“Yes,” said the father, “and she should be allowed to fight! If we didn’t tell your mother, maybe we could sneak off to the — ”
But the mother came back from the kitchen with a snack for the man. A big leafy stick of green vegetable. The man took the vegetable and devoured it.
“Play,” said the boy, rubbing the man’s stomach. “Show them you can play.”
The father chuckled smugly — a man of the poor does not play music. The mother, still hopeful, leaned in close for almost a minute and, when nothing happened, she went back to her chair next to the father where she had left her knitting.
And suddenly the singing harp began to sing: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere. Shall we call, shall we sing, of the joy everywhere…”
The boy clapped and laughed excitedly. “See? I told you!”
The mother said, “Whoever owned her before must have taught her to do it.”
The father nodded. “She knows all the words. She’s better than the trained man at the circus. She must be worth good money.”
“Whoever owned her before must have sat with her and trained her. Where did you get her?”
“She was a take-in. The kennel boss said her owners practically gave her away. But they were poor.”
“How old is she?”
“Her license says she’s fifteen.”
“In man years?”
“She was born five years ago, it says, so yes, she’s fifteen in man years.”
The mother got up and went over to the female man playing the singing harp and watched with fascination the nimble movements of the rusty-red-frecked fingers as the instrument sang, “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere, in the heart, in the heart, in the heart…”
The mother exclaimed, “That’s the way my music teacher taught me to play it! Repeat the heart part three times.” She rubbed the man’s head. “I don’t think she’s stolen. Sometimes the take-ins are stolen. Do you think she’s stolen?”
The father said, “She didn’t cost much.”
“Maybe they were trying to get rid of her because she was stolen,” suggested the mother. “Only the wealthy can afford a musical man.”
The father folded the paper in his lap. “Maybe they didn’t know she was musical. Maybe that’s why they sold her so cheap. They didn’t know. Her license looks real. It’s not easy to forge a man license, is it?”
They both looked at the man playing the singing harp and at the boy who was staring up at them with worried eyes. The mother inhaled a deep breath. “Well, she may be stolen. What are we going to do?”
The father got up and patted the boy on the head. “She’s ours now, and we’re going to keep it like that. We just won’t tell anybody that she is a musical man.”
The boy smiled, the mother let out a relieved breath, and the father squatted on the ground with his family and listened enraptured as the female man made the small singing harp sing. The father patted the man’s head and mused, “She must be worth some good money.”
The female man knew ten songs that they remembered from their early childhood, and she played them one after the other, and they were all very happy.
When the boy would take his man out for a walk, he would try to follow his mother’s wishes and avoid the field where the boys from wealthy families walked their mans, but sometimes the temptation was too great.
His man was the best fighter and the wealthy boys, showing off their expensive talking mans in their fabulous hair cloths and fancy loin pouches, needed to be taught a lesson that only the biggest, bravest, strongest, most ferocious man in the whole wide world could teach.
The rules were simple. No leashes. No biting. No gang-ups.
The boy, like a proud but bored spectator who has seen it all before, lay on his side with his head propped up on an elbow as the action proceeded.
His female man had already beaten six of them in a row, and this last one was about to cry surrender. She had this last one by the neck. She could snap his neck easily if she wanted, but she was content to hold his neck under one arm and punch him in the face with her free hand. The boy knew he should head back home before his mother began to worry, but he hated to call a fight in the middle, especially a slaughter like this.
He would make up an excuse to tell his mother.
While all around him the wealthy boys shouted encouragement to the doomed combatant, the poor boy arose from his place on the ground, stretched, yawned theatrically, and smirked. Nobody ever hooted and cawed for his man. Even though she was the best, she was a man of the poor. But this would teach them a lesson.
Six in a row and soon to be seven.
His man was punching the face of the man of the wealthy boy. The face of the wealthy boy’s man was puffy and red. The female man landed two more hard blows, and the face of the wealthy boy’s man dripped tears now as well as blood.
That was enough. The wealthy boy tapped the poor boy on the shoulder. “We surrender.”
The poor boy said, “No. He has to say it.”
The female man landed another hard blow and two teeth jumped from the mouth of the wealthy boy’s man.
“But maybe he can’t talk,” said the wealthy boy to the poor. “He gets frozen when he’s scared and he can’t talk! We surrender!”
The poor boy snorted. “All right, girl. Let him up.”
She released the wealthy boy’s man and he fell on his face crying out, “Thank you for sparing my life.”
As his victorious female man came running over to him, the poor boy turned to the wealthy boy and laughed. “See? He can talk. He’s not frozen at all.”
The wealthy boy, who was bigger than the poor boy, stepped toward him. “You think that’s funny?”
The rest of them balled their fists and stepped toward the poor boy too.
The poor boy’s female man showed her teeth and hissed at them dangerously, and they stepped back.
The poor boy laughed. “Watch out. She gets angry when people I don’t like get too near.”
The wealthy boys and their beaten mans took another step back. As the poor boy and his female man departed for home, they heard bad names being shouted at them.
Bully!
Poor boy!
Cheater, cheater!
Pinhead!
Pinhead oaf!
The boy turned his head to show them the big smile on his face and to pink his tongue at them, but really it made him sad to be called such things. He was not a bully or a cheater — his man was just better than everybody else’s. And he couldn’t help it if his parents were poor. They were still the greatest parents in the whole wide world.
He ran so that he could get away from the things they were shouting. He ran until he heard a different sound, which was music.
At the far end of the field, only minutes away from his neighborhood and home, there was another boy — a wealthy boy — sitting on the grass while his mans, three of them, sang to him.
Each man had a different appearance, so the poor boy guessed that they were not from the same litter. The first man was tall and brown with hair that grew in a circle around his head, the second was shorter with a very round belly and his skin was pale, and the third was short and round and pale like the second, but his brown eyes were large and nearly lidless. All three of them wore blue cloths in their hair and matching blue loin pouches. They were three little man mans in blue.
The three mans were singing in a way that was very pleasing to the ear. It was like the trained mans he had once seen at a circus, the way they sang. One voice was high-pitched, another was low, and the last was somewhere in between. Their song was very beautiful.