‘Pretty words, but it don’t change anything. When those pups get sold I want my money and I’ll be after you for it. It won’t just be me either. I’ve got my dogs. They’re bigger than yours and there are more of them.’
‘We’ve got Mouse,’ I boasted.
‘Oh yes, the hugely evil St Bernard,’ said Charlie, patting Mouse’s massive head. Tina’s dog immediately lay down, rolled over and displayed his belly for tickling.
‘I am SO SCARED,’ Charlie sniggered. ‘Got to go now. Don’t forget – half the money, or ALL the trouble.’
It was several minutes after Charlie had gone before my heart stopped trying to clamber out of my chest and run away to sea. Charlie meant business.
‘What do we do?’ I asked Tina.
‘Kill him?’
‘No, I mean seriously, Tina.’
‘Kill him?’ she repeated and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What can we do?’
‘We need a plan,’ I muttered.
‘Yes, that will help. Then we can hit him over the head with it. You’d better make sure it’s a very big heavy plan, hopefully in the shape of a gigantic club, like cavemen used on dinosaurs, because that’s what Charlie is.’
Sometimes Tina can be very annoying (and sarcastic). On the other hand, she stood up to Charlie Smugg – GULP! I would never have dared speak to him like that. She told him to get lost! Mouse wasn’t much help, though. He’s about as tough as a – well, about as tough as a mouse, I guess.
I was thinking all this when I suddenly had a bit of an idea. I grabbed Tina’s arm and she beamed at me.
‘At last! See, you like it really.’ She fluttered her eyelashes.
‘Tina, shut up and be serious.’
‘I was being serious,’ she grumbled.
‘I’ve got an idea, and it’s simple.’
‘Of course it is, you’re a boy.’
I ignored that. ‘What we have to do is make sure the puppies never get sold.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ she asked, and I reminded her about Mr Slocumber.
‘OK, so you managed to stop one person, but your parents want to sell them. You can’t be there every time someone comes to look at the puppies.’
‘At least we can try to delay our deaths at the hands of Charlie,’ I insisted.
‘Or the jaws of three Alsatians,’ murmured Tina unhelpfully. She snapped her fingers. ‘Got it! We tell Charlie that your parents are giving the dogs away for free. If they’re given away there’s no money problem.’
‘Suppose he doesn’t believe us? He’s seen that card in the shop.’
‘OK, in that case we shall have to persuade your parents not to sell them but to give them away.’
I wasn’t so sure. I thought it was highly doubtful that Mum and Dad would change their minds.
‘It’s a matter of Life or Death, Trevor,’ Tina said firmly. ‘OUR lives and OUR deaths.’
I had to admit that she did have a point.
3. The Great Vanishing
I knew they wouldn’t. Parents are so predictable. Dad was wearing full golfing gear and practising his putting in the front room when I popped the question. He sliced the ball so hard it almost whizzed out of the window, just missing Erik the Viking as he lazed on top of the sofa. Erik flicked one ear and went back to sleep. He is one cool cat.
‘GIVE the puppies AWAY?’ squawked Dad. ‘Are you mad?’
‘Only occasionally,’ I muttered. In fact I was thinking that if anyone was mad it must be my dad, playing golf in his front room. If only he could see himself.
Mum said Christmas was an expensive time of year. ‘We need that extra money from those puppies, and goodness me, they owe us enough.’
‘Streaker’s pups owe you money?’ What had Mum been doing? Lending the pups money so they could nip down to the local sweet shop to spend it?
‘Do you know how much it costs to feed three hungry puppies?’ she grumbled. ‘Not to mention all the jabs they’ve just had from the vet so they can go outside safely – which incidentally is something you can do now, since you’re obviously not busy.’
This conversation was definitely not going the way it was meant to.
‘It’s snowing,’ I argued.
‘Children love snow,’ Mum replied, while Dad chuckled.
‘She’s got you there, Trevor.’
‘I don’t like snow. It’s cold. It’s wet and it goes down the back of my neck.’
Mum glanced outside. ‘It’s hardly snowing at all. Stop moaning, get your coat and take those pups for a walk. It’s about time they saw the outside world.’
‘If I get a cold it’ll be your fault,’ I muttered.
‘Out,’ said Mum.
‘And if I get Martian Flu or whatever and DIE you’ll be really sorry.’
‘And if you don’t take those pups out you won’t get any Christmas,’ suggested Dad, which was very unkind of him.
‘What about my human rights?’ I started.
‘What? You’re human? Nobody told me!’ exclaimed Dad.
‘Ha ha, very funny,’ I scowled. ‘Just because you’re bigger than me.’
‘Just because you’re smaller than me,’ Dad laughed.
‘Just you wait until I’m grown up,’ I threatened.
‘Why? What will you do then?’ Mum asked, arms folded and a big smile on her face.
‘I’ll – I’ll – I’ll tell you: I’ll leave home!’
And you know what? THEY BOTH SIGHED WITH RELIEF. MY OWN PARENTS!
‘You don’t understand,’ I shouted. ‘If I leave home, YOU’LL HAVE TO WALK STREAKER!’
Their faces fell and they exchanged alarmed glances. Ha! I had them now!
‘The boy’s right,’ muttered Dad.
‘Disaster,’ nodded Mum. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Better make sure Trevor walks the dogs now while he’s still with us,’ Dad suggested.
‘Just what I was thinking,’ agreed Mum. ‘The lead’s hanging up by the front door, Trev. You know how to let yourself out, don’t you?’
So that worked out really well for me, didn’t it? I grabbed the lead – although actually it was three mini leads on the end of one main lead – and off we went, trudging through the snow.
This was the first time the puppies had been beyond the house and the first time they had been on the triple lead. Plus, I had Streaker with me too, and she kept dancing round her children. So what really happened was that the puppies immediately got tied up in knots. They fell over themselves and bit each other while their mum tried to sort things out by jumping in with them and making things ten times worse. It wasn’t long before I came to a complete stop. I now had three puppies and one dog wrapped round my legs and I couldn’t budge.
I glanced around for help and eventually a little old lady toddled into sight and took pity on me. Honestly, it was SO embarrassing.
‘You give me that end to hold,’ she said, ‘and I’ll just lift this little pup up – aren’t they cute! Oh, I think he’s doing a tiddle in mid-air. I’d better put him down. There. Let’s move this one round instead. Can you get your big dog to stop trying to hide under my coat? No? Oh dear, I’ve got my foot stuck now. Can you…? No, you can’t move either, can you?’ she sighed. ‘I think we’ll have to wait for help.’
Five minutes later we were still standing there, thoroughly stuck, while the little old lady told me about her grandson who had a tortoise that was so big you could ride on him, but sadly he had awful spots on his face – the grandson, not the tortoise. I was just thinking I wanted to doze off rather than listen to any more when a passing fire engine saw our problem and pulled over.
Four firemen got out and it didn’t take them too long to untangle us from the leads, sniggering all the while.
‘Good thing we saw you,’ said one. ‘We were on our way back to the station from a job.’
‘Thank you, officer,’ beamed the old lady. ‘You are most kind. I don’t suppose you’re going past the sho
ps, are you? Maybe you could give me a lift.’ And off she went with the firemen. The last I heard from her she was starting to tell them about her grandson’s spots. As for me, I headed straight for the park and a bit of peace and quiet – or so I hoped. At least the pups weren’t too manic.
There wasn’t much snow, only a centimetre or so, but it had turned the park into a gigantic, clean bed sheet. The dogs and I had great fun mucking it up by putting funny paw prints all over the place.
I freed the pups from their little leads and off they went, bopping and bouncing, flopping in the snow and generally being terribly cute. They were so funny. They kept slipping and falling over and trying to nip each other on the bum or the ear.
Streaker loves a bit of snow and she went tearing off in about ten different directions at once. As soon as she sees anything she thinks might be remotely interesting she’s away. It might be another dog or it might simply be a tiny bit of twig. She’ll spend ages nudging it with her nose, trying to toss it into the air. (The twig, not the other dog.)
It was while Streaker was doing one of her vanishing acts that it happened. The pups decided to disappear too. All three of them suddenly went charging off into the nearby bushes. I guessed they’d probably seen some poor rabbit, though if they were anything like their mother the rabbit was almost certainly imaginary. Streaker is always chasing rabbits that don’t exist except in her head.
I stood there at the edge of the park, idly kicking at the snow and waiting for the pups to return, not to mention Streaker. Eventually I spotted a dark dot on the far horizon. It was an incoming four-legged missile, getting bigger and bigger, hurtling towards me, homing in on its target – typical Streaker. She arrived at full speed, knocking me into the snow. She’d obviously decided my face was filthy because she launched a major clean-up operation with her tongue.
At last she stopped, sat back on her haunches and looked around expectantly. The pups hadn’t returned. I sat up and scanned the park too. No sign of them, which was odd. I got to my feet and Streaker followed me to the bushes. We peered between the branches and I called out, but there was only silence. I couldn’t even hear them crashing about anywhere. It’s astonishing how silent silence can be when you’re really listening, not to mention eerie.
Streaker had her nose to the ground and was sniff sniff sniffing. She ran round behind the bushes and I followed. No puppies. The only things to be seen were an awful lot of puppy paw prints. AND ONE SET OF GREAT BIG HUMAN FOOTPRINTS. The puppies had vanished. In fact they had been stolen – DOGNAPPED!
4. The Hunt Begins
Streaker stood there, trying to look intelligent. This is very difficult to achieve when you have a large floppy tongue dangling from your front end and a windscreen-wiper tail stuck on your back.
‘Follow the scent,’ I urged. Streaker bounced round me, all bright eyes and no brain. ‘No, not jumping. We’re on a SEARCH, Streaker. We are LOOK-ING. Find your puppies! We’re not doing jumping today. You can do that when you find the dog thief and then you can jump on them as much as you like.’
Streaker began barking, which was a great help, and then carried on dancing round me. I might just as well have taken her to a disco.
It was no use. The puppies had gone. It was almost as if they’d been beamed up into a passing UFO by dog-loving aliens on their way to Planet Crufts. At least I hoped they loved dogs. I followed the footprints to the edge of the park, over the low wall and on to the footpath. There the prints had been trodden into a mush by lots of other feet. The trail was dead, which was just about how I felt myself.
I went home trailing a lead with no puppies on the end of it. Streaker followed slowly. She kept looking behind her in case the pups suddenly appeared, chasing happily after her as they usually did. I had to tell Mum and Dad. What else could I do? Dad muttered something about it being just his luck and why couldn’t the robber have stolen Streaker instead? I knew he was joking, but it was unkind.
Dad insisted we all trudged back to the park and searched again but I knew it was useless long before we even got there. Dad was getting more and more cross and muttering all the awful things he’d like to do to the puppy thief.
‘I’ll make them eat dog food for the rest of their lives,’ he seethed. ‘I’ll put them on a lead and drag them to the vet and get the vet to give them the biggest injection EVER with the biggest needle EVER, right into their BUM.’
‘Dad!’
When we got home everyone was in a bad mood, including me. I went to my room, threw myself on my bed and wondered what to do next.
Streaker came up and did the same. We both lay there, staring at the ceiling, with Streaker’s legs poking up in the air like cocktail sticks in a big sausage. She looked completely stupid, but then she always does. She’s daft and I love her. And I love her pups too and they’d just been stolen.
Where were they? What was happening to them? They could be in danger. Maybe they weren’t being fed properly, or not fed at all. Maybe some really nasty person wanted to make them into slippers or earmuffs, finger-warmers, nose-warmers!
My brain was torturing me with awful thoughts. I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as a nose-warmer. I had to do something, so I thought I’d start by going to see Tina. She often has good ideas. Mind you, she often has crazy ones too, but at least it was someone to talk to.
‘Stolen!’ she cried. ‘Who took them?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ I answered wearily. ‘It could have been anyone, except that the footprints were big – I’m sure it was a man.’
‘Why not a woman?’
‘Women’s feet aren’t as big as men’s,’ I replied.
‘Huh. You haven’t met my aunt, have you? She wears canal boats on her feet.’
‘All right, but most likely it was a man,’ I insisted.
‘Why would anyone want to steal puppies?’ Tina asked.
‘Christmas? They could give them as a present. Maybe they want to sell them. Does it matter? We’ve got to get them back. They could be in danger.’
Tina chewed her lip for a moment. ‘Well, at least Charlie Smugg can’t bother us for that money any more. If they’ve been stolen they can’t be sold.’
I knew Tina was trying to be helpful but even that didn’t cheer me up. I wanted the pups back in the house. ‘We’ve got to find them,’ I repeated.
‘We need to investigate,’ Tina declared. ‘We’ll start at the scene of the crime, and we’ll take Mouse with us.’
‘What good will he be?’
‘St Bernards are trained to track down people,’ Tina explained.
‘I know, but I thought they had to be buried in avalanches first of all so the dogs can dig them out.’
Tina pointed out of the window. ‘It’s been snowing,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Tina, we don’t get avalanches in the park. It’s very flat.’
Tina clutched both my shoulders and shook me. ‘Do you want to find those pups or not?’
‘OK, OK. I’m coming.’
We went to the park for my third visit, dragging Mouse along with us. With Streaker it’s the other way round. You don’t take her anywhere – she takes you, at high speed. Mouse is quite the opposite. It’s like dragging a gigantic pudding behind you.
‘Right. This is where it happened,’ I told Tina. ‘Look, you can still see the puppies’ paw marks, and mine – and those are the big footprints I told you about.’
Tina bent over the prints then straightened, gazed around and fixed me with a suspicious eye. ‘You didn’t see anyone behind the bushes?’
‘No, officer.’
‘And what were you doing when all this happened?’ she asked, making notes in a little book.
‘I was either watching Streaker or being given a bath by her.’
‘Why did she bath you?’ Tina quizzed.
‘She thought I had a filthy face.’
‘Is that your alibi?’ Tina demanded severely.
‘Yes, and i
f you’ll pardon me for saying, officer, I’m not likely to steal my own puppies, am I?’
Tina gave a stiff nod and snapped shut her notebook. ‘Good point. All right, I shan’t arrest you this time, but watch your step. Aha!’ She suddenly plunged one hand into the bushes and pulled out a small scrap of dark navy cloth.
‘Look! A scrap of cloth. I think it comes from clothing worn by the criminal. All we have to do is match this to their coat.’ Tina smiled triumphantly.
‘Tina, that scrap of cloth might have been there for ages. We don’t know it comes from the criminal’s coat and, besides, how many people have dark coats? Just about everyone, that’s how many.’
Tina pocketed the scrap and shrugged. ‘Maybe, but we can at least keep an eye out for someone with a torn jacket. Let’s follow the footprints.’ She bent over the tracks and slowly traced them to the low wall at the edge of the park. She stared at the mess of prints on the far side of the wall.
‘Mmm,’ she muttered. ‘Interesting. It’s difficult to say for sure, but I think the dognapper turned right when he left the park, which means he didn’t go into the centre of town. That’s important.’
I closed my eyes for a weary second and spoke slowly. ‘Yes, very important. If he didn’t go into town all we have to do now is search THE REST OF THE WORLD.’
‘Trevor, you are being very difficult this morning,’ Tina grumbled.
‘I’m having a difficult day. Streaker’s puppies have been stolen.’
Tina took hold of my right hand in both of hers. I could feel the warmth through her gloves. She looked straight into my eyes. ‘We are going to find them,’ she said with great sincerity. She had obviously stopped pretending to be a policewoman and was now a trauma counsellor.
I wanted to believe her. Even more, I wanted her to stop holding my hand. It was embarrassing. I pulled it away and stuffed both hands firmly into my pockets. Tina gave a little smile.
Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Page 2
