Read Online The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers by Anthony McGowan - Free Book Online

dogs, the sort you see posh ladies carrying around in their handbags. There were beautiful fluffy cats, any one of which might have been Fatty the Persian. There were two parrots, one grey one and another that looked like it had been painted by a little kid determined to use every colour in his paint box. I wasn’t sure which one was Potty. I tried saying, ‘Hello, Potty,’ to each of them, to see if they’d answer back, but they just looked at me like I was mad.
    I found Trixie. I put my fingers through the wire and she tried to bite them off. Some things don’t change. And in the next cage there was good old Ray Quasar, boa constrictor (or was it python?). He stuck histongue out at me in a friendly way.
    â€˜Hurry up.’
    That was Noah outside, sounding anxious.
    I picked up a cage with a cat in it. It was heavier than I expected. I carried it over to the window. I’d forgotten that the window was so high. I stretched up and balanced the cat cage on the ledge.
    â€˜Here,’ I said.
    I saw two hands reach up and take the cage.
    We got two more cages out, one with a small yappy dogand the other with the bunny rabbit.
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    But then I heard the sound I’d been dreading – the sound of the thieves’ van pulling up outside. Noah heard it too.
    â€˜Get out of there,’ he hissed.
    I ran to the window. I stretched and stretched, but it was too high to climb out of. My heart was racing and sweat poured down my face, making my balaclava all clammy.
    â€˜I can’t reach it,’ I said to Noah. ‘Run away and save yourself.’
    â€˜But . . .’
    â€˜That’s an order.’
    I knew then that I had only one chance. I ran around the garage banging on the tops of all the cages, trying to get the still half-drugged animals riled up. The dogs started barking, the cats spitting, the snake hissing, the parrots squawking.
    â€˜What a racket,’ I heard one of the pet-robbers say. Then I head the grating sound of someone trying to open the padlock. I had just a few seconds more. I flicked openthe little catches on the cages and opened the doors.
    There was one that took a bit of nerve to reach inside.
    The garage door was being dragged back. Full dazzling light hit my eyes.
    It was now or never.
    With a yell I kicked over as many cages as I could, sending cats and dogs and parrots leaping and flying in all directions. Then, with a mighty effort, I hurled the long, heavy body of Ray Quasar at the shape of the first man. Then I did a quick draw with my spud gun and fired it in the face of the one behind him.
    At the same moment I leaped forwards. I was at the heart of a snarling, snapping mass of angry animal flesh. And Trixie was doing more than her fair share of snapping. Good doggie!
    I saw the startled look on the face of the man just before the snake hit him. Ray Quasar wrapped himself round the man’s neck and shoulders as he fell back. The second man also staggered back, hit right on the end of his nose by the spud bullet.
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    There was a space for me to escape through. If I could only slip past them I knew that I could get away.
    I was out of the door, almost there, almost free. Then I felt a hand reach out and grab the back of my balaclava. I ducked andsquirmed and the balaclava came off in the man’s hand. But I had slowed down, and now he moved to block the way.
    It was the one I’d hit on the nose with the spud gun. He wasn’t a Japanese Jacuzzi after all, but just an ordinary man in a tracksuit top and jeans. There were still animals milling around, but they weren’t the threatening pack that they’d first been when they burst out of their cages.
    The man didn’t look very happy, but at least he wasn’t wrestling with a metre-long snake like his friend, so he should have been thanking his lucky stars, if you ask me.
    â€˜You little thug,’ he said.
    â€˜I’m not a thug,’ I yelled back.