Mike by Brian Caswell

1
EXILE
    â€œHe was old, Mike.” My mother was trying to look strong. Adults are like that. They’ll tell you it’s good to “let it out”, not to hold things inside when they hurt. But they don’t follow their own advice. “It had to happen one day … ”
    I think she realised I wasn’t taking much notice of her. She sort of trailed off, like I do when I’m trying to sell a really weak excuse, and I realise no one’s buying it.
    Why did it have to happen? Who makes up the rules?
    I couldn’t say it out loud, she wouldn’t understand. How could she? She wasn’t twelve years old. And Sandy wasn’t her dog. Not really.
    She liked to tell people he was. That she fed him and brushed him and cut the knots out of his hair when he rolled in the bindies. But that didn’t make him hers. I did all those things too. Maybe not all the time. But I was his friend. And he was mine. I could talk to him; tell him things I couldn’t tell anyone else — not even her.
    How do you explain to your mother that your best friend is an old dog?
    Okay, I said it.
    He was old. Perhaps it did “have” to happen. But did she think telling me that made it any easier to take? No wonder I’d rather talk to Sandy. At least he understood me.
    Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother. I really do. Dad too, even though I don’t get to see him all that much. He’s “Navy”. All my life, from the time I can remember anything, there had been three things that never changed. Sandy, Mum. And Dad going away.
    It’s funny. I never seem to remember him coming home; only going. How do you figure that? I mean, think about it. He’d have had to come home at least as often as he went away. It’s just that I don’t remember.
    Now Sandy had gone away, too. Permanently. And I couldn’t cry. I just sat there in silence, and played with my food, while my mother talked at me, trying to sound comforting.
    I hadn’t cried for years … well, months. Not since we’d moved from Middleton to here. Crying hadn’t done any good then — we still ended up moving — so I figured it was just a waste of time. I bottled everything up, and I told al my problems to a dog.
    Dogs make perfect friends. They listen, they don’t talk back or give you useless advice. And they let you rub their ears; which is about the best way I know to get rid of what’s bugging you.
    Now, I couldn’t even do that!
    But I didn’t want another dog. It didn’t seem right. You don’t just go down to the store and buy a friend.
    It’s … disloyal.
    * * *
    Middleton is in Victoria. I was born there. I’d lived there all my life until a few months ago. I wanted to keep on living there. But I didn’t get any choice. I was twelve years old — and two days — when we moved. We. Mum and me. Dad was away — as usual. But we were quite used to doing things on our own, so a little move from Melbourne to Sydney was no problem.
    At least, not to Mum. “You know we’re just doing what’s best for you,” she said. As if she really believed it. So, how come I never got a say in “what’s best” for me? What was I, a twelve-year-old vegie?
    She was talking about the future. About “preparing”. “Your father gets out in a couple of years,’’ she said.
    She made it sound like a jail sentence, not the navy. And couldn’t we “prepare” just as easily in Middleton? Apparently not.
    But at least I’d still had Sandy. He had a terrible trip up. Stuck in the back of the old station-wagon all the way, whimpering and scratching. I knew how he felt. In some ways, I don’t think he ever really recovered. He was fourteen years old; pretty ancient for a dog; and he’d lived the whole of his life in the one house. The move must have been a major shock to his system.
    Whatever the