Read When Mr. Dog Bites for Free Online Page B

“WHOOP!”
    “But it’s okay, Amir, ’cause it’s not happening until March.”
    “March?”
    “The doc said, ‘It’s safest to assume no later than the beginning of March.’”
    “Great balls of fire. WHOOP!”
    “I know.”
    “That sounds mad, Dylan.”
    “Bottom dollar, Amir, bottom bloody dollar.”
    “So what’s wrong, then?” Amir said AGAIN, all confused dot com.
    “Well, I don’t know exactamundo, because the doc was ultraconfusing.”
    “Oh . . . okay.”
    “All I do know is that I’m going to cack it. But Mom doesn’t want to talk about it, and I’m not allowed to ask questions.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Nothing you can say, Amir. Sometimes best buds don’t have to say anything. They have this sick sense between them.”
    “Sixth.”
    “What?”
    “Sixth sense.”
    “Same difference.”
    “Not really, because—”
    “Whatever, Amir . . . Maybe I should be sad.”
    “That wouldn’t do any good.”
    “But I am sad,” I said. Then it was my turn to look at the ground and rattle some stones across the yard. My face twitched a couple of times.
    “Me too. I’m sadder than the saddest guy in the saddest town in the world, but it’s no good being all Dot-Cotton-faced about it, Dylan. It’s going to happen, so we have to live with it. WHOOP!”
    “Suppose,” I muttered, and scuffed a stone away.
    “That’s funny,” Amir said, but I don’t think he meant hold-on-to-your-belly funny. He scuffed away some stones too and smacked his lips together.
    “What’s funny?”
    “Me saying ‘ we have to live with it .’”
    “So?”
    “So, ‘ live with it .’ It’s funny.”
    Then I got the joke. Amir was always making jokes that took ages to understand, which meant they weren’t funny anymore. Not that most of them were funny in the first place. I think it’s his not-understanding-boundaries thing.
    “I see what you’ve done there. I think that’s called irony, Amir.”
    “I know; I meant it.”
    “See?”
    “What?”
    “How easy it is to forget about what’s going to happen and have a great big laugh?”
    “Suppose,” Amir said. He was acting all gloomy-two-shoes, as if he were the one about to big-style cop it.
    “But remember: you should never, ever laugh at dying people, Amir.”
    “It’s not fair,” Amir said, tut-tut-tutting as he said it.
    “What’s the matter now?”
    “Who-who-who’s going to be my new best bud?”
    “Don’t worry about that; we’ll sort something out.” I was a pubic hair away from telling Amir about my Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It idea. Number two: Make Amir a happy chappy again instead of a miserable c***! That one was for me to worry about.
    “B-b-but you’re my only bud, Dylan.”
    “Not true. There’s . . .” And then I couldn’t think of anyone, so I said a dafty thing. “. . . Miss Flynn.”
    Amir swore like a pished sailor in his head. I could tell he wanted to belt out rubbish things to me, but he didn’t, ’cause I was going to be seeing the Grim Reaper soon and he didn’t want to be Insensitive Boy.
    “No one else likes me,” he said.
    I twiddled Green in my pocket through my Sweaty Betty fingers.
    “I know.”
    “Nobody wants to hang about with a Paki.”
    “I know.”
    “Especially a spazzie Paki who goes to a spazzie school and can’t sp-sp-speak pro-pro-properly.”
    “It’s shite, isn’t it?”
    “What am I going to do? WHOOP!”
    “Honestly, Amir, don’t worry. We’ll sort something out.”
    “WHOOP!”
    “And you’re not a spazzie.”
    “I-I-I am.”
    “You’re a wee bit autistic.”
    “So? WHOOP!”
    “There’s a difference.”
    “No, there’s not. I’m a spazzie Paki.”
    “You’re not a spazzie, Amir.”
    “WHOOP! What am I, then?”
    “I don’t know.” I hated these types of questions, especially when I didn’t know the stinking answers, like that numbers puzzle on Countdown . A real head-wrecker, that.
    “Eh? What am I?”
    “Erm . .