The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers (7 page)

Then I pointed in a dramatic way at Ray Quasar's tummy.

The dramatic pointing business didn't have exactly the effect I'd been counting on. I'd been hoping that Declan would break down, sobbing, and admit that Ray Quasar was the murderer and that he was the accomplice.

What happened was more or less the exact opposite of that.

The earlier bout of running around and laughing was nothing compared with this. And when he got bored with running, he tried some jumping up and down on the bed, and then some rolling around on the floor.

It was time I took charge again.

‘Just laughing like a baboon isn't the same as answering the question.'

‘What's the question?'

‘Did Ray Quasar eat Trixie – that's Mrs Cake's Jack Russell terrier – plus two other dogs whose names I can't remember, plus Catty the fat, er, I mean, Fatty the cat, and Potty the parrot?'

Declan worked hard to get his face under control. Yes, he was very close to cracking. The case was almost closed.

‘Hello, anyone home?' he said, knocking on my head with his knuckles. ‘Ray Quasar doesn't eat pigs, or dogs, or cats, or elephants. He's too small. When he's fully grown, he'll be over three metres long and he might eat a little dog, if there was one going. But not now.'

 

‘What does he eat then?'

I'd noticed that he hadn't mentioned parrots.

‘Mice.'

‘Mice?'

‘Yes, mice. Baby mice. Want to watch?'

‘Not really.'

‘Yeah, cool.'

That was Jennifer. She was still holding Ray Quasar, although you could equally say that he was holding her. I half hoped that the snake would attack her, and maybe swallow her down to the waist so I could rescue her from the jaws of the beast, like Tarzan. That would show her how brave I was, as well as going a long way to proving the snake's guilt. After all, if you'd eat a girl like that, then you'd eat anything – dogs, cats, mushy peas, Brussels sprouts, anything.

But sadly he didn't try to strangulate and swallow her. He just hung on her arm like a handbag and put his nasty tongue out at me.

‘Actually it's feeding time now. I've got
some mice defrosting in the fridge next to the yogurt. Hang on here and I'll get them.'

Then he ran out of the room.

‘How do you think the interrogation's going?' I said to my Elite Force, after a pause.

‘Quite good,' said Noah, looking down at his feet.

‘Rubbish, actually,' said Jennifer.

Obviously she'd taken over the family role of moaner.

‘How can you say that when we're about to see Ray Quasar eat a baby mouse?'

‘Well, I admit that will be quite interesting.'

‘One thing, though,' said Noah. ‘If Ray Quasar eats the mice, can we rule him out of our enquiries?'

I thought for a moment.

‘Well, yes, we can.'

‘Hooray,' said Jennifer sarcastically.

‘In an investigation you often make an advance by eliminating suspects.'

Ray Quasar ate the mice.

Four little pink baby mice.

He wrapped himself around them, giving them a good old constrict even though they were already so dead they'd been in the freezer for six months. Then he swallowed them.

 

It's a strange world in which eating four little tiny pink baby mice means you are innocent. But we don't get a choice. This is the only world we have. So I declared Ray Quasar the boa constrictor Not Guilty, and we went home.

But not before Declan gave Jennifer a present – a nasty dried-up old snakeskin that Ray Quasar had grown out of. The way she smiled and blushed you'd have thought it was a diamond ring.

I HAD MORE
pondering to do that night. So I was awake yet again when I heard the sound of Rude Word being dragged out of the garage and tied up to the gate post. I didn't even bother to look.

The next morning I brought Rude Word out some Weetabix. He wasn't there. I looked under the blankets in his baby bath. No sign.

‘Dad, where's Rudy?' I asked when I came back into the kitchen.

My dad looked at my mum. My mum looked at the ceiling. You wouldn't have
thought that ceilings were that interesting.

‘Isn't he outside?' she said.

‘No, I've just looked. I was bringing him his Weetabix.'

‘Oh no,' said Dad, in a dramatic kind of way, ‘do you think it's another of those mysterious disappearances?'

‘That must be it,' said Mum, still looking very closely at the ceiling. She was obviously going to be a world expert on ceilings. ‘What shall we do?'

This was terrible. It was the worst thing that had happened to me ever in my life. My lovable pet had been snatched. Something horrible was probably eating him right now.

‘You've got to phone the police,' I yelled. ‘And the army. And the RAF. They can send out helicopter gunships.'

Just then there was a screech of tyres outside on the road. I ran to the window, hoping there might be a small crash to see – I don't mean a bad one with blood, but
just one with maybe a dent in the bumper, or a knocked-down lamppost. All I saw was the back of a car driving away at probably about two hundred miles an hour. And something else. A friendly brown-and-black face, pushing its way through our front gate.

‘Rudy's back,' I yelled. ‘Rudy's back!'

‘Oh,' said Dad, ‘how nice. He must have just gone off for a walk.'

‘Yippee,' said Mum, but not in the way you usually say yippee – more in the way you'd say, ‘Guess what, my granny died.'

Sometimes grown-ups can be quite hard to understand.

Anyway, I ran out and hugged Rudy and then went to school.

There was high drama at school. As soon as I got in through the school gates I could tell that Declan wasn't in a happy mood. He was sitting on one of the benches with his head in his hands. Normally at this time
he'd be charging around the playground shouting, ‘Bananas,' at the top of his voice. There was a group of children around him, mainly the Commando Gang, but also a few other kids who were probably hanging around in the hope that Declan would do something loony.

‘What's wrong?' I asked.

Declan just shook his head.

‘It's Ray Quasar.'

That was Nicky speaking. He was one of the nice boys at school, and hardly ever called anyone names or made fun of them unless they asked for it. He was also the best at gymnastics, except for Jenny, and he could do a handstand for the whole of morning break, unless someone pushed him over, which happened quite a lot.

‘What about Ray Quasar?'

‘He's vanished. Escaped or something. Declan got up this morning and he wasn't in his tank. He's too upset to even talk. He hasn't shouted “Bananas” once.'

‘Blimey.'

Another victim. The pet-eater was moving on to reptiles now, and a suspect had become a victim.

It was time for action. I found the Bare Bum Gang and called a Special Emergency Gang Meeting, to be held in the den after tea. To make sure everyone came, I said we could have two sweets each out of our sweet stash.

I brought my biggest drawing pad and some felt tips. I also brought ten broken pencils and a pencil sharpener. And two torches, because it was beginning to get dark in the evenings. I needed all those things because I'd decided we had to have a brainstorming session. That is when you have to solve a problem and the first thing you do is write down everything that comes into your head, and then you get rid of the silly things, and what you have left is the answer.

I brought Rudy with me and tied him up outside to guard the entrance.

I was in charge of the pad and the pens. The broken pencils and the pencil sharpener were for Jamie, because he needed something to do while we were brainstorming. Jamie was only the fifth best in the Gang at pencil sharpening, after me, Noah, Jenny and The Moan, but he usually managed to sharpen the right end, and hardly ever shoved a pencil so far up his nose he had
to go to hospital to have it removed.

 

When we'd all finished our sweets, I began.

‘Right,' I said. ‘Now, we know that we are dealing with something very evil indeed – probably the most evil thing that has ever existed. More evil than Dracula or a giant clam that grabs you under the water and then drowns you and then slowly dissolves
your flesh while you're still alive.'

There was a gasp from the Gang.

‘And,' I continued, ‘we've also eliminated the two chief suspects from our investigation – Rude Word and Ray Quasar. That leaves us back at square one: just who, or what, is eating our pets? Ideas please, gentlemen, and Jennifer as well – you count as a gentleman, for the sake of this meeting.'

‘Gee, thanks,' she said.

‘Right then, other suspects – fire away.'

So this is the list of suspects we came up with (I won't say who had most of the best ideas because that would be boasting):

• A tiger
  
• A lion
  
• A leopard (or panther)
  
• A jaguar
  
• A puma
  
• A wolf
  
• A bear (polar, black or grizzly)
  
• A new kind of giant badger, so far unknown to science
  
• A crocodile (or alligator)
  
• Aliens;
  
• Evil people (e.g. cannibals)
  
• Starving people (e.g. cannibals who haven't eaten anyone for ages)
  
• A shark (e.g. great white, tiger, hammer-head, etc., etc.)
  
• A killer whale
  
• A T. Rex
  
• A velociraptor
  
• King Kong
  

‘That's a brilliant list,' I said. ‘Now we'll do the second part, which is getting rid of the rubbish ones. Then whatever is left is clearly the culprit.' I added in a whisper to Jamie, ‘The culprit means the one that did it.'

But Jamie was too busy sharpening the pencils to notice.

Getting rid of the rubbish ones was quite
easy. We began with those that lived in other countries, which eliminated the tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar, puma, wolf and bear. Then we got rid of the ones that mainly hunted in the water, which meant the various types of shark, the killer whale and the crocodile (or alligator). Then we dumped the ones that were extinct, i.e. the T. Rex and velociraptor, because everyone knows that the movie
Jurassic Park
is just made up, except for Jamie who believes everything on the telly is true.