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

themselves. Then Jamie stopped sharpening.
    â€˜I don’t think it’s aliens,’ he said.
    â€˜Well, who cares what you think, Mr Smelly Burper?’ said Jennifer.
    â€˜Actually, Jennifer,’ I said, ‘everyone is allowed to say what they think in this gang, even if they do disgusting burps. So go on,Jamie. Why do you think it’s not aliens eating the pets?’
    â€˜Well, I think the mistake you’ve made is to think that something must be eating the animals.’
    â€˜But how else can they be disappearing?’
    â€˜Eating isn’t the only way of disappearing something, you know, Ludo.’
    â€˜Oh, so now you’re saying it’s magic? Very likely.’
    That was The Moan, being sarcastic again.
    â€˜No,’ Jamie replied calmly. ‘I think they’ve been stolen.’
    â€˜By aliens?’
    â€˜No, by people.’
    â€˜What for?’
    â€˜To sell. For money. To other people who want pets.’
    Then Jamie went back to sharpening the pencils. He’d done eight by that time.
    The rest of us looked at each other.Noah was the first one to speak.
    â€˜He’s got it, hasn’t he? We’ve been barking up the wrong tree all this time. Nothing’s eating the animals – they’re being stolen. It’s only the fancy pets that have gone, the ones they can sell for a lot of money.’
    â€˜You know what, Jamie?’ I said.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You’re brilliant. In fact, that was such a good idea, I’ve decided that you’re not the stupidest person in the Bare Bum Gang any more.’
    Jamie pulled a strange face, as if he wasn’t sure whether to be happy or annoyed. There’s no pleasing some people.
    â€˜Well, who is then?’ asked Jennifer.
    â€˜Mmm,’ I said. ‘Let’s see. Well, it can’t be me, because I’m the Leader. And it’s not you, because you’re on the top table for everything.’ Jennifer smiled a big smile. ‘And Noah, you’re quite clever, except at spelling.’ Noah looked reasonably happy with that. ‘So, it must be you, Moan, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜No way! That’s so unfair!’
    â€˜Look, don’t make a fuss about it. Jamie never minded being the stupidest. He just got on with it and then had his good idea. I suggest that you try harder, and then you can climb up the rankings.’
    â€˜I’m going home,’ he said.
    â€˜Well, you can if you like, but that means you won’t be invited on the best bit of this whole adventure,’ I said.
    â€˜Oh? What’s that then?’
    â€˜The part where we solve the crime.’

SOLVING THE CRIME had to wait until Saturday. By that stage two more cats and three dogs had gone, along with a tank full of tropical fish.
    We arranged to meet at the den at zero nine-thirty hundred hours o’clock, which is half past nine. Well, we sort of arranged to meet at zero nine-thirty hundred hours o’clock, but then I remembered that there was still quite good children’s telly on then, so we changed it to ten hundred hours o’clock.
    I phoned the others and told them to comein disguise, because we were secret agents on a mission.
    For my disguise I wore a pair of my mum’s sunglasses and a balaclava. And I brought my plastic binoculars, a magnifying glass and my spud gun, along with a potato for ammunition. In case you haven’t seen one, a spud gun is a gun which fires potato bullets. You have to be careful because they can blind you if you fire it into your eye at short range. Although I suppose you’d have to fire it into both eyes, one after the other, to blind yourself properly, and you’d have to be pretty silly to do that.
    I made a mental note not to let Jamie play with the spud gun, even though he was no longer officially the stupidest member of the Gang.
    Rudy looked up at me from Ivy’s old bath.
    â€˜Come on, boy,’ I