I’ve no idea how long I lay there. I knew I was being unfair – as if they could know me just like that! But it was very hard to forgive them, especially Mum, for doubting me after all my efforts to be human again. I kept dozing and dreaming and coming to, and trying to make sense of it. I’d nuzzle up to Mr Brown and then doze off again. I didn’t wake up properly until the door rattled and opened, and there was Mum staring at me with a face like cracked glass.
‘Oh, you bad dog!’ she cried. She ran into the room. I backed off on the bed, half wagging my tail. What had I done? ‘Look at the state of this room! Look at it – it’s wrecked!’ I looked around. It was a tip. I’d chewed it half to pieces. Then she caught sight of Mr Brown lying on the bed and she went ballistic.
‘Look what you’ve done! Oh, how could you, you bad dog, you’ve chewed her teddy to pieces! Just look at it! Oh, you bad, bad dog!’ She reached forward and snatched him off the bed in front of me and waved him in my face. It was true! Mr Brown was in tatters, his stuffing leaking out all over the place, his head all soggy. I must have been chewing him in my sleep. I let out a whimper of surprise, but Mum was livid.
‘BAD dog! BAD dog!’ she yelled. ‘Look at it, it’s ruined. What will Sandra say, letting a bad dog like that sleep in her room and put on her clothes and chew up her teddy? Well, now I KNOW you’re not my Sandra! Sandra would never treat her things like this, she always loved that bear, how could you do such a thing! Oh, now we see your true colours …’ On and on she went, holding the bear to her breast and shouting and weeping. I could hardly believe my ears. I don’t know why she’d picked on Mr Brown when the rest of my room was all chewed up. I’d never even liked Mr Brown! It was the first time I could ever remember taking him to bed, I’d only done it now because he reminded me of the past.
On the stairs feet came pounding. Dad and Adam were on their way up to see what the fuss was about.
‘Look! She’s chewed Sandra’s things to pieces. Look at her teddy!’
‘I told you, I told you it wasn’t her!’ shouted Adam.
‘That proves it!’ yelled my dad. All three of them started shouting and blaming each other and yelling how obvious it was that I wasn’t Sandra, and how they’d never really believed it at all, and how could they have been so stupid as to be taken in by such a ridiculous dog, and on and on and on …
I couldn’t believe it! It was as if all the time they’d just been waiting for me to make one tiny little mistake so they could turn against me! It was so typical! Just like it used be, just so like the way they always behaved towards me. All they ever wanted was the slightest excuse to turn on me. It made me so angry that it was never enough for me to be myself. Oh, no, I had to be so good as well, so bloody good, and if I wasn’t good enough then I was out on my bloody ear. Call the police! Get her put down! Kill her! She’s chewed up her teddy!
Well, it was my teddy, wasn’t it? I could do what I wanted to my own teddy. With a snarl I leaped off the bed and seized Mr Brown in my jaws, tearing him from Mum’s grasp. I landed in the middle of the room right in front of them, daring them to try and take him off me. Mum shrieked, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ and reached forward, but I growled so fiercely that she didn’t dare try.
‘GRRRRRRRRRR!’ I told them, and I began to rip that bear to shreds, shaking my head until the stuffing flew, pawing at it, getting it down on the ground and biting savagely at its head. My family were terrified – they couldn’t get out of that room fast enough! They were yelling, ‘MAD DOG!’ and falling all over each other and clawing at each other to try and get out of the room first. The air was a blizzard of stuffing. Then the door slammed. And you know what? I was laughing my head off. If only they’d known, half my growls were snorts of laughter. I mean! Mad dog! Oh God, she’s got rabies! Mad dog! And why? Because I was chewing my teddy? I mean, is that it? How ridiculous can you get!
But I wasn’t laughing for long.
‘It’s gone mad!’ yelled Dad.
‘Just like last time!’ howled Adam.
‘That’s it, I’ve seen enough,’ yelled Mum. ‘Get the police, let’s get rid of it once and for all!’
I heard them fumble with the door handle, jamming it up again. I couldn’t believe my ears. Were they really going to murder me for chewing up my teddy bear? Once again I was staring the dog pound in the face. It’s like I’ve spent half the last year, girl and bitch, being threatened. Experiments. Tests. Just because you’re an animal they think you don’t have any basic rights. Human rights, that’s what they call them, don’t they?
I ran to the window and looked out. It was open an inch at the bottom, enough to let a little air circulate – my mum always hated the smell of dogs. I put my nose underneath and began to work it up, and as I did it there was a noise in the garden below me. Two dogs jumped out of the hedge and walked proudly on to the lawn below me. Fella and Mitch! They’d been out there all the time!
‘We’ve been waiting for you!’ barked Mitch. He and Fella walked forward into the garden, tails high, wagging slowly from the pleasure of seeing me again. I felt my heart leap inside me. What was I doing here, in this house, with these people? Surely, certainly, I was a dog, and here was my own kind waiting to welcome me!
‘It’s not too late,’ barked Fella. ‘Oh, you pretty little bitch! Come to me, baby! Jump!’
‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’ barked Mitch over and over again. He was so excited he started to jump up and down himself, making little whiny noises. I pushed my nose right under the window and with a good hard shove got it up far enough to wriggle out. But I hesitated. I was certain that if I left again I’d never come back. Was I ready for that?
‘You’re not one of them!’ yelped Fella. ‘You can’t trust them, they don’t know how to have fun, they don’t even know who they are half the time! Jump, baby! Come on, jump!’
‘You’ve got nothing to lose – you’ve already lost it!’ barked Mitch. ‘Remember the taste of rabbit blood on your tongue! The pack at night, the grass under your paws, your tireless feet!’
‘Remember the time we had in the Southern Cemetery!’ barked Fella. ‘Remember the cats. We still gotta catch a cat! The smells on the pavement and lampposts, the freedom to go where you like and sleep when you want! What are you waiting for? Jump!’
I gathered my strength beneath me. What was I waiting for? I thought, Jump, jump, you silly bitch! I could hear my family shouting downstairs, terrified at the sights and sounds that were going on. Fella being Fella, he was barking away in a variety of accents – Welsh, Irish and Caribbean.
I could hear my mum saying in a stunned voice, ‘Is that dog barking in Welsh? Is that dog barking in Welsh?’ Then Adam started screaming again – the idiots.
‘What are you waiting for?’ pleaded Fella. ‘You and me, baby! We’ll feast on cats! We’re a new breed, baby. Come on! There’s nothing for you there.’
I think my whole life – not my life that had gone, but my life to come – flashed before my eyes. Back to school, working away like mad to get exams I wasn’t going to do well at, so I could get a crap job in a crap company with long hours that’d inch by inch by inch turn me into everybody else. Work work work, every day learning how to be good at something I wasn’t good at, doing things I didn’t want to do, living for weekends and three weeks’ holiday a year. Parenthood! Sweating and straining to pop out a fat helpless baby; worry and care and stress. Never having enough money to do anything you want to do, and only just enough to do what you have to. Coming home to the baby and doing more work, and then making the baby turn into everybody else as well. Years and years and years of it. Nappies and shit and exams and tests and work and forever and ever and ever amen.
Then I thought about being a dog under the night sky with the dew in her coat, who spills her puppies out and mourns without despair. Her life isn’t worry and work, it’s loyalty and blood, fear and love – the brief passion for yet another dog on your back, yet another batch of puppies to love and to throw away. Li
fe and death seized between your jaws; mating, hunting and then to die in a splash of blood under the wheels of a lorry. And I thought, I don’t want to be a human being. I never was a human being in the first place. I want to be quick and fast and happy and then dead. I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to be responsible. I want to be a dog!
‘Jump!’ barked Mitch. ‘Jump! Jump! Jump!’
‘Jump! Jump!’ barked Fella.
There were feet behind me on the stairs, the door burst open. Mum ran in.
‘Don’t go!’ she cried.
‘Let her go!’ shouted Adam from downstairs.
My legs gathered under me. The window was open. I jumped.
Melvin Burgess, Lady
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