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    Dog Boys
    Dog Boys
    Dog Boys
    Ebook46 pages47 minutes

    Dog Boys

    By Charles de Lint

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Dog Boys is an original short story, set in the fictional Southwestern desert city of Santo del Vado Viejo, and is available here for the first time in any format.

    Brandon is the new boy at Rose Creek High and he quickly figures out that the one thing you don’t do in this school is get mixed up in the struggle between the Latino streetgangs and the Native kids from the rez. But when he sees a big Latino boy bullying a diminutive Native girl named Rita, he can’t just turn away.

    Unfortunately, the bully is a member of the 66 Bandas and now Brandon finds himself pulled into a spiral of escalating violence. His only allies are Rita’s family, but even their help isn’t going to be enough. In the end, the only way he can survive is to change in ways he didn’t think were possible.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles de Lint
    Release dateNov 9, 2012
    ISBN9780920623169
    Dog Boys
    Author

    Charles de Lint

    Charles de Lint and his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His evocative novels, including Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, and The Onion Girl, have earned him a devoted following and critical acclaim as a master of contemporary magical fiction in the manner of storytellers like John Crowley, Jonathan Carroll, Alice Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, and Isabel Allende.

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    Reviews for Dog Boys

    4.5/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      It's DeLint-y. On his first day at a new high school, a boy from out-of-state gets caught up in a gang war between the Mexicans and the Native Americans. Two kinds of traditional magic duke it out, and the kid gets adopted into a mystical tribe, and a date with the cute girl too. Aww.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic - urban fantasy in the true sense, rooted in a specific place, drawing on local myths, and built around characters that you can't help but sympathise with. An excellent read.
    • 5/5
      Brandon's family has just moved from Atlanta to a gated community in the (fictional) southwestern city of Santo del Vado Viejo, and for reasons mysterious to Brandon, they're sending him to the local public high school. There are Mexican gangs, Indian gangs, and he's the new Anglo outsider. He has a quite sensible plan to keep his head down.Unfortunately, during his first week, he sees a big, tough Mexican guy bullying a very petite Indian girl. He steps in to protect the girl, Rita, and succeeds for the moment. Too bad the bully, Bambino, is the younger brother of one of the leaders of the 66 Bandas gang. Brandon and Rita are now both going to be targets.Even getting home from school is tricky--and they can't just go home. They evade the gang in Brandon's car, but barely. Brandon wants to call the police; Rita explains that the police can't really help with gang trouble. She persuades him to go with her to her uncle, Rueben, head of the Warrior Society of their Kikimi tribe--or, more casually, the dog boys.What follows is scary and dangerous and, for Brandon, a truly strange and weird experience. It's a life-changing experience, and things will never be the same.This is a short story, so it's not helpful to say too much. It's a de Lint story, which tells you something if you're familiar with de Lint. These are smart kids, ready to ask trustworthy adults for help. The adults aren't perfect, but they do their best.Recommended.I bought this short story.

    Book preview

    Dog Boys - Charles de Lint

    Dog Boys

    A short story by

    Charles de Lint

    Copyright 2012 by Charles de Lint

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Dog Boys

    I hate this place. Hate the heat and the dust. Hate this stupid chi-chi gated community. And I so hate my new high school. You really have to wonder what my parents were thinking. They move us to Desert View with its walls and patrols, and a security checkpoint to get in, but they send me to Rose Creek High, a public school. Hello? Filled with the people a gated community keeps out.

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t judge. Most of the kids are Mexicans or Indians with a few blacks, Asians and white kids like me, but I’m cool with that. We had a wide racial mix at my old high school and I got along fine with just about everybody. But here, the Mexicans run in serious gangs and the Indians look at me like I’m supposed to constantly apologize for what my ancestors did to theirs, except my ancestors only got to North America in the fifties.

    I was online with my best friend Ronnie last night looking for advice, but he just gave me the same drill he did before my parents pulled us out of the good life in Atlanta and dumped us here:

    Keep your head down until you get the lay of the land. Don’t make waves, but don’t take any shit.

    Today is the first day of week three and I’ve already decided to treat this school like jail. Just keep out of trouble and do my time until I can graduate. Except in the middle of the afternoon I’ve got a hall pass to go to the can and I come across some big Mexican dude pushing around a little Indian girl in the stairwell.

    Keep your head down. Don’t make waves.

    Sure. Good advice. But you’ve also got to do the right thing.

    Hey, I call to him. Leave her alone.

    Cold eyes rise to meet mine. I can tell he's memorizing my face. You going to make me?

    If I have to.

    For a long moment, it could go either way, but then he shoves the girl hard enough to knock her off her feet.

    "This isn’t finished, amigo," he says as the stairwell door slams behind him.

    I help the girl up, give her space once she’s on her feet. She straightens her shirt, but she doesn’t thank me.

    You shouldn’t have done that, she says instead. Now we’re both dead.

    She’s probably right. The bandas—the local gangs—don’t wear their colours at school, but everybody knows who they are. Except for the new guy. Which would be

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