Barry Loser and the trouble with Pets Read online

  Through the blurry glass in the front door I could just see the outline of something amazekeel.

  I Future-Ratboy-zoomed my eyes in on whatever my blurry granny was carrying in her hand. It was about the same size as a cuddly sausage dog and had two thin, flappy things sticking out of its head like ears. At the bum end was a long, thin waggly worm that looked exackerly like a tail.

  ‘It’s a blooming cuddly sausage dog!’ I hollered, turning the handle and opening the door.

  Three milli-seconds later

  ‘No swearing, Barry!’ cried my mum from upstairs as the door opened and I blew off and gasped at the same time, which is never a good idea.

  Not that it mattered right now in the history of the whole entire universe amen, because standing in front of me was Granny Harumpadunk, Mr Hodgepodge and a REAL-LIFE BLOOMING SAUSAGE DOG!

  I dropped to my knees as my mum came running down the stairs, her humungous hairdo swaying like a cuddly skyscraper in an earthquake.

  ‘What in the name of . . .’ she gasped, blowing off at the same time.

  ‘Unbelievakeelness!’ I cried, stumbling to my feet and staggering forward.

  I reached my shaking arms out and Granny Harumpadunk lowered the sausage dog into my hands. He was white with black spots and had long floppy ears the size of pockets.

  I snuggled the pooch up against my jumper. ‘A-am I dreaming?’ I stuttered, as my brand new best friend licked my nose, his little tail wagging so much it looked like there were twelve of them.

  ‘Erm, what exactly is happening here?’ said my mum.

  I plopped the dog on the ground and he started running round my legs, blowing off with excitement like a smelly Catherine wheel.

  Granny Harumpadunk chuckled to herself. ‘It was the funniest thing, Maureen,’ she said. ‘Hodge’d parked up outside Roy’s Toys and I was just getting out of the car - well I say I was getting out if it, the blinking side door was stuck again, so I was climbing into the back seat - that’s the only way out once the old banger’s decided to play up . . .’

  ‘Skip to the bit when you buy my son an ACTUAL REAL-LIFE DOG,’ said my mum, her eyelid twitching.

  ‘Well, there I was halfway over the front seat with me bloomers showing when I heard a tap on the passenger side window,’ sniggled Granny. ‘I said to Hodge, I said, who’s that tapping on the window?’

  ‘Who. Was. It,’ said my mum, her foot tapping like Nancy’s at the disco.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ said Granny Harumpadunk. ‘My old pal Gladys Foo!’

  Gladys Foo

  ‘Gladys Foo?’ said my mum, and I remembered the name from that sausage dog poster stuck to the lamp post the week before.

  Desmond waddled into the hallway and the dog zig-zagged over to him at eight trillion miles an hour, his whole body wagging.

  My mum peered down at him, snuffling up to Des’s fat little belly, and for a millisecond I spotted a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Anyway,’ said my gran. ‘To cut a long story short, I told Gladys how I was about to buy my little Loser a toy sausage dog and she said, “Why not get a real one?” and I said, “A real one?” and she said, “Yes a real one,” and I said, “Where am I gonna get a real one from?” and she said, “Me!”’

  ‘He’s perfect!’ I said.

  ‘He’s going back,’ said my mum.

  I looked up at my mum, and she went all blurry.

  It usually takes me about nine hours to squeeze a single fake tear out of my eye sockets, but this time two ginormous ones immedi-zig-zagged down my nose, like Bunky and Nancy running off to see Anton and Fay.

  ‘Oh please Mummy,’ I warbled, not even badgering her. ‘I can’t lose another best friend.’

  My mum’s eyelid stopped twitching and she peered down at her little Snookyflumps. ‘What’s wrong, Barry?’ she said, all seriously.

  And I started to explain.

  Give a dog a name

  Sometimes just telling the truth is way better than badgering. Especially if the truth makes your mum’s eyes go all watery then she bends down and gives you a cuddle and whispers in your ear, ‘Alright, you can keep the dog.’

  ‘Oh my unkeelness, thank you, Mum!’ I cried, and my brand new pooch bounded over, leaping up at his owner.

  I twizzled round on the spot. ‘Thank you, Granny!’ I smiled, giving her a cuddle too.

  ‘Ahem,’ coughed Mr Hodgepodge.

  ‘Er, thanks Mr Hodgepodge,’ I said, even though I couldn’t see what he’d had to do with the whole thing, apart from driving his half-broken old car down to Roy’s Toys at three millimetres per hour.

  My mum tapped me on the head. ‘You know the deal though, don’t you,’ she said, and I nodded.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ I said, stroking my dog’s fuzzy head. ‘I’ll pick up all his poos and take him for all his walks and feed him and bath him - it’ll be like he isn’t even here!’

  ‘I must be going blooming barmy,’ said my mum, chuckling to herself, and my brand new doggy snuzzled his nose into her ankle.

  ‘No swearing, Mumsicles!’ I laughed, scooping him up and giving him a kiss on his shiny wet nose.

  ‘What you gonna call the little fella, Loser?’ asked Mr Hodgepodge, and I thought about how he was a sausage dog, and that sausages are one of my favourite things to eat, plus the fact we’d just had sausages for tea.

  ‘Hamburger!’ I grinned.

  Enter Mr Loser

  Just as Granny Harumpadunk and Mr Hodgepodge were about to leave, my dad trudged up to the front door.

  ‘Hello, Ermentrude, hello, Humphrey,’ he said, walking through the front door and slipping his boring old work shoes off.

  ‘Ooh don’t mind us Kenneth,’ said Granny, heading off. ‘Enjoy the sausage dog!’

  My dad’s eyebrows twizzled into two curly squiggles, and what with the little dot-eyes underneath each one, he sort of looked like he had a couple of question marks scribbled right there in the middle of his stubbly face.

  ‘Sausage dog?’ he said, watching Granny Harumpadunk’s fat bum wobble off down the garden path. ‘What’s your mother going on about this time, Maureen?’

  He twizzled round and glanced at me and Hamburger, grinning up at him, both of us with our tongues hanging out. ‘Blooming Nora!’ he cried, letting go of his briefcase.

  ‘Language, Kenneth!’ said my mum.

  ‘A real life sausage dog!’ he said, dropping to his knees. ‘It’s just what I’ve always wanted.’ I passed Hamburger to my dad, and he cuddled him up to his smelly old suit. ‘Ooh, ooh, can we call him Frankie Teacup, Maureen, please can we, pleeease?’

  ‘His name is Hamburger,’ I said, as his whole body started waggling, wee spraying out from him in all directions - a bit like that time my dad hammered a nail into the pipe behind the bathroom wall.

  ‘Argh, my suit!’ wailed my dad, plonking Hamburger down on the carpet.

  ‘My carpet!’ screeched my mum, even though the carpet’s orange, and dog wee is yellow, so it doesn’t really show.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mumsy!’ I cried, grabbing the tea towel that was hanging over her shoulder and starting to scrub the carpet with it.

  ‘Not with my Frankie Teacup tea towel!’ wailed my dad, yanking it out of my hand.

  Hamburger charged at the flailing dish cloth like a miniature bull. ‘My best vase!’ screamed my mum, as he barged into the little wooden table where we drop our keys.

  The purple pot toppled over, pouring mouldy old flower water into my dad’s briefcase.

  ‘My briefcase!’ screeched my dad.

  ‘Relax Kenneth,’ I said, trying to calm him down. ‘It’s not like he’s pooed in your shoe, is it?’

  And that’s when Hamburger squatted his bum over the hole bit of my dad’s left shoe and did a poo right in it.

  Our little secret

  After I’d cleaned out my dad’s shoe using my mum’s sausage tongs and a whole twin pack of kitchen roll, it was bedtime.

  But my mum
wouldn’t let Hamburger sleep in my room.

  ‘Is my little poochypoos OK?’ I shouted for the eight trillionth time, three minutes after she’d tucked me in.

  ‘He. Is. FINE,’ shouted my mum from the lounge where she and my dad were giving him a secret snuggle on the sofa. ‘Now go to sleep, Barry.’

  I lay in bed, listening to the three of them watch Detective Manksniff on the TV below, until the end credits came on and I heard the sound of my mum and dad clearing up their bits and bobs and plumping the sofa cushions up.

  ‘Night night, Frankie Teacup,’ said my dad, closing the living room door, and I shook my fist.

  ‘His. Name. Is. Hamburger!’ I whisper-shouted in the dark.

  I had to wait another eleven minutes for my loserish parents to brush their teeth and do their bedtime wees, and then it all went quiet.

  I counted to seventy-nine million then whipped my duvet off, crept down my bed ladder and tip-toed to the door. It creaked as I opened it and I heard a whimper from downstairs.

  ‘Don’t worry little doggy, Papa’s on his way,’ I thought inside my head, wondering if my brand new sausage dog could hear what I was thinking.

  There are thirteen steps on our house’s staircase, and I spent about a minute on each one, that’s how careful I was making my way down the stairs.

  ‘Ruff !’ barked Hamburger, leaping off the couch, but only quietly, as if he knew what I was up to was our little secret.

  His green eyes glowed like LEDs in the darkness, and I could hear his tail hitting the coffee table as it wagged.

  I slumped on to the sofa and he jumped into my lap, nuzzling his head inside my armpit, which luckeely for him isn’t all hairy and stinking like my dad’s.

  I grabbed a cushion and sort of draped it over us, even though cushions are really hard to drape. ‘Night night, Hamburger,’ I yawned, happy for the first time since I’d become a gooseBarry.

  Tutting Snoggles

  The next morning I woke up before any of the other Losers and crept upstairs to bed, then got out of it again, pretending I’d been in there all night.

  ‘Fetch the remote control, Hamburger!’ I ordered my brand new sausage dog as I strolled into the front room, but he just smiled up at me, his tongue hanging out.

  ‘Very well, doggy,’ I said, slumping on the sofa. ‘Just stand where my feet are and be my foot stool instead.’

  Hamburger jumped on to the sofa, pointed his bum in my face and did a fart.

  It looked like teaching him tricks wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.

  I grabbed the phone and dialled Bunky’s number. ‘Bunky, I’ve got some amazekeel news!’ I said when he answered.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘You got yourself a girlfriend at last?’

  I rolled my eyes at Hamburger. ‘Don’t be a loser,’ I said. ‘It’s a millikeels times keeler than a boring old girlfriend.’

  ‘Erm Barry, you’re on speakerphone?’ said Bunky, and I heard someone in the background, doing a tut.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Who’s that tutting in the background?’

  ‘It’s Fay,’ said Bunky.

  ‘Fay?’ I yelped. ‘As in Fay Snoggles?’

  I knew she was his girlfriend at school, but at the weekends too? This was getting ridikeelous.

  ‘So what’s this amazekeel news?’ asked Bunky, and I smiled down at my hairy new best friend.

  ‘Let’s just say I’m not going to be such a gooseBarry anymore,’ I said, and I heard Bunky scratch his head.

  ‘What in the name of unkeelness are you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘Meet me at the Adventure Playground in twenty minutes and you’ll see,’ I said. ‘And tell Nancy too.’

  The Adventure Playground

  It was nineteen minutes later and I was walking up to the Adventure Playground in Mogden Park.

  ‘Typikeels,’ I grumbled under my breath, spotting Fay Snoggles and Anton Mildew swooping on the rope swings with my ex-best friends, Bunky and Nancy.

  ‘Barry babes!’ shouted Sharonella, clip-clopping over. Behind her, Darren was hanging off a rope by his ankles, his head going the same colour as a Cherry Fronkle.

  ‘I’m head over heels for ya, Shaz!’ he cried.

  Shazza stopped clip-clopping and gasped. ‘Oh my days, Baz, is he yours?’ she said, pointing at my brand new doggy.

  ‘Shazza, meet Hamburger,’ I smiled, and she stuck her hand through the fence and shook his paw like she was one of those gooseberry bushes from the other day.

  Hamburger sniffed Sharonella’s fingers, his four little legs prancing about on the spot all excitedly as Nancy and Anton wandered over.

  ‘A sausage dog?’ gasped Nancy. ‘Oh Barry, he’s just lovely!’

  Anton put his hand up like he was at school. ‘Slight problemo,’ he sneezed. ‘I’m allergic to sausage dogs.’

  ‘That is SO you, Mr Mildew!’ chuckled Nancy.

  Darren waddled up, pulling an aerosol can out of his pocket. It had ‘Feeko’s Jinx for Men’ written on the side of it, which is that stuff people with hairy armpits like my dad’s spray on themselves so they don’t stink so much.

  ‘Let’s have a go on that when you’re finished, Daz,’ said Bunky, and I twizzled round, getting ready to introduce my new best friend to my old one.

  Nigel & Snoggy

  ‘Oh my unkeelness!’ cried Bunky, spotting Hamburger.

  He grabbed Darren’s can of Jinx and lifted his T-shirt, spraying it on to his comperleeterly non-hairy armpits. ‘So this is the amazkeel news, eh Barry?’

  I nodded, and Fay smiled at my brand new pooch, but not like she seemed all that bothered.

  ‘I see what you mean, Baz,’ said Bunky, patting Hamburger. ‘He really is a millikeels times better than a girlfriend!’

  Fay shoved Bunky. ‘Nigel Zuckerberg!’ she cried. ‘Take that back this instant.’

  Bunky nudged Fay with his shoulder. ‘Sozzles, Snoggy,’ he said, and I almost puked all over my trainers.

  I looked at Fay. ‘Do you wanna pat him, Snoggles?’ I said, pretending to be nice to her. She was my ex-best friend’s girlfriend, after all.

  Fay shook her head. ‘Nah, it’s alright,’ she said. ‘I’m not that into dogs.’

  Bunky chucked the Jinx back to Darren. ‘Fay collects teaspoons,’ he said, like that was something to be proud of.

  I tried to peer into Bunky’s hairdo and see what was going on inside.

  Maybe Fay had swapped his hamster-sized brain for some kind of cuddly heart one instead.

  Sharonella fluttered her eyelashes at me and pointed at Darren’s aerosol can. ‘You should have a spray, Baz,’ she said. ‘Us girls can’t resist the stinx of Jinx!’

  Hamburger woofed like he thought it was a good idea.

  ‘No Jinx for Loser,’ barked Darren. ‘Gotta have a girlfriend to use this stuff.’

  ‘But I’ve got a sausage dog now,’ I said, and Darren snarfled.

  ‘A sausage dog ain’t no girlfriend, Barold,’ he said, stuffing the can back into his pocket and staring down at Hamburger. ‘That fing do any tricks?’

  ‘We’re working on a couple,’ I said. ‘These things take time.’

  ‘Show us then, Barry,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Erm . . .’ I said, trying to think of an easy one. ‘Sit!’ I shouted, because everyone can make a dog sit.

  Hamburger wandered over to Anton and sniffed his trainer. ‘Waaahhh!’ he shrieked. ‘Get him away from me, Mrs V!’

  ‘Leave Anton alone, doggy!’ I ordered.

  ‘SOZZAGIS!’ yelped Hamburger, his bark sounding a teeny weeny bit like he was saying the word ‘sausages’.

  ‘Did he just say sausages?’ gasped Sharonella. ‘Oh my days Baz, that is SO random!’

  I shrugged, pretending like it was no big deal. ‘Yeah, that came built-in,’ I said, even though it was the first time I’d heard it too.

  Fay did a yawn. ‘Amazekeels,’ she said. ‘Can we do something else now?’

&n
bsp; ‘How about Gooseberry Bush Cafe?’ said Sharonella, pointing to the other side of Mogden Park. ‘Me and my gran go there all the time.’