The Hairball of Horror! by Michael Broad

The Prim Poodle
    It was a slow day at the Pooch Pound dogs’ home, with very few visitors passing through the kennels. This meant that Rocket, Poppy and Butch could take a break from the
usual barking, tail chasing and growling, and rest before their next space adventure.
    In the far kennel, a prize-winning poodle was resting too, gazing at his reflection in the water bowl and patting his puffy-topped head. Montague was always well behaved, and having charmed
every family that had visited that week, the pampered pooch already had a new home lined up and was due to leave the following morning.

    ‘Don’t you ever get bored of looking at yourself?’ asked Butch, frowning at the prim poodle. ‘The only time I gaze into my bowl like that is when it’s full of
food!’
    ‘I have to make sure my pompoms don’t droop,’ sniffed Montague, peering down his powder-puffed nose at the slobbering bulldog. ‘Personal grooming is very important in the
pedigree show circuit. Not that you would know anything about that.’
    ‘Dogs should be able to act like dogs, and that means having fun and getting messy from time to time,’ Poppy frowned. Montague snapped, rudely. ‘You three are just jealous
because no one wants a noisy, tail-chasing, dribble-fountain!’

    ‘We’ve already told you that we behave badly on purpose to stop people taking us home,’ said Butch, and drooled on the floor. ‘Except for the dribbling. That’s all
me.’
    ‘Ah, yes. I almost forgot,’ Montague sighed sarcastically. ‘You’re the amazing Astrodogs.’
    ‘Spacemutts,’ sighed Poppy.
    ‘Spacemutts, that’s right,’ chuckled the poodle. ‘You climb into your spaceship and fly all over the galaxy saving the world from invading hamsters.’
    ‘Cats!’ growled Butch. ‘And you’d know we were telling the truth if you had accepted our invitations to join us. But you always go to bed as soon as the night warden
locks up.’
    ‘I need my beauty sleep,’ sniffed the poodle, looking his three kennel mates up and down with a critical eye. ‘And so do you lot by the looks of it. When was the last time any
of you had a bath?’

    ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ said Rocket, pricking his ears at a distant sound of squeaky boots and doors being locked. ‘Anyway, the night warden has arrived, which
means it’s time for us to get going.’
    ‘And time for me to sleep,’ said Montague, pulling on his frilly eye-mask and stuffing cotton wool in his ears. The poodle circled his blanket several times before flopping down for
the night. ‘Give my regards to the space rabbits!’
    ‘Cats!’ Poppy and Butch growled together.

    ‘Take no notice,’ said Rocket, clearing away chew toys to make room in the centre of his kennel. He waited for his friends to do the same before swiping his collar, which made the
stud lights blink around his neck.

    ‘This is Rocket calling the
Dogstar
. Come in, WOOF?’
    ‘Hello, Captain,’ said the female voice of WOOF, the
Dogstar
’s onboard computer. ‘I am in orbit above your location. Can I confirm only three teleports again this
evening?’
    Rocket glanced at Poppy and Butch who were both grinning mischievously, and then he looked at the puffy white poodle lying neatly in the centre of his kennel, directly beneath the domed
light.
    ‘Lets make that
four
teleports,’ he whispered.

    Moments later the domed lights flickered on and off and bright beams shot down from the ceiling. The four dogs sparkled and shimmered in the brilliant light, and then vanished one by one in the
transport beams until all of the kennels were empty.

    At the very edge of our solar system, on a planet named Pluto, Lady Fluffkins was overseeing the rapid construction of a supersonic space-cannon from the observation deck of her
Mouseship
. The colossal weapon was nearly as big as the small planet it was built on, and when it was finally completed, the empress sent out a green flare to signal the waiting