Labradoodle on the Loose Read online

  But Where Is The Dog?

  While I pushed the board back up the hill with my foot, I decided I was getting a mountainboard. My birthday’s in November but there was a chance I could afford one before then if a lot of people forgot to pick up their pound coins from the swimming lockers. (I have lessons on Saturday mornings. I check the lockers, before and after. It’s easy money.)

  What is a mountainboard?

  It’s like a skateboard but it’s bigger and the wheels aren’t hidden underneath, they stick out the side. And there are bindings, like on a snowboard, to slip your feet in. That helps you do jumps.

  What is a mountainboarder?

  A lunatic that loves speed and danger.

  ‘Great stuff,’ said Marco.

  ‘Wait till you see me with the dog,’ I said.

  ‘Dog,’ he said, as though he’d never heard the word before. And certainly never used one as a husky. Or had the lead of one looped round his foot less than five minutes before.

  ‘Dog,’ I repeated.

  A few very bad thoughts smacked me in the face, one after the other: I’d left Doodle with Marco, Marco was standing in front of me, Doodle wasn’t, Marco had lost Doodle, but I’d taken Doodle from Bee, so I was in charge, so I’d lost Doodle.

  Panic Stations

  I grabbed Marco by the shoulders. ‘What have you done with Bee’s dog?’

  ‘Bee’s dog,’ he said. He smacked his forehead. It made a slap sound. Must have hurt. ‘Bee’s dog,’ he said again. He looked down at his foot as though Doodle might still be attached to the lead that he’d looped round his trainer. Nope. Just a trainer, all on its own. He looked up at me, and made a big-eyed sad face. I looked all around, 360 degrees, ready to call out Doodle’s name. But there was no point shouting. There were kids and bikes and prams and a bloke with a kite, but no dogs. And definitely no labradoodle.

  ‘We’ve got to find Doodle,’ I said. ‘Or Bee will kill us.’

  Marco nodded. ‘I go,’ he said.

  ‘Go where?’ I said.

  ‘Round,’ he said, waving his arm randomly at the grassy area. He pushed off and disappeared. Wheels buzzing.

  I stood, deciding what to do.

  WHAT MUM SAYS TO DO IF YOU’RE LOST

  Ask someone with children, preferably pushchair-size ones for help.

  Go back to the last place you saw whoever you’re meant to be with.

  Ask a policeman for help, if there’s one handy.

  Stand still.

  None of the tips from Mum helped with Doodle. I tried my own.

  Go back to the picnic by the play area, in case Doodle has run over to Bee (but that would mean confessing if Doodle wasn’t there). Run around the park, the roads nearby, everywhere, shouting loudly. Get a search party together of all the people in the park (except Bee). Hide, and hope Doodle reappears. Buy a steak and flap it about and see if he smells it. Buy another brown labradoodle, quickly.

  I decided to do the second idea, but without the shouting. Doodle wouldn’t come to me anyway. Why would he? I’d never ever shouted his name before. And I didn’t want Bee to hear a mad boy (me) hollering her dog’s name. No. No. Then I’d have to confess.

  Doodle wasn’t anywhere in the middle, so I headed for the edge of the park where there’s a hedge all the way round. I’ll try and explain how I felt inside. Sick. Scared. More sick. More scared. A picture of Doodle run over by a bus flashed onto the screen at the back of my eyeball. I blinked to delete it and took a deep breath. I needed to stay focused. Where would a dog go?

  I didn’t have the answer. But I could see someone who might. A dog owner with a small, white, fluffy dog, nothing like Doodle, but a dog’s a dog, isn’t it?

  ‘I’ve lost my dog,’ I said.

  ‘Well I haven’t got it,’ he said. ‘This is my dog.’ He pulled the lead tight so the dog was virtually hanging off it and walked away sharpish, as though I was a dog-napper.

  Oh no! Maybe Doodle had been dog-napped. I carried on jogging round the park, keeping next to the hedge. My heart was beating fast because of the exercise, making me feel more frightened. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. It was like the music in a thriller when there’s a murderer creeping towards the bedroom and someone’s quivering under the duvet and there’s no way out and no one’s coming to help. (Not that I’ve ever watched a film like that.)

  I saw a movement in the hedge. Phew! ‘Doodle,’ I said quietly – I didn’t want him to run away.

  The leaves vibrated again. I waited for him to poke his nose out. I wished I had some of those doggy treats that Bee gives him. I held out my hand as though I did. Good idea, Keener, I thought.

  ‘Doo-dle,’ I said again, in a sing-songy way, like Fifty does when he talks to Probably Rose.

  Out came the tip of his nose. It didn’t look that familiar, but then I’ve never studied Doodle’s nose. Out came the rest . . . of a squirrel.

  GREYS VERSUS REDS

  People think grey squirrels came into our country and stole all the food and chased away the nice red squirrels that already lived here. But they’re wrong. And I’ll tell you why (if I can remember everything that Jonno told me – he’s the one who knows all this stuff).

  Grey squirrels don’t chase red ones. They can live together quite happily. But grey squirrels are better at surviving. They don’t need as much food as red ones, and they don’t get so many diseases. Loads of woodland has been chopped down so there’s not as much food. It’s nature. Greys are stronger. Greys eat less. Greys live. Reds die. Grey squirrels aren’t ‘tree rats’, they’re cute. Long live the greys!

  More Panic

  I sat on the ground. I didn’t know what to do. I knew I should tell Bee but I didn’t want to. How do you tell someone you’ve lost their puppy? It’s like telling someone’s mum you’ve lost her baby or left them in the supermarket trolley. Or like telling Fifty you’ve lost his sister. That thought didn’t help. He’d go ape. I’d be dead. No, I’d be tortured first. He’d devise a terrible ordeal for me, with ropes and winches and stretching and crowds of people cheering him on while I screamed. Like in Victorian times when criminals were hanged in the town square. Gross.

  Daydreaming wasn’t going to get Doodle back. I needed to act. But I stayed exactly where I was, because I didn’t know what to do. What a mess! In the distance I thought I heard the burr of Marco’s wheels. Maybe he’s got good news.

  A TYPICAL VICTORIAN FAMILYHAVING A CONVERSATION, MADE UP BY KEENER

  Victorian mum:

  Let’s have a day out and watch the hanging in the town square.

  Victorian dad:

  Good idea. Shall we take the kids?

  Victorian mum:

  Of course. They love a good hanging.

  Victorian dad:

  Tell you what, let’s take a picnic.

  Victorian mum:

  Oh I can’t wait. The children will be so excited.

  I tried to focus my ears, but a second noise blanked out any trace of mountainboard. A much bigger sound. A siren. Coming this way. And coming fast. And maybe more than one. I forgot about Doodle for a second and wondered what the emergency was. And where it was. But it was literally only a second because suddenly two squad cars came into view, screeched to a tyre-burning halt right in front of me (if you exclude the grass between us) and out jumped three policemen.

  It’s amazing how many thoughts you can have one after the other. Here they are: Something’s wrong. It’s odd that the police have arrived just as I’ve lost a dog, unless that’s why the police are here. Is Doodle – I don’t want to think it – dead? Did Doodle run into the street and cause a three-way pile up? The burr is getting louder. There’s Marco. The police are coming this way. So is Marco. Marco’s going very fast. They’re on a collision course. Will they arrest me for losing the dog that caused the accident? Or for killing a dog? I need to go. I need to tell Bee. Marco can deal with the police. Or mow them down. Please don’t let Doodle have been mown down.

  I jum
ped up and walked away, very fast. Away from Marco and away from the police, towards Bee and the picnic and the other Tribers. I didn’t run, in case they chased me. My heart was pumping my blood around so quickly I could hear it. They were all where I’d left them: Bee, Copper Pie, Fifty, Jonno and . . . there was one more, Probably Rose. Why was she there? Who cares? My brain could only deal with the dog thing. I blurted out the awful news before I even got to them. ‘I’ve lost Doodle. I’m really sorry.’

  Everyone’s heads snapped round and fixed on me with confused expressions as though they thought it was a joke, or they’d heard wrong.

  ‘What did you say, Keener?’ Bee was on her feet, ready for ‘fight or flight’. (We learnt that in science. It’s how we’re programmed to react to danger – either run away or attack. I hoped she wasn’t going to attack me.) I had to swallow a couple of times because something was blocking my talking pipe. ‘Marco had the lead round his foot,’ I said. ‘I went off on the mountainboard. When I came back, Doodle was gone.’ (I felt bad about dishing the dirt on Marco, but it was the truth.) Jonno got to his feet too. They both stared at me as I finished off what I had to say. ‘And the police are here, and . . .’ And what? I didn’t have anything else to say. I pointed in the vague direction of the police and Marco.

  ‘And what?’ said Jonno.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I could feel tears trying to force their way over my bottom eyelid, but I held them back. I had the feeling Bee could read my thoughts. Maybe she could even see the picture in my head of Doodle, flattened, hedgehog-style.

  She raced off, running across the park with Jonno right behind. Copper Pie went too. I stayed where I was, with Fifty and Rose (who was covered in chocolate cake). Fifty screwed up his face. I think he was deciding what to say. Rose smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back. She pushed some mushed chocolate cake towards her mouth. Some of it fell on her polo shirt, right on top of where it said Blue Skies Nursery.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘She was in the play area, but she wanted to come with me, didn’t you, Rose?’

  ‘I thought she was at nursery.’

  ‘She was. They brought all the nursery kids to the park.’

  ‘Oh.’ I didn’t care about Rose. She wasn’t lost, not like Doodle. Fifty read my mind. A lot of that goes on with the Tribers. It’s helpful if you don’t have to explain everything all the time.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Dogs get lost every day. Think of all the posters you see on lampposts.’

  I did. It didn’t help. ‘The posters are always for cats, not dogs. Dogs don’t get lost because they’re meant to be on a lead.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Fifty. ‘Does Doodle have a collar?’

  ‘What do you think the lead was attached to?’ I said.

  Fifty ignored my sarky voice. ‘So, the collar will say Doodle’s name and address. He’s probably at home already.’

  A bit of hope made its way into my clogged-with-doom brain. ‘Do you think so?’ He nodded, so I dared to ask the other question that was worrying me. ‘So why are the police here?’

  ‘Maybe Doodle was spotted in the road and someone rang them?’ said Fifty. I thought about that. It seemed possible. ‘Or maybe Doodle bit someone’s ankle and they reported him?’ That was his second suggestion. I thought about that too. ‘Or maybe Doodle stole a picnic, or some shoes. He likes gnawing shoes.’ I stared at my fellow Triber to make sure he was taking it seriously. He seemed to be.

  ‘So you don’t think Doodle’s been run over?’

  ‘No way,’ said Fifty. ‘He’s too fast.’

  I was beginning to feel better. There was no evidence that anything terrible had happened to Doodle. I helped myself to a chocolate cake, took a bite and nearly didn’t manage to swallow it because out of the corner of my eye I saw shapes coming towards us. I rotated to move them from my peripheral vision onto the main screen. Two of the three police officers were heading our way.

  I moved the piece of chocolate cake around inside my mouth trying to break it down into swallowable pieces.

  They came closer. Walking side by side.

  I looked at Fifty. He was messing about with Probably Rose. I wanted to tell him, but the chocolate cake was in the way. I needed saliva to make it squidgy, but there didn’t seem to be any.

  I risked another look, hoping they’d altered their course. Nope. They were coming for us, for definite, and Copper Pie was behind them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  Confession Time

  I decided to speak first. I reckoned there was a better chance of not being arrested if I admitted guilt right away. As I opened my mouth to begin, Copper Pie shook his head from side to side. It was a message, obviously, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I ignored it.

  ‘I did it,’ I said. ‘It was me. I —’

  ‘Stop right there, lad,’ said the extremely tall policeman. (The other one was actually a woman). I stopped. And waited. He looked at me, then Fifty, then Rose. I couldn’t stand the not knowing. What was going on? Why hadn’t Bee and Jonno come back with Copper Pie? Were they cradling Doodle’s head while he took his last breath?

  ‘Please, what’s going on?’ I said in a desperate voice.

  ‘Calm down, lad.’ The big man spoke again. ‘There’s no hurry. We can see that now.’ Quite what he could ‘see now’ from looking at our picnic I didn’t know. He turned and nodded at the policewoman who walked off and said something muffled into her bleeping radio. The big one carried on, ‘We just need to get to the bottom of this situation.’ He patted me on the shoulder. I didn’t want to be patted. I wanted to know what was going on. Did ‘no hurry’ mean it was too late? Was Doodle dead? In my head the idea that I’d killed Bee’s dog was fizzing like a bottle of lemonade about to explode.

  It exploded. ‘Have you found him? Is he hurt? Is he DEAD?’ I shouted.

  Copper Pie made a shut-up-idiot face but I couldn’t. I am a murderer, I thought.

  The policewoman stepped forwards and patted my other shoulder. Stop all this patting, I wanted to shout, but I didn’t.

  ‘Is who dead?’ she asked in an I’m-trying-to-be-kind voice.

  ‘Doodle.’ As I said his name out loud (even though it wasn’t very loud), I felt a flood of tears spill.

  ‘They’re not here about Doodle, idiot,’ said Copper Pie.

  What! It took a while to sink in. The police weren’t here because of Doodle. Phew! All the bubbles went out of the lemonade in my head.

  ‘But maybe we should be,’ said the big policeman. ‘Who exactly is Doodle?’

  Fifty stood up and sighed dramatically, as though he was surrounded by morons. He explained it all to the police officers in a nursery-teacher voice. ‘Doodle is Bee’s dog. Keener took the dog over the other side of the park and gave him to Marco. Marco lost him. Keener is worried that the dog’s dead. But I think he’s probably run home. So we’re going to go and look for him.’ Fifty sat back down and started packing up the picnic food.

  ‘Not just yet you’re not,’ said the big one. ‘Now . . . who might this be?’ He pointed at Rose. She smiled at him. The whole of the bottom half of her face was chocolate brown.

  ‘That’s my sister,’ said Fifty.

  The big one stared at Copper Pie. ‘You didn’t say there was a little girl with you.’

  ‘She wasn’t with me, she was with him.’ Copper Pie pointed at Fifty.

  ‘You need to watch yourself, boy. Now, what might this little girl’s name be?’

  ‘Probably Rose,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Don’t you be funny with me, laddie. She’s either Rose or she isn’t.’ He was cross, very. Copper Pie looked a bit scared. I thought I’d better help.

  ‘Her parents couldn’t decide what to call her. So every time someone asked, they said “She’s probably Rose”.’

  The police officer looked like he wanted to strangle someone.

  ‘But who actually took her?’ said the woman.
/>   And before we could answer the big one snapped, ‘Out with it – which one of you is the kidnapper?’

  Kidnap

  What was he talking about? There was no kidnapper. And no kidnapped. I had a crazy thought. Maybe they weren’t police at all. Maybe they were nutters in fancy dress. I snuck a peek at the uniforms to see if they looked real. They did. And I had seen the cop cars with my own eyes. (I said it was a crazy idea.)

  The lady spoke again. ‘We know it was one of you, so you’d better tell us. The sooner we know what happened, the sooner it gets put right.’

  If they’d asked me to confess to the dog-killing I’d have blurted it out no problem, but kidnapping? Nope. Not me.

  Rose made a mewing sound. (If she wanted more cake all she had to do was lick her face.) Fifty went to pick her up but the big policeman stepped over to the rug and said, ‘We’ll leave her there, I think.’

  Fifty didn’t like that. ‘If I want to pick up my own sister, I will.’

  ‘She’s quite happy where she is.’ You could tell by the way the policeman spoke that what he really meant was DO AS I SAY! But Fifty either didn’t get it or didn’t care, because he bent over and picked up Rose anyway. And that’s when he repeated what he’d said to me at our biscuit breakfast.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re here, but if you upset Probably Rose, you’ll have me to deal with.’

  The policeman didn’t like Fifty’s tone. He was about to be mashed. Luckily the policewoman stepped between the two of them before anything happened. ‘Let’s calm this down.’

  ‘I am calm,’ said Fifty. (Red face, gritted teeth.)

  Unlike Fifty, I was actually calm, but only because I knew no Triber was ever going to be a kidnapper. I mean, we’re kids. It was all a mistake.