Free When Mr. Dog Bites by Brian Conaghan Page B

no?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who was it?”
    “They didn’t say.”
    “Who didn’t say?”
    “They didn’t say anything.”
    “Who?”
    “The person on the other end.”
    “What person on the other end?”
    “They only breathed a wee bit.”
    “Breathed?”
    “No words, just breathing.”
    “Did you not ask who was speaking?”
    “I did, but they didn’t reply.”
    I could hear Mom muttering to herself. Not like a mad mentalist; more like she was raging bull about something.
    “Go and get me some used tea bags, Dylan.”

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    Date
    I had to spring into action. No Coke or chocolate injection would do for this dude, no siree. October’s leaves were yellowy red and scattered all over the ground, making my front yard look like one massive pizza.
    I was lying in my scratcher staring at the ceiling and thinking that Michelle Malloy was one funny bunny. One funny minx of a bunny. The chat outside the toilet was good for several reasons:
     
    1. She cracked a joke.
    2. She didn’t hit me.
    3. She said the word “ wank ,” which is capital letter CRAZY, as she’s a girl—but not just any girl!
     
    It was time for this knight to spring into action and slay that dragon once and for all. Eminem sprang me into action. It was time to tackle the Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It list. And, as Fräulein Maria says, let’s go to the very beginning . . . or something like that.
     
    Number one: Have real sexual intercourse with a girl. (Preferably Michelle Malloy, and definitely not on a train or any other mode of transport. If possible, the intercoursing will be at her house.)
     
    I couldn’t drink booze or smoke the wacky baccy, so it was up to Eminem to give me some Dutch courage. I don’t know why they use this phrase, because I haven’t met any courageous Dutch people yet. I bopped around my room to the song “ Business.” It was tough trying to sing along, though. Scottish people singing rap is a bit like black American bagpipe players. Totally weird as! I only rapped the odd word here or there. Mom hated the rap music I listened to; she said it polluted the brain cells and would turn me into an NED (a Non-Educated Delinquent) or a G-man. (Mom didn’t actually say G-man.) When it was blaring, I had to pretend to be a loopy Tourette’s guy so I could sing along to all the swear words.
    “Turn that bloody racket off, Dylan,” Mom shouted, banging on the wall between our rooms.
    “Sorry, Mom,” I said, but I wasn’t that sorry.
    “Don’t be sorry, just turn it down—or, preferably, off. I’ve told you what that stuff can do.”
    “Okay.”
    I put in my earphones instead and blasted “ Cleanin’ Out My Closet” into my lugs. I rapped for a wee bit, but at the end of the day Eminem wasn’t working for me; I think he was too close to my brain cells. In its place I searched for the perfect song that would brilliantly capture this momentous moment, something that could sum everything up in a three-minute tune. I flicked through billions of songs on my iPod until I found it: “ This Is the One” by the Stone Roses. If you lob away the verses of the song, this was what I was feeling in my head. Also in my head was the dreaded fear, and when the dreaded fear enters the old napper, that’s when the tics and the howling start too. And sometimes the hitting. And the more I try to rid my head of the dreaded fear, the more it builds and builds and builds, like a giant snowman being made from a tiny snowball. But I sort of knew that that’s what would happen. There’s not really much I can do about it when it gets to that stage. It was something I had to find “coping mechanisms” for, as Miss Flynn kept telling me. My coping mechanism was my pal.
    When the day came to slay Michelle Malloy, Amir said he would be a best bud and meet me before we got to school in order to help me calm the jets or cool my beans. I suspected this was in case Doughnut tried to jump him at the school gates and nothing to do