Peripheral Vision Read Online Free Page A

paperwork. I sent it in ages ago.’ I had rolled into the back of their car in the street – dented the bumper bar and cracked a rear light.
    He lurched forward as if he would fall on his face, then grabbed the architrave and pulled himself upright.
    â€˜We never had a dog. It’s cunts like you who brought this on,’ he said, and slammed the door.
    I stood there shaking. Their seven-year-old son pulled aside the lounge room curtain and stared out at me, his pale fat face void of expression. He looked like he’d never eaten a piece of fruit in his life.
    It’s been eight years, but I still remember the circus and our wide-eyed admiration of those first few dogs. I remember the fear and panic that grew as more dogs changed. People with guns, behaving like savages. I remember the day the government declared the dogs protected against the vigilantes. The bill of rights, the opening of the compounds.
    What I can’t place is the exact moment last year when I realised Sienna had joined the Dogteens. She turned into a stranger while we worried about installing a new security system.
    Last night she came home late, as usual, and flung herself on the couch in front of the television.
    â€˜Senn, please don’t wear the furs on the furniture,’ I said. ‘Have you had dinner? How was school? Where have you been?’
    She sat up, peeled off the stitched-together fur-scrap poncho, and tossed it on the floor beside the couch. Underneath she was wearing a T-shirt with a Chihuahua transfer and a pair of cut-off jeans. I noticed a bruise on her throat near the collarbone.
    â€˜Take the fur outside and leave it on the verandah. It’s disgusting.’
    â€˜In a minute,’ she said. I watched the bruise disappear and reappear as she rubbed it with her fingers.
    â€˜Have you hurt yourself? Let me take a look.’
    â€˜Leave me alone.’
    â€˜Come on, sweetheart, let me have a look. A dog didn’t bite you, did it?’
    I saw it on a current affairs show last week. One of the Dogteens who’d broken away was interviewed. Her profile was in darkness, her voice disguised by technology and sounding uncannily like the gruff tones of a dog. She said the dogs in the inner compound nip the Dogteens to break their skin and infect them with a virus that turns their fingernails into claws and sharpens their hearing and sense of smell. Those teenagers, the ones who have been bitten, are the ones who never come home. I don’t know why I kept watching. I never watch those stupid shows.
    â€˜Of course not. They’d never bite us.’ Sienna’s hand crept up to her throat and massaged the purple mark.
    â€˜Here,’ I said, picking the stinking furs off the floor and stretching out my hand to help her off the couch, ‘I’ll put some antiseptic on it. Please, darling.’
    â€˜Fuck off,’ she said. As she turned her head away to watch the TV I thought I heard a sound, a rumble from deep in her chest.
    My heart started to beat faster. ‘Did you growl at me?’
    She rolled her eyes and snuggled deeper into the rug on the couch. I could feel the greasy furs leaving their stink on my hands as I hurried to the verandah to hang them on the outside hook. The schools do the same thing – they have a shed at the end of the schoolyard where the Dogteens can hang their furs. I’ve tried washing them but Sienna will only come home with a different mangy collection of pelts. She wants to smell. Like her Dogteen friends she hates to be reminded she’s human.
    This morning we were all up early. Outside, the sky was an eerie watermelon colour. Clouds were gathering to the north, furling over the horizon in fat greys and purples. Adrian, home all weekend for a change, pushed eggs around the frypan and I buttered toast while Sienna stood on the verandah, her head high, sniffing the wind.
    â€˜I’ll have bacon,’ she called in through the