Lost! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog (11 page)

‘I was sick in here!’ I told the others. ‘Jump in!’

‘I’m not sitting where you threw up,’ Cat
complained.

‘Just get in,’ I said.

Hoolie didn’t mind where he sat. He was far too busy admiring himself in the wing mirror he’d just pulled off the side. Then he found the pies and began to eat one.

‘Don’t eat too much, or you’ll be sick like I was,’ I warned.

‘Oh, pishy-poo to you!’ he chomped, cramming another pie into his mouth.

We hid behind some boxes and soon the driver came along, and it was the same one — the one with the dark glasses — and he shut the door and off we went.

We hadn’t gone very far before Hoolie said he didn’t feel well. Cat said it was because he’d been looking at himself in the mirror for too long. Hoolie made a grab for Cat’s tail but wasn’t nearly quick enough.

‘Stop it, the pair of you,’ I snapped. ‘We’re almost home.’ Amazingly, they both shut up and Hoolie wasn’t sick either.

‘When the van stops, wait for my order,’ I said. I could smell home. I was sure we were heading in the right direction. I could almost hear my puppies calling to me.
Hey, Mum! We’re here! Come on, hurry up! We’ve missed you so much!

The van slowed and stopped. The driver got out. He began to open the doors.

‘Run for it! Ba-ba-ba-boom!’ I yelled.

We bounded out of the back of the van, knocking the man flying, with Hoolie still clutching a haul of stolen pies. He was a pie thief! My puppies were practically shouting to me now. All I had to do was find out exactly where
I was. And guess where we were? Right in the middle of Trevor-Town, in the market place.

‘I know where I am!’ I told the others happily. ‘We’ll be home in zippity-zip.’

Cat and Hoolie were standing back to back — the defensive position — looking round the market. ‘Why is it so quiet? Where are all the two-legs?’ asked Cat suspiciously.

It was true. There was nobody to be seen. Strange. Eerie. Sinister. A cold feeling began to creep right over me, making my fur stand on end.

In broad daylight! It was a cheetah — the fastest land animal known to Man, and it was stalking towards us. Cat went yowling up a telephone pole, closely followed by Hoolie. That just left me, on my own. And I can’t climb telephone poles.

I was transfixed. The cheetah’s glowing eyes were fixed on me. I WAS THE TARGET! My
tail went between my back legs. My ears went right back, my lip curled and I felt so scared and fierce at the same time and I thought I was going to die.

Cat sat right on top of the telephone pole, hissing and spitting. Hoolie sat just below Cat hurling pies down at the cheetah and screaming at me. ‘Go get him, Streaker! Biff his nose! Stamp on his toes! Pull his tail! Poke him in the eye!’

I wished he would shut up.

There was no escape. What would Dazzy Donut Dog do? This was a mega-emergency. It was going to need at least six extra-special-super-dooper-nuclear-power-plus-iced Dazzy Donuts with multi-coloured sprinkly bits AND jam, but Dazzy Donut Dog was TOO SCARED TO EAT THEM!

The cheetah paused. It crouched. Its body arched like a coiled spring. It waggled its bottom briefly and then WHOOOOOOOSH! It came at me like a rocket with teeth.

My brain jangled into activity. I thought:
I am not Red Bottom Dog and I am not Dazzy Donut Dog — I am Streaker, the fastest dog in the world and now I am going to run even faster than a cheetah or I am going to die!
And guess what? I did!

I ran like an even bigger rocket than the cheetah and he was right on my heels and we twisted and turned and he almost got me and he almost didn’t and sometimes I fell over my own feet and sometimes he fell over his feet and I could hear him going
pant pant pant
right on my
tail and my ears were streaming out behind me like twin jet trails.

All the time the cheetah was snapping at me with his teeth going
snip! snap!
but he kept missing and I ran ran ran ran ran until I thought my legs would fly off my body or they’d get worn right
down to teeny-tiny stumps or just maybe they’d turn into wings and I would take off into the sky and fly to safety!

I went racing round a corner and suddenly I was RUNNING DOWN TREVOR’S ROAD STRAIGHT TOWARDS THE HOUSE AND —

There were loads of policemen in the way and I saw the dog-catching van waiting for me and Sergeant Smugg was there and he was pointing a gun STRAIGHT AT ME! and NO, NO, NO! It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I was almost home and the cheetah was behind me and the gun was in front of me and

I flung myself to one side, rolling over and over and over in the dust and I thought:
This really isn’t fair. I’ve outrun the fastest animal known to Man, and now I’ve been shot dead! That’s not fair at all!
Then I thought:
Hang on, my brain is still thinking, so I can’t be dead.

I got up and looked around and the cheetah was lying on its side. It was breathing, but it was
asleep, because Sergeant Smugg hadn’t shot me, he had stuck the cheetah with a special dart kind of thing that made it go to Dreamland — zzzzzz.

Do you know what all those two-legs did after that? They ignored me! I had run faster than the
fastest animal on earth, and all the two-legs could do was go and look at some big spotty cat. I ask you!

I crept away and Hoolie and Cat came and found me and we went sneaking past the dog warden’s van just in case. My heart was beating faster and faster but I wasn’t scared any more, I was bursting with woofy happiness because now I was trotting up my very own front path and standing at the door to my very own Trevor’s house.

‘WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! OPEN THIS DOOR AT ONCE! WOOF! WOOF! I WANT TO SEE MY PUPPIES!’

Do you know something? Nothing happened! I took a step back.

‘They didn’t hear you,’ suggested Hoolie. ‘Shall I throw a brick through the window?’

‘NO! Leave it to me,’ I snapped. Honestly, baboons — you can’t take them anywhere. I barked again.

‘WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! LET ME IN! I MUST SEE MY PUPPIES!’

And guess what? The door opened and out they came! All three of them, bounce-bounce-bounce, lick-lick-lick, love-love-love, and we rolled about and they bit me and I pretended to spank them with my paw, only very, very gently and we hugged and bounced and licked all over again. Then we sniffed each other’s bottoms, because that’s the best way to say ‘Hello!’

Trevor sat on the front doorstep watching and he was crying! He was! The big booby! Then his mum and dad came out and they frowned and I could see they were frowning at Cat and Hoolie. They weren’t at all happy about that, but Trevor said they ought to stay. Mrs Two-Legs said she was definitely not having a cat in the house and Mr Two-Legs told Hoolie to get off his car and put the aerial back and what did a baboon need windscreen wipers for anyway? Then he went inside to ring the Safari Park to tell them there
was a mad baboon in his front garden and would they please come and remove it immediately, and they did, because they were only just up the road, waiting with the dog warden’s van. It wasn’t there for me — it was for Hoolie and the cheetah!

Cat curled between Mrs Two-Legs’s feet and purred and rubbed against her and jumped up into her arms and nuzzled her and purred and of course she gave in and said how nice he was.

‘You are so sweet,’ she drooled. ‘And I’m going to call you Cutie-pops.’

Cat glanced back at me and told me to wipe the grin off my face.

So that was how I got lost and found (twice!) and had an adventure and outran a cheetah and my puppies are brilliant and if you turn over the page you can see a special picture of me and them. Oh yes, and I don’t bother to be Dazzy Donut Dog any more because actually I think I am quite enough of a super-dog without having
to pretend. But I do still like donuts.

And last of all, you know what? Cat has been teaching me some more reading and writing and I have written a story for you.

It’s brilliant isn’t it? Maybe you can’t read yet, so I’ll tell you what it says.

That G thing is the cheetah with his mouth open going
pant pant pant
, and the Q mark is obviously me with my tail of course.

SSSSSSZZZZZZ is me running really fast fast fast, and twisting and turning.

The round O thing is the world. Cat said
No it isn’t, it’s an orange
, and we had an argument. I said it can’t be an orange or my story would say
I am the fastest dog in the orange
, and that was stupid
and I told him to stop arguing or I’d bite his tail again, so he stopped, though he mutters ‘orange’ under his breath sometimes when he thinks I’m not listening but I am. Anyhow, O is the world, so that’s what my story says:

And I am too!