When Dogs Cry by Markus Zusak Page A

it, or at least trying to make it right.
    â€˜Stand up,’ he told me.
    I did.
    He said, ‘Sal.’ She looked at me. I looked at her, as Steve kept talking. ‘This is my brother Cameron.’
    We shook hands.
    My boyish, rough hand.
    Her smooth and clean hand which smelt of perfumed soap. Soap I imagined you’d get in hotel rooms I’d never get to visit.
    She recognised me through the eyes and I was Cameron now, not just that loser brother of Steve.
    On the way back home some time after that, Steve and I talked a while, but only about small things. In the middle of it, I cut him short. I said, with knife-like words, ‘When you first told Sal about Rube and me you said we were losers. You told her you were ashamed of us, didn’t you?’ My voice was still calm and not even the slightest bit accusing, though I was trying as hard as I could.
    â€˜No.’ He denied it when the car came to a stop outside our house.
    â€˜No?’ I could see the shame in his eyes, and for the first time ever, I could see it was shame he held for himself.
    â€˜No,’ he confirmed, and he looked at me with something that resembled anger now, almost like he couldn’t stomach it. ‘Not you and Rube,’ he explained, and his face looked injured. ‘Just you.’
    God.
    God,
I thought, and my mouth was open. It was as if Steve had reached into me and pulled out my pulse. My heart was in his hands, and he was staring down at it, as if he too, could see it.
    Beating.
    Thrusting itself down, then standing up again.
    I said nothing about the truth Steve had just let loose.
    All I did was undo my seatbelt, take my heart and I got out of that car as fast as I could.
    Steve followed but it was too late. I heard his footsteps coming after me when I was walking onto our porch. Words fell down between his feet.
    â€˜Cam!’ he called out. ‘Cameron!’ I was nearly inside when I heard his voice cry out. ‘I’m sorry. I was . . .’ He made his voice go louder. ‘Cam, I was wrong!’
    I got behind the door and shut it, then turned to look back out.
    Steve’s figure was shadowed onto the front window. It was silent and still, plastered to the light.
    â€˜I was wrong.’
    He said it again, though this time his voice was weaker.
    A minute shuddered past.
    I broke.
    Walking slowly to the front door, I opened it and saw my brother on the other side of the flyscreen.
    I waited, then, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    I was still hurt, but like I said, it didn’t matter. I’d been hurt before and I’d be hurt again. Steve must have wished he’d never tried to do me the favour of showing Sal that I wasn’t the loser she thought I was. All he’d succeeded in doing was proving that not only had he once thought I
was
a lost cause, but that I was the
only
one.
    Soon, though, I was stabbed.
    A feeling shook through me and cut me loose. All my thoughts were off the chain, until one solitary sentence arrived and wouldn’t leave me.
    The words and Octavia.
    That was the sentence.
    It wavered in me.
    It saved me, and almost whispering, I said to Steve, ‘Don’t worry, brother. I don’t need you to tell Sal that I’m not a loser.’ We were still separated by the flyscreen. ‘I don’t need you to say it to
me
either. I know what I am. I know what I see. Maybe one day I’ll tell you a little more about me, but for now, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I’m nowhere near what I’m going to be, and . . .’ I could feel something in me. Something I’ve always felt. I paused and caught his eyes. I leapt into them through the door and held him down. ‘You ever hear a dog cry, Steve? You know, howling so loud it’s almost unbearable?’ He nodded. ‘I reckon they howl like that because they’re so hungry it