It took me a while to find Streaker. She was nesting under my duvet. She had stuffed the bottom of my bed with a jumper, two pairs of pants, a sock, a football boot, half a packet of crisps and an old apple core. Thank you, Streaker! I snapped the lead on to her collar and off we went.
You’ve never seen Streaker being walked, have you? It’s not a walk at all. It’s more like a series of gigantic jerks. We crashed into three lamp posts, visited four gardens that we weren’t supposed to, almost tunnelled beneath a parked car in search of a very tasty week-old chip packet and finally used an astonished lady with a shopping bag on wheels as a kind of mini-roundabout.
When we got to Tina’s house, she was
standing on the path holding the front door open. ‘I knew it was you when I heard that lady scream,’ she said. ‘You’d better come inside and hide.’ Streaker had already dragged me into the house. I think that Mouse is probably her best friend. (Funny how nobody makes jokes about them being in love.) I told Tina about the thirty pounds.
‘That’s brilliant!’ she said. ‘Why do you look so miserable about it?’
‘Oh, come on, you know what Streaker is like!’
‘Of course I know, but we can train her. I helped my dad train Mouse and we don’t have any trouble with him. I’m sure we can train Streaker, and then she won’t be such a pain to take for a walk. It will be easy money! We’ll start straight away. Let’s go up to the field at the end of your road right now’
I should point out that Tina is an ORGANIZER. (Mind you, you’ve probably worked that out for yourself already.) She likes deciding what to do and then doing it. What she likes even more is deciding what everyone else should do at the same time. She’ll probably be a Business Manager when she grows up, or Prime Minister.
I don’t mind being organized from time to time – it saves on having to make your own decisions – so we headed for the field. Mouse padded quietly beside Tina, while Streaker tried to wrench both arms from my sockets. It was quite a relief when we reached the field and I was able to let her off the lead.
WHOOOOOOSSSSHHHH!! Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was Streaker the Superdog, travelling at light-speed. All that was left was a cloud of dust as she vanished into the long grass. Every now and then her head bobbed above it and then she was off again. Mouse blundered amiably about the field like a furry bulldozer.
Tina and I wandered slowly round the edge of the field. There was no point in trying to follow Streaker: she was far too quick. Every so often she would burst out from the grass and go charging past, trying to knock us both over before diving back into the undergrowth. I tried to catch her a couple of times, but it was like holding out your hands and trying to grab a passing cannon-ball.
Tina yelled ‘SIT!’ as fiercely as she could whenever Streaker came hurtling past. Mouse would immediately plonk his big behind down, by which time Streaker had disappeared.
We stopped when we reached the old tin bath. At one time there were horses in the field and the bath was put there for them to drink from. It was three-quarters full of stagnant rain-water. I sat on the edge of the rusty bath and stared gloomily across the field. ‘I’ve got to go through this every day for two weeks,’ I muttered. ‘I may as well give up now and drown myself.’
Tina picked up a stick and began to stir the black water. ‘I wouldn’t drown yourself in this. It’s yukky’ A cluster of smelly bubbles burst on the top and several large water-snails slid beneath the scummy surface. ‘Anyway, you give up so easily, Trevor. One minute you’re full of bright ideas and the next you’re going around like a wet weekend. I told you, we’ll train Streaker.’
As if life wasn’t bad enough already, it was at that moment Charlie Smugg popped up his big, fat face.
FOUR
You’ve guessed it. Charlie Smugg is Sergeant Smugg’s son, and he’s a real pain. I was always bumping into him, and his dad’s three Alsatians – at least, Charlie was always bumping into me, deliberately. He’s thirteen and enormous. He’s got great gangly arms like King Kong, a face full of pimples and little piggy eyes. You know those pictures you see in books about Prehistoric Man? Well, he looks like that. Charlie likes pushing people around, as long as they’re smaller than he is. Tina and I both come into the small category as far as Charlie is concerned.
‘Well, if it isn’t a pair of love-birds,’ he began.
‘You’re right, it isn’t,’ Tina snapped back.
‘Come out here for a smooch?’ leered Charlie.
‘Get lost!’ she said. (I wouldn’t have dared speak to Charlie like that!)
‘What are you doing here, then?’ he demanded.
Streaker made one of her rare guest appearances, flying past at Mach three, before doing a bombing run on a distant rabbit-hole. ‘If you must know,’ I said, desperate to prove that there was nothing going on between me and Tina, ‘we’re out here to train my dog.’
Did I tell you that when Charlie Smugg laughs he sounds like an asthmatic donkey? I thought he’d never stop. ‘Train that dog?’ he sniggered. ‘You can’t train a dog like that!’
‘Yes we can,’ insisted Tina. ‘No problem.’
A sneering grin appeared on Charlie’s face. He reminded me strongly of Quasimodo, though I didn’t tell him. And then he said the words that caused us so much trouble for the rest of the holiday.
‘I bet you can’t.’
‘Bet you we can!’ shouted Tina.
There was a strange sinking sensation in my stomach, as if I could sense trouble ahead, but it was too late to do anything about it.
‘Right – you’re on.’ Charlie looked very satisfied.
‘So, what’s the bet?’ demanded Tina recklessly.
Charlie took Tina’s stick and trailed it through the sludge at the bottom of the old tin bath. It came out trailing great globs of green-black, slimy weed. Several more bubbles floated up, burst and filled the air with their putrid stink. Charlie smiled. He towered over us with a murderous look in his eye and dangled
the dribbling stick in front of our faces. ‘If you haven’t got Streaker trained by the end of the holiday, you have to take a bath – right here!’
Tina and I were too stunned, too horrified, too appalled to answer. We simply gawked at Charlie in dismay. He was really enjoying himself of course, and he hadn’t finished either.
‘You’ve got to wash your hair in it too, both of you.’
I stared in disbelief at the yellow scum floating in the bath. I felt like being sick, but Tina snatched back her stick and waved it at Charlie. ‘Don’t forget bets work both ways,’ she shouted. ‘If we do train Streaker, you have to wash here yourself.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘That’s OK. You’ll never train her. I can’t wait!’ He turned on his heel. ‘You can have your smooch now,’ he added and strode off, laughing noisily. In the far distance I could see a neat black head with flapping ears appear occasionally. Streaker was homing in on Charlie like a cruise missile.
I nudged Tina and pointed. ‘Five, four, three, two, one…’
There was a very satisfying yell and Charlie suddenly disappeared from view. A few seconds later he struggled to his feet waving a fist. We were too far away to hear what he was saying. I shall leave it to your imagination.
Charlie went on his way and I breathed a long, long sigh. ‘Come on, we’d better find Streaker and start training her immediately. You’ve got us into a real mess now.’
‘Me! I like that! I offer to help and end up getting blamed for everything. We’re in this together.’ Tina suddenly gave a giggle and stirred the murky water. ‘Thank goodness we’re not in this together,’ she pointed out.
‘Ha ha.’ How could she joke about it?
‘It’s not bath-time yet,’ said Tina cheerfully. ‘You give up so easily. We are going to train that dog, Trevor, get the thirty pounds and watch Charlie Smugg sit in this bath and wash his greasy hair. Come on.’
What could I do but follow?
FIVE
&nbs
p; Tina seemed to think that dog-training was dead easy. ‘It’s the same for any animal,’ she declared. ‘Dad taught me this special technique. It’s called Behaviour Modification…’
I have to admit I was impressed. It sounded as if Tina knew what she was talking about. Mind you, Tina always sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. I should have been suspicious, but instead I listened to her and really thought success with Streaker was just around the corner.
It turned out that Tina’s amazing dog-training technique involved using an entire packet of dog-biscuits to try and bribe Streaker. By the time Tina had finished shouting and waving her arms about, there were no biscuits left and Streaker hadn’t sat down once, or come to heel, or stayed anywhere. In fact, she hadn’t done anything except become so fat that her stomach was now the size of a hot-air balloon.
Mum wasn’t too pleased either when she discovered that a full packet of dog-biscuits had been scoffed in one afternoon.
‘That’s five pounds you owe me, Trevor. I’ll take it out of the money I’m supposed to pay you at the end of the holiday.’
This was brilliant progress. I scowled at Tina. ‘Great – so much for Behaviour Modification. It’s the first day of training and I end up owing money’
‘You did ask for my help,’ Tina pointed out. ‘If you’re so clever, you can work out a plan for yourself.’ And she left in a huff.
I didn’t see Tina for a couple of days after that, which was probably just as well. I was a bit fed up about the dog-biscuits. Anyhow, most of my time was taken up with walking the dog. Some of you may be wondering why I didn’t just keep Streaker on a lead the whole time. Well, if you’ve got only half a brain you’ll have realized that if I had kept Streaker on a lead, then one of two things would have happened.
Either both my arms would have been stretched until they were about half a mile long, or I wouldn’t have any arms at all because they would have both been pulled out of their sockets. Streaker would be rushing around wildly, trailing a dog-lead
with two arms clattering about on the end, all by themselves. Not very nice, eh?
The one good thing about spending hours waiting for Streaker to come back to me was that it gave me time to think. I decided that one of the reasons why Streaker didn’t come when she was called was quite simply because she couldn’t hear me. She was too far away. It was like trying to tell someone in Tibet that their breakfast was going cold.
I began to wonder how you could contact someone in Tibet. You could phone them, if they had a phone. You could fax them, if they had a fax. And then: KAPOWW!! This brilliant idea burst inside my head like a hundred firework displays all going off at once. Dad had two mobile phones at home, and a fax machine.
Of course, I could hardly send Streaker a fax, although the idea did give me a bit of a laugh. I could just picture Streaker rushing away with a fax machine tied to her back. All of a sudden there would be a loud ‘beep-beep-beep-beep’ and this message would roll out of the machine and dangle in front of her nose:
STREAKER – COME HOME AT ONCE. LOVE, TREV.
No, the fax machine would be a bit daft, but what about the mobile phones? The more I thought about it, the better it got, and I set about some careful planning.
I waited until Dad and Mum went off shopping, then seized my chance. I nabbed both the mobiles, stuffed them into a rucksack, grabbed Streaker and headed for Tina’s. Tina had an old pair of binoculars that I reckoned would be very useful. Streaker managed to avoid the three lamp posts this time, but for some strange reason she tried to mail herself in a post-box. She kept leaping up and jabbing her nose into the opening.
Tina wanted to know what the Big Plan was, but for once I was doing the organizing. We reached the field.
‘Now what?’ asked Tina.
‘I’m going to let Streaker go. When I need to know where she is, I’ll climb a tree and find her with the binoculars.’ I grinned at Tina. Any moment now and my Big Plan would be revealed.
‘Oh yes? And what do you do then?’
I opened the rucksack. Tina stared at the phones and wrinkled up her nose so that all the freckles got squashed up together. ‘What are those for?’
‘I’m going to switch this one on and strap it to Streaker’s collar. I’ll use the other one to send her commands, and also I shall be able to hear where she is.’
‘How?’ asked Tina. ‘What’s Streaker going to do? Report back to you? I suppose she’s going to ring you and say… “Woof woof, hello Trevor. I’m down a rabbit-hole by the railway line, back in two minutes, woof woof.’”
‘You’re jealous,’ I snapped angrily. ‘Just because you didn’t think of it. You’re supposed to be impressed.’
‘I am,’ Tina went on, with a huge grin.
‘“Woof woof – Streaker reporting. Flying at thirty thousand feet and going in for my bombing run now.’”
I had to laugh. You can never be cross with Tina for long. We strapped one of the phones to Streaker’s collar, making sure that it was near one ear, and then we let her go. She seemed to think it was all great fun.
Tina and I climbed up a tree to get a good view of the whole field and keep track of Streaker. The binoculars were excellent. We didn’t see much of Streaker but we got brilliant views of everything else. Tina turned them on to the rows of houses at the edge of the field. ‘I can see your house and garden,’ she said, steadying the binoculars on a branch. ‘Your mum’s put the washing out to dry. I can see your underpants!’
‘Don’t get too excited or you’ll fall out of the tree,’ I warned.
Tina swung the binoculars back over the field. ‘I still can’t see Streaker,’ she said. ‘Hey! There’s Charlie Smugg, walking across the field. What’s he doing?’
I snatched the binoculars from her and focused them on Charlie. Tina was right. He was stumbling across the field, pushing, kicking and cursing an old shopping trolley, with his three dogs
jumping around him. There was some kind of large plastic tub wobbling about in the trolley, and Charlie kept glancing round, as if he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t being watched. He never thought to look up in the trees of course, but what on earth was he up to?
SIX
‘Maybe he’s been shopping,’ I said.
‘Don’t be stupid, Trev. He lives up your road. He’s hardly likely to go shopping and then drag it all the way across the field.’
‘Well, what do you think he’s doing, then?’ I asked.
Tina checked the direction in which Charlie was heading. Her voice took on an excited edge. ‘He’s going to the bath. He’s heading straight for the tin bath. Look, he’s stopped. What’s he doing?’
Charlie leaned over the trolley, puffing slightly. Yanking it across the field must have been hard work. Now that he had stopped moving about, I could see that it wasn’t a tub in the trolley, but a large bucket with a snap-on lid. Charlie had another good look round, pulled the lid off and carefully lifted out the bucket. He balanced it on the side of the bath.
Even Tina could see all this, but she couldn’t tell what was in the bucket. ‘What’s he doing!’ she repeated impatiently. Charlie made one last furtive search of the area and then slowly tipped the bucket forward over the water. Out slopped something very dark green, something glistening with slime, something that looked like the Killer Sludge from Planet Sqwirkkk.
‘Why is Charlie holding his nose?’ cried Tina, and I let her have the binoculars. She was in time to see the last dregs of muck from the bottom of the bucket being emptied into the rusty bath. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried. ‘The dirty, rotten cheat. He’s putting even more revolting stuff in there! You know what this means, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re going to get very, very dirty when we get in that bath.’
Tina wasn’t listening. ‘He can’t do things like that. It’s cheating. This means war!’ I had to admire Tina. I mean, declaring war on Charlie Smugg was a bit like Iceland deciding to attack America.
‘What shall we do first?’ I asked. ‘Send in our non-existent tanks or blast him to pieces with our non-existent missiles?’
Tina coloured slightly. ‘Well, it’s not
fair,’ she grumbled, ‘and if there is anything we can do about it, then we’re going to do it.’
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘If there is anything we can do about it – we’ll do it.’ And I kept my fingers crossed in the hope that we wouldn’t have to do anything at all. Call me a coward, call me a wimp if you like, but having a fight with King Smuggy Kong was not my idea of a good time.
Charlie Smugg and his dastardly deed were suddenly forgotten when I caught sight of Streaker in the distance and remembered my Big Plan. It was time to put it into action, so I handed Tina the binoculars, grabbed the second mobile phone and switched it on. My right ear was instantly filled with a swishing, crackling noise, which was Streaker careering through the long grass.
‘Calling Streaker, return to base. I repeat, return to base.’
Tina began to splutter. ‘She’s a dog, Trev – not a fighter plane.’
‘Want a bet? Come in, Streaker!’
‘I can see her,’ cried Tina, peering through the binoculars. ‘At the far end of the trees. There!’
‘WE’RE OVER HERE!’ I shouted into the phone. ‘Come on, it’s time to go home. Return to base.’
‘She’s coming back!’ said Tina excitedly. My mobile was filled with the sound of pounding paws and grass and bushes banging against the dog and phone. ‘Hang on!’ Tina gave a dismayed cry. ‘Charlie’s Alsatians are after her! Now what do we do?’
Sure enough, the three Alsatians were hot on Streaker’s tail. I scrambled down the tree at breakneck speed, somehow managing to fall the last bit and land in some nettles. I struggled painfully to my feet and B A M M! I was immediately knocked flying by Streaker as she went charging past, panting furiously and heading for the road. Covered in a second set of nettle stings, I dragged myself upright once again and B A M M! B A M M !! B A M M M !!!
The Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Dog Page 2
