by Andrew Cope
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ said Lara.
They followed Princess Pretty and Darren like three shadows, dodging between waste bins, closed ice-cream stalls and empty ticket kiosks until they came to a big open square with nothing to hide behind.
‘What do we do now?’ whispered Star as they watched Princess Pretty and Darren hurry away across the square. ‘If we wait until they’re out of sight before we follow them, we might lose them!’
‘They haven’t looked back once,’ said Spud. ‘Shall we risk it, Ma?’
Princess Pretty and Darren were halfway across now. Lara made a decision. ‘Let’s go for it!’
They set off, running silently and keeping low to the ground. They had reached the centre of the square, with nowhere to hide, when Cupcake spotted them through the grille of the travel crate. She began struggling against her bonds and letting out muffled squeaks of excitement.
‘What’s up with the rat?’ Princess Pretty demanded.
‘Dunno,’ said Darren, lifting the crate and peering inside. Cupcake’s round brown eyes were nearly popping out of her head. She was staring at something behind him. Darren looked over his shoulder. ‘Princess! We’re being followed!’
‘Oops,’ woofed Lara, stopping dead with one paw in the air.
‘What!’ Princess Pretty whirled round. ‘Oh, it’s only those stupid dogs!’
‘Less of the stupid, Princess Potty!’ growled Spud.
‘But why are they following us?’ whined Darren guiltily. ‘Do you think they know what we’re up to?’
‘Of course not. They’ve just picked up Cupcake’s scent, that’s all. Still, we’d better get rid of them.’ Princess Pretty picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could. It hit Star on the nose, making her yelp.
‘Star!’ woofed Lara. ‘Are you all right?’
‘That stung a bit,’ said Star bravely, rubbing her nose.
‘You’re for it now!’ yapped Spud. ‘Nobody hits my sister!’
Spud, Lara and Star lined up shoulder to shoulder and stalked forward, growling deep in their throats.
Princess Pretty picked up another stone.
‘Don’t!’ pleaded Darren. ‘They’re only dogs.’
‘Yes, but where dogs go, humans might follow. We can’t have them leading people to Cupcake; that’ll ruin all my plans.’
Princess Pretty threw the second stone at Lara, but she was ready for it and simply stepped aside.
‘That’s not getting rid of them,’ said Darren.
Princess Pretty looked around and then broke into a smile. ‘But this will! Follow me!’ She ran to one of the buildings edging the square and ducked inside with Darren at her heels.
Lara, Spud and Star raced across to the building.
‘Haunted House,’ read Spud, a shiver working its way down his spine. ‘I don’t like g … g … ghosts.’
‘Come on, silly,’ woofed Star, nosing her way through the front door. ‘They’re not real. There’s no such thing as …’ Star shot out of the Haunted House with her tail between her legs. Lara caught her by the collar and lifted her off the ground, her tiny legs still running.
Spud was hiding his face in his mum’s furry tum.
‘OK, you two,’ gulped Lara. ‘You stand guard here and check Pretty and the troll don’t escape through this door. And I’ll be the brave one who follows them through the Haunted House.’
Spud peered out of her fur and nodded. Star was shaking, her fur standing on end. Lara was a little unnerved. Whatever is beyond the front door must be pretty spooky, she thought. But a Spy Dog sometimes has to venture into the unknown! The Prof always says ‘fortune favours the brave’.
Lara tiptoed through the entrance, her doggie eyes adjusting to the blackness. She nearly jumped out of her skin as a laughing clown leered at her and she felt a spider run along her back. It’s not real, she kept thinking to herself. It’s all in the mind. And besides, the baddies are getting away. I must get a move on!
Lara crept round the next corner. Not real. Not real. She was half expecting Darren to jump out at her with a weapon so when Dracula leapt out of a grave, she karate-chopped him and his head fell off. His laugh was cut short and his red eyes went out. Whoops, thought Lara. Sorry, Count D! Instincts and adrenaline have taken over.
She edged her way through several of the Haunted House rooms. Not real. Not real. The kitchen had a scary chef holding a big meat cleaver. And look at all that blood on his apron, thought Lara. I wouldn’t want a meal prepared by him!
Someone’s watching me, she thought as she tiptoed through the sparsely lit living room. Lara looked up and the portraits had eyes. She shivered and her hackles were on full alert. She put her nose to the ground, sniffing for clues. Her eyes were everywhere. Her body was twitching, ready for a fight. She nosed her way through a graveyard, past some coffins and a warty-nosed hag. The final corridor was full of evil laughter and a tangle of cobwebs. Lara battled on and was glad to see an exit sign. She burst out into the cool night air with a sense of relief. And that’s what humans do for fun? Amazing!
No sign of the baddies. Lara sprinted round to the front of the Haunted House where her pups were holding tightly to each other, their teeth chattering. They hugged their mum. ‘Did you get ’em, Ma?’ asked Spud.
Lara shook her head. ‘No, son,’ she woofed. ‘They’ve escaped. Princess Pretty works here, remember? She knows these rides like the back of her hand.’
‘She might have got away this time, Ma,’ woofed Star through chattering teeth. ‘But we’ll get her next time.’
11. Imposters!
The dogs headed back to the hotel.
‘Pups, I don’t think we should tell anyone about Princess Pretty just yet,’ Lara said as they rode up to the tenth floor in the lift.
‘Why not?’ asked Star. ‘She’s guilty of dog-napping and probably a whole host of other evil deeds too.’
‘They should lock her up and throw away the key!’ growled Spud.
‘I agree,’ said Lara. ‘But if we have her arrested now, we may never find Cupcake.’
Spud and Star were silent, thinking about Cupcake all alone in a tiny plastic crate, slowly realizing that nobody was coming to rescue her. Finally, Star nodded. ‘She’s an annoying little madam, but she doesn’t deserve that.’
‘So, what do we do, Ma?’ asked Spud.
‘We keep tabs on her until she leads us to Cupcake.’
‘Then it’s prison for Princess Potty!’ yapped Spud.
Back at the Wizard’s Suite, Lara was surprised to find everyone still awake. Even more surprisingly, Summer Rayne was sitting on one of their big sofas, surrounded by tissues and looking very upset.
‘There’s been a ransom note, Lara,’ Ben whispered, in answer to her enquiring look.
Who delivered it? Lara mimed writing a note and then handing it over to someone.
Ben nodded. ‘It was a guy in a motorcycle helmet with a tinted glass visor. He gave it to the receptionist and left straight away.’
Clever, thought Lara. No one saw his face. That must’ve been Princess Pretty’s idea; Darren’s not exactly the brightest button in the box.
‘Summer’s determined to get Cupcake back, so she’s following the instructions to the letter. She’s having the ransom money helicoptered in from her personal bank account right now, ready for tomorrow. The note says she has to take the money to the theatre in a rucksack.’
‘This is perfect!’ Lara woofed quietly to Spud and Star. ‘Now we know exactly where Princess Pretty will be tomorrow morning. We’ll follow the ransom money. When Princess Pretty collects it, we’ll stick to her like glue – and she’ll lead us to Cupcake!’
The next morning, when Summer left the hotel disguised under a floppy sun hat and a pair of shades, the dogs followed her at a discreet distance. Summer went into the theatre alone, carrying the ransom money, and then came out again, empty-handed.
‘So far so good,’ muttered Lara, watching Summer slip q
uietly away into the crowd, unrecognized. ‘Now we wait for Princess Pretty.’
They had just settled down behind a handy bush when the Enchanted Parks PA system crackled into life.
‘All spare staff needed at the main entrance gates!’ shouted Mr Cartwright. ‘Repeat! All spare staff to the main entrance gates! Now!’
‘He sounds desperate!’ woofed Star. ‘Should we go there or stay here?’
Lara scratched her head as she tried to decide. If we leave, we might miss Princess Pretty, but what if the trouble at the gates has something to do with Cupcake’s dog-napping?
‘We could split up,’ yapped Spud, eyeing a nearby donut stall. ‘I’ll stay here and do the slurp-out – I mean stake-out.’
‘No,’ woofed Lara. ‘While there’s a dog-napper on the loose, we stay together. Let’s head for the main gate.’
‘Spy Dogs straight into the action, as usual!’ yapped Spud, bounding off in the direction of the gates with Star at his side. ‘Good call, Ma!’
I hope so, thought Lara, racing after them. Cupcake’s life depends on it!
‘Where did they all come from?’ gasped Star as they rounded a corner and the entrance gates came into view. A queue of people stretched from the turnstiles all the way back to the road on the other side of the car park, and every person in the queue had a dog with them.
Mr Cartwright was standing in front of the turnstiles with a line of Enchanted Park staff, blocking the way into the grounds. The queue was getting restless.
‘This is Cupcake, and I claim my ten thousand pound reward!’ shouted one man, holding up a scared-looking whippet.
‘No! This is Cupcake and I claim the reward!’ shouted another, brandishing a very young Dobermann pup.
‘Calm down, everyone!’ cried Mr Cartwright as the men squared up to one another, nose to nose, in the car park. ‘You will all be seen! And if one of you has Cupcake, you will get your reward!’
In no time at all, Mr Cartwright had organized his staff into a double line, creating a channel curving from the turnstiles to a trestle table with a row of chairs behind it, then back down to the exit. By that time, Summer Rayne had arrived on the scene, with the Cook family.
‘But there are so many of them!’ cried Summer. ‘I can’t possibly check them all before the Storm Spell launch – and I have to be on that ride, on time!’
‘Don’t worry, Summer,’ said Mr Cook. ‘You don’t need to stay for this. We’ll do it for you. It’ll be like the X Factor auditions – we’ll whisk all these fortune-hunters past the table and straight back out of the exit! Lara, Spud, Star, you can help too.’
Mr Cartwright gently led Summer away and then, for the next hour, they checked dog after dog, hoping one of them would be Cupcake.
‘It’s amazing what some people will do for money,’ yapped Spud, gazing sympathetically at a shaved Yorkshire terrier with a pink bow tied round its bald head.
‘Next!’ shouted Ben, waving the terrier and its glowering owner towards the exit.
‘Now that’s just ridiculous!’ woofed Lara as a man arrived at the table with a huge Great Dane in tow.
‘This is Cupcake!’ the owner insisted, patting the Great Dane on the head. ‘Short hair, sticky-up ears, brown eyes, pink waistcoat. See?’
‘But your dog is enormous,’ sighed Mrs Cook.
‘So?’ said the owner.
‘So, this dog is tiny,’ said Mrs Cook, holding up a photograph of Cupcake.
The owner peered at the photograph. ‘It could just be very far away.’
‘Next!’ bellowed Mr Cartwright.
‘This is –’
‘A CAT!’ roared Ollie, giving the owner such a fierce stare that she carried her cat away again without another word.
The chihuahuas were more difficult – some of them did look very like Cupcake – but Spud soon devised a test to weed them out. ‘Can you tell me what I gave you yesterday?’ he asked every chihuahua brought to the table.
‘No idea, mate,’ woofed one young male cheerfully. ‘Can you tell me why my owner has suddenly started calling me Cupcake?’
‘A kiss?’ guessed a pretty female, making Spud blush.
‘Chocolates?’ said another, licking her lips.
‘I wish,’ slurped Spud, suddenly hungry. ‘Next!’
When the last hopeful owner had been shown the exit, a short, sad silence fell over the group sitting at the table. Deep down, they had all been hoping that somewhere in among all those dogs – and cats – Cupcake would be found.
‘Oh well,’ said Mr Cartwright, getting to his feet. ‘We’d better get going. It’s nearly time for the launch of Storm Spell!’
‘And we’d better get going too,’ Lara woofed to her pups. ‘Back to the theatre, double-quick. Princess Pretty just might still be there!’
But when they sneaked into the empty theatre, the backpack of money had gone from the stage and there was no sign of Princess Pretty. Lara’s shoulders slumped and she sat down heavily on one of the plush velvet theatre seats. Looks like Princess Pretty got the better of me, she thought.
‘Look, Ma!’ Star whispered, pointing towards the stage. ‘One of those wooden panels on the front is loose! I wonder what’s behind the gap.’
They crept through the orchestra pit and flattened themselves against the front of the stage, on each side of the gap left by the loose panel. Lara listened carefully and then, signalling to Spud and Star to stay where they were, she put her eye to the gap.
There was no movement in the gloom under the stage, so she carefully widened the gap by sliding the panel further back.
‘Yikes!’ she yelped, jumping backwards as a snarling, snaggle-toothed face emerged from the gloom.
‘It’s all right, Ma,’ giggled Star. ‘It’s only Darren’s troll head!’
The troll head was blocking the way in so, together, they pulled it and the rest of Darren’s costume out into the orchestra pit. The body of the costume was all in one piece, with a set of braces inside to hold it on to the wearer’s shoulders, but Lara was more interested in the head. She poked her nose inside and nodded in satisfaction when she saw the hidden pouch below the mouth. ‘Thought so,’ she said. ‘That’s how they stole Cupcake. Out of Summer’s bag and straight into the troll’s mouth!’
‘Looks like they used the same method for picking all those pockets too,’ called Spud from under the stage.
Lara ducked through the space in the panel. Spud was pointing to a pile of purses and wallets stashed in the corner.
‘And look at this!’ yapped Star, gazing at the wall of photographs and newspaper clippings. ‘Princess Pretty certainly had it in for Summer Rayne!’
‘But where’s she hidden Cupcake?’ Lara wondered. ‘Have a good look around. There might be a clue here somewhere.’
Just then, a toilet flushed backstage, followed by footsteps coming closer.
‘Uh-oh,’ Spud whispered. ‘Sounds like Princess Poopy is still here – and she’s heading our way!’
12. The Dancing Troll
‘Darren? What are you doing here?’ Princess Pretty demanded, glaring at the troll standing in the orchestra pit. ‘You’re supposed to be on the ride with Summer while I deal with Cupcake!’
‘Huh?’ woofed the troll.
‘Oh, you’re such an idiot!’ grumbled Princess Pretty. ‘Well, it’s too late now. You’ll never make it there in time for the launch. You’ll just have to come with me instead.’
Hiding inside the troll costume, Lara felt a mixture of delight and dread. Just as I’d hoped! Princess Pretty thinks we’re Darren, and now she’s going to lead us to Cupcake. But how do I make this thing move? She was standing upright, with her hind legs pushed into the troll boots. Star was perched on her shoulders and Spud on Star’s.
‘Come on, Darren!’ yelled Princess Pretty.
Lara peered out through the mesh square in the troll’s chest. Princess Pretty was waiting impatiently by the side door of the theatre. She was wearing the backpac
k full of money.
‘Hold on, pups,’ Lara whispered. ‘Time to get this troll on the move! You do the arms and I’ll do the legs.’
The troll staggered forward for a couple of steps with its huge head swaying from side to side before it got into its stride and waddled out of the theatre after Princess Pretty. Lara forgot to duck and the troll yelped as its huge head hit the door frame.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ hissed Princess Pretty as the troll staggered like it had been hit with a mallet. ‘Everyone’s looking at us!’
Inside the costume, Lara made a big effort to walk in a straight line, but the doggie trio meant she kept lurching left and then right.
‘Look, Mummy! It’s a dancing troll!’ laughed one little boy as Lara did a side-shuffle back towards Princess Pretty. Spud made the troll wave at the boy. He waved back. A few steps later, Lara lurched to the left again and crashed into a candyfloss stall.
‘Whoa!’ cried Spud and Star as the heavy troll head pitched forward into the whirling candyfloss machine. They leant back on Lara’s shoulders and the troll head rose up from the machine again with a big pink ball of candyfloss stuck on the end of its nose.
‘Yum, candyfloss!’ yapped Spud. ‘My favourite!’
Lara staggered on, gasping for breath. Spud was enjoying himself. The troll’s arms swung wildly, scooping three ice creams from a nearby stall. Thanking you. Two were slapped against its forehead. Missed, thought Spud. The third went in its big green mouth. ‘Result!’ drooled Spud. ‘My favourite!’ The puppy was getting over-confident. He waved at another child, his huge troll hand wiping out a row of prizes on the hook-a-duck stall. Whoops! Sorry!
‘Right!’ snapped Princess Pretty. ‘That’s it! We’re going the back way.’ She sidestepped into an alleyway, forcing Lara to make a wobbly turn and shuffle after her. The crowds streamed on down the main street, heading for the big event of the day: the launch of Storm Spell. Only one person stopped by the alleyway to stare after Princess Pretty and the dancing troll. Darren hesitated, frowning, between the alleyway and the gleaming Storm Spell launch pad at the end of the main street. Then he made his decision; he ducked into the alleyway and followed them into the forest.