“Are you not having a cup yourself?” said their mam.
“No, no,” said their granny. “I’m off to bed. The politicians can tell their lies, but your bed will never let you down.”
Gloria watched her granny’s dog slippers as they started to turn again. Gloria saw one heel step on a dog’s ear. She saw her granny trip. She heard her granny hit the table.
“Oh God!”
“Are you all right?” said their mam.
Gloria saw their mam push back her chair and start to stand up. They were going to be caught. Their mam was going to see them.
“I’m grand,” said their granny. “But I whacked my funny bone.”
They heard her groan.
“And it isn’t funny at all,” she said.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m grand, I’m grand,” said Raymond’s granny. “But it makes me think. The funny bone. That’s what’s happening. The city’s funny bone is gone. There’s no one laughing anymore.”
“You might be right,” said Raymond and Gloria’s dad.
“I think I am,” said their granny. “There’s a thought. The black dog of depression stole Dublin’s funny bone.”
Raymond watched his granny’s slippers continue the journey to the kitchen door.
“It’s desperate,” she said. “What’s happening to young Ben and all the others. And no one seems to be willing or able to do anything about it.”
She opened the kitchen door.
“Anyway,” she said. “I’m off to my little damp granny flat. Night-night.”
She walked out and didn’t look back. So she didn’t see Raymond and Gloria under the table. They heard her walk down the hall. They heard the front door opening, and closing.
Raymond watched his parents’ legs and feet. He could tell: They were getting ready to stand up. There was a tiny hole in his dad’s sock. He was tempted to lean over and tickle his dad’s toe. He really wanted to. But he didn’t—he resisted. Something told him his parents wouldn’t have liked finding him and Gloria under the table. Not after what they’d been talking—mumbling—about. It wasn’t a game, not tonight.
Gloria was looking at her parents’ feet too. They’d been getting ready to stand. But they stopped—they paused.
“Her flat isn’t damp, is it?” said their mam.
“She’s damp,” said their dad.
“Ah, stop.”
“No,” said her dad. “The flat’s grand. And I don’t know why she said it was damp.”
“She was only joking.”
“She’s hilarious.”
“She used to be,” said Gloria’s mam. “She really was.”
Gloria heard her mam sigh.
“Anyway,” she said.
Gloria’s mam often did that—said “Anyway” and nothing else when she was distracted or a bit low.
Raymond and Gloria watched their parents stand up. They felt closer to each other, even though they hadn’t moved. They were trying to make themselves smaller, so their parents wouldn’t spot them.
Raymond heard them pick up cups and stuff. He heard their dad.
“Leave them. I’ll do them in the morning.”
He heard their mam. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“It’ll be a pain in the neck in the morning, love,” said their mam.
“It’ll be a bigger pain now,” said their dad.
Gloria heard their mam laugh—or trying to. It came out a bit like a snort.
“Are you worried about Ben?” their mam asked their dad.
“I am, yeah,” said their dad. “A bit.”
He sighed.
“She’s probably right about the depression,” he said. “The black dog thing she was talking about. It’s a good way of describing depression, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Black dog,” said their dad. “Woof bloody woof.”
Gloria watched her mam’s feet, then her dad’s, his legs, then nearly all of him as he got nearer the door and farther from the table.
He switched off the light. It was suddenly dark—Raymond tried not to gasp.
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” said their mam.
“I suppose so,” said their dad. “But I wish there was more we could do. I just feel so bloody powerless.”
He sighed again.
“What a bloody country.”
The door clicked shut.
CHAPTER 5
Gloria and Raymond crawled out from under the table.
It wasn’t too dark now. There was some light coming in from the kitchen window.
They waited till they heard their parents moving around upstairs. They knew exactly what was happening, as if they were reading a story and the words were written across the ceiling. Their mam went into the bathroom, and their dad went into their bedroom. Their mam turned on the water, their dad closed the bedroom curtains.
Raymond and Gloria waited.
Their mam brushed her teeth, their dad threw his trousers on the floor. Their mam hummed a bit of a song, and their dad did one of his big yawns.
They waited.
Their parents swapped places. Their dad went into the bathroom. He said something to their mam, and she laughed—but it wasn’t a real laugh. Their dad turned on the water, and their mam dropped a shoe on the floor. Their dad crossed the landing, into their bedroom. He closed their bedroom door quietly. They heard their dad lie back on the bed.
Gloria and Raymond looked at each other. And they listened. A few more minutes and they’d hear their dad snore, and the noise of their mam making him move onto his side.
Raymond whispered, “Did you hear what they said?”
“Granny’s damp,” Gloria whispered back.
“Not that,” Raymond whispered. “The other thing. The thing Granny said.”
“The Black Dog.”
“Yeah,” said Raymond. “The Black Dog of Depression took Dublin’s funny bone.”
They heard the snore—their dad had started. They heard the bed creak, and their dad stopped, as if the snore had been broken in half.
They waited for a few more seconds.
“Yeah,” Gloria whispered. “And they’re worried about Uncle Ben.”
“The Black Dog’s been on his back.”
“I didn’t see him on Uncle Ben’s back,” Gloria whispered. “Did you, Rayzer?”
“No.”
It upset them. It was horrible. The Black Dog of Depression definitely wasn’t a nice dog, and he’d been climbing onto their uncle’s back. They didn’t know what the Black Dog did then—licked Uncle Ben with his horrible tongue or whispered horrible things into Uncle Ben’s ear. They didn’t know. They’d only just heard about the Dog.
They both shivered.
“We have to do something,” said Raymond—he whispered.
“What?”
“Get the funny bone back from the Black Dog,” Raymond whispered.
“Yeah,” Gloria agreed—she whispered too. “It’ll cheer up Uncle Ben and make him better again.”
“Let’s go.”
“Hang on,” said Gloria. “What’s a funny bone?”
“It’s the bit of the body that makes you laugh,” said Raymond. “You know the way the heart is where your blood goes and the lungs are where your air goes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Raymond whispered, “the funny bone’s where the laughs are stored, before you use them.”
“And the Black Dog wants to rob Uncle Ben’s funny bone?”
“Not sure,” said Raymond. “Think so.”
“So Uncle Ben can’t laugh.”
“Yeah,” said Raymond. “Or even smile—without trying really hard.”
Gloria nodded. It all made sense. She’d seen her Uncle Ben trying to smile.
“And does Dublin have a funny bone as well?” she whispered.
“Granny said so,” said Raymond.
“Ah, well, then,” sai
d Gloria.
She trusted her granny, and it still made sense. No one in the city seemed to laugh anymore. No teachers, or any of the other adults she knew.
“Let’s go,” said Raymond.
“Now, like?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Gloria ran to the back door—it was the nearest way out—but Raymond ran to the other door, the one their dad had closed a few minutes before.
Gloria was confused.
“Where are we going, Rayzer?” she whispered.
“Upstairs, to get our clothes on.”
“Oh yeah,” Gloria whispered. “I forgot.”
They were still in their jammies. They’d no shoes or socks on, or anything. She laughed—quietly.
“There’s nothing wrong with my funny bone, Rayzer,” she whispered.
They crept out into the hall and went quietly back up the stairs. They crept into Raymond’s bedroom. They didn’t turn on the light. The click of the switch would have been too loud. They took off their pajamas and put on proper clothes. They didn’t sit on the bed, so the bedsprings wouldn’t creak or squeal. They crept back out to the landing. They went back down the stairs, very carefully over the loose nail in the second-to-last step. They shut the kitchen door again, carefully, quietly.
They sat on the floor and put on their shoes.
“Will we bring our coats?”
“I hate my coat.”
“Me too.”
Raymond was unlocking the back door, about to step into the night.
The door was open now. The new cold air was all around them.
“Where are we going, Rayzer?” Gloria asked.
“Don’t know,” said Raymond.
He gulped—it was dark out there.
He took a big breath.
“But we have to find the Black Dog,” he said. “And he’s not in here. So come on.”
They ran out into the back garden. The security light from O’Leary’s house next door went on, with a click and a blast of white light.
“Oh my God!”
“Come on!”
Raymond led the way to the side of the house. It was cold, and there was a smell of old trash bin. O’Leary’s security light clicked off.
Raymond stopped.
“I can’t see.”
He tried to sound casual.
“I might step in something yucky.”
“Brilliant,” said Gloria, and the word popped open above them and filled the passage between the houses with gentle yellow light. They were shocked but not all that surprised.
Brilliant was the busiest word in Dublin. It was the city’s favorite word. Everyone in Dublin said “Brilliant” at least twenty-seven times a day, and more than a million people lived in Dublin. So “Brilliant” was whispered, shouted, roared, bawled, screamed, laughed, or just plain said at least twenty-seven million times a day.
It started first thing in the morning.
“I’m still alive. Brilliant!”
And it went on, all through the day.
“What’s for breakfast?”
“The usual.”
“Brilliant.”
“Oh, look, it’s stopped raining.”
“Brilliant.”
All day.
“Here’s the bus.”
“Brilliant.”
“There’s two of them!”
“Double brilliant!”
Wherever people met each other or just walked past, the “Brilliant”s filled the air. Even when there was no one around, a deserted corner or an empty shop, the echoes of the “Brilliant”s bounced and rolled along the walls or ceilings for hours after the people who’d said them had left.
“Brilliant.”
“Brilliant.”
“Brilliant.”
“. . . brilliant . . .”
“. . . brilliant . . . .”
“. . . . . . . . . . illia . . . . . . . . . .”
On the busy streets, in the places where people worked and played, in the schools and playgrounds and the cafes and churches—
“The Lord is my shepherd.”
“Ah, that’s brilliant.”
The offices, the kitchens, the bathrooms, the nurseries, the shopping centers, the libraries—
“Brilliant!”
“Shuushhhhhhh!”
“Sorry.”
The football fields and tennis courts, the gyms and the swimming pools, the buses, the train stations, the petrol stations and inside the taxis, the hospitals—
“No bones broken, anyway.”
“Brilliant.”
The pubs and the clubs and the cinemas and theaters, the parks and the waiting rooms, anywhere where there were people, the air was stuffed with “Brilliant”s.
And that was on the quiet days.
“That was a great funeral.”
“Brilliant.”
It was a great word, really. It burst out of your mouth when you said it.
“How’s the soup?”
“Brilliant!”
“Ah, look what you’ve done to me shirt!”
It was a handy word, very adaptable. It could be used in all sorts of ways.
“The car won’t start.”
“Well, that’s just brilliant.”
It made people smile, even when they didn’t want to.
“My dog’s dying.”
“Ah, no. What was his name?”
“Brilliant.”
“Ahhh, that’s brilliant.”
And that was the problem. Brilliant was a brilliant word. It lit everything around it. It was hard to see the gloom when the word was constantly bursting all over the city, like a firework display that never ended. But sometimes—only for brief moments, when very few people were talking—the sadness was there to be seen, on the faces, across the shoulders, in the feet. The adults of Dublin were low. They were worried and sometimes angry. They worried about the future. They felt trapped, surrounded by bad news. There was no escape.
But then someone would say, “Brilliant.” And the gloom would disappear.
CHAPTER 6
Brilliant,” said Gloria, and the word popped open above them and filled the passage with a gentle yellow light that made the trash bins glow.
They knew the light wouldn’t last long, so Raymond got going again and Gloria followed him out, past their dad’s parked car, out to the street.
Raymond stopped. And so did Gloria.
“Where now, Rayzer?” she said.
They were at the gate. They could go left or right, or straight across the road.
“There are three black dogs on our road,” said Raymond.
“Yeah.”
“And they all live down this way,” said Raymond.
He pointed right.
“Come on.”
They ran.
There was something about nighttime. It seemed to make the noise of their shoes much louder. They could hear their steps bouncing off the walls of all the houses. It sounded like there were other people coming up behind them. Gloria looked, but there was no one else.
They ran past three more gates, to Mooney’s house. The gate was open. They went—they tiptoed—to the front door. They got down on their knees. Raymond pushed open the letterbox, and, together, they looked through the opening.
They saw two black eyes—and a tongue. The eyes and tongue belonged to Lulu Mooney. The tongue tried to lick their faces through the mail slot. Raymond was very careful letting the flap of the letterbox back down. Lulu was licking his fingers, and he wanted to laugh. He pushed her nose away with a finger and shut the flap. They could hear little happy whimpers from the other side of the door.
“I don’t think Lulu’s the Black Dog of Depression,” said Gloria.
“No,” Raymond agreed.
Lulu started barking.
“Run!”
“I am!”
They dashed back to the street. They could hear Mr. Mooney from inside the house.
“Sh
ut up! Or I’ll go down there and take that bloody bone from you!”
Gloria stopped running.
“The funny bone!”
“No,” said Raymond. “It’s just an ordinary bone. It’s Lulu’s. She’s been minding it for years. And it isn’t funny. It’s disgusting. Come on.”
They ran to the next house, the Simpsons’. Gloria stopped again.
“They’re not there,” she remembered.
Melanie Simpson was in her class at school.
“They’ve gone away for Saint Patrick’s Day,” she said.
“Where?”
“Don’t know. To the country.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Amigo as well?”
Amigo was the Simpsons’ dog.
“S’pose,” said Gloria. “They wouldn’t leave him on his own. Unless they’ve trained him to use a can opener.”
“Okay,” said Raymond.
They hadn’t moved while they were talking, and they both thought the same thing—it was better to keep moving. While they ran, they felt like they were hidden, or at least harder to see, if anyone—an adult—was looking out a window.
“Come on.”
They ran to the next house, the O’Driscolls’. The O’Driscolls’ black dog, Fang, slept in a shed in the back. So this was a tricky mission, harder than just opening a letterbox.
They walked carefully to the side gate. It wasn’t locked.
“Sweet.”
But it was creaky. The hinges were old and rusty. Raymond held the handle so he could lift the gate a little bit and slowly push it forward.
It worked. The gate made hardly any noise, but the noise it did make was horrible.
He stopped.
They waited.
No lights came on.
Raymond lifted the gate again and pushed till he thought there’d be enough room for them to slide through.
They waited again.
They heard no voices, or feet.
“Come on.”
They were able to squeeze through sideways, one at a time. Raymond went first, and they crept down the dark side passage. There was lots of stuff in their way: two bikes, a dead fridge, and smaller things that Raymond couldn’t make out.
“Can’t see properly.”
“Brilliant.”
The shed was suddenly bright.