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

ever existed. More evil than Dracula or a giant clam that grabs you under the water and then drowns you and then slowly dissolvesyour flesh while you’re still alive.’
    There was a gasp from the Gang.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Gee, thanks,’ she said.
    â€˜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
    â€˜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 quiteeasy. 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.
    Then we got rid of the cannibals, because cannibals eat people and not pets, and anyway, they usually live in the jungle or on an island.
    That left the aliens and King Kong.
    â€˜I was only joking about King Kong,’ said Jennifer.
    â€˜What do you mean, joking? We’re not messing about here, you know. This is a matter of life and death.’
    â€˜I said it because of all the stupid onesthat you said, like jaguars and T. Rexes.’
    â€˜Fine,’ I continued. ‘We’ll scratch King Kong off the list. Anyway, I knew it wasn’t him, because he got riddled with machinegun bullets on top of the Empire State Building. That just leaves the aliens.’
    There was a shocked silence after that, as the Bare Bum Gang thought about the terrible foe we were up against.
    Then Jamie did one of his famous gigantic burps. I haven’t mentioned Jamie’s famous gigantic burps before, partly because I find them disgusting, and partly because I forgot to. They were so loud they didn’t sound human, more like the sound a machine would make, a bit like an electric drill combined with a jet fighter taking off. Jamie was definitely the best at doing gigantic burps, though The Moan was slightly better at farting, which is also disgusting, especially in enclosed spaces such as dens and the International Space Station.
    It’s quite hard writing down how a burp (or a fart) sounds, but if I had to try it would be like this:
    GGGGRRRRROOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRPP .
    Naturally we all looked round at him, not sure whether this was the alarm signal for being attacked (maybe even by the same aliens we’d already identified as the pet murderers), or just one of his ordinary burps.
    Throughout all this Jamie carried on sharpening the pencils – interestingly, burping is one of those things you can do while you carry on doing something else, unlike farting or tying your shoe laces, which are things you have to do all by