The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers (8 page)

Then we got rid of the cannibals, because cannibals eat people and not pets, and anyway, they usually live in the jungle or on an island.

That left the aliens and King Kong.

‘I was only joking about King Kong,' said Jennifer.

‘What do you mean, joking? We're not messing about here, you know. This is a matter of life and death.'

‘I said it because of all the stupid ones
that you said, like jaguars and T. Rexes.'

‘Fine,' I continued. ‘We'll scratch King Kong off the list. Anyway, I knew it wasn't him, because he got riddled with machinegun bullets on top of the Empire State Building. That just leaves the aliens.'

There was a shocked silence after that, as the Bare Bum Gang thought about the terrible foe we were up against.

Then Jamie did one of his famous gigantic burps. I haven't mentioned Jamie's famous gigantic burps before, partly because I find them disgusting, and partly because I forgot to. They were so loud they didn't sound human, more like the sound a machine would make, a bit like an electric drill combined with a jet fighter taking off. Jamie was definitely the best at doing gigantic burps, though The Moan was slightly better at farting, which is also disgusting, especially in enclosed spaces such as dens and the International Space Station.

It's quite hard writing down how a burp (or a fart) sounds, but if I had to try it would be like this:

GGGGRRRRROOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRPP
.

Naturally we all looked round at him, not sure whether this was the alarm signal for being attacked (maybe even by the same aliens we'd already identified as the pet murderers), or just one of his ordinary burps.

Throughout all this Jamie carried on sharpening the pencils – interestingly, burping is one of those things you can do while you carry on doing something else, unlike farting or tying your shoe laces, which are things you have to do all by themselves. Then Jamie stopped sharpening.

‘I don't think it's aliens,' he said.

‘Well, who cares what you think, Mr Smelly Burper?' said Jennifer.

‘Actually, Jennifer,' I said, ‘everyone is allowed to say what they think in this gang, even if they do disgusting burps. So go on,
Jamie. Why do you think it's not aliens eating the pets?'

‘Well, I think the mistake you've made is to think that something must be eating the animals.'

‘But how else can they be disappearing?'

‘Eating isn't the only way of disappearing something, you know, Ludo.'

‘Oh, so now you're saying it's magic? Very likely.'

That was The Moan, being sarcastic again.

‘No,' Jamie replied calmly. ‘I think they've been stolen.'

‘By aliens?'

‘No, by people.'

‘What for?'

‘To sell. For money. To other people who want pets.'

Then Jamie went back to sharpening the pencils. He'd done eight by that time.

The rest of us looked at each other.
Noah was the first one to speak.

‘He's got it, hasn't he? We've been barking up the wrong tree all this time. Nothing's eating the animals – they're being stolen. It's only the fancy pets that have gone, the ones they can sell for a lot of money.'

‘You know what, Jamie?' I said.

‘What?'

‘You're brilliant. In fact, that was such a good idea, I've decided that you're not the stupidest person in the Bare Bum Gang any more.'

Jamie pulled a strange face, as if he wasn't sure whether to be happy or annoyed. There's no pleasing some people.

‘Well, who is then?' asked Jennifer.

‘Mmm,' I said. ‘Let's see. Well, it can't be me, because I'm the Leader. And it's not you, because you're on the top table for everything.' Jennifer smiled a big smile. ‘And Noah, you're quite clever, except at spelling.' Noah looked reasonably happy with that. ‘So, it must be you, Moan, I'm afraid.'

‘No way! That's so unfair!'

‘Look, don't make a fuss about it. Jamie never minded being the stupidest. He just got on with it and then had his good idea. I suggest that you try harder, and then you can climb up the rankings.'

‘I'm going home,' he said.

‘Well, you can if you like, but that means you won't be invited on the best bit of this whole adventure,' I said.

‘Oh? What's that then?'

‘The part where we solve the crime.'

SOLVING THE CRIME
had to wait until Saturday. By that stage two more cats and three dogs had gone, along with a tank full of tropical fish.

We arranged to meet at the den at zero nine-thirty hundred hours o'clock, which is half past nine. Well, we sort of arranged to meet at zero nine-thirty hundred hours o'clock, but then I remembered that there was still quite good children's telly on then, so we changed it to ten hundred hours o'clock.

I phoned the others and told them to come
in disguise, because we were secret agents on a mission.

For my disguise I wore a pair of my mum's sunglasses and a balaclava. And I brought my plastic binoculars, a magnifying glass and my spud gun, along with a potato for ammunition. In case you haven't seen one, a spud gun is a gun which fires potato bullets. You have to be careful because they can blind you if you fire it into your eye at short range. Although I suppose you'd have to fire it into both eyes, one after the other, to blind yourself properly, and you'd have to be pretty silly to do that.

I made a mental note not to let Jamie play with the spud gun, even though he was no longer officially the stupidest member of the Gang.

Rudy looked up at me from Ivy's old bath.

‘Come on, boy,' I said.

Yes, at long last he was going to earn his place in the Bare Bum Gang.

I realized my mistake when I saw the others waiting for me at the den. I should have explained that the disguise was so that we didn't stand out. But they would have stood out less if they'd been carrying a huge banner with
LOOK AT ME
written on it in letters three metres tall.

Noah, who really should have known better, was wearing his Spider-Man costume. The Moan was dressed as a spaceman and Jamie had a cowboy outfit, with a giant cowboy hat, a waistcoat with a silver sheriff's badge, flapping leather trousers and a gun-belt with two toy pistols. But Jenny was the worst. She had on a pink fairy costume, complete with wings. At least she didn't have the wand.

‘What are you lot playing at?' I yelled in desperation.

Noah looked bewildered. ‘You said to come in fancy dress.'

‘I did not. I said
in disguise
.'

 

‘I'm sure you said fancy dress.'

‘Didn't.'

‘Did.'

That could have gone on for hours, but we had work to do.

‘Doesn't matter now. Jenny, did you bring it?'

‘My wand?'

‘No, not your wand. The
thing
.'

‘Yes, of course I brought it, I'm not a dummy. But you'd better be careful with it. It was a present to me.'

She reached into her fairy costume. The thing she pulled out looked, for a second, in its shimmeriness, like part of the costume. It was the snakeskin she'd been given by Declan. I took it and crouched down in front of Rudy.

‘Here, boy. Come snuffle this.'

Rudy instantly waddled over and went into hyper-snuffle mode. He was definitely excited about the snakeskin.

Then, before I could stop him, he sucked
it into his slobbery mouth, gave it a quick chew, and then swallowed it down, the way you would a slice of bacon. All that was left in my hand was the last bit of skin from the back end of the snake.

Unfortunately Jennifer saw it all.

‘You beast!' she screamed, and aimed a big kick at Rudy.

At least that's what I thought she was doing. She was actually aiming a big kick at me. It landed on my bottom and I went sprawling face first on the ground.

It's always embarrassing when someone kicks you up the bum and you end up flat on your face. It's doubly embarrassing when the thing doing the kicking is a big pink fairy.

I thought about kicking her back, but decided not to for three reasons:

1. It's wrong to kick girls.
   
2. Jennifer was allowed to be upset because her present had been eaten by Rudy.
   
3. We had to get on with the mission.
   Oh, and:
   
4. She'd only kick me again, even harder.
   

‘I'm sorry about the snakeskin, Jenny,' I said. ‘But there's something more important going on here. There's a real snake to save, along with other nice pets.'

I think the others were actually quite impressed with my behaviour. Sometimes being a Great Leader involves getting kicked up the bum by a fairy and rising above it to save kidnapped parrots, snakes, fat cats, etc.

I took Rudy's ugly face in my hands.

‘OK, boy,' I said. ‘Listen like you've never listened before.' I dangled the last bit of snakeskin before his snuffly nose and said, ‘Find, Rudy, Find.'

Rudy looked up at me, his milky eyes trying hard to understand. I felt the Gang watching closely. If this didn't work, there
was no way I could carry on as its Great Leader.

Come on, Rudy
, I begged silently.

Then there was a little wag from his tail, and his mouth opened into an eager grin. He heaved himself up and began to trundle off in the direction of the park.

‘It's working!' I yelled. ‘Follow Rudy, everyone.'

IT WAS LUCKY
that Rudy wasn't one of the fastest dogs, because then he'd have been out of sight in no time. Even a medium-paced dog would have been too much for us to keep up with. But Rudy didn't really run at all. He moved with a sort of rolling waddle, with a bit of staggering thrown in. So we jogged along with him quite easily.

We reached the park, and then went across the waste ground beyond it, and then past the sewage works, and then through some back gardens, and then through some front gardens. By that stage we were deep in
enemy territory, by which I mean the New Estate, where our old rivals the Dockery Gang lived. But they weren't around. They were probably watching telly or mugging old ladies while we were saving the world. No one saw us, which was lucky, considering how silly the others looked. I mean the cowboy, the astronaut, Spider-Man and the fairy.

I was very impressed with Rudy. He just went straight on, never turning his head, never changing pace. He was like a small, podgy, ugly, hairy guided missile.

He must really have liked the taste of that snakeskin.

Past the New Estate it gets a bit creepy. There are some low concrete buildings there and no one even knows what they're for. Then you get to lots of lock-up garages, hardly any of them with cars in, and it always seems dim and dingy, even on a sunny morning.

Finally Rudy came to a row of garages. There was graffiti written all over the doors,
and I don't care how rude the rude word was that we named Rude Word after, I don't believe it was as rude as the rude words we saw there.