by Roddy Doyle
‘Good man, Messi,’ said Rover. ‘Let’s go.’
And Messi fell over.
But now he had an idea of his own.
‘I’ll say messy things out loud when my tail starts going fizzy,’ he said.
‘Good idea,’ said Rover.
‘Odd socks!’ said Messi.
And he didn’t fall over.
They ran out the door of the shed.
‘Soggy cornflakes!’ said Messi.
Chapter Six
The shed was in the Macks’ back garden and Rover needed fifteen portions of poo.
Excuse me . . .
Yes?
You said seventeen.
Yes, I did. But Rover already had two.
Where did he get them?
How many dogs are in this story?
Two.
There’s your answer.
Rover and Messi needed to get from the back garden to the front of the house. This was easy because there was a narrow alley at the side of the house. There was a high gate at the end of the alley and it was locked. But Rover was a good jumper, and jumping on to the top of the wooden gate was easy.
Rover jumped now – and his front paws grabbed the top of the gate and he was able to pull himself up the rest of the way. He looked back down at Messi.
‘Ready, Messi?’
‘Dirty dishes!’ said Messi.
And he jumped. His tail was wagging like mad but it didn’t matter because he was in mid-air. He caught Rover and Rover caught him. He climbed up Rover’s hind legs and back and sat on Rover’s head.
‘What’s the view like up there, Messi?’ asked Rover.
‘It’s a bit messy,’ said Messi. ‘Those mountains way over there look out of place.’
‘Leave the mountains alone, Messi,’ said Rover. ‘They’ve been there for thousands of years.’
‘Hmmmm,’ said Messi.
‘See any dogs?’
‘Yes,’ said Messi. ‘Lots.’
‘Great.’
‘They’re all going in different directions,’ said Messi. ‘They’re very unorganized.’
‘Great,’ said Rover. ‘Just remember this, Messi. Our business depends on messy dogs.’
‘Hmmmmmmm,’ said Messi.
He climbed down off Rover’s head and sat beside Rover on top of the gate.
‘Let’s go,’ said Rover.
‘Wet towels!’ said Messi.
Rover jumped down and Messi went right after him – and landed right on top of him.
Excuse me . . .
You’re going to ask about the big fat baby.
Yes.
Don’t worry. She’s on her way.
Rover and Messi were now in the Macks’ front garden. They ran to the front gate. Just as Missis Mack – that is, Billie Jean Fleetwood-Mack – got there. She’d been out running with the BFB.
A VERY SHORT HISTORY OF THE MACK FAMILY
Mister Mack met Billie Jean Fleetwood in a supermarket, called Super-Thing. She was looking at the high-energy biscuits and he was avoiding the cream crackers. They bumped into each other and got married.
In the supermarket?
Yes. It was love at first special offer.
They had three children.
Did they buy them in the supermarket?
No. They bought them on eBay.
Really?
No.
They had three children: two boys, called Robbie and Jimmy, and a girl called Kayla. The children grew up and became those things that most scientists call adults. Then—
OH NO!
A NOT-AS-SHORT-AS-I-THOUGHT-IT-WOULD-BE HISTORY OF THE MACK FAMILY II
Then Robbie met a girl called Miriam Bigge. They fell in love when they fell down a hole. They were walking down a street in Dublin when there was an earthquake. Dublin doesn’t have many earthquakes and this was only a little one. In fact, it wasn’t really an earthquake. An old water pipe under the street broke and the paving right above it collapsed. It wasn’t an earthquake at all.
But that’s not the way things work in Dublin. If it rains for an hour, it’s the heaviest rainfall of all time.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. The water came up to my chin!’
‘The poor cat was swept away. He ended up in France!’
A strong wind becomes a tornado.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It lifted the house!’
‘It landed right beside the cat.’
Two motorbikes go roaring past.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought we were being invaded by aliens.’
Even when nothing happens.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It was so quiet, I thought it was the end of the world.’
A water pipe breaks under the street and it becomes an earthquake.
Robbie and Miriam sat in the hole. They looked at each other and laughed.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Robbie.
‘It’s the biggest small earthquake I’ve ever seen in my life,’ said Miriam.
They fell in love and climbed out of the hole. Two years later, they got married.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It was the best wedding ever.’
And a year after that, they had a baby.
Chapter Seven
What Is It about Babies?
People go mad for babies. They just love babies. Not just human babies – people go mad for all sorts of babies. They go to the Zoo just to see the baby elephants and giraffes. It’s the wobbly legs and the tiny trunks. Brainy people become silly when they see them. Angry people become happy.
‘I don’t care, I’m going to complain to the manager – ah, look at the baby parrot’s little beak!’
People just love babies. They love talking about babies and feeding babies and weighing babies and throwing them in the air and sometimes catching them and – ah, they just love babies. Especially yapping about them.
When it comes to babies, the three most used words in the English language are ‘big’, ‘fat’ and ‘baby’.
‘Will you look at that big fat baby.’
‘There’s a big fat baby.’
‘That’s a great big fat baby.’
‘That’s a grand fat baby.’
‘Ah now, look at the size of that baby.’
‘That’s a good old-fashioned baby. Big and fat.’
Two countries were about to go to war.
‘This means war—!’
Until one of the leaders was shown a photograph of a baby.
‘Oh, look at the fat on that baby! Is this your baby?’
‘Yes,’ said the other leader.
‘Well, we can forget about the war then. You’ll have too much on your hands feeding that baby.’
It wasn’t the other leader’s baby at all but that doesn’t matter. The point is . . . I forget the point. People love babies. Especially when they’re big and fat.
But, really, babies aren’t big at all. They are tiny.
And this baby was really tiny.
What baby?
The BFB.
The BFB was a tiny little big fat baby. The BFB was a girl, all dressed up in pink, and her granny, Billie Jean Fleetwood-Mack, was carrying her on her back.
Excuse me . . .
Yes?
Why are girl babies always dressed in pink clothes?
I don’t know. But later on in the book a seagull called Sam will ask the same question.
Chapter Eight
Rover and Messi ran to the front gate. Just as Billie Jean Fleetwood-Mack got there. She’d been out running with the BFB.
OH NO!
Chapter Eight – Again
Rover and Messi ran to the front gate.
‘I’m sick of running to this gate,’ said Rover.
‘And someone’s left it open,’ said Messi.
They got there just as Billie Jean Fleetwood-Mack arrived. She’d been out running with the BFB. The BFB was short for the Big Fa
t Baby. And the Big Fat Baby was Robbie Mack and Miriam Bigge-Mack’s little daughter. Her name was Emily. But the family called her the Big Fat Baby, or the BFB.
Billie Jean loved exercise and adventure. She was always climbing mountains or running around the world, for medals and for fun. And these days, she often brought the BFB with her, on her back. She had a special backpack, with a special pocket for carrying a baby. The BFB was in the backpack, and the backpack was up on Billie Jean’s back.
She turned at the gate to the house and nearly tripped over Rover.
‘Baa!’ she shouted.
Really?
No.
‘Rover!’ Billie Jean shouted.
Rover barked and wagged his tail. Messi barked and thought about all the tangled wires and cables at the back of a television.
‘Where are you going?’ Billie Jean asked Rover.
She didn’t expect an answer. She didn’t know that Rover could talk. She didn’t know that all dogs can talk. It is one of the best-kept secrets in the history of dogs and people. Kids know that dogs can talk. They talk to the dogs and, now and again, the dogs talk back.
‘Goo goo,’ says the kid.
‘Gaa gaa,’ says the dog.
The kids tell their parents about it.
‘Doggie can talk!’
‘Yes, I know. Eat your carrots.’
‘Can!’
‘I know.’
‘Cannnnnn!’
But, as they grow up, kids forget that dogs can talk. Sometimes they even forget that other people can talk. But that’s a different story.
‘Are you going to the shops?’ Billie Jean asked Rover.
People love having conversations with dogs. Because the dogs don’t answer back.
Rover wagged his tail. Messi thought about crumbs.
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘We’re going inside for lunch. Aren’t we, BFB?’
Rover couldn’t see the BFB because the BFB was deep inside the backpack.
But he heard her.
‘Goop!’ she said.
‘She must be hungry,’ said Billie Jean. ‘Are you hungry, BFB?’
‘Goop!’ said the BFB.
‘Off we go, so,’ said Billie Jean, and she ran to the front door.
Rover and Messi ran out the gate and – just a few metres away – they saw a perfect example of what they were looking for.
REMINDER: They were looking for dog poo.
‘We’d better be careful, Messi,’ said Rover, very happily. ‘It might bite.’
Rover said this every time they found a good, profitable poo. So Messi didn’t really hear him.
But he did hear the scream.
Did the poo scream?
No. But Messi thought it did.
He stared at it.
‘The poo just screamed, Uncle Rover,’ he said.
‘Ah now, Messi,’ said Rover. ‘It didn’t.’
‘Yes, it did,’ said Messi.
‘No, son. It didn’t.’
‘But I heard it,’ said Messi.
‘It wasn’t me,’ said the poo. ‘I didn’t scream.’
Really?
No. Poos can’t talk. Or scream. But people can. And do. And they – Messi, Rover and the poo – heard the scream again.
‘Come on, Messi,’ said Rover.
He knew the voice. He knew who’d screamed. It was Billie Jean.
Rover ran back through the gate, to the front door of the Mack’s house. The door was still open and he saw Billie Jean in the hall. The backpack was no longer on her back. She had taken it off and put it gently on the floor beside her. She was looking into the backpack when Rover arrived.
She looked all around her. Then she looked into the backpack again.
‘It’s empty,’ said Billie Jean.
She looked at Rover.
‘Where’s the BFB?’ she asked.
‘Goop!’ said something.
Billie Jean and Rover heard it. And so did Messi. But they couldn’t see it. They couldn’t see the thing that went ‘Goop!’
‘Goop!’ it went again.
They looked around but there wasn’t much to look at. They were in the hall. There was the front door and three other doors. There were photographs of various Macks and Fleetwoods and there was a painting of a fig-roll on a horse that Mister Mack had been given when he retired. There was the stairs. There was the rug.
‘Goop!’
Billie Jean looked into the backpack again. She picked it up and put her head right into it.
‘Goop!’
Rover lifted a corner of the rug with his teeth and Messi looked under it. But there was nothing under there. They had all heard a baby but they couldn’t see one.
Rover dropped the rug back on the floor and Messi was just straightening it when they heard it again.
‘Goop!’
Twice.
‘Goop, goop!’
Messi wagged his tail and fell over – and saw her. He saw the BFB looking down at him.
He remembered not to talk in front of the human, and barked.
Rover looked at Messi and saw that he was still lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling.
Rover looked up.
And barked.
Because the BFB – the Big Fat Baby – was up there, hanging off the lampshade.
Rover barked again. And Billie Jean looked up, and saw the BFB smiling back down at her.
‘Goop!’
The BFB let go of the lampshade, and Billie Jean held out the backpack just in time to catch her.
‘Goop!’
‘You’re back,’ said Billie Jean.
‘Goop!’ said the BFB.
‘Do you know what must have happened?’ Billie Jean said to Rover.
He barked.
‘When I was coming in,’ said Billie Jean, ‘I tripped on the rug and fell forward. And the BFB must have flown out of the backpack and grabbed the lampshade!’
‘Woof,’ said Rover.
‘Goop!’ said the BFB.
Messi growled. He was trying to straighten the rug but his Uncle Rover was standing on it.
‘Well, Emily,’ said Billie Jean.
REMINDER: The Big Fat Baby was called Emily.
‘Well, Emily,’ said Billie Jean. ‘We have had an adventure, haven’t we?’
‘Hello?’
That was the second shock Billie Jean had had in as many minutes. The baby had just said ‘Hello?’ – and she sounded very like Billie Jean’s husband, Mister Mack.
‘Hello?’
But the baby hadn’t said ‘Hello’. Mister Mack had. He was outside. Billie Jean had phoned him when she couldn’t find the BFB, and Mister Mack had come straight home on his bike.
Mister Mack cycled a lot since he’d retired. He had worked in a biscuit factory, tasting the biscuits. He missed the job sometimes, especially the fig-rolls. But he didn’t miss the boring cream crackers.
Mister Mack was enjoying his retirement. He went out on his bike every morning.
OH NO!
Chapter Nine Is a Bit Annoyed about Being Interrupted by a Cream Cracker, so We’ll Move Straight on to –
Chapter Ten
‘Hello?’ said Mister Mack.
Mister Mack was parking his bike. But he’d forgotten to get off it first, and he was stuck. And worried. He still thought the BFB, his lovely granddaughter, was missing.
‘Hello?’ he called again.
‘Hello,’ said Billie Jean.
‘Goop!’ said the BFB.
It was the nicest sound Mister Mack had ever heard.
‘You found her,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Billie Jean.
‘What happened?’ said Mister Mack.
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened was this . . .’
Rover and Messi had seen what had happened, so they didn’t hang around for the story. They were dogs on a mission. The Gigglers were waiting and Rover had to deliver some top-notch Gig
gler Treatment-ready poo. While Billie Jean started to tell her husband all about the Mystery of the Disappearing Baby, Rover and Messi ran out the gate, to the street and the poo.
They could still hear Billie Jean.
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened was this . . .’
‘Why does she keep saying the same thing, Uncle Rover?’ Messi asked.
‘Ignore it,’ said Rover. ‘It’s just that kind of book.’
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened was this . . .’
‘Ignore it,’ said Rover. ‘The writer’s just trying to annoy us.’
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened was this . . .’
‘She’s still doing it, Uncle Rover,’ said Messi. ‘It’s not the way stories should be told.’
‘Well,’ said Billie Jean. ‘What happened was this – I was out for a run.’
‘About time,’ said Rover.
‘And when I came back,’ said Billie Jean, ‘I opened the front door and – you know the rug?’
‘Yes,’ said Mister Mack. ‘The rug in the hall?’
‘Yes,’ said Billie Jean. ‘My mother gave it to us when we got married, remember?’
‘How is she, by the way?’ asked Mister Mack.
Adults are like that. They are always wrecking perfectly good stories. Billie Jean and Mister Mack were going to talk about the rug and Billie Jean’s mother for another ten minutes. So if you want to go off and play or read another book or annoy your brother, and come back in, say, nine and a bit minutes, that’s fine. Or –
Hey, pal.
Yes, Rover?
Do you think myself and my nephew here are going to hang around all day while you mess around?