Lost! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog (3 page)

So I started sorting things out, like this:

After that I got tired of talking to myself and decided I really couldn’t do anything more until it was morning so I started to look for somewhere to sleep.

I hunted and hunted but everywhere was just roads and big buildings with hardly any windows, and wire fencing. I walked right round to see if there might be a place where I could get in. I came to some enormous gates covered with skulls and people getting hit by lightning and going
Ooh! Ow! Stop it!
I sat down and wondered why nobody was allowed in.

Anyhow, I was sitting there, wondering where
I could sleep, when all at once two gigantic massive monster mutts as big as rhinoceroses came thundering across and hurled themselves at me from the other side of the chain-link fence.

Well! I just sat there and looked at them. I mean, what was all THAT about? Couldn’t they see the wire? They clawed at it with their paws and foam was bubbling out of their mouths. They rolled their bloodshot eyes and growled like nothing on earth. ‘GRR$%&∗@RRR!’ Honestly, the language they used! It was dreadful.

‘Good evening,’ I replied, because I think if you’re polite then there’s no reason for anyone to get upset.

And they said: ‘Why don’t you ∗&?%$£ back to your wormhole you @£$%⁁& ∗&⁁%$%£$⁁%&∗@∗∗% ∗&⁁%$£@’

‘Oh, really?’ I answered coolly. ‘Well, the trouble, dear friends, is that I’m afraid you don’t have any brains.’

You should have seen them! They went crazy-mad! They launched themselves at the fence again, roaring and cursing — it was such bad language. I got to my feet and walked up and down in front of them.

‘I say, you chaps, haven’t you noticed that there’s a four-metre-high chain-link fence between us, which YOU CAN’T GET THROUGH? What’s all the fuss about, you BONE-HEADED CLOD-PODS? Look at you, all big and muscly and foaming at the mouth, and you can’t do anything because YOU’RE ON
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE, TWIT-POODLES!’

Then I began to copy their barking and went: ‘OH, WOOF WOOFY WOOF. I’M A BIG BAD DOG WITH NO BRAINS. WOOF WOOF.’

They got so mad they tried to climb up the fence! They did! Completely crazy, the pair of them. And then this big, fat, two-legs guard came out of his hut to see what all the fuss was about. He tried to shoo me away by shouting and saying stupid things to me like ‘Go home, you daft dog!’ And I shouted back at him that I most certainly would go home if only I knew where it was, but of course he couldn’t understand me because he was a two-legs, with small ears.

Mr Security was shining his torch in my face and banging the fence with his night-stick and yelling, and his two stupid monster mutts kept on barking. They were all so annoying and guess what I did? I was really cool! I went up to the
fence, right in front of them, and piddled through the wire on to Mr Security’s boots. Ha ha ha!

That was when he opened the gates and let his dogs out. Oops!

Fortunately I am the fastest dog on the planet and I switched on my turbo super-dooper-pooper-charger and went ZOOOOM! It was the last I saw of them and soon I’d left the buildings far behind.

That was a bit of an adventure, but I still didn’t have anywhere to sleep and now I was
really
in the middle of nowhere. I wandered around for a while and eventually I found an old cardboard box lying beside a hedge so I crawled beneath it.

It was ages before I got to sleep. I kept thinking about home and my gorgeous pups with their floppy sloppy tongues, and Trevor. He hasn’t got a floppy sloppy tongue of course but he’s good fun and I can play with him and take him for
walks. We make a good team, Trevor and me. I even help with his homework sometimes. He had a problem with triangles the other night and he had to ask me because it was a difficult problem.

‘Listen, Streaker, the question says:
What do you call a triangle with two equal sides?’

Well! That’s a stupid question, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t call a triangle anything except a triangle, can you? You can’t call it biscuit or walkies or donuts can you? It’s a triangle — so that’s what you call it.

Trevor read the question over and he got more and more angry and eventually he shouted at his homework.

‘You call it a triangle! Because that’s what it is, stupid!’

See? That’s what I’d said too! I love helping Trevor, and we think triangles are stupid. And they are too.

Anyway, if I’d been at home I would probably
be lying on the end of Trevor’s bed with my pups and he’d be snoring, because he does, even if he is only eleven. Sometimes he sounds like a road drill.

I don’t mind him snoring because that means he’s deeply asleep. Then I can creep up the bed and lie right next to him because I don’t see why he should have all the cushy pillows while I only get the bottom bit next to his smelly feet. Besides, if his snoring gets too loud, I climb on top of his head and he stops. That’s because he can’t breathe. Then all of a sudden he gives a big jerk, mutters
Gerroff
, turns over and goes back to sleep.

But I wasn’t at home and I didn’t have Trevor to cuddle up to, and I didn’t have my puppies. I was under an old, damp cardboard box that stank of cranky-manky soap, a long way from home — wherever that was. All on my own.

When I did get to sleep at last I was immediately woken up by that stupid owl. It landed on top of the box and scrabbled about going scritch-scratch until my brain went banana-bonkers.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ I muttered. ‘Stop tap dancing.’

Then it started making silly owl noises. ‘Whooo. Whoo-hoooooo.’

‘Whoo-hoo to you too,’ I wuffed back.

Silence. A minute passed.

‘Did you speak?’ whispered the owl.

‘Yes, I told you to stop tap dancing’.

‘Whooooooooo!’ went the owl. ‘A talking box!’

‘Oh, please,’ I groaned. ‘I’m a dog!’

‘Whooooooo! A talking box that thinks it’s a dog!’

‘Will you please stop whoo-hoo-ing and go away and find a bit of brain to put in your head?’

‘WHOOOOOOOOOOO!’ went the owl, so I decided to get up.

Of course I was still under the box so I ended up wandering round wearing a box over my head and back, with a large owl riding on top and
whoooo-ing
with alarm. I barked at it until it flew off. Hooray. That’s owls for you. They are the stupidest birds ever. Blackbirds sing. Thrushes
sing. Robins sing. What do owls do? They go ‘whoooooo’, and sound like someone stuck in a wardrobe with a family of giant bats.

I settled back down, fell asleep and had the weirdest dream. I was running, running, running and panting madly. My eyes were bulging. Something was chasing me. A big, black shadow. Why was it so scary? It was a shadow galloping behind me, like I was being chased by a piece of night. There was a strange, hot smell in my nostrils, like somewhere far away and dangerous.

I was running as fast as I could but it felt like my feet were stuck in donut jam, and my puppies were calling out to me, ‘Mum! Mum! Save us!’ My heart was thundering and I woke by leaping to my feet, my eyes wide. I couldn’t see! I’d gone blind! Terror seized me.

Then I realized I still had the cardboard box tipped over my head. I shook myself free and stared out at the coming dawn, panting, heart racing. There was nothing to be seen except a
cold streak of light low down in the east. A new day.

I was glad to be awake. I don’t want to have another dream like that. Not ever.

I woke up so hungry I could have eaten a hippopotamus, but there wasn’t one. Just as well really. They’re a lot bigger than I am. I was desperate for food. A dog like me needs regular meals. If I’d been at home Trevor Two-Legs would have put a big bowl of something scrummy-yummy in front of me. And if I’d been in a town it would have been easy. There’s always lots of nosh lying about because those two-legs, they drop stuff, and also there are litter bins. And also also also there is daylight robbery. (Which I am quite good at.)