Charlie the Diamond-Studded Drain Dog

By Chris Wolsey

Charlie tries hard to understand people. His adventures take him from the Brisbane streets to the Australian forest. There his bush family face the dingo pack, with Abim the matriarch and Malaka the outcast. With his gift of seeing shadows Charlie faces bad and good with eternal optimism. In time his spirit helps animals and people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Wolsey
• Release date: Oct 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995409491

Chris Wolsey

Chris has written much of this book from personal experience. Born in Stafford, England, he studied Archaeology and Fine Art at Edinburgh University. During the 1970s Chris worked on excavations in Italy, Cyprus, Turkey and Iran. His last excavation was at old Kandahar in Afghanistan, just before the Russian invasion. It is this excavation life that he has reworked into historical fiction. Chris discovered Australia after Kandahar, and moved there in 1978. Since then he has taught Ancient History, English and Philosophy in Brisbane. Along the way he completed post graduate diplomas in Russian (Strathclyde university in Glasgow), Teaching (London university) and a degree in Journalism (QUT in Brisbane). He has always thought of life as an adventure. So his gaining a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a stint of hang gliding, would come as no surprise. Life is so rich that one needs several lifetimes to catch a part of it. How does one limit oneself to one interest, one existence, when there is so much out there for the next challenge? `Kara Tepe', and `Ayios Petros', drew on experiences in Iran and Cyprus. `Nardoo', the third in the series, reflects his fascination with the Australian bush. After raising two sons, their greatest adventure, he and his wife now live in the hills north of Brisbane.

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CHARLIE THE DIAMOND-STUDDED DRAIN DOG

CHRIS WOLSEY

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GENEVIEVE JACKSON

MAPS BY JOHA COLUDAR

Copyright © 2016 Chris Wolsey, all rights reserved.

Table of Contents

ABOUT THIS BOOK

CHAPTER 1: Life on the Street

CHAPTER 2: Highlands Home

CHAPTER 3: Malaka

CHAPTER 4: Understanding this new world

CHAPTER 5: Life’s good

CHAPTER 6: I can deal with this.

CHAPTER 7: I learn new skills

CHAPTER 8: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

CHAPTER 9: Munta and Kate

DEDICATION

THANKS

SOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Charlie tries hard to understand people. His adventures take him from the Brisbane streets to the Australian forest. There his bush family face the dingo pack, with Abim the matriarch and Malaka the outcast. With his gift of seeing shadows Charlie faces bad and good with eternal optimism. In time his spirit helps animals and people.

CHAPTER 1

Life on the Street

People do good things and bad things, like animals. But people know; most animals don’t. I know; maybe I’m with people too long.

This hole I’m in reeks of cigarettes, car oil and bad food. But I can smell the rain coming. There’s a chill wind gusting through the lid. In the dark sky the snap of lightning is getting closer. These boys know.

In the park I’m hungry and their warm chicken pieces taste good. On special days my family gives me little morsels. But these boys laugh badly, daring each other as they poke at me. I yelp and squirm as I attempt to break free of their hands. I try to bite but they’re always out of reach. No one hears. They tie a brick around my neck. Then they put me into this pit with the cover that’s so heavy for them to lift. I squeal, they shout and shriek as they watch the water rise in the drain. There’s nowhere to run from the stick, even if I could remove the brick.

I play dead and they get fed up. A shower of rain makes them run away.

I bark again but I’m alone in the night. Hungry and tired I lap some water. Cigarette butts, papers, human spit and urine, syringes, dog and cat poo float by in the oily rainbow. Only the rats like it here.

I’m wet and cold. My eyes shut and in my dream I can smell my brothers and sisters in the reed basket. We all wriggle and snuffle beside the cosy fire in the human house. In the warm sunlight we milk our mother on the tickly grass. Mother’s belly, damp fur, and straw with my brothers’ pee and poo: so many comfort smells. But as we wrestle and chase there’re fewer of us.

As I wiggle in sleep I’m in a dark box of paper and hay wet with my pee. When it opens I’m in a new house, with Grandma and the boys, my family. The boys do good things, because Grandma teaches them to.

‘Charlie doesn’t like that,’ she says if they pull my tail or touch my eyes.

Their bright faces study mine, through my curtain of hair. When they pat me my tail wags from side to side. It sticks out straight when they give me treats. Grandma smiles and they understand.

The boys go to school in the day time. Once I go with them.

’What’s his name?’ ‘Show me, me!’ ‘Does he like apple?’ ‘Let me hold him, please, please!’ They smell of soap, dirty socks and fruit as they crowd around me. They shout and shove until the bell goes. What a scatter of emotions. Children change so quickly from happy to sad, from love to fight; they’re so hard to predict.

In the classroom of chalk and polished wood the tortoise is all chewed leaves and sweat from where her legs go into her shell. She’s so slow and dull. When I jump around to play her head and feet hide inside. The fish in the clear water ignores me. With my nose against the glass I smell girl’s fingerprints and fish poo strings curled on the bottom. Its big eye just looks at me as it goes round and round the bowl. The boy holds a young cat into my face but it doesn’t like me.

‘Yeeowwl!’ It arches its back, sticks out its fur and spits through sharp teeth.

When I squeeze into Grandma’s lap in the evening as we doze in the glow of burning logs her thoughts are easier. I never meet her daughter but Grandma loves her and her children she looks after. She’s mostly happy, when she’s not worrying about how to feed us.

I move my head quickly to the left. Something moves but I miss it. Later it happens again to the right. Specks of dust or something more swirl past me. Grandma watches me and strokes my head.

‘What is it, Charlie?’

I tilt my head and puzzle. There’s a tiny flash of light and then dots, as something flits on the edge of my vision.

‘You see them, Charlie, don’t you?’

As the wood crackles in the dark she talks to people that I can’t hear. Sometimes I feel it’s an animal, just a glimpse.

‘You’re never alone, Charlie.’ She strokes away the doubts.

When she’s busy the boys and I go down to the gulley to play games. As Peter steers the cart fast downhill I’m in a rucksack on his back, my head out of the top. My coat flattens and my ears streak back as we roar down the narrow path to the road. At the bottom he puts his foot down to skid sideways away from the cars.

‘Adventure, Charlie.’

On hot days we climb trees together, deep into the leafy canopy. Peter ropes me to his front so I don’t fall. We’re the Cowboys, so high that Philip and his Indians look small down there. Distant houses, the road, cool air and space all around me: I love it. But when we sneak off to the creek to put fish in jars we always get caught.

‘Grandmas know everything,’ says Philip.

Sometimes we go to the cinema with lots of other kids. Peter tucks me under his shirt and lets me out when the lights go down. It’s like the playground again, full of voices and excited thoughts so I think of going back beside Peter’s belly again but don’t. I think of ’Adventure, Charlie’ as the Cowboys and Indians flicker on the screen, just like our games. When the Cavalry comes to save us everyone stamps their feet so loud that the floor shakes. I squint in the sunlight when we come out, just like the other kids.

When the boys aren’t there I go looking for them. It’s not hard to squeeze through the broken slat in the wood fence to find my own adventure. But you always know, Grandma, don’t you?

People leave so much around. Bins are hard to open but on the ground outside food places there are boxes of my favourite, chicken. I love it. My nostrils fill up with it. My mouth dribbles. I forget everything else when my tail’s high in the air and my snout’s buried in the wrapper.

One day I meet Corrie, an Australian Collie with silky fur, milky lips and one dark and one light eye. I follow her flowery scent as she walks along a street. When she looks through a house window at a small dog inside Corrie tilts her head, ruffs and turns to me to share her game. The Chihuahua barks madly and threatens her. Corrie steps back and the angry dog stops. Corrie puts her nose against the glass again and the pooch goes mad. Corrie comes and goes until the sport makes her yawn. Then she tilts her face again, woofs and walks on.

I trail her. She’s fun. Inside the next house is a very big Alsatian. He paces silently. She knows she’s in his territory. Corrie pees on his doorstep, inclines her head and whimpers knowingly. He says nothing but his thoughts shout.

She shows me how to charm humans into giving her food. In the park a small boy runs ahead of his mother and falls. Corrie moves quietly as the mother picks him up. Corrie sits in front of him and gently woofs. He stops crying and smiles at her. His mother strokes her head and chin. Corrie nuzzles into the boy’s side and her tongue tickles his grazed leg. Mother watches him laugh and pat Corrie. She reaches inside her shopping bag and gives the boy pieces of sandwich to feed Corrie. She changes his emotions.

‘Thank you,’ as the mother looks at her name disc, ’Corrie.’ Corrie inclines her head and snuffles quietly. When the boy says her name she copies to make the same noise. Humans love it when you talk back.

I mimic what she does. Human words are hard to understand but not when I read their emotions. Happy, sad, angry, and frightened: I feel them all as I study individuals. Not that I understand fear. We’re always alert to danger but why be scared of what happens next? Corrie and I go to the park so I can practice and get better. Mothers are always the best. Charm their children and we’re never hungry.

On a seat under a huge tree beside children who feed us, Corrie sits with her head on crossed paws. She tells me of her time in a forest full of trees where deer live. When she gets their smell in her nostrils she forgets, like I do with chicken. Her owner plays tricks on her and hides behind a trunk. Corrie looks left and right but there’s no sign of her. Corrie has to clear her nose of deer, smell the air and follow the human scent to her hiding place. Corrie likes games. I keep her stories in my head.

Once when Corrie goes home I stay out later and night comes. There’s so much noise: cars, shouting people, loud music from pubs. When people stagger out I don’t like their smell or their thoughts. Outside a chicken place a girl in cow leather greets me. She smiles.

‘Woof. Mmm, mmm.’

I lean my head to one side, wag and she laughs. She holds out a piece of chicken. Her boy snarls at me and lifts his foot. I smell the drink stronger on his breath. I move quickly so only wind lifts my fur.

`Don’t kick him! What’s he done to you?’

’Mangy mutt!’

He tries again. It’s my first human argument. All these passions, not balanced like dogs. So many fights start with that smell. They don’t hear each other’s thoughts. It’s easy to know when it begins if you use your nose. I try to avoid drunks and their emotional turmoil.

People cause their own problems. Why do they do these things? Sometimes when they sit quietly on the park seat and shut their eyes they hear me. I try to understand. Later I learn that they fix stuff too. Dogs and humans can be good together if we both listen.

Corrie remembers her lady buying her at a shop. ‘But she doesn’t own me.’ She explains. ‘Humans like to control things, particularly their pets. But we’re free. If we keep them happy they look after us. That’s fair, don’t you think?’

I explore more and more: adventure and chicken are good. But one day I lose my family; they’re gone before I get back. The house is empty. That night I curl up under the front step out of the rain and wait. I miss the boys and you, Grandma. But it’s another morning full of smells. I put out my tongue to savour them in more detail.

A tall man with white curls shelters in a