Wanted! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog

by Jeremy Strong

  Do you remember when Streaker went downstairs wearing her box and she went flip-flop-crash-bang-cartwheel all the way down? Well, you should have seen four policemen and Sergeant Smugg all trying to get down the stairs at the same time. That was much more fun. I thought Sergeant Smugg was going to win but one of the policemen managed to overtake him by losing his footing, crashing into the other three and sending the whole lot flying. They arrived at the bottom of the stairs in a tangled heap.

  The really amazing thing about all this was that normally these things only happened when Streaker was there causing it all but, just for once, she was out in the garden, COMPLETELY INNOCENT!

  Even so, I was desperate. Streaker was supposed to be at Tina’s by now, not hanging round the garden. Fortunately, as soon as the police burst into the garden she took off like a rocket. Straight over the wall she went and she was gone. Running away had always been her best subject.

  Chief Superintendent Boffington-Orr leaned panting on the wall and watched her disappear into the night. Smugg joined his boss.

  ‘We’ll get her, sir,’ I heard him mutter. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get her. And if we don’t, my sister will. She’s the best dog warden in the country.’

  I knew it! Tina and I were right! We thought there must be a connection between Smugg and Mrs Bittenbott.

  Dad stood at the patio door and surveyed the wreckage where the policemen had been trampling all over the place. ‘I assume you are going to put everything back before you leave?’

  B-O took a deep breath. ‘My men will do that, but don’t think you’ve got away with this. We’ll get that dog of yours if it’s the last thing we do. There’s an order out for her arrest.’

  Dad laughed. ‘You can’t arrest a dog!’

  Sergeant Smugg pulled a newspaper from inside his jacket. It was a bit crumpled from where he’d done that very good impression of an avalanche sliding down the stairs, but it was still readable. He smirked and handed it across to Dad.

  ‘Early edition of the local morning paper,’ he explained.

  And there it was, right across the front page.

  Boffington-Orr and Smugg swept out, leaving the rest of the police to clear up the mess they’d made. Dad sighed and asked how Streaker had got into the garden and I told him about the rubbish bin. Dad gave a tired smile.

  ‘You’d better get back to bed, it’s four o’clock in the morning and even Clever Trevor needs his sleep.’

  ‘I told Streaker to go to Tina’s,’ I said, and Dad nodded.

  ‘Right. Does she always do what you tell her?’

  I looked up at Dad. I pressed both my lips between my teeth. I could feel my eyes getting wet and I had to blink hard. Dad was right. Streaker could be anywhere. She must have been so scared by all those policemen. She could be miles away, completely lost.

  ‘Go to bed, Trev,’ he repeated, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘She’ll be all right. There’s nothing we can do now. She’s bound to go somewhere she knows. For all we know she’s hiding out a couple of gardens away. One thing’s for sure, she’s not going far from any food that’s around. We haven’t seen or heard the last of her, you can be certain of that.’

  I guess I must have slept a bit because I woke with a jerk. I went straight round to Tina’s. It was a rather disturbing journey because every lamp-post had a WANTED: STREAKER poster stuck on to it. Imagine seeing your own dog posted as a common criminal.

  Tina answered the door and the first thing she said was: ‘Have you seen this morning’s paper?’

  The second thing she said was: ‘Is your dog fat, or what?’

  And the third thing she said was: ‘Streaker’s playing with Mouse.’ After that she let me speak for a bit and I told her about the police raid, starting with Streaker’s bombing mission on the cheese stall.

  ‘Why on earth did you hide her under a box?’ Tina demanded.

  ‘I thought it would be a good disguise. It worked too, until it fell apart due to cardboard fatigue experienced when undergoing high-speed cornering and making contact with unidentified flying objects, like shoppers. They weren’t flying to start with,’ I explained. ‘But they were after Streaker hit them.’

  ‘Hopeless,’ muttered Tina.

  ‘I had to do something, Tina. I’ve got to take Streaker out. I can’t keep her stashed away somewhere like stolen jewels. She needs exercise. You’ve seen how fat she’s getting. But if I take her out she’ll get recognized, especially now that her mugshot is plastered across the newspaper and stuck on every lamp-post for miles around.’

  ‘Really? You mean I’ve let my dog play with a common criminal? Oh, the shame of it!’ Tina pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and sighed.

  ‘It’s not funny. She’s in deadly danger and I’ll tell you something else, Mrs Bittenbott is Sergeant Smugg’s sister.’

  ‘I knew it!’

  ‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t help.’

  Tina stared into space for a moment. She was thinking. ‘Disguising Streaker was a good idea …’ she began.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘… but putting a box over her was just silly.’

  ‘Thank you, Tina,’ I said rather icily.

  ‘Thank you so much for your support and encouragement.’

  ‘Come on, Trev, it would only draw more attention to her. What we need to do is change her actual appearance so she looks like a completely different kind of dog.’

  ‘We can hardly wave a magic wand and turn her into a Pekinese,’ I grunted.

  ‘No,’ murmured Tina, her face taking on a faraway look. ‘But there must be some way we could change her appearance.’

  ‘Plastic surgery?’ I suggested. ‘What do we do, give her liposuction? I guess it would make her thinner.’

  Tina’s nose wrinkled. ‘You’re disgusting.’

  ‘So now I’m silly and also disgusting. OK, tell me, O Tina the Mighty Wonder-Brain, what’s your brilliant plan?’

  ‘Do you remember that nursery rhyme about Mary had a little lamb … ?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, Streaker is going to be Mary’s little lamb.’

  7 Some Very Fancy Dressing

  ‘You want Streaker to be a nursery-rhyme dog?’

  Tina nodded and gave me a manic grin. Now I’d heard everything.

  ‘You’re off your trolley,’ I suggested. ‘In fact you’re off this entire planet. For a start, Mary’s little lamb was white. How are you going to make Streaker white? Paint her? Frighten her so much her fur changes colour overnight?’

  Tina grabbed my arm and began shaking me. ‘Stop, listen, calm down, shush, just shut up, will you, you great whingeing wombat! Listen, there’s that other nursery rhyme about Mary, the one Mrs Travis taught us at school as a joke. Do you remember?

  Mary had a little lamb,

  Its fleece was black as soot,

  And everywhere that Mary went … ’

  ‘… its sooty foot it put,’ I finished. ‘OK, so you are thinking black lamb, not white. But how do you make Streaker look like a little lamb? She’s a bloomin’ fat dog as far as I can tell.’

  You’ve got to hand it to Tina. She does have plenty of ideas, though I have to admit I was pretty rattled when she insisted I followed her into the bathroom and then she LOCKED THE DOOR! Nightmare – locked in a bathroom with a girl! Oh well, at least I had Streaker to defend me.

  Tina threw open the lid of a big wicker basket and began pulling out all sorts of strange bits of clothing – a black cape with scarlet lining, a feather boa, Chinese slippers, various sparkly tops, a beard, several hats and so on.

  ‘What’s all this?’ I asked.

  ‘Dressing-up box. You’ve got one, haven’t you?’

  I shook my head. I felt rather disappointed. I’d never had a dressing-up box, but now I knew there were such things I wanted one. At least, I didn’t want one now – I’m too old for that sort of thing – but suddenly I missed not ever having had one, and I was envious.

 
Mind you, I couldn’t be envious for long because Streaker seemed to think that the feather boa was really a snake that needed to be taken into the bath and killed. By the time I managed to rescue it the bath was half full of pink feathers.

  ‘There! I knew it was in here somewhere.’ Tina was holding a black sheepskin waistcoat.

  ‘Is it real?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. Look, you can see the skin on the underneath. It used to be mine.’

  ‘Yours! You were born covered in shaggy fur? Urgh, you were a monster child!’

  ‘Ha ha. Shall we get on? Help me put Streaker’s front legs through the armholes. Button it up – brilliant!’

  We stood back and admired our handiwork. Streaker now looked like a, like a – well, she looked like a dog wearing a black sheepskin waistcoat and a sprinkling of pink feathers round her jaws.

  ‘I don’t think it works,’ I mumbled and Tina sighed in agreement.

  ‘It’s the tail,’ she pointed out. ‘Her tail is too doggy.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because she’s a dog.’

  ‘Yes, probably, but suppose we put a black pompom on the end?’

  This was getting more stupid by the minute. I couldn’t tell if Tina was joking or not, so I gave her a little test. I picked out a pair of dark glasses with large, bright-pink frames from the dressing-up box. ‘We could make her wear dark shades too.’

  It was just a joke. At least I thought it was a joke. Tina didn’t. Tina thought it was the most brilliant idea ever. She snatched the glasses from me and put them over Streaker’s long nose. Then Tina really did find a black pompom. She tied it on.

  ‘Fantastic!’

  ‘Fantastic’ was not the word I had I mind. I was thinking: It’s complete and utter bonkerdom. Streaker now looked like some weird, four-legged, doggy rapper.

  There was a loud knock on the bathroom door.

  ‘Tina? Trevor? Why have you locked yourselves in the bathroom? What are you up to?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ answered Tina. ‘Just trying out something.’

  ‘Open up. I want to see what’s going on.’

  Tina obligingly opened the door and her mum gazed into the room. She looked at the pair of us, the mess on the floor, the dead pink snake, the feathers, and most of all she looked at Streaker.

  Streaker was standing in the bath in her new furry waistcoat and her lopsided pink shades, wagging her pompom tail.

  ‘Is that … ? No. Is it … ? No. It’s not, is it? Surely that isn’t … ?’

  ‘Streaker,’ Tina finished off for her mum, and she grinned at me in triumph. ‘See? Mum didn’t recognize her.’

  ‘You are going to tidy up in here, aren’t you?’ said Tina’s mum.

  ‘Of course.’

  Tina’s mum took another long look at Streaker, shook her head and went back downstairs.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ purred Tina, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Let’s see what Streaker thinks of herself.’

  I lifted Streaker up to the mirror, even though she weighed a ton with all the weight she was putting on. Streaker lifted her head, took one look and howled.

  Awhoooooooooo!

  ‘Is that good or bad?’ Tina asked, making final adjustments to Streaker’s coat.

  ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps it takes a bit of getting used to.’

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Tina. ‘Nobody is going to recognize her.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, because there is only one way to find out. We shall have to take her for a test run.’

  ‘We can’t go yet,’ said Tina. ‘We still have a problem, a big one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me? Why am I a problem?’

  ‘Because you’re Trevor!’ giggled Tina. ‘Streaker belongs to Trevor. Trevor and Streaker go together.When you go out with a dog it’s always Streaker.’

  We stood in the bathroom looking at each other. I had a strange sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was up. Something awful was coming my way, but I had no idea what it was. I just knew it was coming. And then it came.

  ‘You need a disguise too,’ said Tina cheerfully.

  ‘You are NOT going to dress me up in sparkly trousers and Chinese slippers,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got a much, much better idea than that.’ Why did Tina look so triumphant?

  ‘What?’

  ‘People expect to see Trevor with Streaker. They expect to see a boy. So the answer is dead simple. We dress you as a girl.’

  That was me, howling. It set Streaker off too.

  ‘Oh no, oh no. No way, no. No. NO! Tina, I can’t do that! I’ll wear anything, anything but girls’ clothes.’

  Tina pushed me back down on the edge of the bath. ‘Calm down and listen. It’s simple. We’re the same size. I can lend you some clothes.’

  ‘Tina!’

  ‘Sssh, keep your cool. Nobody will expect it. If people see a fluffy dog wearing dark glasses with two girls, they will not be thinking: Look, there’s Trevor with Streaker. Phone the cops at once. They won’t make the connection. It’ll be the best disguise ever, and just think, Trevor, you will be saving Streaker’s life. You’ll be a hero.’

  When Tina put it like that I had to admit that it all made sense. And she was right, it was almost heroic. Even so, a girl! I let out a long, long sigh. Tina fetched a neatly folded pile of clothes from her bedroom.

  ‘Try these. They’re clean and ironed.’

  I studied the little pile. ‘It’s a skirt and top. Haven’t you got any jeans I can wear? You wear jeans all the time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Tina. ‘They’re in the wash.’

  ‘What? Every single pair?’

  Tina nodded. I didn’t believe her, but there was nothing I could do. I felt totally trapped. She opened the bathroom door. ‘I’ll leave you and Streaker to it,’ she said, giving me an encouraging smile. Or was it a snigger?

  I locked myself in and changed. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I pulled on the skirt and then discovered that the bright-pink top not only had a big sparkly heart on the chest but it was a crop top, and it showed my belly button.

  I unlocked the door. Tina peered in and her hand flew to her mouth. Was she trying not to laugh? I don’t know. By the time she took her hand away from her face she had recovered and was looking astonished.

  ‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘Utterly brilliant. Now put this on. It’s my mum’s.’ She handed me a long blonde wig.

  ‘Tina!’

  ‘You’ve got a boy’s haircut,’ she cut in sternly. ‘Put it on. Pull it round a bit, that’s it. Now, just hold still a sec.’ She turned away for a moment and when she turned back she had something in her hand. I barely had time to see what it was before the flash went off.

  ‘TINA!’

  ‘You’re my absolute hero,’ said Tina seriously. ‘And we are making history. Now, having gone to all this trouble, we’d better see if it works. Let’s go and try it out.’

  She dragged me downstairs. I stood on the doorstep, hesitating. Streaker was holding back too. Even Mouse was on edge. Maybe they both felt as embarrassed as I did. I peered up and down the street, but nobody seemed to be staring at me, even though I felt like a Martian.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ Tina smiled encouragingly. ‘Come on.’ She took my hand and pulled me down the path. I could hear a strange whimpering noise following me all the way. Then I realized I was making it myself.

  ‘Ooooohhhhhh!’

  ‘Think yourself into the part, and for heaven’s sake, walk like a girl,’ Tina whispered as we trotted down the street. ‘Keep saying to yourself: “I’m a girl, I’m a girl.” You have to believe in the part you’re playing.’

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ I hissed back. She giggled.

  ‘Just remember we’re doing this to save Streaker. Look, there are the twins. They’re coming our way. Stay cool.’

  Curtis and Alysha hurried across the road to us, staring open-mouthed a
t Streaker.

  ‘Wow!’ breathed Curtis. ‘That is some dog! What’s his name?’

  Panic! We’d never thought of a name!

  ‘Funky!’ I squeaked, in what I hoped was a girly voice.

  ‘Doo-Doo!’ chimed Tina at the same time. Curtis and Alysha looked at us in bemusement.

  ‘Funky Doo-Doo,’ I said. ‘Funky for short.’

  The twins seemed quite happy with that, but now they were staring at me. ‘Your hair’s very long, isn’t it?’ Alysha said. ‘But I like your top.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, blushing deeply, and inside my head was screaming: HELP! Get me out of here!

  Tina stepped in. ‘This is my friend, um, Trivia.’

  ‘That’s an unusual name,’ said Alysha.

  ‘Trivia’s an unusual girl,’ beamed Tina. ‘Anyway, we’re just taking Sssss … I mean Funky Doo-Doo for a walk. See you.’

  We walked off. I was sure I could feel the twins staring after us, but Tina seemed happy. ‘We got away with it! I told you we would. You see how easy it was?’ She began to sing and dance down the pavement. ‘We are the champions!’

  And that was when a small white van with red lettering pulled up next to us. The side window shot down and a voice bellowed from inside.

  ‘Hold it right there. I want words with you lot.’

  It was Mrs Bittenbott, the Dog Warden.

  8 Mrs Bittenbott’s Revenge

  The door opened and she slid out, still wearing the same T-shirt, torn jeans and jangly keys. She came round the van and stood in front of us, her mouth full of burger bun and the rest of it in her hands. I felt Streaker quiver with joy.

  ‘Let’s see. What have we here? Tina and Mouse, isn’t it?’

  ‘Bingo,’ Tina smiled.

  The Warden’s eyes flicked down to Streaker. ‘And how about these two? Just what kind of dog is that meant to be?’

  ‘We’re going to a doggy fancy-dress party,’ Tina invented.