When Mr. Dog Bites Read Online Free

Promise. Mom nags me about all that stuff too. She misses you loads. She cries sometimes. So do I. Not cry loads, but miss you. When do you think they will allow you to come home? Maybe they will say that you can come for a little visit. That would be good, wouldn’t it? Anyway, I have to go ’cause I’ve masses of homework to do for tomorrow.
     
    Bye-de-bye
    Dylan Mint xxx
     
    I licked the envelope and gave Mom the letter to post.
    I told a lie to Dad.
    I didn’t have masses of homework.

7
    Pen
    Drumhill School wasn’t my favorite place in the world, but I did quite like the English class. Learning new words was mega. My top five new words last year in descending (a new word from two years ago) order were:
     
    5. Paradox
    4. Discombobulate
    3. Degenerative
    2. Circumspect
    1. Proselytize
     
    It was top-notch when you got to use them in a spoken sentence, but the paradox (ya beauty!) was that most people around here wouldn’t have a clue what big cool words meant, so I was better off talking the hind arms off a brick wall. Except for Michelle Malloy, maybe, because that dame had a quality brain behind all that cheeky bastard syndrome.
    The first “assessment task” in Mrs. Seed’s English class was to write about our school holidays. What we got up to and all that jazz. She called them “assessment tasks,” but we knew, or at least Amir and I did, that they weren’t anything important. Mrs. Seed only pulled out the old “assessment task” gun when she couldn’t be arsed to actually teach; sometimes when she’d had that extra glass of wine the night before. And when she said “assessment task,” she did that thing all teachers enjoy doing: that annoying little inverted commas sign with their two fingers, like they’re flicking V signs. As if we needed to be reminded that we were in a school full of spazzies. Another reason Mrs. Seed played her teacher game was because she was afraid that we were all going to go Billy Bonkers in her class. Although on the first day back Jake McAuley actually took the “assessment task” way too seriously. I knew this because he constantly clawed his nose, rolled it, flattened it, and munched on it. He did that when he got Mad Max ner­­vous. Jake’s breath was rank rotten.
    I did two things.
    First, I did Mrs. Seed’s task. I wrote some drivel about traveling around Europe with Mom and Dad and going to all these groovy places and seeing all these cute chicks cutting about in their sizzling summer getup. I wrote about how Dad bought me my first glass of beer at a bar in Rome, because young people can legally have glasses of beer in Italy. Then I wrote that Dad and me got half-cut, which is when you’re not fully blotto but maybe only 36 percent steamboats. Basically a whole page of pork pies.
    Mega words I used:
    inebriated
    renaissance
    culturally
    risotto
    I ripped that assessment task’s arse out and left it without a name.
    Second, I wrote Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It in the back of my jotter using my new pen, which was actually four different-colored pens cleverly stuffed into a non-transparent plastic tube. Red, green, black, and blue. It was utterly wild, and I loved it. This pen would’ve had the Shark Tank mob fighting like scabby dogs to get their greedy mitts on it. It could have made them gazillions back in the day. This gem pen had soooooooooooooo many possibilities. I then underlined my heading using my new ruler. Twice. In different colors: black and red. I wrote the next line in green.
     
    Number one: Have real sexual intercourse with a girl. (Preferably Michelle Malloy, and definitely not on a train or any other mode of transport. If possible, the intercoursing will be at her house.)
    What a knockout tiny wish! And I used the grown-up phrase for “ shag” too. I put my hands behind my head and leaned back in my chair, like Tony Soprano does when he’s feeling A-okay. My mind played pictures of me doing the real deal with Michelle Malloy.