I guess Mister Mosely frightened some people because he was so big and maybe kind of scary-looking. But there were lots of things that frightened him too.
Way back when he wasn’t fully grown, the first thing that scared him was thunder. One night we had this big storm. It started with just a bit of lightning and stuff. Mister Mosely was out on the porch and he was already shaking and whining a bit. Then a big boom came. I thought a plane or something had crashed on to the roof.
Anyway, Mister Moe forgot all about Mum’s ‘no dogs inside’ rule and bolted straight in through the back door. He was going really fast, and when he tried to stop, his feet skidded all over the place like he was a cartoon dog. Then he ran into my room and hid under my bed. He was shaking so much and he looked so scared that Mum said he could stay there ‘just this once’ until the storm was over.
I guess Mum forgot about the ‘just this once’ bit because after that, whenever there was a storm with even a tiny bit of thunder, Mister Mosely ran inside. And it was always my bed he hid under. When he got bigger he had to squeeze himself flat just to fit, and the bed would lift up on one side. I don’t think we could have got him out then even if we’d wanted to.
When I was little and Mister Mosely was under my bed I used to crawl under with him, especially when there was a bad storm and the thunder got really loud like someone setting off bombs. I’d pretend we were hiding in a cave together.
I liked being under the bed with Moe. I used to put my head on his chest and listen to him breathing and his heart beating. He was so big and strong I didn’t think any storm would ever be bad enough to blow him away. I just held on to Moe’s neck and I felt safe. The first time Mum and Dad found me like that I told them I was looking after Mister Mosely so he wouldn’t be too frightened. I guess they probably knew it was really the other way around.
But it wasn’t just thunder that frightened Mister Mosely. Dad’s electric leaf blower was another thing he hated. He hated it so much he wouldn’t go near it even when it was turned off. All you had to do was pretend you were going to pick it up and Moe would run away with his tail between his legs. One day just as a joke Dad started saying, ‘Leeeaf-blower. Leeeaf-blower. I’m going to get the leeeaf-blower,’ in a sort of slow and scary way and Mister Mosely got the shakes. Mum reckoned it was cruel and made Dad stop, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh because Moe looked so funny.
Even Tiger scared Mister Mosely. Tiger was the skinny cat from next door that didn’t even come halfway up one of Moe’s legs. Tiger belonged to the Contis. They called it Tiger because it had orange stripes. Tiger was a she, and the weird thing about her was, she was totally deaf.
Mister Mosely wasn’t always scared of Tiger. But one day when she was in our yard just licking her paws Mister Mosely came up behind her and sniffed her. I guess Tiger didn’t hear Moe coming on account of her being deaf, because she got this giant fright and sort of frizzed up and shot straight into the air like she’d stepped on a landmine or something. When she was still in the air Tiger twisted round and turned into some kind of a ninja cat and started hissing and whacking into Mister Mosely’s face with her claws.
If Moe almost gave Tiger a heart attack when he came up behind her, I reckon Tiger gave Moe a triple heart attack. After that, whenever Tiger came into our backyard Mister Mosely would tear up the back stairs and bark at her from the porch. It didn’t bother Tiger though, because she couldn’t hear a thing. She just walked around our yard as calm as anything. It drove poor old Moe nuts.
One day Uncle Gavin was over at our place and Mister Mosely started barking at Tiger from the top of the stairs. When he saw Moe up there hiding from Tiger Uncle Gavin called him a ‘sook’ and said he needed to ‘fire up more’. Uncle Gavin was always saying things like that about Moe and always trying to make him angry by teasing him and roughing him up and boxing him around the head a bit. It never worked. Moe just used to wag his tail and wait for Uncle Gavin to get tired of it and give up, same as he did with Amelia.
It made me angry when Uncle Gavin did that kind of stuff. If Mum or Dad was there they made him stop, but if it was just me Uncle Gavin would keep doing it. Sometimes I used to wish that Mister Moe would ‘fire up’ and really teach Uncle Gavin a lesson, but he never did. He always just waited till it was over. Mister Mosely was good at waiting. Mum said he had ‘the patience of a Job’. Job was some guy from the Bible who had heaps of patience. At least that’s what Mum told me.
There was only one time I can remember when Mister Mosely ever got really angry with someone. On that day he was so ‘fired up’ it was scary. But it wasn’t at Uncle Gavin. I’ll tell you all about that soon, but first I have to tell you about the thing that scared Mister Mosely the most, even more than thunder or the leaf-blower or Tiger.
I have to tell you about the Pink Panther.