Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle Page B

was in the middle, in a jacket and a stripey scarf. He still looked old and young. His shoulders looked old. His legs looked young.
    None of the pictures in books were like the Indians in the films. There was one of the Snake and Sioux Indians on the warpath. The main fella in the picture had a pony tail and the rest of his head was bald, and shiny like an apple. He was riding hunched down sideways on his horse so that the others couldn’t fire their arrows at him. The horse’s eye was looking down at him; the horse looked scared. It was a painting. I liked it. There was another great one of an Indian killing a buffalo. The buffalo had its head in under the horse; the Indian would have to kill it quick or the buffalo would turn the horse over. Something about the way the Indian was on the horse, with his back up and his arm stretched, ready, with his spear, made me know that he was going to win. Anyway, the picture was called The Last of the Buffalo. There were other Indians on the edge of the picture chasing after more buffalo. The field was covered in buffalo skulls and there were dead buffalos lying all around. I couldn’t put this one on my wall because it was from a library book. I went to the library in Baldoyle. I went with my da. One room was the grown-ups’ and there was another room for children.
    He was always interfering. He’d come into our part of the library after he’d changed his books and he’d start picking books for me. He never put them back properly.
    —I read this one when I was your age.
    I didn’t want to know that.
    I could take two books. He looked at the covers.
    —The American Indians.
    He took out the tag and slipped it into my library card. He was always doing that as well. He looked at the other one.
    —Daniel Boone, Hero. Good man.
    I read in the car. I could do it and not get sick if I didn’t look up. Daniel Boone was one of the greatest of American pioneers. But, like many other pioneers, he was not much of a hand at writing. He carved something on a tree after he’d killed a bear.
    —D. Boone killa bar on this tree 1773.
    His writing was far worse than mine, than Sinbad’s even. I’d never have spelled Bear wrong. And anyway as well, what was a grown-up doing writing stuff on trees?
    —DANIEL BOONE WAS A MAN
WAS A BI-IG MAN
BUT THE BEAR WAS BIGGER
AND HE RAN LIKE A NIGGER
UP A TREE—
    There was a picture of him and he looked like a spa. He was stopping an Indian from getting his wife and his son with a hatchet. The Indian had spiky hair and he was wearing pink curtains around his middle and nothing else. He was looking up at Daniel Boone like he’d just got a terrible fright. Daniel Boone was holding his wrist and he had his other arm in a lock. The Indian didn’t even come up to Daniel Boone’s shoulders. Daniel Boone was dressed in a green jacket with a white collar and stringy bits hanging off the sleeves. He had a fur hat with a red bobbin. He looked like one of the women in the cake shop in Raheny. His dog was barking. His wife looked like she was annoyed about the noise they were making. Her dress had come off her shoulders and her hair was black and went down to her bum. The dog had a collar on with a name tag on it. In the middle of the wilderness. I didn’t like the Daniel Boone on the television either. He was too nice.
    —Fess Parker, said my da.—What sort of a name is that?
    I liked the Indians. I liked their weapons. I made an Apache flop-head club. It was a marble, a gullier, in a sock, and I nailed it to a stick. I stuck a feather in the sock. It whirred when I spun it and the feather fell out. I hit the wall with it and a bit chipped off. I should have thrown away the other sock. My ma gave out when she found the one I didn’t use, by itself.
    —It can’t have gone far, she said.—Look under your bed.
    I went upstairs and I looked under the bed even though I knew that the sock wasn’t there and my ma hadn’t followed me up. I was by myself and