Kidnapped!

by Jeremy Strong

  We were at the campsite!

  5 A Busy Day, with Saucepans and Pirates

  Mr Trevor’s dad kept telling everyone that I had bitten him but you know I hadn’t. He shouldn’t have stuffed his fingers in my mouth. Luckily there wasn’t any damage done, only a bit of hedge missing and a scratch on the car’s bonnet at the front. (Plus a few teeth marks on Mr Trevor’s dad’s hand.)

  Honestly, you would have thought the hedge had scratched Mr Trevor’s dad judging by the fuss he made. He yelled at me, I howled back and then the campsite owner shouted at Mr Trevor’s dad and waved a big saucepan at him. I think she was threatening to cook him. They’ll eat anything, those French people – frogs, snails and now Mr Trevor’s dad. I don’t suppose he’d taste very nice. There’s too much fat on him.

  The campsite owner is called Madame Crêpe and she has a daughter, Mini Crêpe. They look just like each other except one is younger. They were both wearing large sunglasses and they were big and fierce and wobbly. (I don’t mean the sunglasses were fierce and wobbly, I meant Madame and Mini Crêpe.)

  They shouted a lot and kept saying ‘Ooh la la’ and other things as if they were in a big drama, when the only thing that had happened was that their hedge had a small bruise. So there was lots of noise but it all got sorted in the end and we got a nice spot for the caravan near the river, which I immediately went and jumped in. (The river, not the spot for the caravan!)

  Then I came back and told everyone they should jump in the river too because it was fabulous and I showed them how lovely it was by shaking myself really hard and showering them with water.

  You can never tell what two-legs are going to do next, can you? I thought they’d be pleased and they’d all jump in the river too but they shouted at me instead so I ran off to find somebody more sensible to play with and that was when I saw –

  HIM!

  A vision! He was a miracle of bouncy legs and waggy tail and shiny fur and complete cuteness. What’s more, he was trotting straight towards –

  ME!

  I stopped dead in my tracks. My legs went shaky. I felt my tongue fall out of my mouth so I put it back in and hoped he hadn’t seen me looking like that. I thought, Stay calm, Streaker, Mr Gorgeous is heading your way. So I plonked myself on the grass and tried to look elegant and cool – one ear up and one ear down and staring at a daisy so it looked like I wasn’t interested; that sort of thing.

  Mr Gorgeous stopped right in front of me. I could feel his eyes watching me but I didn’t look back because I thought, If I look at him my heart will probably burst or I shall faint or do something silly like show him how to do a cartwheel. And then he spoke. To me!

  ‘’Allo.’

  His voice sent a shiver down my tail. Now I had to look at him and I lifted my head.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. I thought that was so cool of me, just pretending I didn’t know he was even there! ‘Who are you? Have we been introduced?’

  ‘Ah, you English dogs, you are so reserved, so quiet.’ Mr Gorgeous stretched out on the grass in front of me and tossed one ear behind his head. (I don’t mean it came off; it was still attached to his head. It was just a very long, flappy kind of ear. And so was the other one.) ‘Do you like it ’ere?’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived,’ I told him, all casual like. ‘But it looks like a nice spot.’

  Mr Gorgeous burst out laughing. ‘Ha ha! “It looks like a nice spot!” You English, you speak so funny, as if you are about to make ze nice cup of tea and ze sandwich.’

  Huh! So he was making fun of the way I spoke! Two can play at that game. ‘And you French talk as if you’ve got a baguette stuck up your bottom!’

  Do you know what Mr Gorgeous did? He laughed even more. Then I realized it was quite funny and I laughed too and soon we were both rolling about in hysterics. So after that we sat down and had a proper conversation and it turned out he wasn’t called Mr Gorgeous, his name was Pascal. (But I might still call him Mr Gorgeous sometimes because he IS!)

  In fact he didn’t have much of a French accent because, as Pascal said, his ‘muzzair’ was French and his ‘farzzair’ was English. He wears a bright red scarf round his neck and it makes him look super cool and very, er, French.

  Pascal showed me round the campsite and we chatted and chatted and it was as if we had known each other forever and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He is a proper pedigree, a bloodhound no less, whereas I’m just an ordinary mongrel.

  Well, actually, I’m not so ordinary at all because as you know I am Miss Zippy-Paws with a Brain Like a Dog-Flap, the fastest, bravest, cleverest dog in the world. Even so, a bloodhound! It’s a bit like an ordinary two-legs being introduced to a duke, or even a king.

  After that I thought I had better get back to my two-legs so I said goodbye to Pascal and hoped that we would meet again and he said he hoped we would meet again too and I said let’s make it soon and he said very soon and I said how about in two minutes and we both had hysterics again. I like him. A LOT!

  I went trotting off to see my family and I was thinking about Mr Gorgeous Pascal and I saw another dog and he was massive. He was even bigger than Pascal and he had jaws like a mechanical digger. He was with two smaller dogs and they were deep in conversation. I could just about hear what they were saying because my ears can catch the tiniest sounds. I can even hear flies thinking. At least I think they’re thinking. Maybe they’re just brushing their teeth.

  ‘Yeah, you know ze cars?’ said the big dog.

  ‘Yeah, we know ze cars,’ said the middle dog.

  ‘Yeah, ze cars we chase,’ nodded the smallest dog.

  ‘What about, instead of we chase zem, we jump on zem? And we bite zem and make big teeth marks and scratch zem with our paws. Zat’d be really big funny.’

  ‘Hurr hurr hurr,’ laughed the middle dog. ‘Yeah, big funny.’

  ‘Why would zat be funny?’ asked the smallest dog.

  The middle dog fell silent and looked at the biggest dog. Obviously the middle one didn’t know why it was funny either. The big dog snarled.

  ‘Because it would leave ze whopping great marks on ze cars and ze people would get so angry and zey’d blame some kids or some ozzer dogs and we sit zere and watch all of it and our ’eads are laughing off.’

  Then he spotted me and his ears pricked up at once. ‘Ooh la la! Look at zis beauty coming our way.’ The big dog got to his feet and swaggered towards me with the other two in tow.

  ‘’Ello, sweetheart,’ he grinned.

  ‘I’m not your sweetheart,’ I told him. ‘Are these your friends?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the middle dog. ‘We’re in ’is gang. We’re pirates.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said the smallest. ‘I’m ze alien.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re ze pirate,’ snarled the big dog.

  ‘I’m ze alien pirate, zen,’ insisted the smallest.

  ‘I’ll deal wizz you later,’ the big dog hissed and turned back to me, all teeth and smiles. ‘My name,’ he announced proudly, ‘is Barbarossa, pirate chief.’ He pointed with his nose at the middle and smallest dogs. ‘He Bish, he Bosh, in my gang. You join ze gang too?’

  Bish nudged Barbarossa. ‘I thought we were pirates, not ze gang.’

  ‘We’re ze gang of pirates, stupid,’ growled the pirate chief.

  ‘I’m ze alien,’ the small one insisted.

  ‘I don’t want to join your gang,’ I told Barbarossa, while he glared at the small one. The glare instantly snapped on to me and his lips curled back, showing his teeth. He had a lot of teeth and they all looked pretty pointy. He went on.

  ‘If you’re not in ze gang –’

  ‘Pirate gang,’ Bish butted in.

  ‘If you’re not in ze gang, we can’t protect you,’ Barbarossa pointed out.

  ‘Protect me from what?’ I asked.

  ‘Ze gang,’ the pirate chief declared bluntly.

  Huh! We seemed to be going round in circles and I was getting dizzy. All three of them were no
w looking at me to see what I would do and I thought, Keep cool, Streaker, keep cool.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.

  Barbarossa lifted his big head. ‘You do zat, cherie,’ he said. ‘But you’d better zink fast. You’ve only got a couple of days.’ He turned his back on me and called the other two. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  They had barely taken a few steps when the smallest one, Bosh, trotted quickly back to me and whispered in my ear.

  Do you know what he said? I will tell you. He said, ‘Zey are ze pirates. I’m ze alien because I don’t like boats.’

  I put it small like that because he was whispering and I thought he’d finished but he suddenly stuck his snout back by my ear and went ‘Grrrrr!’ I think it was meant to sound menacing but it was quite sweet really, like having your ear tickled by a budgerigar.

  Well, that was a bit of an adventure, wasn’t it? I have a feeling I haven’t seen the last of those pirates. Aliens. Whatever. What a busy day.

  6 A Rather Wet Adventure

  Disaster! Mr Trevor’s dad’s golf clubs have DISAPPEARED! They have vanished. It’s almost as if they’d grown legs and run away. The whole bag has gone.

  ‘They’ve been stolen,’ growled Mr Trevor’s dad.

  Huh! Who on earth would want to steal some stupid old golf clubs? They’d have to be half mad, or even completely bonkers. Now if they’d stolen my dinner bowl that would be another matter, not that they’d ever get the chance because I would spot them and go WOOF WOOF! RAAARRGH! and bite their legs right off so they couldn’t run away.

  ‘I’m going to make a complaint to Madame Crêpe the campsite owner,’ declared Mr Trevor’s dad.

  ‘What do you think she’ll do about it?’ asked Mr Trevor’s mum.

  He was stumped. He had no idea what Madame would do about it and neither did I but he still went off to make a complaint and Trevor went with him. When they came back Mr Trevor’s dad looked just as fed up as before but Trevor was hopping about from one leg to another because he was so excited.

  Mr Trevor’s dad said that Madame Crêpe wouldn’t talk to him because she was too busy and Trevor said yes, she was too busy because she was getting ready to canoe down the river.

  ‘And she’s taking a party of ten canoes with her and I can go because there’s one canoe with nobody in it, but it has to have two people and one of them has to be an adult. Can I go? It will be brilliant!’

  ‘I’ll go!’ I barked. ‘I’ll go with you! I like canoes. They’re fantastic. What do they look like? Tell me what a canoe is! Can you eat it?’

  Trevor told me to shut up, which wasn’t very nice but I forgave him. ‘I have to have an adult with me,’ he repeated. ‘Please, Dad!’

  ‘I’m going to play golf. Ask your mother,’ grunted Mr Trevor’s dad.

  ‘You can’t play golf. Your clubs have disappeared. Besides, I can’t swim,’ she answered.

  ‘You can, Mum. You always swim when we go to the pool at home.’

  ‘That’s because it’s a pool and I can put my feet on the bottom. I can’t swim in rivers.’

  Huh. I didn’t think Mr Trevor’s mum was making any sense. I bet she could swim in a river. I thought I might push her in and see what happened. She looked at Mr Trevor’s dad.

  ‘You take Trevor,’ she went on. ‘It will help take your mind off your missing clubs.’

  Trevor was beside himself.

  ‘Dad, please! It will be an adventure. We take a packed lunch and everything.’

  Packed lunch? This idea was sounding better and better. I LOVE packed lunches, especially when they’re un-packed. CHOMP CHOMP, YUM YUM.

  Eventually Dad gave in and said he’d go canoeing with Trevor and he even agreed to take me. It was barking brilliant! We had to wear lifejackets, except for me, because they didn’t have one for dogs. I said it didn’t matter because I can swim. I can swim like a submarine, mostly underwater. Woofy ha ha! That’s a joke I just made up.

  So Trevor and his dad wore lifejackets and the packed lunches were put in a blue barrel with a watertight lid and that went in the middle of the canoe. The canoes were all bright blue except for a red one. That was the leader’s canoe and the leader was Madame Crêpe with her daughter, Mini.

  I thought their canoe would sink when they climbed into it but it just wobbled a lot. They sat there with their big sunglasses and smiled at everyone as if they were film stars. I think Mini must have put on her lipstick with a large paintbrush because her mouth looked as if it had just had a major accident in a jam factory.

  Mr Trevor’s dad sat at the back of our canoe and Trevor sat at the front. I sat on the blue barrel so I could keep guard over the packed lunches but I kept sliding off so I went and sat on Mr Trevor’s dad’s lap and helped him by holding the end of his paddle for him. He didn’t like me helping. I think he thought he could do better on his own but he couldn’t because he kept steering us towards the bank.

  ‘Streaker! Let go of my paddle! Listen, why don’t you go and help Trevor?’

  I thought that was a good idea so I scrambled up to the front and sat on Trevor’s lap.

  ‘I can’t see where I’m going, Streaker! Get your head out of the way.’

  I told him I could see where we were going – and where we were going was straight into the red canoe with Madame and Mini Crêpe in it.

  BERDANGG! SKRRRUMPPP! SPLOOOSH!

  The red canoe got a hole in it and quickly began filling with water, with Madame and Mini still paddling furiously. They looked SO FUNNY but I don’t think they thought it was funny at all. They sank further and further until the water was up to their shoulders and you couldn’t see the canoe because it had drowned but they were still trying to paddle!

  Madame Crêpe grabbed hold of the front of our canoe trying to save herself and pulled so hard it capsized and we tumbled into the river and began splashing about and yelling. (Or barking, in my case, although I was actually saying what fun it all was.)

  The other canoes paddled over to help. I tried to scramble on board one of them but when I got my paws on the side their canoe overturned just like ours had and they were in the water too. I had to go to another canoe but the people in that one shouted at me and tried to push me away with their paddles. They made their canoe rock about so much that their canoe tipped over so it served them right! Good thing everyone was wearing a lifejacket. (Except me, because I’m a dog and I’m the swimmiest swimmer in the world!)

  Now there were nine of us thrashing around in the river, yelling and screaming. People on the bank were rushing about shouting advice. Someone threw a lifebelt into the water but it hit one of the canoes that was still afloat making a big hole and that one sank and as they fell in they grabbed at the canoe next to them and that capsized and then there were sixteen of us in the water. (I think some of the others had just jumped in to see what the water was like.)

  And then – horror! I noticed all the blue barrels containing our packed lunches floating away down the river. Oh no! I knew I must rescue them so I set off in pursuit. I thought, I shall be a hero for rescuing all the packed lunches and saving them from a fate worse than being eaten. After all, nobody wants to drown, not even if you’re a sandwich! I shall be Superdog!

  So off I went.

  I’m not sure what happened after that because I disappeared round a bend, chasing after our lunches, and I got separated from everyone. I had to give up on the barrels eventually. I couldn’t get a grip on any of them so I just let go and watched them drift away, never to be seen again. Well, not by us, anyhow. I expect there were people further down the river who had a fabulous time when the barrels popped up in front of them and they opened them up and found all those sandwiches and baguettes and they probably ate them all and said, ‘Yum yum, ooh la la, free food!’ Life isn’t fair sometimes.

  I dragged myself out of the water and went back to the campsite and that’s when I discovered great excitement all over the place. My goodness me what an argument was going on!
Madame Crêpe had managed to find a frying pan AND a saucepan and she was chasing Mr Trevor’s dad and yelling at him in French. I don’t know what she said but it didn’t sound nice. Mini was there too, waving a giant egg whisk and whirring it at Trevor.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ yelled Mr Trevor’s dad. ‘It was that pesky dog of ours! She’s always making mischief!’

  Me? A mischief-maker? How could he say that? After all the trouble I had been to helping him paddle AND trying to save the sandwiches. Nobody else tried to save them. I bet Superman never had this kind of trouble. I should be given a medal, not shouted at.

  Then Mr Trevor’s dad started on about his golf clubs and how somebody on the campsite had stolen them and what was Madame going to do about that, eh? And Madame said she couldn’t care less about his stupid golf clubs and he’d just sunk her best canoe and who was going to get it out of the river and repair it? Besides, that was no way to speak to a future film star.

  ‘One day zoon I shall be ze famous person and you will beg for mercy and my forgiveness. But will I give it you?! Pah! Non, non, non!’

  (I think ‘non’ probably means ‘no’. In any case, they will never be film stars unless they are in a film about big wobbly things. They had better lose some weight.)

  Meanwhile, half the other canoeists were jumping about as if their shoes were full of snapping crabs and shouting about being thrown into the river and losing their sandwiches. They all wanted their money back.

  But, best of all, Trevor was suddenly a hero because while I was trying to rescue the packed lunches Trevor was busy saving a girl who was just paddling round in circles and crying. He helped her to the side and got her out of the water and her parents were massively impressed and kept saying how wonderful he was. And of course, the girl! Well! She was looking at Trevor as if he was the biggest bar of chocolate ever.

  It was all terribly noisy and I didn’t know what to do. I kept running around trying to decide and you’ll never guess what so I will tell you. I saw Pascal again. Yes! I did. And here’s another guess what. Who was Pascal looking after? Emilie, the girl Trevor had helped, and her parents! (People always seem to think that they look after their pets. THEY DO NOT! We are looking after them. Please remember that in future.)