Lost! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog (9 page)

‘Yes. Mandrills are the bestest kind of baboon in the baboonery world.’ Hoolie was now cleaning his left ear with the twig. I wish I could do that.

‘Why?’ asked Cat.

Hoolie seemed very surprised by this. ‘Why? Why?’ he repeated several times. ‘We just are. The best. Definitely. Cos I said.’ Hoolie glanced round. ‘Seen any windscreen wipers lately?’

Cat and I exchanged looks again. Windscreen wipers? What was he on about? I shook my head.

‘Shame. They’re good fun. Never mind. There’s always another day, as my granny used to say. Though actually she didn’t, cos I didn’t have a granny, but I bet she would have said things like that, if I’d had one, cos grannies do.’

‘Are you always like this?’ Cat asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Bonkers,’ Cat said starkly.

Hoolie grinned at us, beat his chest with both fists, lifted his head and began to chant, getting louder and higher all the time.

‘Hoo-hoo-hoo-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOOLIE-BOO!’ he yelled, and did a back flip. His head suddenly darted forward and he fixed Cat with one eye. ‘Bonkers?’ he repeated. ‘No way!’

I think Hoolie eats special donuts.

Hoolie’s wild grin slowly froze on his face. His eyes darted from one side to the other. He shuffled forward and whispered, ‘Have you seen… THE THING?’

‘What thing?’ I asked.

‘THE THING,’ repeated Hoolie. ‘Glowing eyes and slashing claws. It tried to bite my b-b-b–’

‘Back?’ I suggested.

‘No — my BUM!’

Hoolie whirled round to show his rear end. I had a sniff. Definitely not at all doggy, but it did remind me of that strange scent near the shopping centre.

‘The Thing wanted a bum sandwich,’ cried Hoolie. ‘But I leaped out of the way and it ate
my neighbour instead and I escaped.’

‘The Beast,’ I muttered, and Cat nodded.

‘No, no. It wasn’t The Beast. It was The Thing.’

‘Same thing,’ murmured Cat. ‘So where did you escape from?’

‘Safari Park. We were attacked by The Thing. Horrible. Slish-slash, blood, bodies, nightmare.’ It might seem odd, but all the time Hoolie was telling us this awful story he was trying to stand on his head, and repeatedly falling over.

‘So, where are we going?’ asked Hoolie, making his fifth attempt at a headstand.

‘Streaker and I are going home to her house,’ announced Cat stiffly.

‘I’ve got three pups,’ I announced. ‘And they are the cutest things ever. One’s got a teeny-tiny pink tongue that sticks out all the time, and one wags his tail so fast it’s just a blur, and the other has —’

‘I’m coming with you,’ announced Hoolie cheerfully as he crumpled into a heap yet again.

‘OK,’ I said.

‘OK?’ hissed Cat. ‘OK? You want a bonkers baboon to come with us?’

‘Yes. Why not?’

‘Give me one good reason,’ Cat demanded.

‘Safety in numbers.’

‘Yes,’ Hoolie butted in and he banged his chest with pride. ‘And I am an expert in ba-ba-ba-boom.’

‘Ba-ba-ba-boom?’ Cat echoed.

‘The ancient baboon art of fighting without getting hurt.’

‘I know I shall kick myself for asking this question,’ said Cat. ‘But how does that work?’

‘We make a loud noise like this — BA-BA-BA-BOOM! And then we run away as fast as we can before they get over their surprise.’

But Cat and I had already flung ourselves under a bush to escape his wild yell.

‘See?’ said Hoolie, triumphantly. ‘It works best
if you fling your arms about a lot at the same time. It’s pretty wild.’

Cat shook his head in disbelief. Finally he beamed a wide, false smile at Hoolie and said: ‘You are most welcome to join our wonderful little party. Please feel free to snack upon the tasty morsels we don’t have and share in the delight of our journey to nowhere in particular.’

‘Ignore him,’ I advised the baboon.

So we continued our trek and Hoolie didn’t stop yackety-yacking the whole time. I thought his jaw would fall off, he opened and shut it so often. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. He didn’t stop until we reached the edge of a town and he saw a row of parked cars outside a fish and chip shop.

Hoolie stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth fell open and stayed that way until drool began dribbling over his fat, hairy, red lips. His eyes glazed over and he began to mutter to himself.

‘Boing! Twang! Ping! Poyoing! I am in baboon
heaven.’ Suddenly he took off, at top speed, bounding down the road until he hurled himself straight on top of the first car.

Before we could stop him he was bouncing on the roofs, ripping off aerials, wrenching off the windscreen wipers and battering the side mirrors until they fell off or just dangled uselessly at the side.

Cat and I hurried over. ‘What are you
DOING?’

‘Boingy, twangy things!’ yelled Hoolie with delight. ‘Look!’ He twanged an aerial so hard it snapped in two. Then he grabbed a mirror, put his feet against the side of the car and pulled it off — GRRRRRANNGGG! — just like that. He stared into it for a second, tossed it over one shoulder and as it landed made a big explosive noise. ‘BOOOOOM! Bombs away!’

At that moment several people came out of the fish and chip shop. They took one look at us and came steaming towards us, shouting furiously.

‘Uh-oh!’ said Hoolie. ‘Time for some ba-ba-ba-boom!’

He began jumping up and down on the car roof, screeching and yelling and waving his extra-long arms like some hairy windmill gone mad. Then he ran STRAIGHT TOWARDS THEM!!! Cat and I were amazed to see the crowd freeze in terror, while Hoolie went straight up to the nearest two-legs, grabbed her fish and chips and
came hurtling back towards us, grinning like a maniac, dashed past us and on up the street.

‘Run for it!’ he yelled over his shoulder at us. So we did. Soon the noisy crowd was far behind. We found a quiet place in the park. Hoolie spread out the fish and chips on the newspaper wrapping.

‘Grub,’ he said, and we all tucked in. Cat was
being very quiet. He usually talked a lot, mostly about himself. But ever since we had met Hoolie he had hardly said anything. Now he sat back, licked his lips, washed his paws and ears and began.

‘Please tell me what you were doing back there. I have never seen anything like that in all my life.’

‘Really?’ Hoolie was surprised too. ‘That’s what we do in the Safari Park. We jump on cars
and pull their twangy bits. It’s brilliant. The two-legs don’t like it, you know. It makes them cross.’

‘But why do it at all?’ I asked.

Hoolie shrugged. ‘Isn’t it obvious? We’re building our own.’

‘You’re building your own cars?’ Cat repeated.

‘Yeah! Only most times we don’t get all the right bits, so we keep having to get more. We’ve got loads and loads of aerials and stuff. But we’re short on seats and engines and steering wheels and so on.’

‘Can you drive?’ I asked.

Hoolie burst out laughing. ‘Don’t be daft! We don’t want to drive them. We just want to pull off their aerials in the winter when there aren’t any visitors. We get bored. Very bored.’

Cat rolled his eyes. ‘This is your fault,’ he told me. ‘You said he should come with us. Now we have a lunatic on board.’

‘He got us out of that mess with those angry people just now,’ I pointed out.