Gladys is calm and sensible but no one forgives her for letting the dog out

A few members of the family have retreated to their rooms. Illo: Glen Le Lievre

The family has been spending way too much time together. They may have a lot of space but with work, leisure, schooling and socialising all happening in the same place, they are getting snippy, a few have retreated to their rooms and the family dinners that do happen are shit fights.

Mum is trying to keep everyone together. Gladys is calm and sensible but no one forgives her for letting the dog out. Once, just once, but it’s still running wild. Look, she says, it was bound to happen when you have a mutt but when doggie comes back, we’ll have a really long chain.

Dad is quietly freaked out but feels he must show resolve. Dan insists on calling meetings to make a point and won’t stop until everyone is sick of listening to him. He’s not letting that dog back in. Sorry, he says, but dog is dead to me. Maybe if dog has a puppy, it can come in but that bastard dog is not getting back in.

Eldest daughter is in a tiff. Annastacia is sick of everyone invading her space so she’s locked herself in her bedroom and spends her day perfecting a TikTok routine and applying makeup for her Insta followers. Mum says it’s lucky Annastacia is pretty because she doesn’t have much of a brain.

The 13 year old is full of hormonal rage. Mark never wanted a dog. He never wanted this family. Secretly, he thinks he might be adopted. Days are spent barricaded in his room, blasting DaBaby and playing League of Legends with teenagers in China. Sometimes he emerges to tell Mum exactly what she should have done to the dog.

The 10 year old is hardly ever noticed. Steve sits in a corner of the loungeroom on his screen, nodding when his dad speaks, eating dinner on his lap. Mum sometimes worries about his online activity but she figures that if he can fix their aircon unit, well, he must be learning something.

The baby is a joy. Peter – everyone just calls him baby – mooches around the place, making mud pies and creating landscapes out of his mashed vegetables. When he gets upset by his older siblings, he retreats to his cubby and declares no one can enter Never Never Land.

The twins, Andrew and Michael, are pretty self-contained. So contained that the rest of the family wonders if they have ever really joined the family. They were always scared of the dog so they made a cardboard cut-out of the dog and ran around the house trying to scare everyone.

The smaller twin, Andrew, does a great impression of Dad – wagging finger, furrowed brow – but everyone just laughs at him.

Occasionally, Grandpa Scotty visits even though Mum and Dad have asked him to stay out of it. Look, says Dad, we appreciate the loan of the car and the new kennel but the dog has bloody gone and there’s nowhere to drive the car. Just stay at home and get the estate in order. Dad swears a lot these days.

Mum and Dad are snapping at each other. They’ve tried to keep all the family from making shitty choices. As breadwinners, they know the family depends on them and, in the meantime, they both have plans.

Gladys says if they behave, they’ll be able to play in the garden by summer and they might even inflate the paddle pool.

Dan says if they forget about the dog, they can go on a holiday. To Horsham. In 2023.

But in the meantime, come out of your rooms, eat the dinner, including the broccoli, and show a bit of empathy. We are family, after all.

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