Gladys walks Andrew Mehrtens every day, rain or shine. On sunny days, I watch them through a rusty hole in the corrugated iron fence and on wet ones, I park myself in front of the big bay window in the lounge and peer through the net curtains. Once I saw Harry with Andrew Mehrtens and it was all wrong. He yanked and pulled, swearing and cussing. The poor dog got dragged for a walk that day. I was happy to see Gladys back the next morning wearing her tartan apron with the white trim and Andrew Mehrtens wagging his tail, happily sniffing the verge. The only day I’m not a hundred percent sure about is Sunday because Martin is home then and he won’t let me watch when he’s around.
Martin has a job at one of those stores where they sell everything – computers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, tellies, cameras, even beds and couches. He works there six days a week and I visit him sometimes when he works late. One time, I sat in a special chair that gives you a massage. The chair pushed and twisted up my back. At first I didn’t really like it but Martin told me to stay there until he was ready so I pressed the buttons to make it go again and again, and when Martin said it was time to leave, I asked if we could take the chair home with us. He just smiled at me and said, “We’ve got more important stuff to spend our money on, you doofus,” and then he punched me on the shoulder. It hurts a little when he does that but I know he doesn’t mean to hurt me because he always smiles when he does it. When I think about it now, it’s probably just as well we didn’t get that chair because I’m sure I’d want to sit in it all the time and if I was sitting in it all the time, I wouldn’t get to see Andrew Mehrtens half as much as I do now and I certainly would’ve missed my chance to meet him.
It happened like this. First, I saw Andrew Mehrtens all on his own. He walked to the end of his driveway, looked to the right and left and then he looked straight at me. I smiled and waved but he just stood there looking at me until Gladys called his name. Then his short stumpy tail wiggled back and forth as he waddled up the driveway to her. Gladys told him that they’d be going for a walk shortly so I decided I’d go for a walk, too. I grabbed the five-dollar note that Martin had left for me on the bench, slipped my jandals on, and hung the house key around my neck. I locked the door and went back to the hole in the fence. I counted five buses while I waited for them to come out again. They all stopped outside Andrew Mehrtens’s house and I watched people get on and off. One bus stayed longer than usual. It hissed as it lowered itself to the ground and I heard the slap of the fold-out ramp as it landed hard on the footpath. A few seconds later, I saw a person in a wheelchair roll out from behind the back of the bus, an older, skinny guy with grey stubble covering the lower half of his face. The hair on his head was slicked flat against his skull and he talked in a loud voice but I’m not sure who he was talking to because there wasn’t anyone else around. “She’s got no brains,” he said, “no brains at all.” And then he reached down and examined one of his legs and said it again. As the bus drove away, he shouted, “I’ve got your name and number and you better believe I’ll complain, you cow.”
“Doofus,” I muttered and as he started to wheel away, I remembered that I was waiting for Gladys and Andrew Mehrtens. I scanned the street. Gladys always walks to the left first – my left, not hers – right past the corner where they sell cars for under $9,999. I saw a woman who looked a little like Gladys inspecting one of the cars but she didn’t have a small dog. My heart started to beat fast. What if I’d missed them? I took my hat off and wiped the sweat on my forehead with the back of my arm and then I saw them. Gladys was in a short-sleeve white top and maroon-coloured pants that came down to the middle of her calf and she had a tartan apron pulled neatly over the front. Andrew Mehrtens ran down the driveway, little pink tongue hanging out of his half-open mouth. When he reached the footpath, he put his nose to the ground, sniffed at the grass near the letterbox, walked around in a tight circle and then lifted one of his hind legs. Gladys walked toward the car lot and once Andrew Mehrtens finished doing his business, he scampered behind her.
I positioned my sunhat so it didn’t quite touch my ears and hurried out the gate. I walked on the opposite side of the road watching Andrew Mehrtens and Gladys the whole time, walking when they walked and stopping when they stopped. Gladys stopped to talk with the woman looking at cars. They laughed and talked and kept looking down at Andrew Mehrtens and then the car woman gave Andrew Mehrtens a nice pat on the head. He sat on his hind legs and raised his nose up to her hand. The car woman bent over to pat him again. When she stopped, he bumped his nose into her legs and she slouched so that her fingers scratched lightly on the top of his head.
As they talked, a bus slowed down like it was going to stop for me. I shook my head at it and it sped up again. After it passed, I saw that Gladys and Andrew Mehrtens had left the car woman and had already turned the corner. I hurried to the dairy and bought my steak and cheese pie, a can of Pepsi and a 50c lolly mixture. After checking to make sure there was at least one milk bottle in the packet, I jogged down the road way past Andrew Mehrtens’s house to where there is a bench seat outside the fish and chip shop Martin and I go to and the other dairy – the not-nice dairy. Martin says it’s dirty and I’m not allowed to buy my lunch from there.
I sat on the bench and ate my pie as slowly as possible, taking just one very small bite every minute. It took almost twenty minutes to eat it and the last bite was cold. Then I sipped at my Pepsi and tried to drink it just as slowly. After fifteen more minutes, I started eating my lollies one by one. I began to worry that maybe Gladys decided to walk somewhere different but it wasn’t long before she and Andrew Mehrtens rounded the corner.
I immediately stood up. “Hello,” I said and she said hello back. So, then I said, “I like your dog. Can I pat him?” Gladys nodded and slipped her hands into the front pockets of her apron. That was the first time I ever touched Andrew Mehrtens.
The first thing I noticed was how soft he was and the second was how his head felt so small in my hand. A breeze blew my empty pie bag off the bench seat and Andrew Mehrtens immediately found it with his nose. He pushed it around by my feet while I stroked him.
“You live across the road from us, don’t you?” Gladys said.
“Yes. With Martin.”
“And who’s Martin, dear?”
“My brother.”
Gladys smoothed her apron down across her thighs and nodded. “Would you mind looking after Andrew Mehrtens while I duck into the dairy to grab a paper?” I nodded and took the leash from her. Andrew Mehrtens continued to worry the empty pie packet. “I won’t be a minute,” she said and walked into the dirty dairy.
“I wish I’d left a piece of pie in there for you.” I squatted next to him and reached out to touch his head. He sniffed at my hand and growled at me. I scratched his head like I’d seen the car woman do and he snapped at my hand. “I like you,” I told him. Gladys came back out with the paper so I stood up and asked, “What kind of dog is he?”
“Andrew Mehrtens? He’s a Welsh corgi, just like the Queen’s dogs.”
I’d never heard of a Welsh corgi before so I just nodded and reached into my lolly packet for the milk bottle I’d been saving. I dropped it and Andrew Mehrtens quickly picked it up with his tongue. He lifted his head toward me and I reached into the paper bag for another lolly.
“One is probably enough,” Gladys said.
“He likes milk bottles. They’re my favourite, too.”
Gladys told me they had to get going. I gave her the leash back and she wished me a nice day and called Andrew Mehrtens to follow her. I was sad to see them go but thrilled that I’d finally met Andrew Mehrtens up close and personal. I waved goodbye and watched them walk down the street.
Later that night, while Martin and I ate fish and chips and watched the news, I told him about my day.
“You met Andrew Mehrtens?” he asked.
I nodded, my mouth full of chips and tomato sauce.
“Andrew Mehrtens? Here? Today?”
I nodded again and smiled.
“Where?”
“He lives across the road with Gladys,” I said and stuffed another chip in my mouth. “I see him all the time but I’d never met him before. He’s a Welsh corgi.”
Martin laughed then and punched me on the shoulder. “You big weirdo,” he said. “Andrew Mehrtens is the best first five-eighth Canterbury’s ever had and possibly one of the best All Blacks of all time, too. Not a dumb dog.”
“He’s not a dumb dog,” I said.
“It’s a dumb name for a dog, I mean,” Martin said and again punched me. “What a crack-up.”
I rubbed my shoulder and told him how Gladys let me watch Andrew Mehrtens while she bought a paper from the dirty dairy and how he and I both like milk bottles. “Can we get a Welsh corgi?”
Martin took a drink from his beer and then said, “Maybe one day but not right now, you screwball.” He looked away from the telly then and told me that we’d be moving. “To a new house in a new place. It’ll be a long drive to where we’re going so it’s not the right time to get a dog, okay buddy?” Then he ruffled my hair. I like that much better than a punch in the shoulder. Even so, my heart started to beat faster than usual. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of living someplace different but I was glad Martin said we could get a Welsh corgi sometime. I decided that when we finally did get one, I’d name him Andrew Mehrtens, too.
All of that happened a couple months ago and now it’s not summer anymore and we’re moving in just three days. These days, Martin leaves me lists of stuff for me to pack and do while he’s at work. He says we’re leaving Canterbury and moving to the North Island. When he told me that, I asked if we could get a Welsh corgi once we got there.
“Let’s just wait and see what it’s like first,” he said.
I asked again last week and he looked at me and shook his head. “Not now, champ.”
Then a couple of nights ago, I asked him again because it’s all I think about and I thought maybe if I asked again, it would make space in my brain to think about something else. Martin got very angry. “Quit asking me all the time about getting a damn dog or we wouldn’t get one, ever!”
I got mad when he said that and left the house. I walked fast around the block and by the time I made it back home, there was an ambulance sitting in Andrew Mehrtens’s driveway. I watched through the rusty hole as two people brought Gladys out on a stretcher and pushed her into the back of the big white truck. Andrew Mehrtens weaved in and out of the ambulance people’s legs. Harry was there, too, and he kicked Andrew Mehrtens out of the way and yelled at him to get in the house. Andrew Mehrtens barked and ran as fast as his little legs would go as Harry charged after him. Then I watched Harry get in the back of the ambulance and saw the doors shut. The truck backed out of the driveway with its lights flashing soundlessly as it sped off down the road.
Andrew Mehrtens was home alone. I wondered if he was scared. I figured he must be so I decided I’d go check on him. Just to let him know he’s okay. I walked down the driveway. Most of the curtains were pulled but I found one window that let me see inside. Andrew Mehrtens was lying on a pillow on the kitchen floor. I knocked on the glass and he raised his head toward the sound. He saw me but I don’t think he recognised me because he stood up and started to growl and bark. I waved at him. He bared his teeth at me and barked again. I backed away from the window and went back home.
Martin had left me a note to say that he’d gone to the pub with some of his friends one last time. He’d written that he was sorry that he’d been angry with me but that he just wanted me to stop asking about getting a dog all the time.
I sat in the lounge trying to watch telly but really, I spent most of the night looking out the window at Andrew Mehrtens’s house. By the time I went to bed, Martin hadn’t come home, yet, and I hadn’t seen Harry or Gladys return home either.
I spent all of the next day watching Andrew Mehrtens’s house and ignoring the list that Martin left for me. At morning tea time, Gladys didn’t come out and neither did Harry. Andrew Mehrtens had missed his walk. At lunchtime, I ate my pie and watched the street through the rusty hole. I saw the postie stick some mail into Gladys and Harry’s letterbox. I saw kids walking home from school. I saw pamphlets get delivered and I even saw the wheelchair guy get off the bus. People of all ages, shapes and sizes walked by but no one went in to see Andrew Mehrtens.
I paced the length of the fence and every time I got to the rusty hole, I stopped and looked across the road for a few seconds. I never saw Gladys or Harry or Andrew Mehrtens. I wondered if he was even still there. Maybe someone had come in the middle of the night when I wasn’t watching. The pacing warmed me up but it didn’t stop the panicky feeling from growing inside me.
In late afternoon, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I walked across the road to check on him again. I looked through the window and saw him lying in a tight little ball in the same spot as the night before. I knocked on the glass and he raised his head and barked at me. I checked the door but it was locked. I climbed over the fence that separated the front of the section from the back of the section and spied a small open window. I forced it open further and climbed through, landing headfirst in Gladys and Harry’s bathtub. I rubbed the bone just above my right eye and heard Andrew Mehrtens growling and barking on the other side of the bathroom door.
“It’s just me,” I called out to him. “Remember? I gave you a milk bottle once. You liked it.” He stopped barking but I could still hear him growling. I opened the bathroom door slowly and his little feet scrambled over the floorboards away from me. He stopped and snarled, his tongue flicking behind his white teeth. I walked toward him stepping over small piles of poo here and there down the hallway. I found his leash by the back door but when I had my back turned, he ran up behind me and bit me just above my ankle. I kicked my foot away harder than I realised and sent him crashing into the wall with a thud. He whined and stood holding his right hind leg up off the floor.
“I’m sorry, Andrew Mehrtens. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I felt down my own leg to where he’d bitten me. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to hurt me, either, did you?”
Andrew Mehrtens licked his lips and showed me all of his teeth.
“I’m just going to look after you while Gladys and Harry are away,” I said. He started barking then and I had to wrestle him to attach the leash to his collar. He tore and scratched at my hands and once the leash was attached, he pulled and pulled trying to slip out of his collar. I saw what he was trying to do so I scooped him up and held him under my arm. He bit and kicked at my side and it hurt so much that I threw him out the bathroom window and only at the last minute remembered to hang onto the lead. I pushed myself back out and landed on top of him. Andrew Mehrtens let out a loud yelp and bit down hard on my nose. I yelled out and punched him away with my fist.
Andrew Mehrtens yelped again and backed as far away from me as the leash would allow. I felt my nose. It was bleeding a little from one corner. Andrew Mehrtens shook his head and sneezed several times. He stood with his right leg up off the ground and growled. I didn’t dare pick him up again so I jerked and dragged him across the street back to my house. He didn’t seem to want to walk even that short distance. Once inside, I wrestled with him once more to unclip the leash and then I filled an empty ice cream container with water. He hid behind the giant stacks of packed boxes while I found some leftover mince in the fridge and set it on the kitchen floor for him, too. Then I sat on the couch and watched. Eventually, he came out from behind the boxes and when he spotted me, he barked and snarled. I didn’t move and it wasn’t long before he found the food container.
I smiled to myself. I had Andrew Mehrtens in my house.
Martin arrived home not long after that and he wasn’t happy when I told him about rescuing Andrew Mehrtens. “You idiot! What do you think’ll happen when they get home and see that their dog is gone?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“And what were you thinking of doing tomorrow when we leave? Did you think that one through, dumbass?”
I looked at the packed boxes and saw the tip of Andrew Mehrtens’s nose poking out from behind one of them. “We could take him with us, maybe.”
Martin threw his arms up in the air and punched the side of a box. We both watched it topple to the ground and Andrew Mehrtens barked. Martin walked into the kitchen and accidentally kicked the container of water and swore.
“Maybe Gladys and Harry aren’t ever coming back,” I said. “Maybe they forgot about Andrew Mehrtens.”
Martin walked back into the lounge and stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. “Take the dog back now.”
“But – ”
“No buts. You had no right to break into their house and steal their dog.”
“I didn’t steal him.”
“You’re pushing my patience, buddy.” Martin clenched his fists. “I’m going to lose it if you don’t take him back. Right now.”
It took me several minutes to catch Andrew Mehrtens and get the leash back on him. I dragged him outside and back across the road. Before pushing him back through the open window, I pulled him close and hugged him to say goodbye but he squirmed and kicked and bit my ear. I ended up throwing him away from me and I cried from the pain and I cried because I knew this was the last time I’d ever see Andrew Mehrtens. I scooped him up again then and pushed him through the window, holding onto the lead from outside. I couldn’t let him go. I heard his little feet scratching in the bottom of the bathtub and I heard him whining but I just couldn’t let go of the leash because I couldn’t let Andrew Mehrtens go.
I pulled on the lead and felt him wriggling at the other end. I heard his strangled barks and the leash slipped through my hands a little. His feet danced in the porcelain tub again and he coughed and barked. I yanked on the leash again, using the window ledge as leverage to lift him back up. I just needed to say goodbye one more time. Then I’d put him back for good.
He squirmed and pulled and yelped and whined. I held the leash taught to catch my breath and eventually, Andrew Mehrtens stopped moving so much and it made it so much easier to pull him up and out through the window. He didn’t bite me this time and I smiled and hugged him tight. He wasn’t growling any more so I set him down on the ground next to me and he collapsed. Andrew Mehrtens was tired. His little tongue stuck out from the side of his mouth and I patted him. But he didn’t move.
“What’s the matter, Andrew Mehrtens?” I tried again to stand him back up but his legs crumpled under him. A tear escaped from the corner of my eye as I realised he’d resorted to playing dead. “Okay,” I said, patting him. “I’ll put you back for Gladys and Harry.” I let myself cry properly then as I scooped him up in my arms and kissed him once on the head before dropping him in through the window and tossing the leash in after him. I stood on my tip-toes to peer in at him. He lay still in the tub.
“I’ll leave you alone now, Andrew Mehrtens.” I closed the window, wiped my tears away and walked back home to Martin.
The next morning, Martin and I loaded up a big truck with all of our stuff and as Martin took one last look through the house to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind, I took one last look through the rusty hole in the fence.
“Let’s get a move on, you weirdo,” Martin yelled from the house. “It’s time to go.”
As I got in the truck, I saw a taxi drive up Andrew Mehrtens’s driveway. Harry got out and he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on when he left with Gladys in the ambulance. I watched him walk up his driveway and craned my neck as Martin drove us away. I waved my hand and whispered to myself, “Be good to Andrew Mehrtens, Harry.”