The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers (4 page)

‘
THAT DOG ACTUALLY
looks like he might know what he's doing,' said The Moan, in an unusually un-moany way.

‘Of course he does,' I said. ‘He's a highly trained treasure dog.'

‘We should probably follow him, in that case,' said Jenny.

Rudy had already disappeared into the trees, so we spread out to find him, pretending to be in the SAS. Pretending to be in the SAS was quite good fun for a while, but halfway through the dog-hunting mission I got a bit distracted. I found a nice
whippy stick and started slicing the heads off a patch of nettles, which is one of my favourite things to do.

Then I heard a scream.

A girly scream.

That could only mean one thing – a girl was screaming. Or I suppose it could be a boy screaming like a girl. Either way, I had to help.

It probably meant someone was being attacked. They might have fallen into some quicksand, which made me really wish I'd brought some rope with me. I had my belt, which would have to do, even if it meant my trousers fell down while I was performing the rescue.

That was a chance I'd just have to take.

I ran towards the girly screaming sound, and found Jennifer standing in front of Rudy. She wasn't in the quicksand, which at first I was a bit disappointed about, but also quite relieved because I didn't want Jennifer to see me in my Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle underpants when my trousers fell down.

Rudy was looking a bit strange, just sort of standing there in front of a weird kind of a puddle. A puddle with chunks in.

‘What are you screaming about?' I asked Jennifer. ‘I thought something terrible was happening.'

I didn't mention the quicksand in case she thought I was silly.

‘Something terrible
has
happened,' she said. ‘Rudy's just been sick.'

‘Oh,' I said, feeling a bit queasy myself. ‘Well, don't worry. Dogs are sick quite a lot. It's one of the key facts about them.'

‘But look at what's come out of him.'

‘Isn't it just dog sick?'

‘I SAID LOOK AT IT!'

Jenny was screaming now. I've heard that you're allowed to slap girls when they scream like that, as a way of calming them down. The trouble was that Jenny was really good at tae kwon do, and if I tried slapping
her she'd probably slap me back really hard, and then push my face into the dog sick, which is no one's idea of a picnic.

I looked.

‘Is it a stick?'

‘A stick?'

‘A stick in the sick.'

‘No. It's not a stick in the sick. It's a leg. It came out of him when he was being sick. He sicked it up.'

 

Then she made the noise of a dog being sick, in case I hadn't got the point.

‘Don't be silly. Why would Rudy be eating a leg?'

‘It's definitely a leg. It's covered in fluffy hair – look . . .'

There did seem to be some bits of hair on the sticky leg thing.

‘And look at the colour of it,' Jennifer continued, her voice full of horror. For a second I thought about putting my arm around her, because it's what you're supposed to do when a girl is crying and needs comforting, or if you're afraid to slap her. But luckily I didn't, because just then I noticed that the rest of the Gang were there. They'd obviously homed in on the girly scream.

Jennifer quickly told them about the gruesome find, and they gathered round the doggy sick.

‘It's a sort of browny colour,' said The Moan.

‘Trixie's got one brown leg like that,' said Noah.

We all looked at each other, except for Rude Word, who had wandered away from the sick and was staring into the distance with an embarrassed sort of look on his ugly mug.

‘OH HECK,' SAID
Jennifer, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Do you think Rude Word has really eaten Trixie, and that bit of leg is all that's left?'

I didn't know what to say. I'd already had a silly, jokey thought about Rudy eating Trixie, and now it looked like it might have come true.

‘That is
so
gross,' said Jamie.

He was usually in favour of gross stuff, such as eating his bogeys, or scratching his bottom and then smelling his finger.

‘But at least we won't get chased by
Trixie any more when we play football,' said Noah, looking on the bright side.

‘No, I don't believe it,' I said. ‘He may be ugly and smelly and not very bright, but he wouldn't eat another dog. He's not a cannibal. He probably just wanted Trixie to be his girlfriend.'

‘Dogs don't have girlfriends,' said Jamie.

‘Yes they do,' said Jennifer, ‘and they get married sometimes too. Everyone knows that.'

‘Yuck,' said The Moan. ‘That's worse than eating her.'

‘We're getting off the point,' I said. ‘It probably isn't even Trixie. I mean, Trixie's leg. I think it might be a hairy stick of some kind.'

‘Yeah,' said The Moan. ‘A stick from the famous hairy tree.'

‘No need to be sarcastic,' said Noah.

‘And even if it is Trixie's leg, how do we know that Rude Word has eaten the rest of her?'

‘What do you mean? Are you saying that Trixie might have just dropped one of her legs, and gone off hobbling about on three instead of four? And then Rude Word just happened to find the one that Trixie dropped and said, “Oh look, a spare leg, that's lucky, I think I'll eat that”?'

That was The Moan, of course, continuing to be sarcastic, which is the lowest form of humour apart from farting in church.

‘No,' I replied, keeping my voice nice and even, ‘I mean, maybe something else killed Trixie, and ate most of her, except for one leg.'

‘Like what?' asked Noah.

‘Maybe an eagle?'

‘There aren't any eagles around here. And anyway, why would it leave one leg?' said Jennifer.

‘Maybe it was full. Quite often I can't finish all my shepherds' pie,' said Noah, backing me up, although I could tell his heart wasn't really in it.

‘It could have been a fox,' I said, because I was never really convinced by the eagle idea. ‘Or there might be an escaped black panther. I read somewhere that leopards like to eat dogs, and a black panther isn't a separate species at all, just a kind of leopard, which people don't realize. Yeah, that's probably it.'

We all thought about that for a minute. About being eaten by an escaped black panther, I mean. And nothing being left of us except for one leg. Or four legs, if you counted us all together. I suddenly regretted having brought up panthers. I knew that, as Leader, it was my job to cheer everyone up.

‘Look, let's stop thinking about whatever it is that used to own the leg that Rudy's eating, and whatever it is that ate the rest of it.'

‘Eh?' said Jamie. And I suppose you could understand why.

‘I think we should have a funeral for Trixie,' said Noah.

‘Good idea,' I said. ‘We definitely ought to bury her. I mean, bury what's left of her.'

‘You mean bury her leg?' said Jennifer.

‘Yes, it's what she would have wanted.'

So we gathered around the leg, even Rudy, who was being quite well behaved, except for a small amount of bottom-licking. None of us wanted to look at the remains too closely. I tried to imagine the rest of Trixie still attached to it, and I looked at the imaginary parts and not the chewed and sicked-up bit.

I found a stick and scraped a hole in the ground. Not a very deep hole, because it's quite hard digging a hole with a stick. When the hole was finished, I used the stick to poke the leg into the hole. Then I used the stick to scrape the soil back over the leg.

Sticks are brilliant. You can use them for all kinds of things – for example, throwing, poking, stabbing, sharpening, slashing, etc., etc.

‘Do you think we should say something?'
said Noah, once I'd stopped poking about with the stick. ‘I mean, some nice words about Trixie.'

I nodded. Everyone bowed their heads and I began.

‘Oh Lord, Trixie was quite a good doggie, even if she used to chase us around the football pitch all the time and bite us whenever she could. Please look after her in heaven, and take her for walks. If you are busy, then one of the angels can take her. Maybe as a special treat you could let Trixie chase some of the bad people down in you-know-where as part of their punishment – for example, Hitler, Attila the Hun, and that horried one from
Pop Idol
who tells girls that they can't sing and are too fat. And please forgive whoever it was that ate the rest of Trixie apart from this leg which we are burying now, because they probably didn't mean any harm and it was just an accident. Amen.'

‘Amen,' said everyone else.

 

Except for Rude Word, who said, ‘Ashtray.'

After that we all went home, forgetting about treasure.

WHEN WE GOT
home, Mum said she'd decided that Rude Word had to sleep in the garage where there was nothing for him to chew up except the lawnmower and some bricks. Dad had made a sort of bed for him out of the baby bath, which my little sister Ivy didn't need any more because now she gets her stinky bum washed in the ordinary bath, like the rest of us.

Rudy had to wait in the garage until we'd finished our tea. Mum said that the best thing for him to have for dinner was our left-overs. I was pleased because his dinner didn't have
to come out of my pocket money. You shouldn't feel sorry for him because there were always plenty of leftovers in our house: Ivy didn't eat anything green or orange, and I didn't eat anything that's sloppy or has sauce on it, or that's been on the same plate as anything with sauce on it. Sauce includes gravy, but not vinegar, because I like that.

I didn't mention about Rudy maybe eating Trixie, partly because he probably didn't, but mainly because they'd get rid of him for definite if they thought he had, and I'd grown quite fond of the ugly brute.

But at tea time my dad said something to my mum that made my blood run cold.

‘Have you heard about Mrs Cake's little dog?'