. Just in case. I wanted to be in Miss Flynn’s office sitting on her big comfy chair, listening to the groovy tunes she played to “ soothe” me. She also put up these wacky posters to get us “reflecting” and help us feel better. “ That which does not kill us makes us stronger” by some dude called Friedrich Nietzsche was my numero uno. Friedrich Nietzsche’s job was to sit around THINKING about all this pure mad