When Mr. Dog Bites (16 page)

“Would Dad be your Phone-a-Friend?” I asked Mom.

“He can’t get to a phone, Dylan.”

“I know, but for talking’s sake. Would he be?”

“Depends on the question, doesn’t it?” she said, and dipped some crusty bread into her delicious soup.

“The bold Amir would be my Phone-a-Friend,” I told Mom, “especially if I had an epically hard cricket question.”

Mom was on a major roll: she answered the two­-thousand-pound question right. The five-thousand-quid question was no probs for Big Chick Mint.

The roll stopped: she didn’t know the ten-thousand-pound question.

50:50?

Phone-a-Friend?

Ask the Audience?

Not on your nelly.

Enter Dylan Mint with his brain after seventeen hours at the gym.

What a stonker of a question, right up my
strada
:

Q: Which soccer club was the first to introduce the dugout in the 1920s?

a) Arsenal

b) Airdrieonians

c) Aston Villa

d) Aberdeen

When I said, “D, Aberdeen. Final answer,” I got a wee flutter in my belly. Me and Mom were ten large in the red. God, imagine if we had ten large for real; I’d suggest a no-expenses-spared family holiday to Torremolinos again, or Kavos.

“Yeah, way to go, Dylan!” Mom said, and we high-fived. What could be better than high-fiving your mom?

Ding! Dong!

“Was that the door?” Mom asked.

“I didn’t hear anything,” I lied. Who, in the name of the wee man, would be calling just as the twenty-grand question was about to be asked?

Ding! Dong!

“It
is
the door,” Mom said, and got up.

I puffed my cheeks out and
phew
ed.

“Don’t answer it,” I said.

“It could be important, Dylan.”

“But it’s the twenty-thousand-quid question.” If we’d had the proper telly package, I could have paused it and waited, but because we were stuck with antique crap telly, there should have been a ban on house visits after eight o’clock at night.

Mom was at the front door doing her wee giggle. Then a deep voice came in. Then no voices.

I peeked out the blinds and saw it. WHAT THE . . . ? In Dad’s space again. The cheeky bugger. Me and Amir should acid attack that maroon shite heap; then he’d get the message and know not to park in Dad’s space again. Maybe this taxi bastard was a real-life stalker, harassing Mom all the time and being a total sex pest. Maybe Mom was at her rock bottom, with this taxi creep trying to enter her zones. If he tried any funny business, I’d be out there with my piping hot soup, and he’d be getting it flush in the mush. Filth monger.

More giggling and hushed voices.

I had too much brain frazzle to focus on the question. I didn’t know the answer anyway.
The Bauhaus movement.
The what?

“Look who it is, Dylan,” Mom said.

I stared at the telly. The 50K question came and went. My concentration was shot to shit.

“Hi, Dylan,” the taxi man said.

“We’re watching telly, so we don’t need a taxi,” I said.

“Tony was just passing,” Mom said.

I did muffle voice, like a baby.

“What was that, Dylan?”

“We live in a cul-de-sac, so it’s impossible to be ‘
just ­passing
.’”

The taxi man laughed.

“TAXI CUNT.”

“Dylan!”

“He’s right, Moira. How can you be passing in a cul-de-sac?” The taxi man smiled at me.

I looked away. Perv.

“FAT LIAR.”

“I’m warning you, Dylan,” Mom said. “That’s not involuntary.” She knew when it was easy for me to bring it out. Moms
do
know everything.

“You’re dead right, Dylan. Actually I was dropping someone off nearby and thought I’d pop in, say hello.”

“Hello. Cheerio.”

“Did we not speak about this, Dylan?”

“Maybe this was a bad idea, Moira.” The taxi man whispered into Mom’s ear.

“No, Tony, he has to learn. He’s not ruling the roost here.” Mom tried to whisper super silent, but my bionic hearing heard it all. “Sit down, Tony.”

Tony the taxi driver sat in Dad’s chair. Who Wants to RUIN a Millionaire?

“CHEEKY FUCKER.”

“Dylan, I’m warning you.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Oh, I think you can,” Mom said. “Apologize to Tony.”

“What for?”

“Honestly, Moira, I understand.”

“I’m waiting, Buster,” Mom said with folded arms.

“Sorry.”

“Ah, you’re okay, Dylan. No harm done.”

“You’re in Dad’s space again,” I said.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll fix that next time and park up a bit,” the taxi man said.

Listen to him:
next time.
Not on my watch, Buster!

“No, the chair,” I said, and pointed.

“Stupid me,” the taxi man said, and tried to stand up. “I’ll move over here, so.”

“You will do no such thing,” Mom said to the taxi man. “
Stop it now!
” she said to me.

I counted to twelve and a half in my head.

No one spoke during that time.

Talk about spoiling the mom–son atmos.

“Your car’s maroon,” I said.

“Yes; do you like maroon cars?”

“But if you’re a taxi driver, why isn’t your car silver or beige?”

“I don’t know, mate. Haven’t really thought about it.”

He was shooting blanks if he thought I was his mate.

“Most taxis are silver or beige unless they’re hackneys,” I said.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Do you have a hackney?”

“No.”

“Why not? They’re way cooler than that maroon thing.”

The taxi man started laughing. “I agree, Dylan. But hackneys are used more in London than they are up here.”

“I’ve seen them on the telly,” I said. “They make too much noise anyway.”

“That’s why I like driving my maroon car.”

Mom sat down because she felt that we had cooled the jets. Now it was like a triangle of weirdness in the living room. I looked at Mom, who looked at the taxi man, who looked at Mom. Then I looked at the taxi man, who looked at me and grinned. Then we all looked at the telly.

“What are you watching?” the taxi man said.

“
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
” I said.

“I love that show,” the taxi man said.

I bet he didn’t love it and was just saying that to get into Mom’s knick-knacks. I bet he was thick as old rope and wouldn’t even get past the five-hundred-quid question. I bet he didn’t know anything about
Sex in the City
or soccer dugouts. That was the reason he drove people around all day, because you didn’t need brain cells to do a job like that. Playing
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
with the taxi man would be as useful as a willy on a lesbian.

“We love it too. It’s become a bit of a ritual for me and Dylan,” Mom said.

“I bet it has,” the taxi man said.

“Dylan’s pretty good too, aren’t you, Dylan?”

I said nothing, just kept staring at the telly.

I read the 150 Gs question.

Q: Who coined the phrase “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”?

a) Friedrich Nietzsche

b) Immanuel Kant

c) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

d) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

I read it about four times. My hands tingled. I knew it. I knew it. The bloody 150 Gs question, and I, Dylan Mint, who went to Drumhill School, knew it. This was a new record for me. The taxi man would soon know that he was in the presence of the real-deal brain in this house. Miss Flynn, you and your office posters were legendinas.

“I know it, Mom, I know it,” I said.

“Yeah, I think I know it as well,” the taxi man said.

WHAT THE F .
.
. ?

“Bet you don’t,” I said.

“Bet I do,” he said.

The contestant asked the audience, who were fifty shades of thick.

“BET YOU DON’T KNOW IT,” I shouted.

“Dylan!”

“Okay. After three we’ll say it together, okay?” the taxi man said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Moira, you count to three.”

“Okay, ready?” Mom said.

“We only shout out the correct letter,” I said.

“Gotcha.”

The contestant decided to Phone-a-Friend, who sounded as though they ate soup with a fork. Clueless.

“One .
.
. Two .
.
. Three .
.
.”

“
A
.”

“
A
.”

We said it at the same time.

Wow!

The taxi man knew the answer.

“How did you know that?” I said.

“I’m reading a book about him at the moment.”

“About Friedrich Nietzsche?”

“Yes.”

“Any good?”

“I’ll let you borrow it if you want.”

“Erm .
.
.” I didn’t know what to say.

“That’d be nice, Dylan, wouldn’t it?” Mom said.

“Erm .
.
.” I was still biting my tongue.

“That’s nice of you, Tony,” Mom said.

“It’d be my pleasure,” the taxi man said.

“What do you say, Dylan?”

“Erm .
.
. Thanks.”
That would be nice
, I thought.

“No problem. Just as soon as I finish it, I’ll pop it over.”

“Will I understand it?”

“I’m sure there’s not much you don’t understand, Dylan,” the taxi man said.

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but I smiled just in case. We never got to see the next question because the contestant’s loaf was still in the bakery.

1
8

Counseling

“Mrs. Mint, we’ve noticed that Dylan hasn’t been himself these past few weeks,” Miss Flynn said.

“To be honest, I’ve noticed it myself,” Mom said.

Well, big WOW, Mom and Miss Flynn!

Of course

OF COURSE

OF COURSE

I haven’t been myself.

A tremendous bomb fell from a great blinkin’ height and smashed into me.

ME.

REMEMBER?

Not YOU.

INTO ME.

Dylan (No Middle Name) Mint.

But I didn’t cry, not once.

Okay, okay, I admit it: I cried at the start when I found out, because I was trying to “
be myself
,” trying to keep it real. And I cried when Michelle Malloy gave me a rubber ear, but those tears were nothing to do with you-know-what, therefore the Big Knock-back tears from Michelle Malloy can’t be counted.

PPPPPHHHHHEEEEEWWWWW!

“He’s just not been the same bubbly Dylan,” Miss Flynn said, looking at me and then Mom and then me again, with a wee smile on her face. Cutey-pie face.

“You’re telling me,” Mom said, looking at me, then Miss Flynn, then me again, with a scowl on her face.

Then Mom and Miss Flynn looked at each other, and I was a big elephant in the room.

“It’s becoming an issue, I’m afraid, Mrs. Mint.”

“Moira.”

“It’s becoming an issue, Moira.”

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me. I’m his mother—I see it every day.”

Again I was being seen and not heard, so I bit the nails on my thumbs, my jaw a pneumatic drill grinding away at them. Then I swallowed the nails and started on the skin below the parts that look like half-moons. It bled, so I sucked all the blood back into my bloodstream in case I keeled over due to liters and liters of lost blood and urgently required a blood transfusion.

I’M HERE!

HELLO!

OVER HERE.

DOING MAD WAVING.

I’M NOT REALLY STARING AT THE CARPET. I’M LISTENING TO EVERY WORD YOU’RE SAYING, AND I CAN TELL YOU I DON’T LIKE WHAT I’M HEARING.

SEE ME?

How the dog’s bollocks could I “
be myself”
after hearing that news from the doc?