Essays

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Willy is a young Palm Island boy, full of life and with more than a fair serve of natural chutzpah. His grandmother, Aunty M, whose house I’m camped in, tells me he’s good at maths as well as footy. Willy wants to play for the Cowboys when he grows up, and for most of my stay on his island is glued to the Playstation, selecting teams, taking passes, tackling. His triumphant yell comes every ten minutes “And he’s through!” (In Willy’s Bwlkman accent, ‘through’ comes out as a cross between ‘sroo’ and ‘truu’).

I quiz him. Adult attention is a gift at the age of ten, even in the guise of interrogation.

“You wanna be rich when you grow up Willy? Or you wanna be poor?”
“Poor…no! Rich.”
“You wanna be rich, you go to university, eh.”
“I’m gonna play for Cowboys.”
“Oh, okay. You do that. But you wanna be rich, you go to university.”
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