Bitter Sixteen Read online

  What the hell is going on?

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Calm down. It’s happening. It’s mental, but it’s happening. It is what is going on. Have a normal, quiet birthday, and completely and totally lose your shit tomorrow.

  I’m pretty good at accepting things.

  Within reason.

  My parents returned moments later, which gave me a good reason to look as normal and nonplussed by reality as possible. ‘Do you want the small things first?’ said my father.

  ‘Or the big one?’ my mother smiled.

  I smiled back and shrugged. ‘The little ones?’

  ‘OK.’ They sat down. ‘Go on.’

  I opened the cards first. As I went through them (twenty pounds from my cousins in America, a cheque for fifty from my grandparents, book tokens from some more cousins, a Happy 14th Birthday from an absent-minded uncle in New Zealand, nothing from my cousin in London), my mind kept wandering. Visions of myself speeding across the wood behind my house, dancing from tree to tree, tugging me away from material things. I shrugged them off. Plenty of time for experimentation tomorrow, remember?

  Tomorrow.

  And the day after, and the day after.

  I was getting ahead of myself again, sort of. There was no guarantee that this power would ever extend further than allowing me to levitate a few inches off the ground. Maybe that would be it. Maybe I’d call myself Floating Boy, and form a League of Thoroughly Mediocre Gentlemen alongside Captain Lampshade, blessed with complete mastery over all the lampshades in the world, The Sometimes A Bit Invisible Girl, able to make her feet invisible every other Wednesday, and The Metaboliser, endowed with the ability to digest things really fast.

  ‘Stanly?’ said my mother. ‘Are you all right?’

  I realised that I’d completely zoned out. ‘Sorry. Not enough sleep.’ They exchanged bemused looks and I hurriedly set about opening the packages they’d handed over. A few DVDs, a CD and a couple of books. They were good ones and I thanked and hugged my parents with more affection than it was usual for me to show them. My father grinned now. I appreciated his enthusiasm – I think it was actually genuine – but the grin was a bit much, it made him look a bit deranged. ‘Do you want to see the big one?’ he said.

  I nodded and they left the room again, returning with a large wrapped box and an electric guitar in a case. My eyes widened. A month ago they’d asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I’d said an electric guitar. I could see my mother perking up when I said that. I could almost read her mind. Yet another montage, but a very short one that mainly consisted of me forming a band, doing big gigs and making lots of friends, possibly even getting a girl of some kind. I hadn’t expected to actually get the thing. I momentarily entertained a mental image of my own, windmilling the shit out of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ at a high school dance in 1955, but was quickly shaken out of it by my father asking if I wanted lessons. I said that I’d just fiddle about for now, that’d be fine.

  I spent the rest of the day fiddling about. A few of my parents’ friends came by and wished me a happy birthday, some bearing chocolate and cards, and I thanked them politely before going back to my guitar. I knew bugger all about guitars, all I knew was that this one was blue and it looked cool, and when I plugged it into the amplifier and turned it up it made everything shake. And woke Daryl up.

  Ah yes.

  Daryl was my dog. About a year ago I had been at a sort of free-for-all, no-invitation-required party because I was bored. I was sitting with a group of stoners, trying to keep up with their up-and-down, side-to-side conversation, when a very laid-back skateboarder called Mikey handed me a spliff. I’d never tried it before and almost respectfully declined – but they all seemed to be having so much fun. I wanted to have fun. I very rarely had fun, at least not with people. So I accepted it. I just wanted to try something new and have fun like they were having.

  I spent the rest of the night having fun. The memory is sort of filtered through a kaleidoscope: I can see trees and dancing and a bonfire and a band, and I can see myself staggering home at about four in the morning, and I can see a hedge, and I can see a dog. This is where Daryl comes into the story.

  He was a small, mostly white beagle who looked more like Snoopy than most beagles, although that might just be my perception of him, and he was ambling along quite happily, sniffing at the bushes by the side of the road, enjoying the country air. I knelt down and patted him and murmured some nonsense to him.

  And he answered me.

  Now, I’ve seen stoners in films. They’re always talking to dogs and the dogs are always talking back. I didn’t think anything of it. The conversation went sort of like this.

  Me: Slurred gibberish.

  Dog: Yeah? It’s like that, is it?

  Me: More gibberish, then: Yep.

  Dog: What’s your name, kid?

  Me: Stanly.

  Dog: I’m Daryl.

  Me: Hi.

  We shake hands.

  Me: So like . . . you um . . . (More gibberish).

  Daryl (laughing): Yep.

  Me: Want to come to my house?

  Daryl: Yeah, sure.

  Me: V’lost my keys. Probably be locked.

  Daryl: That’s fine.

  Me: There’s a bench.

  Daryl: Cool.

  So we walked home and my parents found me in the morning, sleeping on the wooden bench on the patio overlooking the railway line, a beagle curled up next to me. I opened my eyes and, strangely, didn’t feel weird at all. I looked down at the dog. ‘Um . . . Daryl?’

  My parents also looked at the dog. ‘Whose dog is that?’ said my father.

  ‘Mine,’ I said. ‘I found him and he came along with me.’

  ‘Stanly,’ said my mother, ‘you can’t just bring any old stray home!’

  ‘And I thought you didn’t like dogs,’ said my father.

  ‘I didn’t before,’ I said. ‘But I do now. Can I keep him?’

  ‘He might have a previous owner,’ said my father.

  ‘He won’t mind,’ said Daryl, whose eyes were still shut.

  There was a very long pause, finally broken by my father laughing. ‘Very good, Stanly,’ he said. ‘Ventriloquism. Very nice —’

  ‘No, that was me,’ said Daryl, opening his eyes and stretching. ‘I do have a previous owner, but not one I want to go back to.’

  I was as surprised as my parents. I thought it had been the weed talking.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ said Daryl. ‘The Piano? Why aren’t you saying anything?’

  I glanced at my parents, half expecting them to admonish Daryl for his language. They didn’t, though. Probably distracted by the fact that it’s a beagle talking. For my part, I was trying to work out what was stranger – the fact that he was referencing The Piano or the fact that his reference to The Piano was actually a reference to The Piano from an entirely different film altogether. ‘Um . . .’ I said. ‘What film is that from? I know I recognise it.’

  ‘Is that really the issue?’ my mother said.

  ‘What’s the issue?’ asked Daryl, perfectly innocently.

  ‘The issue is that dogs don’t talk!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Oh,’ said Daryl. He turned back to me. ‘Dogma.’

  I smiled. ‘I knew it!’

  My mother spluttered. ‘It’s not . . . it’s not dogma, it’s . . . it’s common sense! It’s —’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The film that he was quoting. It’s called Dogma.’

  At which point my mother temporarily lost the power of speech, which was kind of ironic I suppose.

  Once everybody had calmed down, Daryl explained that his previous owner was a really boring old man who ignored him ninety per cent of the time. Daryl felt that he was wasted on this singularly un-talkative guy so had decided to leave, and he’d b
een walking for about an hour when he met me. I immediately said that he could stay, and my parents didn’t seem to have the will to rescind my invitation. I think they were too freaked out to protest.

  To be fair to them, they adjusted to the idea of a talking dog fairly quickly. It was amazing really. They had always seemed so grounded in a very specific interpretation of reality, and here they were holding a conversation with a beagle. There were a couple of occasions – mostly instigated by my father – where putting him on the Internet or contacting the national news came up, but I put the kibosh on them by threatening to go on hunger strike, which deeply distressed my mother and baffled my father, who wasn’t used to me showing that kind of enthusiasm about anything. My dad’s last attempt at turning Daryl my new pet dog into Daryl the Amazing Talking Dog, Eighth Wonder of the World, went like this:

  Dad (holding video camera and using a ‘talking to unique individuals’ voice): Hi there, Daryl!

  Daryl: (stares blankly back at him)

  Dad: I said, hi there, Daryl! How are you today?

  Daryl: . . .

  Dad (getting irritated): Come on, don’t do this. You know you can talk, I know you can talk. Think how much money we could make if we got this on TV or the Internet. Come on. Talk to me.

  Daryl (wagging his tail dumbly): Woof!

  Dad (really irritated): You’re taking the piss now.

  Me (looking up from my fish fingers and chips): He’s not going to do it, Dad.

  Dad: But we could make so much —

  Mum: Frank. Come on, now. I know it’s been hard adjusting to Daryl. And strange. And . . . hard. But he doesn’t want to go on TV, and Stanly doesn’t want him to go on TV. Let’s just leave it now.

  Dad: This is bloody ridiculous! We have the most unique animal in the world living in our house, and you won’t even let me —

  Me: I don’t have to eat these fish fingers you know, Dad. I could just as easily not eat them.

  Dad (not wanting a repeat of my hunger strike and huffily switching off the video camera): Fine! Fine! Have it your way! (Angrily leaving the room) Bloody dog . . .

  And that was how Daryl became part of the family.

  He never explained how it was that he could talk. He said he’d never met another dog who spoke any human language, and asked us if it was a problem, and we all said no. Well. I said no. ‘Are there any other things you want to tell us about yourself?’ asked my mother. My father – when he wasn’t trying to trick him into becoming a viral sensation – rarely spoke to Daryl directly. I think he found it too weird.

  ‘I don’t eat dog food,’ said Daryl. ‘I hate that processed conveyor-belt shit.’

  My mother raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Daryl. ‘That processed conveyor-belt crap. I like to eat at the table, but if that’ll freak out your visitors I’ll eat somewhere else, just so long as it’s not from a bowl on the floor. I’ll go for walks on my own if you don’t want to take me. I have a superb sense of direction so I’ll find my way back easily. I like cats. I can use a human toilet.’

  ‘Really?’ said my mother.

  ‘Do I look retarded or incontinent to you?’ asked Daryl, frostily.

  ‘Sorry.’ My mother is apologising to a dog, I remember thinking. In genuinely humble tones. This is the best thing that has ever happened to anyone.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Daryl. ‘Um . . . I think that’s about it.’

  So that’s Daryl.

  Daryl appraised my guitar. ‘That is a piece of work,’ he said. ‘That is . . . the mutt’s nuts. So to speak.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Want to try it?’

  He put his large head on one side. ‘Do I look that dextrous? Use yer loaf.’

  I played with the guitar until about ten o’clock, when my mother said we should really consider the neighbours – subtext: your father’s patience will only stretch so far, even on your birthday – so I reluctantly packed the instrument away and went upstairs with Daryl.

  My room was small, with a dark grey carpet and walls just blue enough to not be white, but too pale to be completely blue. There were film posters all over them, as well as a few of my own drawings – some on paper, some drawn straight onto the wall, to my parents’ chagrin – and a painting of a green lady that my uncle Nathan had done a few months before he died. It had a strange hypnotic quality to it, and I never spent too long looking at it because the last time I stared for more than a minute I went catatonic and my mother thought that I’d OD’d on something. Where there weren’t posters there were shelves stuffed with books, DVDs, CDs and notebooks. My desk was so cluttered I could hardly write on it, and it was impossible to find anything that wasn’t on a shelf because it would either be under my bed (The Dead Zone, as my father once referred to it) or buried on my desk under a pile of old coursework drafts, notebooks, drawings, books that I couldn’t fit on my shelves, or coasters made from scratched CDs. I also had a few curios scattered around the room – a wooden Japanese kokeshi doll named Miko, for example. She was beautifully crafted, very smooth and shiny, with delicate flower patterns on her dress. I found her in a small shop the first (and only) time I’d been to London, and the elderly shopkeeper had told me that a long time ago some families in Japan were so poor that they had to sell their daughters into slavery or prostitution, so they made dolls to remember them by. I’d been so moved that I bought the doll immediately. Might have been a complete lie, but I didn’t really care, a story’s a story.

  We watched Casablanca and, as always, Daryl cried at the end. ‘How many times have we watched this now?’ I asked, as the credits ran.

  ‘Not enough,’ sniffed Daryl.

  I switched off the player and the TV and stretched, and Daryl regarded me with his big dog eyes. ‘So. What was your best birthday present?’

  I waited a long minute before I answered. I knew he was the only one I could possibly tell. The only one who wouldn’t freak out. ‘My powers.’

  Daryl put his head on one side. ‘Um . . . what?’ He had a sort of Rowan Atkinson-esque way of saying what that always tickled me.

  ‘The moment I turned sixteen I got powers,’ I said.

  ‘What powers?’

  ‘Levitation,’ I said. ‘I can float. About a foot off the ground.’

  Daryl didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, ‘You’re messing with me.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘You know I’m not. Look at my face. This is a truth face.’

  He looked, and I knew he knew. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know. It’s . . . I don’t know. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t . . . should it?’

  Daryl was momentarily lost for words, which was the second supremely weird thing that had happened that day. Then he laughed. ‘Stanly, I’m a dog who talks. QED.’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

  Daryl’s tail was wagging. ‘Show me?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said, yawning. ‘I’m . . . I’m too tired now. I’ve been awake for like thirty-six hours. I’m . . .’ The rest of the sentence drowned in yawns.

  Daryl nodded and settled down. ‘Fine.’ I switched off the light and stroked him, and in the dark he whispered, ‘Are you scared?’

  I shrugged. ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT DAY was cloudy, and the air was moist. Daryl and I were up in the woods behind my house, and I was standing by a very tall tree, feeling energised. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Watch and learn, doglet.’ I closed my eyes and concentrated hard, trying to find the sweet spot, the right mental angle. Hearing a sharp intake of breath from Daryl I opened my eyes again, and sure enough I was floating about a foot off the ground. I slowed my breathing and tried to stay completely focused and calm, managing to stay there for about t
en seconds before I dropped. The dog’s tongue was hanging out. ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘Wow,’ said Daryl. ‘I mean . . . wow. That’s . . . that’s all right, that is.’

  I tried again. And again. And again. So many attempts, but I couldn’t beat ten seconds. ‘Have you thought about springboards?’ said Daryl, after a while.

  I looked at him, frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘Springboards,’ he said. ‘Using things to propel yourself. Walls, trees, rocks. That kind of thing.’

  The penny dropped with a loud power chord and I smiled and took several strides back so that I had a decent run up. ‘Free your mind,’ said Daryl. ‘You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are. Know you are.’

  ‘Yeah, whatevz, Morpheus.’ I breathed in and ran straight at the tree. I ran with music pounding in my head, sweat on my skin and a bubble filled with butterflies expanding in my stomach, and at the last minute I jumped, planted one foot on the tree, spun . . .

  . . . and floated, almost majestically, through the air. The bubble exploded and the butterflies took flight and I yelled in triumph. Daryl was laughing delightedly. I flew towards another tree, stuck my foot out and kicked myself off it, bouncing across to another one. I danced between trees for nearly a minute before suddenly dropping out of the air and hitting the ground hard, flat on my back, the wind rushing painfully out of me. The thump sounded exactly like a human body hitting the ground, funnily enough.

  When I had recovered sufficient breath I got to my feet. ‘Bollocks,’ I said, stamping a foot in frustration.

  A rock flew through the air, hit the cliff face and exploded into tiny dusty fragments.

  There was a long silence.

  I looked at Daryl. ‘Did —’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I —’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘It —’

  ‘Mm.’

  I nodded. ‘OK.’ I looked at a pile of twigs and raised my hand. Nothing. I concentrated really hard. Nothing. I concentrated so hard that my temples fused and my eyes hurt and electricity danced in my skull, and a solitary twig rose up off the ground and hung wobbily in mid-air, looking like an extremely dodgy special effect. I moved my hand very slowly, tracing the movement that I wanted the twig to make, and it followed. Trying to avoid letting exultation overthrow concentration, I kept going, managing to keep the twig in the air for thirty seconds before it dropped.