The Sausage Dog of Doom!, page 3
Rocket quickly sat up and wagged his tail eagerly, while Oscar held a paw up to his mouth and uttered a sound that he had never made before.
‘Shhh!’ whispered the dachshund.
The Sausage Dog of Doom!
When he was trapped in the cage with no hope of escape, Rocket was willing to be shot across the galaxy along with the ship, so long as the other Spacemutts were safe and planet Earth was protected. But now he was watching Oscar swing silently down the wall like a gymnastic sausage, and his mind was racing with ideas about how to escape the cage and get the mini dachshund home.
His mind whirring, the captain leaped up and scanned the cockpit. Fluffkins and her servant were piloting the airship, which was obviously a two-cat job because Baldy was working doubly hard while the empress spat orders at him. Then Rocket looked around and spotted the key to his cage on a hook above them.
By the time Oscar had made it down the wall, the captain had devised a plot to defeat the Siamese Samurai with the dachshund in the starring role. Tail wagging eagerly, the new recruit listened carefully to Rocket’s instructions. Then, without saying a word, he nodded that he understood and quickly set to work on phase one: opening the cage!
Rocket could only watch as the sausage dog crept down the catwalk towards the front of the ship, freezing whenever one of the meditating moggies shifted or stirred around him, and when the brave little sausage dog reached the cockpit the captain held his breath.
The key to the cage was way out of reach for such a small dog, and if Oscar moved any closer the empress might see him, so he searched for something to lift the key and found the perfect thing: Baldy’s fake dog’s tail-on-a-stick.
Oscar crept around the empress and took the fluffy stick in his mouth. The brown fur tickled his nose and made him want to giggle and sneeze at the same time, but he focused on the task at hand and moved in on the prize. Tilting his head and craning his neck, the dachshund managed to unhook the key and quickly trotted away with it.
Rocket smiled proudly as Oscar returned with the key and swiftly released the lock, while the captain held the cage door in his teeth so it wouldn’t creak open, alerting the horde of cats around them.
‘Are you ready to initiate phase two?’ he whispered through the bars.
Oscar grinned and nodded with excitement.
Rocket released the cage door, which dropped down with a massive clang, and watched as hundreds of pairs of almond-shaped eyes flicked open and thousands of razor-sharp claws were unsheathed. In the cockpit Lady Fluffkins turned towards the dogs, raised her hackles in anger and issued a simple order to her deadly army.
‘Get them!’ she hissed.
The Siamese Samurai immediately leaped from their chambers. Some swung swords and jabbed daggers, while others flicked nunchucks and warrior staffs, but most of the cats we completely unarmed, moving down the walls like lightning, leaping and rolling and landing in lethal kung-fu poses.
The cats had the dogs surrounded in no time so Rocket jumped up on to the cage, using the furry stick to fend off any overhead attacks. Oscar couldn’t jump so high, so he remained at ground level, looking helpless as the advancing army closed in.
‘What a cowardly captain you are!’ mocked Lady Fluffkins, slinking though the ranks of Siamese Samurai. ‘You leave your helpless mini fleabag to fend for himself, while you take the only weapon.’
‘Oscar may look helpless, but he has hidden talents,’ said Rocket, tearing two lumps of faux fur from the stick.
‘No one can defeat the Siamese Samurai! And certainly not a dinky little dog that can’t even grow proper legs!’ scoffed the empress, laughing at the dachshund. ‘Their minds are completely in tune through deep meditation . . .’
‘Oh, yes, the meditation,’ Rocket interrupted, stuffing the tufts of fur in his ears. ‘I expect they need lots of peace and quiet so they can focus on all of those martial arts and deadly skills you mentioned?’
Before Fluffkins could answer, Rocket nodded to Oscar and then watched with delight as the little dog acted out the final phase of their plan by unleashing Armageddon in his own special way. Having remained silent for almost an hour, the mini dachshund let rip with a torrent of high-pitched, ear-splitting, frenzied yapping.
‘YAP! YAP! YAP!’ yapped Oscar, racing round the cage as fast as his tiny legs could carry him. The noise blasted off the curved walls of the chamber that made it sound even louder, and was immediately met by the strange and terrified noises of the startled Siamese Samurai!
‘WOWOWOWOWOOOONG!’ they squealed.
The cats leaped away to escape the deafening Dog of Doom, clinging to the walls with their razor-sharp claws and yowling with fright. A life of silent meditation had definitely not prepared them for the yappiest yapper in the universe.
‘Get your claws out of my airship, you fools!’ yelled Lady Fluffkins, but the frightened felines could hear nothing over the wall of noise, so they didn’t even notice when tiny hissing holes appeared in the rubber.
‘TIME TO GO, OSCAR!’ barked Rocket, but not even his booming voice could be heard above the yapping and yowling and increasingly loud hissing of air, so he leaped down from the cage, grabbed the dachshund by the collar and bounded towards the exit.
With Oscar still yapping, Rocket hit the door release with a paw and bolted down the maze of hallways, walls sagging and shrivelling around them, while Lady Fluffkins tried to command hundreds of hysterical cats to retract their claws.
But it was already too late.
The moment Rocket and Oscar leaped aboard the Rover and released it from the airship’s docking station, the bone balloon finally popped and spiralled away at speed, and it didn’t run out of gas until Fluffkins and her shrieking Siamese Samurai were far across the galaxy.
Silent Sausage Dog
‘Do you think we’ve dealt with Lady Fluffkins once and for all?’ asked Oscar, as the Spacemutts returned to the Pooch Pound just in time for morning visitors. ‘Because then we can all behave ourselves and find new homes.’
‘I don’t think so, little one,’ said Rocket. ‘The feline forces are all over the galaxy. Someone will have picked up the empress and returned her to the Catnip Nebula, where she will no doubt be plotting another invasion.’
‘But Earth is safe for now, thanks to you,’ said Butch.
‘How did you do it, Oscar?’ asked Poppy, having wondered about this all the way home. ‘How did you manage to stay quiet for so long, especially with so many cats around?’
‘I remembered something the captain told me,’ said the dachshund.
‘What did I say?’ Rocket frowned.
‘Sometimes it’s smart to be silent,’ whispered Oscar. ‘And it worked so well that I’m going to try it out on the visitors today.’
‘Then I don’t think you’ll be here long,’ laughed Rocket. ‘And when you go to your new home, you can help the Spacemutts by saving up your yaps for any cats that you see acting suspiciously.’
‘Yes, Captain,’ said the sausage dog. He tried to do a paw salute but his tiny legs couldn’t quite reach, so he wagged his tail instead.
Oscar kept wagging his tail all day long when the visitors arrived. He was excited by all of the happy people making a fuss over him, but managed to stay calm and greet them nicely, while Rocket, Butch and Poppy were making a racket in their kennels.
By the end of the day the mini dachshund had caught the attention of one particular family with lots of noisy children who would never leave him alone for long or mind the odd yapping fit. Because even though it’s sometimes smart to be silent, it’s also lovely to be loud from time to time.
When it was time for Oscar to go to his new home, the family led him past the other three kennels and chuckled with joy when Oscar gave each of his kennel mates a happy yappy goodbye.
As the warden closed the doors for the night, Rocket, Butch and Poppy settled on their blankets to sleep in peace and quiet. They were all tired, but very proud of how the deafening dachshund had managed to become a silent sausage dog to save planet Earth.
The Spacemutts dreamed of capturing Lady Fluffkins soon, so that they could start behaving for the visitors and find loving families who would offer them a happy home too.
Maybe next time . . .
Michael Broad lives in Surrey on Planet Earth, where he writes and illustrates books for children of all ages, including the Jake Cake series, which was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Prize. Michael loves dogs, daydreaming and anything to do with astronomy.
www.michaelbroad.co.uk
Other books by Michael Broad
Spacemutts: Fluffy Assassins from Mars!
Spacemutts: Attack of the Ninja Kittens!
Spacemutts: The Hairball of Horror!
First published 2012 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2012 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com/childrenshome
ISBN 978-1-4472-1321-5 EPUB
Copyright © Michael Broad 2012
The right of Michael Broad to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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MICHAEL BROAD
Earth: The final frontier in the epic battle between cats and dogs
The evil empress Lady Fluffkins has launched a fleet of deadly flying saucers from Mars, and it’s up to the plucky Spacemutts to save the world (again!). But their newest recruit, Scamp, is only a puppy. Is he ready to be a hero?
MICHAEL BROAD
Earth: The final frontier in the epic battle between cats and dogs
Meet the poshest poodle in the universe! New recruit Monty won’t ever get his paws dirty, even on an intergalactic mission. But when a huge horrible hairball is hurtling towards Earth, will Monty learn to muck in when his friends need him most?
Michael Broad, The Sausage Dog of Doom!
