Free Just a Dog by Gerard Michael Bauer Page B

that just got louder and louder until Mum hugged me even tighter and that made it twice as bad and I couldn’t stop myself. Then Dad lost his temper and said, ‘That’s enough! It’s not like one of us has died. It’s just a dog, for god’s sake.’
    And that’s when it happened, exactly how I told you about already. That’s when my mumpunched my dad. She just sort of stood up and turned round and she was shaking her head and staring at Dad like she didn’t know who he was. Then she hit him on the chest with the back of her fist and said, ‘Don’t you say that!’ And Dad just stared at her like he didn’t know who she was either and Mum started crying and hitting Dad’s chest as if she was trying to beat down a wall or something and saying, ‘Don’t you
say
that! Don’t you
dare
say
that!’
    I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted Mum and Dad to stop looking at each other that way. I wanted Mister Mosely to jump up and stand between them and growl at them and show them his teeth and be big and strong and scary and make it all end. But he didn’t. He didn’t do anything. He just lay there wrapped up in that sheet.
    So I did it. I squeezed between Mum and Dad but I couldn’t growl like Mister Moe or be scary like him so I yelled as loud as I could for them to stop and I shouted, ‘I hate you!’ even though that wasn’t really true. But it worked just the same because Mum stopped hitting Dad and they stopped looking at each other and they looked at me instead. Then Mum started to cry like shedid that day with the sheet and she just sort of let herself fall forward and her head hit on Dad’s chest.
    We stayed like that for a while, Dad just standing there and Mum crying and me stuck between them. And all the time Mister Mosely just lay on the grass all wrapped up and he didn’t move and he didn’t whine and he didn’t wag his tail because it really was true and I knew it.
    Mister Mosely was gone.

26 Mister Mosely’s New Place
    We buried Moe in the back corner of our yard behind the trellis near the mango tree. Dad dug the hole while I watched and got water for him. It was a hot day and he was sweating a lot.
    The hole Dad dug was a big one and the sides were all neat and straight and everything. It looked like a person hole, not like a ‘just a dog’ sort of a one. When it was finished I went and called Mum. Grace was asleep in her cot. Amelia wasn’t there at all. She was at Grandma’s for the day. Mum said Amelia was ‘a bit young for all this’.
    Dad pulled back the sheet a little bit so we could see Mister Mosely one last time. I didn’t want to pat him and feel him all cold again, but Mum puther finger on his black tear dot just like I did on the porch. Then she touched the big heart spots on his chest and said, ‘way too big to fit inside. Way too big’ and sort of whispered, ‘It’s all over, Moe. No more pain now,’ before she got all teary and sniffy and put her arm around me.
    Then Dad wrapped the sheet back around Mister Mosely and carried him over to the hole. He had to kneel down and lean right over to lay Mister Mosely down in it. It looked a bit like Mum putting Grace into her cot. And it made me think of all these other things too like when Dad lifted Mister Mosely up from under the garage and that time at the vet’s when he carried Moe and me to the car and all the other times he carried Moe up and down the back stairs when the cancer made his legs too weak. I had to stop thinking about stuff like that because my eyes started burning.
    We didn’t say any prayers or make any speeches or anything when we buried Mister Mosely. Mum just said, ‘So long, Mister Moe. Thanks for everything.’ And I thought I was going to bawl like a little kid again so I had to blink my eyes and just stare really hard into the hole. That’s when I saw