I had a theory about that as well. I reckoned that its size made it unhappy and depressed. It couldn’t be easy being a slim and supple beast trapped inside the body of a walrus. I’d lash out as well.
Once the mog was secure I plugged in the treadmill and put the machine on a programmed incline. When I pressed the start button, the cat moved down the belt until the lead started to choke it.
I had done this before. It was an idea born out of desperation. The first couple of times I had walked it, the cat didn’t move. Went limp and unresisting. I hadn’t taken it for a walk. I’d taken it for a drag. The animal was so heavy it was like dragging a furry cannonball along the street. I ran out of energy while Tiggles didn’t use any at all. This was not the idea.
Then I remembered the treadmill in our garage. It was never used. When I first stuck the cat on the moving treadmill, it just slid down the belt and got dumped on the floor. I had worked on the idea it wouldn’t like ending up as a splat on the tiles, but I hadn’t realised how stubborn it was when it came to exercise.
So I kept it attached to the lead. Now it had a choice. Walk or die of strangulation.
I know what you’re thinking. This is cruel. This is nasty. Normally, I’d agree.
But wouldn’t it be more cruel to allow it to slowly inflate like a cat-shaped balloon? At some point it would explode and I didn’t want to be around when that happened. The mess would be spread around the entire neighbourhood. Buildings within the blast radius could be destroyed. No. Enforced exercise was better than no exercise at all. The way I looked at it, I was saving its life.
I didn’t give Tiggles more than half an hour. I was worried its heart would give out. When I switched the machine off it slumped down on the mat into what looked like a coma. But I was prepared for this as well. I got a large shovel under it and, using all my strength, levered it onto my ancient skateboard. Then I wheeled it back to Mrs Bird’s house.
‘Thank you so much, Sonny,’ she said as I tipped the flabby feline onto her living room floor. It still didn’t move, unless you counted its belly spreading out over two square metres of the carpet. ‘I’ll get my purse.’
No one knew whether Mrs Bird had any money or not. Some of the kids who lived nearby reckoned she was a multi-millionaire who kept it all stashed underneath her mattress. But no one knew for sure.
And she was so tiny. And wrinkled. And old.
When she came back and held out a twenty-dollar note to me, I was caught in two minds. This would reduce the amount I would have to find to forty dollars. This was manageable. I could see light at the end of the tunnel. Hey, given that Mrs Bird was so forgetful, I could come back in five minutes and do it all over again. And again. Half an hour and I’d have the cash to buy God.
But she was so tiny. And wrinkled. And old.
‘That’s okay, Mrs Bird,’ I said. I couldn’t stop the words coming out of my mouth. I tried. ‘It’s my pleasure. I don’t need payment.’
I have to be honest here. I’d walked that cat dozens of times and never been paid for it. I always meant to take the cash she offered, but when it came down to it my fingers couldn’t grasp the money. I’m pathetic.
‘Are you sure?’ she said, tucking the note back into her purse.
I’d noticed that about Mrs Bird before. Sometimes she heard things as clear as a bell. I guess her hearing just came and went.
‘Absolutely, Mrs Bird,’ I replied. ‘I enjoy it. Really. No charge.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It is a lovely day.’
It must have gone again.
I would have sighed but I screamed instead. I’d taken a step backwards and put my foot too close to Tiggles’s dozing mass. It had lashed out with razor-sharp claws and taken a chunk out of the flesh at my ankle. Payback time.
I limped back to my house, trailing a thin stream of blood.
Three jobs, a gash that would probably get infected and no money to show for any of it. I thought I would just lie on my bed and listen to music on my iPod. It had been a helluva day. Then I remembered what had happened to my iPod and my mood just got darker.
‘You poop on my doona again and the deal’s off,’ I said.
I meant it too. I was sick of the whole business.
Blacky lay at the foot of my bed. I’d tried to stop him but he took no notice. Dylan lay at the top end of my bed. I’d tried to stop him, too, but he didn’t pay attention to me either. Sometimes, I just felt it was so unfair that everyone took Marcus for granted. Now I was on the point of exploding. So I stood at the open bedroom window and looked at the night stars. That calmed me sometimes. Helped me see that my problems were pretty small compared to everything out there.
‘Chill, man,’ said Blacky. ‘I did that just once to get your attention. Won’t happen again.’
I snorted.
‘Is he talking to you again?’ asked Dylan.
‘Look. Just shut up,’ I said. ‘I can’t have two conversations at once.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Dylan. ‘I can’t even cope with one.’
He whipped out a hand-held computer console and started loading up a game. I sat on a chair and looked at Blacky’s curled-up body. When I spoke again I kept the words in my head.
‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I said.
‘Sure you can,’ said Blacky. ‘It’s not difficult. Even someone with your limited intelligence should be able to cope with a simple problem-solving exercise like this.’
‘Hey,’ I yelled. It was strange yelling and not making a sound. ‘Why are you so horrible to me? I haven’t done anything to you. In fact, despite what you’ve done to me, the dump, the threats, the nastiness, the disgusting smells, I’ve tried to do what you asked. I’ve sold my iPod, I’ve been scratched, I’ve undergone humiliation. And all for what? So I can spend two hundred and sixty dollars on a wretched reptile that will then be released into the wild. What do I get out of it, huh? Zilch. Zip. Nothing.’
Blacky didn’t react to anything I said. He just flicked an ear.
‘So maybe you should just be a bit nicer to me,’ I continued. ‘If you think I’m such an idiot, why don’t you do this job yourself, eh?’
‘I’ll give you the answer in two words,’ said Blacky. ‘Opposable thumbs.’
‘What?’
‘Opposable thumbs. The only reason you humans are so successful. Just an accident of evolution, but it means you can manipulate things, make tools, change the environment. Boy, have you changed the environment!’
‘Oh yeah?’ I said. I wasn’t going to let this go. ‘And what about intelligence, huh? Our ability to think, imagine, create? No other living things can do what we can do.’
The dog licked his testicles. I didn’t know if this was a comment on what I was saying, but I waited patiently. Eventually, he uncoiled himself.
‘You are absolutely right,’ he said finally. ‘Humans are unique. I cannot argue with you when you say that no other living thing would do what you guys do.’
I smiled.
‘Global warming,’ he continued. ‘Environmental change, destruction of habitats. Humanity is in a league of its own.’
‘But …’
‘Shut up,’ snarled Blacky. ‘Shut up and listen while I give you a few facts. You might learn something. Did you know that ten years ago, thirty thousand species a year were becoming extinct? That’s three every hour. Gone. Never to come back. And since then it’s all got much worse. Since you have been born, tosh, a minimum of three hundred thousand species have disappeared. And all because of humankind and what it is doing to this planet. Just take global warming – by itself. That will result in a further million species becoming extinct in the next thirty years. With all the other changes that humankind is bringing about, Earth will lose at least a third of all species, possibly up to seventy per cent, by 2050. Animals, plant life, insects. Wiped out. That’s what your intelligence is doing, mate. The greatest extinction event in the history of the planet. You should be proud.’
I spluttered.
‘That’s … that’s just not true. You’re making it up. I mean, I know we are damaging the earth, but …’
‘Those aren’t my figures, mush. They come straight from your scientists. Look it up.’
That was unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Suddenly, the dog had gone. I caught a glimpse of a dirty-white shape flickering at the corners of my vision. Then nothing. I stared out of the window. The night was clear. I could hear cicadas chirping and somewhere, far off, the rumble of a tree frog. Suddenly I felt tired.
‘Hey, man,’ said Dylan. ‘Tell the story. Go on, Marc. Tell us the story.’
‘What story?’ I said, but my voice was weak even to my own ears.
‘The story of God the bearded dragon. Why he is so deep in the brown stuff and why we have to rescue him. Come on, man. You promised.’
I had promised. But I wasn’t in the mood right now.
‘Too tired, Dylan,’ I said. ‘Tell you tomorrow at school, mate. I swear.’
‘You’d better,’ he muttered.
It still took twenty minutes to get him to leave. As soon as he’d gone I went along to the living room. Mum and Dad were watching TV.
‘Dad?’ I said. ‘Can I use the internet for about half an hour?’
We only have one computer in our house and its use is strictly rationed. Mum and Dad reckon that left to my own devices I’d just be playing games all the time. This is amazingly unfair and, at the same time, amazingly true. So I have to book time on it when I need to do homework.
‘Schoolwork?’ asked Mum.
‘A project on mankind’s effect on the environment,’ I said.
As it turned out, I didn’t need the full half-hour. The information was there, just like Blacky said it would be. What made the reading even more depressing was that I came to understand the dog was not exaggerating.
If anything, the full picture was even worse than he claimed.
I couldn’t sleep.
At about two in the morning I got up and opened the window wide. For once, the night air was mild and I breathed it deep into my lungs. Summer was on its way. I don’t know why, but I got the urge to get out of the house. I wanted to feel the grass under my toes. Maybe lie on my back and watch the stars. So I swung my legs over the windowsill and dropped to the ground. I listened but there was no sound from Mum and Dad’s bedroom. They’d kill me if they knew I was out at that time of night.
I lay on my back. The stars were hard pinpricks through black material. They crowded the sky. I could hear small night noises, the gentle swoosh of wind through leaves, the faint scurrying of insects and small animals moving through their worlds. It was so peaceful out there.
But not inside my head.
I wanted to shout, to scream.
Not an option.
So I gathered my concentration and yelled as hard as I could inside my mind. My head rang with it.
‘It’s not my fault,’ I howled. ‘I’m just a kid. I didn’t do any of that. It’s not my fault.’
The night did not reply.
‘What can I do?’ I asked. I wasn’t expecting an answer, but when it came it was in a voice I recognised. I jerked my head up but there was no sign of Blacky anywhere. Just the glow of the streetlight and the darkness trying to press it back.
‘Do what you can,’ said the voice in my head. ‘And start by telling people. As many as possible.’
I sat up, cross-legged. The dampness from the ground was soaking through my pyjama bottoms, but I barely noticed.
‘You cannot change everything by yourself,’ the voice continued. ‘But you can do the small stuff. Spread the word. And protect. One animal at a time, tosh. One animal at a time.’
Then the voice was gone and I knew somehow it wouldn’t return that night.
I slipped back into my bedroom and found the leaflet in the pocket of my shorts. The leaflet I’d picked up from the street. I read it again by the light of the torch I kept for late-night reading beneath my doona. Then I wrote a letter to the Premier on a page ripped from an old exercise book. It wasn’t a long letter. The leaflet suggested I keep it short and businesslike. I sealed it in an envelope and placed it on my bedside table.
Finally, I turned off the torch, put it under the bed and crawled under the doona. I felt full of energy and purpose. My blood was racing and I doubted I would sleep at all. But I soon felt sleep folding over me. My last thought was of something I had read somewhere. Or maybe it was something I had been told once. It didn’t really matter.
An avalanche, I remembered, could start by the small shifting of one individual snowflake.
There was just me, Dad and Rose at breakfast. I started with Rose.
‘Take gorillas,’ I said. ‘The destruction of rainforests in Africa is threatening their habitats. Unless we’re very careful, they could be extinct before we know it.’
Rose filled her cereal bowl and brought it to the kitchen table. As she passed, she whispered in my ear.
‘I wish you were extinct, Mucus.’
She put her bowl down and flashed brilliantly white teeth around the table as she sat.
‘It is sooo wonderful you are taking an interest in the environment, Marcus,’ she trilled. ‘Daddy? Don’t you think so?’
Dad nodded and smiled. At Rose, not at me. That’s the problem with dealing with Rose. She has built up such a reputation for angelic behaviour that no one would believe me if I spilled the beans on her true nature. It would be like accusing Snow White of being a shoplifter. Nonetheless, I thought I could use the situation to my advantage.
‘That’s great,’ I said, whipping out the rather crumpled leaflet and placing it in the centre of the table. ‘Then maybe you guys would like to write a letter protesting about the Queensland mines. I have.’ I waved my envelope around. ‘We need to make a stand. For the future of the planet.’
Rose’s eyes narrowed, but I reckon Dad missed it. Maybe she thought I was trying to steal her halo, replace her as the golden child of the family. She needn’t have worried. I couldn’t compete. I didn’t want to compete.
Dad picked up the leaflet and glanced through it.
‘I’ll give it some thought, Marcus,’ he said. ‘I admire your principles, but there are other things here to take into consideration. The benefits to the economy, for example, are huge and there is no real evidence that wildlife has been affected in the slightest.’
I knew better. Trouble was, I couldn’t tell anyone God’s story as Blacky had related it to me. Who would believe it?
But it wasn’t often that Dad gave me any praise at all, so I thought this might be an opportunity.
‘Dad?’ I said. ‘Can I have sixty bucks to buy a pygmy bearded dragon from the pet shop in the mall?’
‘When hell freezes over,’ he replied, returning to his newspaper.
Rose sneered at me while Dad’s head was buried in the pages. Then she put her right hand to her forehead in the loser sign. I was thrilled to see she had forgotten to put her spoon down and that a big dollop of Weet-Bix fell onto her clean white school shirt. She shrieked, jumped and splattered more of her cereal over a wide area, including the bald spot on Dad’s head.
‘Oh, Daddy!’ she shrieked. ‘I am sooo sorry. I’m sure Marcus didn’t mean to jog my arm. Here. Let me clean up this mess.’
She bustled around the kitchen, finding paper towels, and then mopped up the pale sludge from Dad’s head. I picked up my school bag and headed for the door. I couldn’t help it. I turned back and grinned. After all, it wasn’t often Rose let her halo slip. She met my eyes over Dad’s shoulder. I knew trouble when I saw it.
‘That’s all right, petal,’ said Dad. ‘Just a small accident. No harm done.’
Not yet, I thought.
But I’d worry about it later. Right now, I had plenty on my plate. Postbox, school and a pressing economic problem …
‘We need sixty bucks,’ I told Dylan at lunchtime. ‘And time is running out.’
‘No worries,’ he said, popping open his third can of cola. ‘Why?’
It was frustrating talking to Dylan. He forgot everything so quickly. To be honest, it was a minor miracle that he remembered who he was most days.
‘Dyl, ya dill,’ I said. ‘The bearded dragon, remember? Two hundred and sixty bucks, of which I have two hundred. Two sixty minus two hundred equals … what?’
Dylan gave the matter some thought.
‘A problem,’ he said.
‘Correct,’ I said. Maths has never been Dylan’s strong point. Ask him how many toes he’s got, give him specific directions, including a mud map and a calculator, and he’s still liable to be off by at least fifteen. ‘And here’s another problem for you. How do we raise sixty bucks? Quickly.’
‘That’s easy,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘How?’
‘I’ll get you sixty bucks by first thing tomorrow morning. On one condition.’
‘What?’
‘You tell me the story of God the bearded dragon.’
He hadn’t forgotten that. We are surrounded by minor miracles. Trouble is, I needed a fairly large one. But fair’s fair. I had promised to tell him. So, while Dylan slurped his cola and explored the deepest parts of his nose for interesting specimens, I started.
ONCE upon a time, there was a bearded dragon who lived in the Queensland desert. His name was God. That wasn’t his real name, of course. But no one other than another bearded dragon could pronounce his real name. So that will have to do.
And, in many ways, God is a good name because he ruled over all his world. A small world, true, by human standards. Just a patch of desert. He’d just puff out his beard, which was longer and more bristly than any other rival’s, and frighten them off. Not much changed in God’s world and that was okay by him. He was a happy dragon. Food was in good supply. His eight wives were all happy too. They raised a family. A large family.
Sometimes another bearded dragon would try to muscle in on that world. Normally a young dragon trying to impress. But God was too strong.
The Dog that Dumped on my Doona Page 4
