Dead Dogs Read Free Page A

the hurling pitch.
    I’ve never run towards the prefabs in my life.
    But I’m running towards them now. Towards this plywood ghetto. And I’m thinking, please don’t do anything, Seán. I’m running towards this plywood ghetto and I’m hoping to God that the puppy’s still alive.
    Then I stop. There are ten or twelve prefabs at the back of the school and round here there’s not much noise. From over the roof of the sports hall tumble shouts and yells and screams. But here,between the industrial grey of the prefab walls, there’s nothing. Not even birdsong.
    And now I’m running again, shouting, ‘Seán! Where are you?’
    Now I’m running right, running left and now I’m running slap bang into Seán.
    He’s sitting quiet and serene and on his face there’s the blank look of the hypnotised. He’s sitting quiet and serene on the metal steps of a prefab and the puppy is a limp draping of beige across his lap.
    Before I know that I’m saying them, words are hissing from my mouth like blood from an artery, ‘My God, Seán, what have you done?’
    And like I’ve said its name, the boneless rag on Seán’s lap raises its head and looks at me. The dog is doing this and then Seán is doing this. The two of them silent, doleful. The two of them empty-eyed as addicts.
    Then Seán’s going, ‘What do you think I’ve done?’
    I’m standing here in the muddy heart of a fibreboard slump and I’m suddenly feeling guilty.
    And then Seán says something. He says, ‘I wanted to. I still want to. He’s so soft. You better take him.’
    My whole body feels lax and eviscerated.
    Numbly I take the puppy and numbly I stroke its head and numbly I watch Seán start to cry.
    This is why I don’t think the tablets are helping.
    What I do think is that Seán can’t keep this up. I don’t know how he’s stopping himself doing stuff like hurting the O’Haras’puppy. I don’t know what it’s costing him but I think something’s going to break.
    I’m thinking he can’t keep this up.
     
    The more I think about it the more I realise that it’s not just that Seán doesn’t act like the rest of us; Seán doesn’t think like the rest of us either. This is why so many people don’t like him. He doesn’t understand them and people don’t like being misunderstood . He just doesn’t get them. Trouble is, nobody gets Seán either.
    The more I think about it, the sorrier I feel.
    We, Seán and me, are ten years old and we’re sitting in this big tree that used to grow three fields down. We are ten years old and we are playing army. When you play army, what you do is you split everyone into two groups and then each group finds a camp and then each group tries to kill the other.
    Not literally kill .
    What you do is, you get all the toy guns, all the hurls, all the bits of sticks you can find and then you use them to shoot with. Everything usually goes fine until one side tries to invade the other’s camp. Then people who’ve been deadly accurate from a field away suddenly start pulling triggers to be met with cries of, ‘Ya missed me!’
    When this happens, the whole game falls apart and if Nicky Sullivan is playing he’ll start to cry. This is because Nicky Sullivan is a quare bad loser. When this happens, everyone will startslagging him and then someone will suggest going down to the pond and our little war will suddenly be forgotten.
    The reason that me and Seán are up in this big tree is because we’re snipers. The reason we’re snipers is because everyone knows Seán never misses. He never misses. Not with his catapult. Not with his cocked right arm. Not with the hurl he’s cradling to his chest like a small Daniel Boone with his rifle. This is what everyone believes.
    I don’t believe it because it is a lie.
    The real reason that me and Seán are up in this big tree is because I volunteered us for it. I do this because when Seán’s playing, he’s like Nicky Sullivan only worse. When one army tries to