The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers (9 page)

‘Cover your eyes up, Jennifer,' I said.

I was worried that she might faint if she read the really rude words. That can happen to girls sometimes, especially if they get over-excited, or put knickers on from last year that are too small for them and cut off the circulation to their brains.

 

‘Cover your own up!' she replied.

But there wasn't time for an argument, because Rudy had homed in on one of the garages. He stuck his nose into the gap at the bottom of the door, as if he was trying to squeeze under it. There was a big padlock on the door.

‘This is it,' I said.

‘I can't hear anything,' said The Moan, pressing his ear to the door.

‘I think there are windows at the back – let's go and see,' I said.

I dragged Rudy with me, but he really wanted to stay snuffling at the door.

There was an allotment at the back of the garages. Allotments are supposed to be where old men in flat caps grow their vegetables, but this was pretty manky,
as allotments go. There was nothing there you'd want to eat – just old prams, broken bottles, sheds that looked like they'd been bombed in the war and left for dead, and lots and lots of weeds. Oh, and some Brussels sprouts.

‘It's horrible back here,' said The Moan.

You couldn't argue with that.

The garage we were looking for was right in the middle of the row, but from behind it was hard to work out which one it was. Each garage had a small window at the back, most of them grimy and dusty and covered in cobwebs. They were too high to see through, so I had to get Jamie to lift me up. The first one I looked in was empty. The next had rolls of carpet right up to the ceiling. The third window was so dusty and filthy I could hardly see through.

‘A bit higher,' I said to Jamie.

He grunted and lifted me higher.

‘Anything there?' asked Jennifer.

‘Can't . . . make . . . it . . . out.'

‘Glasses,' said Noah.

‘What?'

‘You've still got the sunglasses on. It's why you can't see.'

‘Oh yes.'

I put the sunglasses in my pocket.

‘Bozo,' said The Moan.

‘Get down, dog,' shouted Jamie.

I looked down and saw Rudy jumping up. This must be the right one.

I peered again. It was definitely better without the sunglasses. There seemed to be wooden boxes. I strained through the gloom. There was chicken wire in front of the boxes. Then I saw a pale glint in the darkness.

An eye. A sad eye, looking out at me. Then more. Hundreds of them.

‘Yes,' I hissed, ‘it's them! It's the pets!'

I CLIMBED DOWN,
nearly falling into a patch of nettles. Then Jamie had to help the others get up to see, while I patted Rudy and told him what a good boy he was.

‘I actually think you've got something right for a change,' said The Moan.

‘What shall we do now?' asked Noah.

I did some quick thinking.

‘Easy. We've got to rescue them. We'll be famous. I expect we'll be on the telly, and there's probably a huge reward, maybe a million pounds.'

‘Really?' said Noah hopefully.

‘No way,' said The Moan. ‘A hundred pounds at the most.'

Then we had a long discussion about how much the reward would be. In the end we decided it would be £18,000. Then we realized it was a really hard sum to divide £18,000 by four, so we decided we would settle for £16,000, which was £4,000 each.

‘But how are we going to rescue them?' said Noah when the finances had been sorted out.

‘I'm going in,' I said, sounding incredibly brave, I thought. ‘Then I'll hand them out, one at a time.'

I searched around until I found an old crate to stand on, which was much better than having Jamie huffing and puffing with me on his shoulders. Back at the window I could see light seeping through a crack in the garage door. The cages were all around the walls, piled on top of each other. There must have been thirty or forty of them.

I realized that this was a major
pet-smuggling operation, probably controlled by the Mafia, the Triads or the Jacuzzi. You've probably heard of the Mafia, and the Triads are like them except from China, and the Jacuzzi are like them but from Japan. The Jacuzzi have tattoos all over their bodies and they chop you up with Samurai swords if you forget to bow to them in the right way.

I poked my finger around the window to see if I could open it. It didn't budge. Then I tried to remember if there was anything in my book of
How to Be a Spy
about opening windows, but I came up blank. What I needed was the book of
How to Be a Burglar
.

So I got down off the crate and found half a brick.

‘You can't!' said Noah. ‘It's vandalism.'

‘Go on,' said The Moan. ‘It's an adventure.'

Jennifer gave me a quick nod.

Jamie picked his nose, looked at the bogey, thought about eating it, then flicked it
away. He was definitely becoming more civilized.

I paused for a moment to think over the rights and wrongs of what I was about to do. Then I smashed the window.

 

Now, obviously, as Noah was trying to say, smashing windows is one of the naughtiest things you can do – much, much worse than weeing on the toilet seat or hiding your granny's false teeth. But this was for a good cause, saving animals from deadly peril, etc., etc., and besides, it's always fun to break glass.

The sound should have got the animals excited. But apart from one small meow, a single bark, and what might have been a hiss, they didn't make much noise.

‘They've been drugged,' I said.

It was then that I heard voices coming from the other side of the garage door.

‘Sshhh!' I whispered to the others. ‘They're here!'

‘Who?'

‘The baddies.'

I ducked down below the level of the window and froze. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but they sounded gruff and rough and definitely Japanese.

It was the Jacuzzi hitmen for sure!

Suddenly the door was wrenched open with a loud scraping noise. I peeped one eye over the window frame. I saw two figures outlined against the bright sky. One of them was holding something fluffy by its long ears.

A bunny!

‘That's right,' said one. ‘Shove it in that cage there.'

He didn't sound
very
Japanese, but you never know for sure. Then there was exactly the sound you'd expect to hear if a big rabbit
was being pushed into a small cage.

‘That's the lot,' said another voice. ‘I reckon we've got every decent pedigree pet in this town. Must be at least five grand's worth of cat, dog, parrot and rabbit in here.'

‘Yeah,' said the first voice. ‘Time to shift 'em. Let's go and get the van.'

They scraped the door shut behind them.

I jumped down and told the others what I'd heard.

‘We haven't got long,' I said. ‘And this could be dangerous. Highly dangerous. Like playing with fire while you're holding two sticks of dynamite and you're suspended over a live volcano with a tidal wave coming.'

Jamie's mouth opened. Even Jennifer looked impressed.

I continued: ‘We don't know who's been stealing these animals, but I think we can safely say that they're not very nice people. Who knows what they'll do if they catch us here.'

I didn't mention Samurai swords or getting sliced up like salami.

‘Anyone got a mobile phone?' I asked.

They all shook their heads.

‘My dad says they give you brain cancer,' said Noah.

‘My mum thinks they're common,' said Jenny.

‘OK. In that case we have to run and get help. Right, Moan, you and Jennifer go and phone the police from the phone box on the High Street.'

‘It always smells of wee in there,' said Jennifer.

‘You'll have to put up with the smell of wee this once. Tell the police it's a double emergency and they have to come right away, even if they've got another job to do, like chasing bank robbers.'

They both nodded.

‘Jamie, you don't live far from here – can you run home and get your dad to come?'

‘You bet,' he said.

Jamie's dad looked like Frankenstein's monster, but he was actually very nice and a big softy.

‘Tell him to bring his cricket bat,' I added.

‘What about me?' asked Noah.

‘You and me are going to try to rescue as many pets as we can, in case the police and Jamie's dad don't make it in time.'

‘That's so brave,' said Jennifer.

‘Well, not really,' I said modestly.

‘Seems stupid to me,' said The Moan, but that was to be expected from him. ‘It isn't a job for kids. You should come with us.'

‘Pah,' I said. ‘Running away is for cowards. OK, let's synchronize watches.'

‘Why?' said The Moan.

‘Because you're supposed to. It's now ten thirty-five oh hundred hours o'clock precisely. Jamie, that means the little hand is pointing to the—'

‘I know,' said Jamie, quite crossly.

I got out my spud gun and the potato and loaded up.

‘Be careful,' said Jennifer, and kissed my cheek. Normally, of course, I would have had to wipe it off. But as this was a special occasion I left it there. I gave her a quick, brave smile, and then said, ‘OK then – go, go, go, and good luck on your missions.'

NOAH, RUDY AND
I watched the others run away in various directions across the allotments.

‘Just us, now,' I said.

I put the loaded spud gun back in my pocket and climbed onto the crate. With the glass broken I could put my arm through (very carefully, as broken glass can kill you as easily as a nuclear explosion).

I flipped the catch and the window creaked open. I heaved up onto the windowsill and then jumped down into the dark garage.

It was pretty smelly in there. The pet-snatchers hadn't bothered to take the animals outside for walkies (or flyies – in the case of the parrot), so they'd all had to do their poos in their cages.