Labradoodle on the Loose (6 page)

‘Lucky you. Being parented is like being in a zoo – she watches me all the time, checking for weird behaviours.'

‘Like what?' said Jonno.

‘Twitching, rocking backwards and forwards, maybe dribbling,' said Fifty. He demonstrated and rolled his eyes at the same time. It was funny.

‘You're mean,' said Bee. (She really likes Fifty's mum.) ‘Your mum's nice. She's just a bit too . . . involved in your life.'

‘She thinks I'm “too fond” of Rose.' Fifty's face looked really serious. ‘How can you be “too fond” of your sister?'

Good question
, I thought. But I had a better one.
How can you be ‘fond' of your sister at all?
Sisters are not my favourite thing.

There was a bit of a silence and then Fifty stood up (he was sitting on the safe – his usual spot) and showed us the piece of paper he'd been keeping warm under his butt. It was a poster. There was a drawing of a dog in the middle and a great big heading:
HELP, WE'VE LOST DOODLE
.

‘It's what people do when they lose cats,' he said.

Bee said, ‘Thanks, that's great.' I was glad she'd spoken because I was trying not to laugh at the two-legged swollen-headed sheep crossed with a rabbit that was meant to be Doodle. No chance of anyone recognising Bee's labradoodle from
that
picture.

‘We'll need more,' said Jonno. ‘One for every lamppost.'

‘No problem,' said Fifty. ‘I wanted to show you before I made copies.'

‘We should add where and when he was lost and a phone number to call,' I said.

Fifty added all the details at the bottom. I was glad I'd said something useful to show Bee how much I wanted to get Doodle back.

‘Anything else?' We shook our heads. Fifty disappeared.

Jonno winked at us all. We all winked back.

‘It didn't look anything like my dog,' said Bee.

‘It didn't look like a dog. Full stop,' said Jonno.

‘Looked more like a chicken with ears,' said Copper Pie.

Bee put her finger on her lips – we didn't want Fifty to hear us.

‘Couldn't we get a photo instead?' I said.

‘Not without going to my house,' said Bee. ‘Without a dog.'
Good point
.

‘What else can we do?' said Jonno. ‘Posters are great but there must be more.'

‘We could check Doodle's not gone home?' I said.

Bee made a face. ‘Same problem. How do I do that without letting Mum know what's happened?'

‘I could ring,' I said. ‘If Doodle had arrived home without you your mum would tell me, wouldn't she?' I didn't want to volunteer, but it was
all
my fault.

‘There's no point,' said Jonno. ‘If Doodle arrived home
on his own, Bee's mum would be worried and ring Bee straight away.'

Bee checked her mobile. ‘No missed calls.'

No one had any other ideas – well, not to do with the dog anyway.

‘Is there any grub in the biscuit tin?' asked Copper Pie (he's always hungry), as Fifty came back in clutching a big pile of paper.

‘Nope,' said Fifty. ‘But you can come up to the house. Mum saw the poster on the printer. She wants to talk to us.'

I was quite pleased. Having a grown-up in the know made it seem more likely Doodle would be found. We walked up the garden and in the kitchen door. Fifty's mum was sitting at the table – with no music on, which was unusual. Bee dumped all the rubbish she'd found in the kitchen bin.

‘So, Tribe is busy these days,' she said as we filed in. ‘Not content with stealing my daughter, you've also managed to lose Bee's dog.' She was joking but none of us laughed. She made us sound horrible. When we formed Tribe we decided we'd be loyal and fair, and not a gang that didn't like other kids and were mean and stuff. I felt really bad. Everything we'd done before had turned out fine, but this time we'd really messed up.
I'd
really messed up. I waited to hear what else she was going to say. And while I waited I wondered whether, if we didn't find Doodle, could we still be Tribe? If we never saw Doodle again, could Bee still be my friend?

Half an hour later we were back on the streets, posters and drawing pins in our hands. But there weren't five of us any more. There were ten. Fifty's mum said we needed help, so that's what we got (or she got to be exact). She rang Fifty's dad and he came straight home from his post round rather than going to the gym. She wanted to ask Bee's mum and dad, but we begged her not to say anything until we'd had one more really good look for Doodle. She agreed, a bit reluctantly. Fifty's dad rang Copper Pie's dad on the way home and he came straight round with Charlie (and luckily agreed that Bee's mum didn't need to know just yet). (Nobody suggested we ring my mum – she'd have shopped us to Bee's mum immediately. And no one really knows Jonno's parents yet.) So, there were the five Tribers, Fifty's
mum and dad and Rose, Copper Pie's dad and Charlie. We were Doodle's army.

At the end of the road we split up into three teams. I went with Copper Pie, his dad and Charlie – because Charlie asked me too. (He likes me because I'm the only one who makes marble runs for him to play with.) Every team had a route and a batch of posters. Doodle couldn't hide from all of us. No way.

We left Fifty's house at half-past three. We started off walking really fast and chatting and laughing and stuff, but by the time we'd been up and down street after street we got slower and talked less and the only one of us with any enthusiasm was Charlie who said, ‘There's Doodle' every time he saw a dog, a cat, a woodpigeon, a wheelie bin or a garden gnome. He also said it every time he saw a hedge or a bush and dived under to have a look. At first it was funny, then it got irritating and by the time we got back to Fifty's we all hated him. (And I'm never making a marble run for him ever again.) We kept in contact with the other groups on the way round. No one had good news. My feet were hurting and I wanted to go home. I was thirsty too.

Before we all went off to our own homes we had a Tribe-plus-friends debrief in the road outside Fifty's. Fifty's dad was in charge, with Copper Pie's dad chipping in. It went like this.

Fifty's dad:
It's six o'clock. Time to get some food inside us, I think. Try not to worry, Bee. We're a nation of dog lovers – someone will find Doodle.

C.P.'s dad:
Too right.

Fifty's dad:
The day's not over yet. A dog on the loose will be more noticeable in the evening. He may get brought back at any time.

C.P.'s dad:
Right again.

Fifty's dad:
Go home, Bee. Whoever finds him will read his tag and call.

Charlie:
Five free free six one nuffing seven.

Fifty's dad:
What did he say?

C.P.'s dad:
Ignore him, he's a pest. Aren't you Charlie?

(Charlie nodded, smiling. He never realises he's being insulted.)

Charlie:
Number five free free six one nuffing seven.

Bee:
That's my phone number. How come you know it, Charlie?

(Charlie put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a blue dog tag. It looked a lot like Doodle's blue dog tag.)

C.P.'s dad:
Where did you get that?

Charlie:
In the bush.

Fifty's dad:
What bush?

The rest of the conversation consisted of the dads demanding Charlie identify which bush and Charlie shaking his head. (He is only three.)

It had all got worse. Doodle had lost his tag, so even if he was found no one would know where he lived. The only hope was that the posters of the sheeprabbitchicken
worked, or Doodle smelt his way back home.

Bee's ringtone blared out of her pocket. ‘Oh no, it's Mum!' she said.

‘You've got to answer it,' said Jonno. ‘But you don't have to tell.'

Bee's mum wanted her home for tea. Bee looked terrified. She went even paler and her eyes looked too large for her face. She asked Jonno to go with her. And that was the end of Doodle's army. Bee and Jonno went off together. Everyone else drifted away.

What a terrible day, a kidnap and a lost dog. If only I'd stayed with the Tribers instead of going husky-boarding. I'd have made Fifty take Rose back straightaway and I wouldn't have lost the dog. Everything was my fault.

I lay in bed, wide awake. It was like someone was still screening short films onto the back of my eye, films about Doodle. Doodle drowned. Doodle in pieces. Doodle run over. Doodle in a bin liner. I abandoned bed and tried my hammock, and that must have worked because I had a dream about being on a sailing boat. There was a wave coming and it turned the boat over and I landed flat on my face on my bedroom carpet, with a bit of Lego pressed into my cheek. Not a great way to start the day.

I checked my phone straight away, hoping for a message from Bee with a smiley face at the end. Nope. No messages from anyone. It was 7.14 a. m.
What to do?

I got back in my hammock and swayed for a bit. Usually I like being on my own, but that morning, swinging from
side to side worrying about Doodle, I didn't like it at all. I even thought about going to get the evil Flo up. Thankfully Mum came in.

‘You're up early,' she said.

I grunted. Why do mums say stuff you already know?

‘I spoke to Bee's mum last night,' she said.

I grunted again. This time it was because I was scared about what was coming next.

‘She was quite upset.'

I could work that out for myself. I grunted again.

‘I'm not working today, so I said we'd join the search party this morning.'

That deserved more than a grunt. I said, ‘OK.'

‘Bee's mum said they were going out for another look last night. Poor things, scouring the streets in the dark.' Mum sighed.

I grunted again. It's much easier than using words when you don't know what to say.

‘I'm going to wake Amy. She asked me to make sure she was up to help. So, breakfast and then we'll be off.' Mum headed for the door. ‘Flo's ready, and she's clutching her loudspeaker!'

I smiled. I wasn't on my own. My family was helping. I needed to get up and get going, like Mum said.

By 7.45 a. m. we were fed and teeth-cleaned. We walked over to Bee's with Flo talking all the way through her loudspeaker. Luckily the batteries were dead.

‘Will they buy another dog if they can't find Doodle?'

‘Do dogs eat birds?'

‘Does anything eat dogs?'

‘Do dogs get toothache?'

‘If they get another dog, will that be called Doodle too?'

Mum did all the answering. Amy was sleepwalking – it was early for her, but she was coming, which was amazing. First nice thing I could ever remember her doing. I walked behind, practising positive thinking. Fifty's mum says if you can picture what you want in your head, you're more likely to get it. It's nonsense of course, but I did it anyway. I made images of Doodle racing along, his ears flying out behind him. Doodle jumping up at Bee. Doodle dragging me at high speed on Marco's board. In a way it worked. Doodle was so real in my head, he couldn't possibly be dead.

It was quiet, as though the whole world was on school holiday. Maybe everyone had taken Friday off like my mum? We didn't see one single other person until a car slowed down by the side of us, a police car, and a familiar head leant out. It was Sergeant Farrow.

‘Hello again,' he said.

Mum gave me a funny look. Not surprising – policemen don't usually speak to me. She didn't know about the kidnap, so she probably thought I'd been caught spraying graffiti. (She probably didn't. I mean, this is Keener speaking.)

‘Hi,' I said.

‘Nice morning for a walk,' he said, and drove off, leaving me with a nosy mum. I told her all about it. It's not as though
I'd
done anything wrong.

‘Would you come and kidnap me if I was sad?' asked Flo.

Not in a million years
, I thought. ‘Maybe,' I said.

Copper Pie and Jonno were waiting outside Bee's.

‘Shall we go in?' said Mum.

‘There's no answer,' said Jonno.

‘Bee's dad's car's not there,' said Copper Pie.

‘He'll be at work,' said Mum. She walked up to the door and knocked three times. (The bell doesn't work.) Nothing. We looked at each other in the way people do when no one knows what's going on.

‘There's Fifty,' said Jonno. Flo gave him a wave.

‘Where's Bee?' he said.

‘No idea,' said Jonno. ‘It's weird because last night she asked me to come over this morning.'

‘Same,' said Fifty.

‘Let's try the kitchen door,' I said. That's the way Bee always goes in. Mum hung behind – I think she thought it was rude going round the back. Fifty stayed talking to Flo. Copper Pie rapped on the back door, really hard. We waited. Still nothing.