Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

Author:Roddy Doyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Europe, Romance, Bildungsroman, Dublin (Ireland) - Fiction, Friendship - Fiction, Bildungsromans, General, Literary, Dublin (Ireland), Ireland, Fiction, Friendship, History
ISBN: 9780140233902
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1995-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

There were twenty-seven dogs in Barrytown, our part, and fifteen of them had had their tails docked.

—Docked off.

—There’s no Off. Docked, by itself.

They got their tails docked to stop them from falling over. When they wagged their tails they couldn’t balance properly and they fell over, so they had to have most of their tails cut off.

-Only when they’re pups.

—Yeah.

They only fell over when they were pups.

—Why don’t they wait? said Sinbad.

—Thick, I said, though I didn’t know what he meant.

—Who? Liam said to Sinbad.

—The vet, said Sinbad.

—For what?

—They only fall over when they’re puppies, said Sinbad.

—Why do they cut their tails just for that? They’re only puppies for a little while.

—Puppies, I said.—Listen to him. They’re pups, right.

He made sense though. None of us knew why. Liam shrugged.

—They just do.

—It must be good for them. Vets are like doctors.

The McEvoys had a Jack Russell. His name was Benson.

—That’s a thick name for a dog.

Ian McEvoy said it was his but it was really his ma’s. Benson was older than Ian McEvoy.

—They don’t dock the ones with long legs, I said.

Benson hardly had any legs. His belly touched the grass. It was easy to catch him. The only problem was having to wait till Missis McEvoy had gone to the shops.

—She likes him, Ian McEvoy told us.—She prefers him to me.

He was stronger than he looked. I could feel his muscles trying to get away. We only wanted to have a look at his tail. I held his back half. He tried to get his mouth back to my hand.

Kevin kicked him.

—Watch it.

Ian McEvoy was worried; if his ma caught us. So worried, he pushed Kevin away.

Kevin let him get away with it.

All we wanted to do was look at his tail, that was all. It was sticking up in the air. It was the healthiest-looking part of Benson. Dogs were supposed to wag their tails when they were happy but Benson definitely wasn’t happy and his tail was wagging like mad.

My da wouldn’t let us have a dog. He had his reasons, he said. My ma agreed with him.

Kevin held Benson where I’d been holding him and I grabbed his tail to stop it. The tail was a bone, a hairy bone, no fleshiness at all. I closed my fist and the tail wasn’t there. We laughed. Benson yelped, like he was joining in. I fisted just my top two fingers so we could see the top of his tail. I made sure that my free fingers didn’t touch his bum. It was hard for them not to, the way I was holding him, but I made sure that they didn’t rub across his hole.

Ma always sent us to wash our hands before our dinner. Only before our dinner, never before our breakfast or our tea. I sometimes didn’t bother; I just went up the stairs, turned the tap on and off, and came back down.

I pushed the hair out of the way. It was white and bristly. Benson tried to charge away in front of me.

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