The Neri Family

The Neri Family “Here we are,” she says. He’s doing the garden. I can smell peppermint, which I don’t much like. “Did you get one then?” He turns round. “What’s that? I thought we said a small dog.” He sounds like he’s cross with me. “I know,” she says sweetly. “But when I saw her, I couldn’t resist her.” I try to look irresistible for him.
“Her? Her? We said a he-dog! She-dogs have puppies. Now we’re going to have to pay to get her spayed, aren’t we?” But he’s not cross with her. I can tell he loves her very much. He’s cross with me, isn’t he? “Poor girl, she’s had a terrible life so far.”
“Humph,” he says.
“She needs love and affection.”
“Humph!”
“And training.” “Training! And who’s going to do that, might I ask?”
“Riccardo,” she says firmly. “His dog, his responsibility. He’s been saying he wants one, it’s boring just being with us – well, here’s his dog.” She starts watering the plants. I could help with that. Wait a minute – who’s this Riccardo? I find out some more as I listen. He’s another stray they’ve taken in. Their great-nephew. They’ve never had any puppies of their own, so they adopted him. And he sounds like a very ungrateful puppy too. “I mean, look at it,” she says.
We’ve gone inside. I think this is Riccardo’s kennel. It’s a very big one.
“He hasn’t used the table tennis table. Or the table football. Because he needs a friend and he won’t try and make friends.”
Silly puppy, I think. You need friends. You need a pack. “He hasn’t tried painting,” the man agrees. “He needs to be taken out of himself. A dog will do that, if you let her.” The puppy-boy has a nice bedroom. There are pictures of dogs on the wall. Maybe he isn’t all bad. We shall see. He’s at school at the moment. Training school, I guess. I heard about that from some of the other dogs at the dogs’ home. What’s this? I think it’s a dangerous enemy. I better attack it. Death! Death! Death to the enemy! I hope she’s pleased with me for killing this dangerous animal. “Hello Riccardo. Was your day okay?”
He grunts. Maybe human puppies learn to speak very late. No. Next he says something.
“Woz thiz?” Do they speak different languages. “This is your dog. Your new dog. You said you wanted one. Your responsibility – you need to feed her, exercise her, brush her, bathe her if she gets fleas. And train her. She has already ruined today’s paper. She’s on her last chance – if you can’t be bothered with her, she’ll be put down when we return her to the dogs’ home.”
Put down? Put down? I don’t like the sound of that. Put down what? A big sewer or something? I don’t like the sound of that. I go over to the human puppy and sniff him. Does he smell like he could be kind to me and save me from the sewer pipe? He bends down and strokes me.
“Her name is Teresa,” she says. “After the saint. I think the name is the only thing they have in common.”