Again I was left to stand with my face millimeters from the V in the corner of the wall outside Miss Flynn’s office. All because I tried to help my best bud out of a spot of racist bother.
I did brain gym.
I fiddled with Green in my pocket.
I counted how many clubs had the color green in their soccer strips. I made this harder because I counted from all the leagues in Europe. Olympic brain gym.
I didn’t really remember too much about the scrap with Skittle, but I did remember that when I was being led out, Charlotte Duffy twirled her index fingers around her temples at me. That image actually made me laugh, because it was a top-notch touché moment.
Grade A to Charlotte Duffy.
Mentalist.
17
Millionaire
Miss Flynn called Mom to see if she could come and pick me up from school. She said I’d gotten myself into “a bit of a pickle.” When she was on the phone, Miss Flynn winked at me. If we’d been at a wicked club or hip bar and I was ten years older and she winked at me in the same way, I’d have sauntered over and bought that chick a half pint of lager. Then she handed me the receiver, and Miss Flynn’s phone ear was touching my ear; it was hot and perfumey, which made me feel gooey down below.
“Look, Dylan, I’m tied up with something. Can you make your own way home?” Mom said.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m not mad, but I have to go.”
“Will we have soup tonight and watch the telly together?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I’ll pimp the soup if you want.”
“Brilliant. Can’t wait. Put Miss Flynn back on.”
“Okay, bye,” I said, and handed the phone to Miss Flynn, who made a date for Mom to come into school for a good old-fashioned chin-wag.
*
I knew most teenagers didn’t like hanging out with the oldies, but doing it some of the time was okay. And it was A-okay when me and Mom ate our soup and watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? together. Either I’d shout “IT’S STARTING!” or Mom would if we weren’t both in the living room already.
“What’s in this, chef?” She called me “chef” because that was what I was like when I was pimping soup. Mom knew not to come into the kitchen when the heat was on.
“So, tonight we have tomato soup . . .”
“Of course.”
“. . . with some paprika, black pepper, basil leaves, a tin of mixed beans . . .”
“Mmm, it smells delicious, chef.”
“. . . oh, and tarragon.”
“Oooooo, tarragon,” Mom said, widening her eyes. “Who’s after a Michelin star, then?”
I laughed, because they only give, like, the world’s best pimpers of food a Michelin star, and it takes donkey’s years to get one, and you have to work all the hours God sends and risk losing your wife and kids because you never get to see them, and then your liver becomes mushy with all the pressure booze you drink. And all for a blinkin’ Michelin star. I didn’t want one, no siree. Maybe I could be a No Michelin Star Chef when I was older. No, wait—I couldn’t, because of you-know-what. Sometimes I have sieve head.
“Taste it,” I said.
Mom slurped the soup. “Oh, Dylan, it’s delicious.”
“Really?”
“Totally love it, chef.”
“Fantastico,” I said, and slurped my first spoonful. It was delicious. “Shizenhowzen!”
“What?”
“I forgot the crusty bread.”
Crusty bread isn’t big red onions, so I couldn’t blame crusty bread for making my peepers stream. No. It was thinking about me and Mom having quality time together that made them waterfall. I had to lob the third slice out as some snot dripped onto it while I was cutting it. In that moment I could see Mom staring at me while I was lying peaceful in my coffin. She was in bits. Screaming and screaming. People had to drag her away from the coffin in case she pulled it down on top of herself. Then I imagined that I rolled out of the coffin and did a massive somersault down the church aisle, and Mom had to go on her hands and knees in order to catch me. I didn’t want Mom to be sad.
“IT’S STARTING!”
“Okay.” I splashed my face and blew my hooter.
The thousand-pound question was a complete doddle for Mom.
Q: The TV series Sex and the City is based on a book by which writer?
a) Carrie Bradshaw
b) Candace Bradshaw
c) Candace Bushnell
d) Carrie Bushnell
“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 phewed.
“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.
“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.
18
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?
Miss Flynn’s office was super-duper cool, with enormous leather chairs that you sank into, huge plants that almost touched the ceiling, and nice pictures of beaches, rain forests, and waterfalls hanging on the walls. Sometimes she played music to calm down students who acted all loony head cases. She’d tell us to sink into the chair, sip some water, and listen to music. It worked a treat for me. That day after our soccer game when it all kicked off she played Sigur Rós especially for me. They’re a band from Iceland, and some of them have got beards and they wear winter clothes ’cause it’s totally freezing in Iceland, and when it’s not bloody brass monkeys it’s full of volcanic ash and people who are much more skint than Mom because they’ve had a whopper of a dosh crisis and everyone is now gloomy grumpy pants over there.
“Is there anything we should know about?” Miss Flynn asked.
Mom shuffled in her leather chair as if she were trying to scratch her bum without anyone detecting her. My peepers were on fire.
“Well . . . Erm . . . There’s . . .”
“SHUT UP. NOTHING. GGGGGGRRRRRR.”
“Dylan, don’t interrupt,” Mom said.
“Would you like some water, Dylan?” Miss Flynn asked.
I shook my head. Negative, miss.
“FUCK WATER TITS.” I meant to only shake my head. At that moment I wanted to sniffle because I was fed up with that voice, that animal, that other person, that rat living inside me. I was fed up not just to the back teeth but to the front, sides, and gums as well.
When Mr. Dog Bites Page 11