Wanted! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘Is that right? So what’s wrong with that black one? Why is she wearing sunglasses?’

  ‘She’s blind,’ Tina answered.

  ‘Blind?’ The Terminator stepped closer.

  ‘We’re looking after her. You’ve heard of Guide Dogs for the Blind? We’re the opposite. We’re Guide People for the Blind Dog.’ I trilled all this in my best tra-la-la-I’m-a-girl kind of voice. Even Tina gave me a strange look.

  ‘What’s wrong with your friend?’ snarled Mrs Bittenbott.

  ‘Sore throat,’ Tina answered evenly.

  ‘So where’s your boyfriend today? And that wretched dog of his? I’ll find them, you know, and then they’ll be in trouble. Hiding a criminal dog is an offence. You tell him from me. Your boyfriend’s in big trouble, oh yes.’

  ‘He’s not her boyfriend!’ I snapped, and Tina looked daggers at me, while Mrs Bittenbott took a step back in surprise.

  ‘Oh really? And how would you know that?’

  ‘B-because,’ I spluttered, ‘Trevor’s my boyfriend.’ Aargh! What WAS I saying? Was I totally bonkers? Tina was sucking in her cheeks very hard, a sure sign that she was desperately trying to control a fit of the giggles. Streaker was sniffing the air.

  The Dog Warden was examining me uncomfortably closely. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before,’ she began.

  ‘That’s because she lives here,’ said Tina.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe. But that interplanetary dog of yours looks familiar too.’

  ‘That’s dogs for you,’ said Tina brightly. ‘Oh well, can’t stand here chatting all day, we’ve got that party to go to. Come on, Trivia.’

  Tina pulled me away and we began to walk steadily up the street. I think we would have made it if it hadn’t been for the burger bun. Streaker had been eyeing it up for ages and there was no way she was going to let it get away from her now.

  Mrs Bittenbott was already halfway back to her van when Streaker suddenly whirled round and took off. Her action spun me round so fast I crashed to the ground and my wig fell off. In ten mighty bounds Streaker had reached the van, now minus her sunglasses. With the eleventh bound she was in the air, just as the Dog Warden was about to cram the last piece of burger into her mouth. It never reached its destination, but Streaker did.

  WHUMPP!

  The bun was gone. Straight into Streaker’s mouth and down her throat. As Streaker raced away Mrs Bittenbott roared out: ‘STREAKER!’ Then she turned towards Tina and me. ‘TREVOR!’ she bellowed.

  That was it. I scrambled to my feet and raced off, leaving the wig behind. ‘Come on!’ I yelled at Tina, and all three of us made off down the street. I heard the van start up and when I glanced back I was astonished to see Tina running straight towards the van!

  ‘Tina!’ I cried. She’d gone back for her mum’s precious wig. ‘Leave it! It’s only a wig!’

  Then Mouse started back too! I was tearing my hair out. This was crazy!

  ‘Come on!’ I screamed. The van had stopped. Mrs Bittenbott was grabbing something from the back.

  Tina got the wig, turned and began racing back towards me, only to crash straight into Mouse. She went flying, right over Mouse, and Mouse is a big, big dog. She crashed to the ground with a pained cry, rolling over and over, clutching her leg. I could see blood. Tina lay on the pavement, rocking back and forth and yelling at me.

  ‘Run for it, Trev, run for it!’

  For a second I stood there, staring up the empty street ahead of me. Escape was in my grasp. I looked back at Tina sprawled across the pavement. Mrs Bittenbott came round from behind the van, waving her dog-catching net. Was it for Mouse or for Tina or both?

  ‘Run!’ Tina yelled again and again. ‘Go, go go!’ She waved a hand at me.

  That was it. I made up my mind. I raced back to her, grabbed her under the arms and lifted her to her feet.

  ‘We can make it,’ I hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Come on!’

  ‘You go!’

  ‘Not without you,’ I said.

  SWOOOOSH!!

  The net was over us. We couldn’t take another step. The Dog Warden jiggled the pole backwards and forwards, making us stagger from side to side. She grinned, showing several chipped brown teeth. And she crowed.

  How she crowed!

  ‘Oh ho ho, what have we here?

  What strange creatures have I caught today?

  I’ve got a little girly an’ what’s this peculiar monster? Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Hello little girly! Oh, my my, It’s a boy! It’s Trevor! Trevor the girl! Won’t your friends think you’re a funny one? An’ look at this! Oh yes! This is my lucky day! Come on then, come on, coochy-coochy!’

  It was Streaker. She had come back. She was walking slowly, belly almost on the ground she was so fat. Little wonder after that burger she’d just eaten.

  ‘Streaker,’ I said. ‘Run for it!’

  But of course she never does what she’s told. She came closer and closer until all Mrs Bittenbott had to do was snap a lead on to her collar. She didn’t even need the dog-catching net. She did the same to Mouse. Then she sat down on a garden wall and gazed at us, her face beaming. You’d have thought it was her birthday.

  ‘I wish I had a camera. All four of you in one fell swoop. Oh my.’ She picked up her radio and began speaking into it. ‘Bittenbott to Smugg, Bittenbott to Smugg – mission accomplished. I repeat, mission accomplished. I’ve got the whole bloomin’ lot of ’em! Get yourself down here at once!’

  And that was how we ended up in a cell at the police station. I couldn’t bear all the crowing. Sergeant Smugg took photos of us. I had to stand in front of one of those height charts like a common criminal while he took my photo. He made me put the wig back on too. I wanted to die.

  A policewoman mopped up Tina’s cut leg and put a plaster over it. It was quite a big wound. It must have hurt a lot.

  ‘You should have run for it when you could,’ she said. ‘Now we’re all in a mess.’

  ‘I couldn’t leave you on your own,’ I grunted, and Tina smiled.

  ‘My hero,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  Of course Dad was sent for. He was rather surprised to say the least when he saw us. He wasn’t expecting to find a rap-dog in a sheepskin waistcoat and with pompom tail and pink shades, so that was a bit of a shock. Then he saw me, his only son, dressed as a girl. He reeled back for a second and did a double take, like he was in a cartoon. He screwed his eyes up tight and took another long stare.

  ‘Trevor,’ he said at last, forcing a smile. ‘What a constant surprise you are to me. I shall look forward to hearing the explanation for this one. I was wondering how long it would be before I had to come and get you out of jail,’ he went on, almost managing a smile. ‘How many times is it now altogether? Three or four?’

  ‘Six,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a liability, your son,’ growled Sergeant Smugg. ‘He should be shut away with the dogs, if you ask me.’

  ‘Fortunately, Sergeant, we are not asking,’ answered Dad. ‘I’m taking them home.’

  ‘You can take them three home,’ snarled Mrs Bittenbott, ‘but you can’t take that thieving mutt. She’s a criminal and she’s going straight to the dog compound.’

  ‘Dad?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Trevor, not yet. Let’s go home and have a think about things, eh?’

  I offered Tina my shoulder to lean on as she limped out. At the door I glanced back at Streaker. She gazed at me with deep, wet eyes and gave a little whimper.

  ‘Sorry, Streaker,’ I whispered, ‘but we’ll be back, I promise.’

  Mrs Bittenbott slammed the door shut on Streaker, turned the key and flashed a brown-toothed grin at me.

  ‘You come back as often as you like, cos that dog’s not going nowhere except down the dog compound an’ then …’

  The Dog Warden lifted a hand to her throat and slowly drew her finger right across. ‘… it’s going to be doggy ’eaven for ’er!’
/>
  9 Condemned!

  Sitting in the back of the car on the way home I bombarded Dad with questions, mostly the same one. ‘They can’t do it, Dad, can they? They can’t do it. They can’t just put Streaker down, can they?’

  Dad’s knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel hard. He was angry, but not with me and Tina, at least not much.

  ‘They’re the police,’ Dad pointed out. ‘They carry out the law. They’ve got a piece of paper that says Streaker is a public nuisance and, let’s face it, Trevor, she is. Look at all the food she’s been stealing. Look at the damage she’s caused.’

  ‘I know Dad, but you can’t have a dog put down just because of that. There must be something we can do.’

  ‘We’ve tried everything we can. Look at you! You’ve even taken to dressing up as a girl! Heaven alone knows how that was supposed to help.’

  ‘It was a disguise and it would have worked if the wig hadn’t fallen off,’ Tina put in.

  ‘Trevor was doing really well.’

  ‘I don’t wish to know that,’ sighed Dad. ‘I’ll drop you at Tina’s so you can change back. Then come straight home. I can’t cope with much more of this. Your mother’s nervous enough as it is, what with the Mothers’ Marathon tomorrow.’

  Going back into Tina’s house we met her mum. She looked faintly surprised.

  ‘Is that … ? It is, isn’t it? Yes, I thought so. Hmm, the games you two play.’ And she left it at that. At least she didn’t make a song and dance about it like my mum and dad. It was such a relief to get back into my own clothes, I can tell you!

  ‘Your mum’s cool,’ I told Tina.

  ‘So’s the fridge,’ she answered.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Tina shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just said it because it’s true. Fridges are cool.’

  ‘Yeah, but you made it sound like your mum’s a fridge.’

  Tina gave another shrug. ‘Well obviously she isn’t, is she? So why are we arguing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I stuttered, completely bewildered by now.

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Tina. We looked at each other. ‘Shall we stop this conversation before it gets any more stupid?’

  ‘Good idea. We have to rescue Streaker from Death Row. What are we going to do?’

  ‘Dig a tunnel?’ Tina suggested.

  ‘Normally you dig a tunnel out of prison, not into it. Besides, no time and too difficult.’

  ‘OK. How about we steal a car, ram it through the gates of the compound and release her like that?’

  ‘Can you drive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor me. Do you know how to steal a car?’

  Tina shook her head.

  ‘Nor me,’ I repeated. ‘Any more bright ideas?’

  ‘It’s your turn,’ said Tina.

  We sat there for the rest of the evening, coming up with ideas, but they were all useless. There were too many problems to overcome. We drew plans of the dog compound and made a list.

  Get past Sergeant Smugg, Boffington-Orr and Mrs Bittenbott. (How?)

  Get keys to compound. (Where from? Where are they kept? Don’t know.)

  Use keys or break into compound. (Battering ram? Ladder? Explosives?)

  Get Streaker. (Ha ha ha.)

  Get out. (Make sure Smugg, B-O and Warden are tied or locked up.)

  Make our escape. (Will probably need passports so that we can leave the country. May need fast boat or light aircraft for quick getaway.)

  And when we went over our list the whole idea of rescuing Streaker seemed more and more impossible. I mean, where would we get a fast boat or light aircraft from? How could the two of us tie up three big adults?

  I went home totally miserable. Mum was pounding along on her running machine, her chewed-up jogging bottoms flapping round her shins.

  ‘Don’t want any more accidents,’ she panted, switching off the machine. ‘I never know what that machine’s going to do when you’re around. Sorry about Streaker. Dad’ll take you to the compound first thing tomorrow, to see if you can get her released. I’ll be in the race, so I’ll catch up with you later. You can meet me at the finishing line.’

  I didn’t sleep much. All I could see was Streaker’s face as the door was slammed shut on her. We’d never been separated like this before. I tossed and turned and had several mini nightmares. Boffington-Orr was in one and Bittenbott was in another, which was hardly surprising. They were living nightmares after all.

  In the morning Mum went off early for the start of the race. Dad cooked me breakfast but I didn’t feel like eating much. Then we went to the dog compound. A familiar figure greeted us, and it wasn’t Mrs Bittenbott.

  ‘Isn’t that Mr Whiffle, the Dog-Behaviour Specialist?’ I asked Dad.

  ‘Looks like it is. I wonder what he’s doing here?’

  As soon as he saw us at the gate Mr Whiffle came across. He was carrying a bucket full of dry dog food. I was busily looking around for Streaker, but I couldn’t see her anywhere among all the dogs.

  ‘Been expecting you,’ he said. ‘Soon as I saw, saw, saw Streaker I thought to myself: I bet Trevor will be round here shortly, shortly.

  Cleaned her up for you, too. I didn’t think the black waistcoat and pompom suited her really.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I took your wife’s advice,’ explained Mr Whiffle.

  ‘Really? What a strange thing to do.’

  ‘She suggested I looked for work at a dog kennel or something, and I ended up here. I like it, like it, too. I enjoy helping reunite dogs with their owners. Of course, it’s sad about the ones that, you know, well, the ones like Streaker. Sad, sad, sad about the condemnation order.’

  ‘Condemnation order?’ frowned Dad.

  Mr Whiffle pointed at a piece of paper pinned to a noticeboard. It was Streaker’s death warrant and it was signed by Boffington-Orr and the Dog Warden. Dad angrily tore it from the board and Mr Whiffle shook his head.

  ‘I’m afraid it won’t make any difference. The Warden is a stickler for following the rules.’

  At that moment I spotted Streaker. She poked her head out of a small kennel. As soon as she saw me she came whooshing out, straight across the compound, leaped into my arms and knocked me over. Typical!

  ‘Streaker! Look at you!’

  It was almost impossible to get a proper look because she was bouncing about so much. She was all over the place, leaping, yapping, licking, jumping – she even did a couple of complete backflips!

  Dad was scratching his head. ‘I think she’s lost a bit of weight.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed. I couldn’t believe that a dog under sentence of death could look so happy and cheerful. Obviously she had no way of knowing.

  Streaker kept nipping at my jeans and pulling at me. I thought she was playing at first but she would keep on doing it and she kept pulling in the same direction. Then she suddenly went zooming off to her little kennel, did a handbrake turn and came whizzing back. She did it three times. A strange feeling came over me. Was she trying to show me something?

  I left Dad talking with Mr Whiffle and went across to the kennel. Streaker grinned up at me, gave an excited snuffle and plunged inside. I had to get down on my hands and knees to look in. At first I couldn’t see anything because it was so dark and besides, Streaker was curled up, filling most of the space inside. And then I saw.

  Puppies. One, two, three puppies. They were so small! And they were all pushing at Streaker’s belly, trying to find some milk. Cute! Fantastic! Wonderful! I slowly got to my feet and went across to Dad.

  ‘Dad. You’d better take a look at this.’ I pulled him across to the kennel. He knelt down and peered in. I watched the grin spread across his face. Dad knelt up and punched the air with both fists.

  ‘Yes! Result!’

  Then we called Mr Whiffle across and he took a look. ‘Aha,’ said the Dog-Behaviour Sp
ecialist. ‘Now that explains everything.’

  ‘I don’t think it explains why my son was dressed as a girl yesterday,’ mused Dad. ‘Well, Mr Whiffle, I think we’ll take Streaker home now, and the puppies.’

  ‘Ah, now, yes, yes, well, of course, I am not allowed to let you do that and I should, of course, stop you, but, of course, I am not, not, not going to and I shall pretend I didn’t see you and you will pretend that we haven’t had this conversation.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Mr Whiffle. Come on, Dad, let’s get a move on.’

  Dad glanced around. All was clear. I reached in and carefully scooped up the three puppies. They were so tiny, like mice! I made a kind of deep pocket by lifting the front of my jumper and I let them curl up together in there. Dad got Streaker and we made our break for it. We had almost reached the gate to the compound when who should appear but the Dog Warden and Boffington-Orr. They stood either side of the gate, arms folded, blocking our path.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ smirked the Chief Superintendent.

  10 And the Winner Is …

  Streaker growled. She had pups to protect. In the distance a loud cheer went up. ‘That’ll be the Mothers’ Mini Marathon starting,’ said Dad. He turned to Boffington-Orr. ‘You can’t keep this dog here. She’s got puppies to look after.’

  ‘That is not our concern,’ Boffington-Orr replied. ‘Your dog has a warrant for her arrest. It’s not our fault if she has puppies. She stays here. Tough cheddar.’

  Mr Whiffle poked his head round from behind Dad. ‘Actually, Chief Superintendent, I do remember reading in that little, little book you gave me, Guidelines for General Admittance of Dogs to Kennels, Caring and Maintenance Thereof, it did say that nursing mothers with pups should be left in the care of their owners.’

  ‘Great heavens above!’ roared B-O. ‘You weren’t supposed to read that book. You were only supposed to look at it. That dog is not leaving this compound.’