Nightmare

The school bell rings, indicating it's midday. I ram my books and pen into my satchel and hurry down the brown corridors, keeping to my left as per school rules.

I push through the swing doors and hold one open with my foot as the boy behind me grabs the handle. I pick up my pace and move past the chatting hordes of bustling pupils and make my way down the sloping playground to the main road entrance.

I walk sideways, looking for a gap between cars so that I can cross the road. Once over, I walk a few paces and run a few all the way home. It takes about twenty minutes.

The sooner I get home, the more time I will have in which to splash some water on my face and under my arms to refresh myself, have some lunch, and play with my beautiful dog Sue.

I hurry down the main road, turn left at the bridge over the railway line, cross the road, turn right and into the street where I live. Our house is the second one down, but first, you have to pass the long, tall fence of the garden on the main road.

A smile begins in the corners of my mouth as I anticipate the welcoming soggy licks Sue will give me as soon as I open the door. The warmth of her softness as my hands plunge deep into her fur and give her a gentle squeeze.

I put my key in the lock and open the door. I am greeted not by a fluffy bundle of love but by a convulsing, thrashing dog lying in what looks like a war zone. 

I'm sure I don't go inside in slow motion, but it seems that way. My eyes grow wide, and my jaw drops open.

Mum is kneeling on the floor with the lounge door pressing on her back. Dad made the door, so it automatically closes itself. You have to prop it open. Mum was keeping it open with her back. I lean forward, push the door and wedge it with the slab of green marble we have for this purpose.

Sue is lying on her side in the throes of a convulsion.

"She's been fitting for at least twenty minutes," Mum says. I throw my satchel onto a chair in the backroom and rush back to Mum and Sue. 

"What can I do?" I say as I glimpse around the room at the poo on the furniture, walls, and ceiling where Sue has messed herself, and her long bushy tail has lashed out like some cowboy's bullwhip and spread the mess everywhere.

The foamy saliva and blood from her bitten tongue have mixed with the urine and poo. It has all spattered around the room. 

The whole room stinks. If ever there is a smell of death, then this is it. It fills my nostrils.

Sue's head, legs, body, and tail are thrashing a concoction of body fluids and excrements over Mum and the walls. I gawp in disbelief.

"You'll have to call the vet. I don't think Sue is going to come out of this fit." Mum says. "Take some money off the mantlepiece. The number's on a scrap of paper behind the commemorative mug on the windowsill. Go to the phone box and tell the vet Sue has not come out of her fit for at least twenty-five minutes."

I hurry into the backroom, take the money from the mantlepiece, find the scrap of paper behind the commemorative mug, steer myself around Sue's thrashing legs and body and instinctively put the door on the latch.

I run the short distance up the road, around the corner, and to the shop on the next corner, where the red phone box stands tucked into its indent in the long wooden fence. The feeling of urgency rises in me, and my pulse quickens.

I dial the number marked Miss M. Vet on the piece of paper. A young voice answers immediately. "Miss M's veterinary practice, how can I help you.?" Between short quick breaths, I tell the voice on the other end of the phone that Sue has been fitting for at least twenty-five minutes. I slam the receiver back down and run home.

I run past the open front gate with the sign that says, 'lease shut the gate.' The 'P' fell off the day Dad nailed the metal plate on and then closed the gate too sharply.

Sue is still convulsing. Mum is doing her best to keep an old flannel across Sue's teeth so that she does not bite her tongue anymore. 

Mum is holding her tail down to stop even more mess going up the walls and onto the ceiling. I stand looking, feeling helpless.

I turn to the window as I hear a noise outside. The vet arrives. She must have been in the area. There is no way she could have got from the practice to our house amid the busy town traffic unless she had driven at ninety miles an hour. These thoughts add to my feelings of-this is an emergency. More panic rises from within.

I open the door for the vet. She is a short, plump lady and out of breath as she comes up the steps to our house and kneels beside Sue. Her saggy black bag next to her. 

I know I have to get back to school. We have a maths exam. No one asks me if I want to stay. I can think of some excuse to tell the teachers if only someone would ask me to stay behind with my dog.

My eyes grow big as I watch the vet reach into her bag and take a big syringe from a box full of long needles. My mind flashes back to when I was about five years old and was having my tonsils out—the nurse standing by my bed with a massive needle. I grab the barrel with such force that it breaks the glass syringe attached to the needle. Now the vet is going to stick an enormous needle in Sue.

I know Sue is going to die. She is not going to come out of this fit-ever. I know the syringe does not contain some magic potion to help Sue recover and be a normal fit-free dog again.

I rush to the back room, snatch my school satchel off the chair and quickly walk back to Mum, the vet, and the still fitting Sue. I feel helpless. There is nothing I can do. I am not wanted or needed here in this world of mayhem. 

The only way out of the room is by half stepping over Sue and scrambling over the kneeling plump lady vet and then out the front door. I stumble on, and as I look behind me at the gruesome scene, Sue still convulsing on the floor, blood, wee, poo, and froth everywhere, I hear the plump lady vet say, "what a horrible child."

I close the front door. Hold back tears and run just over a mile back to school. As I run, I relive Mum, all on her own, trying to do all she can to help Sue. I relive opening the front door and a scene reminiscent of the last days of Gettysburg hitting me in the face.

I am oblivious to the main road, the lunchtime traffic, the heat, the fumes, and the noise. All I have echoing in my ears are the words of the plump lady vet. "What a horrible child." 

I slow my pace and catch my breath as I go through the school gates up the incline, through the tarmac playground, and into the school corridor. I compose myself. I think I'm okay. I try to appear normal. 

My friend is coming toward me on her way to class, "What's wrong?" She says.

"Nothing," I say and realize I'm going the wrong way. I turn and follow her into class and sit down at my desk. Tears erupt from eyes. I cannot stop them. They blot over the page of the exercise book on my desk. I wipe the book with my sleeve, but the page still warps under the wetness left behind.

I spend the rest of the day crying and do horribly at my maths test.

The teacher asks my friend why I am crying. "She's had her dog put to sleep, sir." My friend says.

When the final school bell of the day rings out, I put my bits and pieces in my satchel saunter to the exit and out onto the main road. I slowly walk home. My best friend will not be greeting me tonight.

At home, no one mentions Sue or the day's happenings. No one speaks her name.  

I push my supper around my plate and apologize to Mum for not being hungry. I go up to my room and lay on my bed. I want sleep to claim me so that I can wake from this nightmare.

I close my eyes and drift off into a dull, grey ache that will not go away. 

In the greyness Mum is talking to me.

"There's a man at the top of the hill, near the church, who has some puppies for sale. If you want one you'd better hurry as they'll sell fast. He wants two shillings and sixpence for them."

I think "that's the total amount of my week's pocket money."

I'm not sure what to do. Has Mum forgiven me? It's been a whole year since I went out with my friends, climbed the school gates, and ran around the school roof. It's been an entire year since I forgot Bunty was with me, and she went looking for me and got run over and killed. Was I ready for another dog? Was I responsible enough to know how to look after another dog?

I take my pocket money out of the little container in my bedroom cabinet drawer and place it in my cardigan pocket. I walk down the road, turn right, cross the road, and go up the hill to the church: the hill, the opposite end of the road where Bunty was run over.

I knock on the battered front door of the house next to the ancient church. A withered old man silently greets me and beckons me into the kitchen, where there is a box full of puppies. The puppies squirm when they see me.

"Do you have any girls?" I say.

The withered old man takes the prettiest puppy in his gnarled hands. "This is a girl." He says. "The others are all boys."

I take two shillings and sixpence from my pocket. The withered old man holds the tiny puppy in one hand and opens the palm of the other. I place my pocket money on the deep dark lines of his skin. I take the girl puppy from him, go out of the kitchen, out the front door, and carry her home in my arms. I name her Sue.

Still in troubled sleep I'm playing with Sue, reading books on dog training, and putting the lessons into practice. Sue sits, stays, rolls over, and plays fetch. 

I throw a ball down the long, narrow garden path. Sue chases it. The concrete path becomes a beach, and Sue is running into the sea.

I call her, "Sue, Sue. Come back, Sue."

I wake from my dream and enter my nightmare.