Cheering Up

It must be bad, said Pliny.

It is. I don't think I can tell it after all, I said. The dog dies.

Well that must be the worst bit. And you've told it. Now you only need to tell the rest.

I can't find the right tone.

Try a different point of view, suggested Pliny.

That's a good idea, I said. I'll tell it from the dog's point of view. Here goes:

My name is Tora, and I have a sad, sad story. In 1973 a schoolgirl gave me to her teacher. The teacher had a wife and little boy. They thought the little boy would like me, but he was too small to like me, he was only two years old. The teacher's wife didn't like me either. She only pretended to. I'm a dog and I can tell these things. She smiled if her little boy piddled on the floor but when I did it she got cross. I remember one day I peed on the floor and she shouted. I was scared. At least she fed me though. And sometimes I would play with the teacher and the little boy in the garden. I used to get very excited. I wasn't very old. The garden didn't have a proper fence. One day I ran out on the road and got.....

I can't really continue, I said to Pliny. The dog can't say it got run over and was killed, and that the teacher had to bury it the garden, and that his wife was not particularly sad.

And why can't it? said Pliny.

It's obvious why it can't, I said.

There you are, said Pliny. Because it doesn't know. Cheer up.

I don't need cheering up.

You do, said Pliny.

Needing a Frog

A frog? said Pliny. You needed a frog? But you must have been fifteen years old by then! What need did you have for a frog?

Biology, Pliny. Our Biology teacher at school asked us each to bring a frog to dissect in class. It seems a little strange, now, to think that we had to provide our own frog.

Does it? said Pliny. That does not seem strange at all. I would rather say it was a good practical character-building experience.

You would think that. And I had the best of intentions. I took a jar to the creek on Lockwood Road and looked for a frog. I could hear frogs croaking, but I didn't see a single one. So I gave up.

And asked the boy next door to catch one for you?

No! I told you we didn't speak to one another. Maybe I asked my mum to ask his mum to ask him. Anyway, somehow he caught a frog and I got it. It was enormously fat.

And you took it to school and dissected it.

I took it to school.

And you didn't dissect it ?

No. I wasn't looking forward to dissecting my frog. It had never occurred to me that I might not have to if I didn't bring one. But it must have occurred to three quarters of the class. So we had to dissect the frogs in groups of four, and someone else did it.

But you watched?

No, I didn't even watch. But I heard someone say OH YUCK! It's full of EGGS !