A Dog's Breakfast (3 page)

‘No, not that …' I sniffed the air again. ‘More like meat. It's stronger now. Did you bring a sandwich?'

‘Of course I did! Everyone had to.'

I glared at him, then shrugged. ‘Must be that, then,' I said. I didn't mention that Glen's face seemed a little, well, more
pink
than it had been before.

Now, here's the thing. When Glen went into the bathroom to wash his face the next morning, he didn't recognise himself in the mirror. I know this because I know what he was turning into. His skin must have been bright pink and glistening as if it was coated with grease.

He would have been getting the smell, too, by then. The smell I'd started to get the day before.

Meat. Ham, to be more precise.

Very useful thing, ham, especially if you're hungry. Much more useful than Glen, though he probably didn't think that.

If he poked his cheek with his fingers, he'd have found that his skin was damp and soft, squidgy in a way it had never been before.

‘This is
ridiculous
,' he must have said. I can just hear him saying that. Then the look on his face when he remembered he wasn't supposed to say or do anything nasty. Not if he wanted to stop turning into something …
useful.

But surely that didn't count. Did it? If he was the only one in the room, it couldn't possibly count. That wouldn't be fair at all!

Later that morning, when he sat down in his usual place at school, I'd spread some papers over his part of the table we shared.

I rushed to gather them up before he started complaining but instead of his usual moan, he said, ‘Please, may I move this stuff out of the way?'

I stared at him, my mouth wide open. ‘Are you all right?' I said. ‘You look feverish.'

Glen wanted to say, ‘Don't ask stupid questions!' I could see it in his face.

But instead he just clenched his fists under the table and said, ‘No, I'm fine. Thank you for asking.'

I blinked. ‘All right, then,' I said, and moved the papers out of Glen's way.

The rest of the day was just like that. Every few minutes, Glen had a chance to say something mean or hurtful or rude, and every time I could see him keeping his words to himself.

It got harder and harder as the day wore on, until he could only keep his mouth shut by biting his lip and sucking in his cheeks. I watched him doing it. It was weird.

I followed him on the way home.

He went stomping down the street, kicking the paving stones as he went. I'd say he was imagining that each one was a person he had been nice to that day.

‘Only one day,' he muttered to himself. He stared at his hands. They were as pink and soft and damp as they had been in the morning.

But no pinker, no softer, no damper. At least he hadn't got any worse.

He was lumbering now, as if his body felt heavy and stiff, as if his insides were glued together.

As he turned the last corner before his own street, he caught sight of a scruffy, skinny brown dog, a lanky wolfhound he had seen around before.

This, my friends, was the person - I mean, the dog - who told me the story. You may laugh, but I'm telling you, this is what happened.

The dog didn't belong to anyone, as far as Glen could see. It had no collar and he had never seen it being walked. Walked, hah! This wasn't that kind of dog, for sure.

Glen came to a stop. The dog sniffed the air and whined softly, starting to drool. It felt hungry.

Now, Glen had bitten his lip and gritted his teeth all day instead of saying the things he was thinking. Even through the stuck-together feeling in his insides, he must have felt all of that meanness building up inside him like lava in a volcano.

He walked towards the dog. The dog barked and licked its chops. Its tongue was long and floppy and its teeth were sharp. With a grin and a whoop, Glen stretched his leg out to kick.

Before his foot could connect, though, a voice in the air said, ‘Didn't think a dog would count, eh? Tch, tch, you are a
nasty
little boy.'

Nobody ever saw Glen again.

And as for the dog - well, next time I saw it, it looked sleek and fat and a teensy bit smug.

And you know, a funny thing. My family has a wolfhound now. Bluebell. What a coincidence!

Dogs can't talk, you say. Huh! How
else
would I know all this?