The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers (10 page)

I looked in each of the cages. There were all kinds of fancy dogs, the sort you see posh ladies carrying around in their handbags. There were beautiful fluffy cats, any one of which might have been Fatty the Persian. There were two parrots, one grey one and another that looked like it had been painted by a little kid determined to use every colour in his paint box. I wasn't sure which one was Potty. I tried saying, ‘Hello, Potty,' to each of them, to see if they'd answer back, but they just looked at me like I was mad.

I found Trixie. I put my fingers through the wire and she tried to bite them off. Some things don't change. And in the next cage there was good old Ray Quasar, boa constrictor (or was it python?). He stuck his
tongue out at me in a friendly way.

‘Hurry up.'

That was Noah outside, sounding anxious.

I picked up a cage with a cat in it. It was heavier than I expected. I carried it over to the window. I'd forgotten that the window was so high. I stretched up and balanced the cat cage on the ledge.

‘Here,' I said.

I saw two hands reach up and take the cage.

We got two more cages out, one with a small yappy dog
and the other with the bunny rabbit.

 

But then I heard the sound I'd been dreading – the sound of the thieves' van pulling up outside. Noah heard it too.

‘Get out of there,' he hissed.

I ran to the window. I stretched and stretched, but it was too high to climb out of. My heart was racing and sweat poured down my face, making my balaclava all clammy.

‘I can't reach it,' I said to Noah. ‘Run away and save yourself.'

‘But . . .'

‘That's an order.'

I knew then that I had only one chance. I ran around the garage banging on the tops of all the cages, trying to get the still half-drugged animals riled up. The dogs started barking, the cats spitting, the snake hissing, the parrots squawking.

‘What a racket,' I heard one of the pet-robbers say. Then I head the grating sound of someone trying to open the padlock. I had just a few seconds more. I flicked open
the little catches on the cages and opened the doors.

There was one that took a bit of nerve to reach inside.

The garage door was being dragged back. Full dazzling light hit my eyes.

It was now or never.

With a yell I kicked over as many cages as I could, sending cats and dogs and parrots leaping and flying in all directions. Then, with a mighty effort, I hurled the long, heavy body of Ray Quasar at the shape of the first man. Then I did a quick draw with my spud gun and fired it in the face of the one behind him.

At the same moment I leaped forwards. I was at the heart of a snarling, snapping mass of angry animal flesh. And Trixie was doing more than her fair share of snapping. Good doggie!

I saw the startled look on the face of the man just before the snake hit him. Ray Quasar wrapped himself round the man's neck and shoulders as he fell back. The second man also staggered back, hit right on the end of his nose by the spud bullet.

 

There was a space for me to escape through. If I could only slip past them I knew that I could get away.

I was out of the door, almost there, almost free. Then I felt a hand reach out and grab the back of my balaclava. I ducked and
squirmed and the balaclava came off in the man's hand. But I had slowed down, and now he moved to block the way.

It was the one I'd hit on the nose with the spud gun. He wasn't a Japanese Jacuzzi after all, but just an ordinary man in a tracksuit top and jeans. There were still animals milling around, but they weren't the threatening pack that they'd first been when they burst out of their cages.

The man didn't look very happy, but at least he wasn't wrestling with a metre-long snake like his friend, so he should have been thanking his lucky stars, if you ask me.

‘You little thug,' he said.

‘I'm not a thug,' I yelled back. ‘You're the baddies here, not me, and you're going to get it.'

Brave words, but I didn't feel brave. I felt
more frightened than I'd ever felt in my life before. The man just chuckled.

Then I saw something that cheered me up by at least a thousand per cent.

‘Get them, boy!'

The man spun round.

It was Noah and Rudy. They hadn't run away; they'd just gone round to the front of the garages.

Noah, looking rather striking in his Spider-Man costume, was pointing at the man, urging Rudy to attack, to prove once and for all that he was a true member of the Bare Bum Gang. Rudy growled menacingly, a look of hate in his eyes.

And then he sat down and appeared to go to sleep.

‘Ha, not much of a mutt. That's why we threw him out of the car.'

‘That was . . .'

It was all falling into place.

‘So then, what shall we do with the two of you?'

But just then Trixie reappeared. She quickly sized up the situation, deciding who to bite first.

I then had my first piece of good luck in ages. Instead of attacking me, she fastened onto the man's trousers, snarling and growling in the best Trixie way.

The man said some very rude words. Perhaps that's what woke Rudy up – I mean, hearing his real name shouted out like that. But once he was awake he saw the man give Trixie a big kick, sending the poor little dog flying through the air.

Finally Rudy was moved to anger. And in a flash I realized that Rudy hadn't chased Trixie to eat her, but because he loved her and wanted to marry her. And now, with a fearsome roar, he charged at the man.

Kicking little rats is one thing, but facing up to a big fat dog like Rude Word is quite another, and the man turned to run.

Now, anyone knows that if you turn your back on a charging dog only one thing is
going to happen. And that happened now. Rudy took a massive bite out of the man's bum. I heard the wet sound of his teeth sinking into the man's wobbly buttock.

His scream sounded like this:

‘AAAEEEEEIIIIIIIIOOOOOOUUUUUU.'

It was as if he was trying to yell out all the vowels in the right order. I was quite impressed that he got it right, considering there was a dog attached to his bottom.

Noah ran towards me, grabbed my arm and yelled at me to run.

‘No need,' I said, and pointed along the row of garages. Jamie's dad was coming, armed not just with his cricket bat, but with the pads and helmet as well. And right behind him, its nee-naw blaring loudly, came the police car.

‘I don't think we've anything to worry about here, Noah,' I said, sounding like a cool secret agent who's just defeated the super-villains without even breaking into a sweat.

I DID ACTUALLY
have something to worry about.

It was a day later and I was standing in our living room. The telly wasn't on, which is usually a sign that something terrible is happening.

‘What you did was very dangerous and irresponsible. I think that your parents should ground you for at least a week. And I believe they agree with me.'

A very fat police sergeant with at least eight quivering chins was giving me a big telling off.

‘You could have got yourself into a very tricky situation. If we hadn't arrived that minute, I don't know what would have happened.'

At that minute, I wanted to tell him, one of the men was trying to extract Rudy from his bottom, and the other was being strangled (but not to death) by Ray Quasar. I thought we were fairly safe.

Anyway, the three policemen in the car arrested the pet thieves. They told us later that they'd been on their trail as they moved around stealing animals and selling them to pet shops, who sold them on again to ordinary people. Most of the animals were recovered, except for the parrots, which flew away together for ever and probably got married, like Trixie and Rudy.

Back in our living room, my mum said, ‘I hope you're listening to the policeman, Ludo. We were worried sick.'

Well, that wasn't true either. They didn't even know I was in danger until after it
happened, and they knew I was safe now.

Then my dad joined in. ‘I think you owe us all an apology.'

So much for the £16,000 reward!

But there was no point arguing.

‘Sorry,' I said.

Then my mum and dad hugged me and the fat policemen went away.

‘Am I really grounded?'

‘Well,' said my dad, ‘you stayed in last night, so we'll say you've served your sentence.'

‘Thanks, Dad.'

‘It was really brave,' he said. ‘Just very silly.'

I nodded. It was very silly.

The whole gang met up that evening in the den.

‘I think that's the best adventure we've ever had,' said Jamie.

We all agreed.

‘And it was all thanks to Rudy,' Noah said.

‘It would have been even better if he'd found the treasure,' said The Moan.

‘Oh, we've got all our lives to find treasure,' I said, ‘but we can only have adventures when we're kids.'

Then Jennifer did something very, very strange.

She kissed me on the cheek again.

‘Any more of that,' I said, blushing, ‘and you're out of the Bare Bum Gang for good.'

And then we were all laughing, and we didn't stop until it was time to go home.

You're probably wondering where Rudy was. Well, I'm going to have to take you back again to those garages.

The baddies were bundled into the back of the police car, and two of the policemen were trying to round up the escaped animals. Then I noticed that Ray Quasar wasn't around. And nor was Rudy.

Noah and I started to look for them. Then I heard a horrible crunching noise. It
seemed to be coming from underneath the pet-stealer's van. We crouched down to look. The sight was even more horrible than the sound. Rudy and Trixie were both there. Along with Ray Quasar. Rudy was eating his way down Ray Quasar from the top, and Trixie was eating her way up from the bottom. They were about to meet in the middle.

 

Declan never found out what happened to his snake, which was probably a good thing. I let him think that Ray Quasar had
escaped into the sewer, where he would grow to an enormous size and eventually burst out of someone's toilet one day and eat them. That cheered him up. And I thought the least I could do was to let him share Rudy. The agreement was that Declan would look after Rudy all year except for the summer holidays, when he would come and stay with us. He seemed quite happy with that arrangement. They both did.