Stretched out flat with water now almost reaching the foot with the good shoe on it that had been given to him by Arch, and with his head resting on a stone that was rough and becoming uncomfortable, and even with his eyes closed while he waited for Jase and Bones to come and get him, Rua knew it was Kid up on the beach creeping down. It was Kid his dog had gone up to meet.

Eyes on him he could feel. Two black spiders were her eyes.

In her mouth were words, waiting.

If he'd been two-legged he'd have waited, let her come close, then he would've flipped up, yelled, dropped his tongue, scared the wingnuts out of her and chased her home. But he was stuck. Even the crutches were too far away for him to grab and jump up. She knew that.

Or he could do a quick roll, grab one of the crutches, aim, fire—tada dada da, tada dada da—which wouldn't scare her, stop her coming square and flat-faced with her black spiders and her words.

He'd have to shift in a minute before the water got to his shoe, which was a pretty flash sort of shoe, flasher than what was necessary to get him into the pub dressed in Tidy Dress—in clean jeans with one leg pinned up, black tee shirt, black jacket which at the moment was folded there on the crutches. His head was resting on a bloody sore rock to keep the sand out of his hair, keep his hair tied back for the tidy-dress pub. The cousins were late picking him up. The tide was just about getting in old Arch's shoe but if he moved Kid would know he wasn't asleep.

Pain, her.

She knew he wasn't asleep anyway.

She knew he knew she knew.

No, Arch, who had a thing about shoes, who was a real shoehead, wouldn't like it if he saw the tide getting up around this one now that he'd parted with it. "On'y you, Son. On'y you, Rua. On'y one I'd give my shoes to, in honour of the misfortune that has come to you. Come wit' me."

Archie had taken him, along with Jase and Bones, into his new bedroom and shown him a row of pairs, heels hard up against the whole length of a wall, like lined up ready to march or dance forward.

He'd seen all these shoes while he was growing up, not all set out like that, but usually just one pair at a time. Seen them stepping out, going for the bus during Arch's working years - lifting, lifting, so as not to get marked from the holey, dusty road. Or he'd seen them dancing at weddings, or rocking and jumping heel to toe at a guitar party or planted each side of a guitar when Arch decided to upend the instrument and play it as if it were a double bass.

Later, after Arch's retirement and after the older uncles and aunties had died, the shoes had appeared more and more often at hui at the marae. There, planted at the paepae. There, slow step, quick step, back and forth, turn, at the ends of tidy ankles, while Arch dished out his welcomes and his words to the visitors, on on on. Black, light brown, dark brown, white, blue, mix, high and low, buckled, laced, fringed, shining—quick, slow, back and forth, turn.

A black lace-up was what he'd chosen, the one with water getting into it now. If he moved Kid would see. "Take 'em both," Arch had said. "You don't have to disrespect the other leg just because half of him's not there, just because we put him down on top of your cousin. Take your old leg a shoe too."

"Or you could give it," Bones had said. "Give it. Find somebody with only a right, a right with a foot on it, aa aa."

Dogside Story. © Copyright 2001 by Patricia Grace. Posted with permission of Penguin New Zealand, http://www.penguin.co.nz.