The Bare Bum Gang Battles the Dogsnatchers by Anthony McGowan

I COULD TELL Dad was excited about something. His face was shining like a light bulb.
    â€˜I’ve got something for you, Ludo,’ he said, looking at me and grinning.
    I was with Mum in the kitchen. My baby sister, Ivy, was sitting in her high chair, making baby noises. She’d just learned how to make a raspberry sound, and that was her favourite. It went ‘
Ppprrrrraaaaaaaaapppppssssssst
’ and she was very proud of it. It was quite similar to the sound of her filling up her nappy, but not as soft and squelchy, or as smelly.
    Dad was late and we’d finished dinner. It was fishcakes, peas and chips. Dad’s dinner was on a plate in the oven, and it was all brown and shrivelled up, like it had been zapped by an alien death ray. Mum always burned Dad’s dinner when he was late. I think she did it on purpose as a way of helping him to remember to get home early.
    â€˜A present?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yes, sort of. It’s just what you’ve always wanted.’
    Mmmmm . . . There were lots of things I’d always wanted. A radio-controlled model helicopter, a Swiss Army knife, a crossbow, an air rifle, my own canoe, a robot that tidied my bedroom and did my homework and conquered my enemies using mind control. Any of those would have been good.
    â€˜What is it, Jim?’ asked Mum. She didn’t look like she thought it was going to be good. She looked like she thought it was going to be a disaster. Strange how mums always know these things.
    â€˜It’s in the car. I’ll go and get it.’ Then Dad went out again.
    Mum looked at me and shook her head.
    The next bit of Dad I saw was his backside. He’d pushed the door open with it, and was trying to drag in something heavy attached to a rope. The thing he was pulling made a noise that sounded a bit like ‘
Grrrrrlllllaaaahrachshtrsshh
’.
    Â 

    It wasn’t the sort of sound you wanted to hear, except maybe in a film where you like being scared. If I had to say what it soundedlike, I’d say it sounded like a monster. A monster eating another monster.
    Ivy said, ‘
Ppprrrrraaaaaaaaapppppsssssst
,’ which I think was her way of talking to the monster. In baby language it probably meant something like, ‘I am the Leader of planet Earth. If you come in peace we will offer you the hand of friendship. But if it is war you seek, then planet Earth has powerful weapons and we will destroy you.’
    Dad finally managed to pull the thing into the kitchen, and for a second I thought I was right. About the monster, I mean.
    Mum screamed.
    Ivy stopped going, ‘
Ppprrrrraaaaaaaaapppppssssssst
,’ and started crying. Fine Leader of planet Earth
she
turned out to be.
    â€˜What is it?’ shouted Mum.
    â€˜He’s very friendly,’ said Dad.
    â€˜Get it out of my kitchen!’
    Dad didn’t seem to hear. ‘Had a bit of trouble with the old fellow. He didn’t like being left in the car, and he . . . er . . . ate the gearstick. And part of the steering wheel. And . . . um . . . some of the seat. Quite a lot of the seat, actually.’
    The thing he’d dragged into the kitchen wasn’t a monster.
    It was a dog.
    The ugliest dog I’d ever seen. He had a short body, about the size of a microwave oven, and an enormous head as big as a toaster, and he had droopy, slobbering lips and only one and a half ears. His fur was black with brown splodges, and he had shiny pink gums.
    This is my best drawing of him.
    Â 

    â€˜Do you like him, Ludo?’ Dad asked.
    I quickly thought again about all the things I wanted, meaning the helicopter, etc., etc., and then I saw Dad’s face, how excited he was, how much he wanted me to like him.
    â€˜Yeah, he’s OK,’ I said. ‘What kind of dog is he anyway?’
    â€˜The man in the pub said he’s a pedigree flugel hound.’
    â€˜There’s no such thing,’