The pet shop owner, Mr Widgett, was surprised and a bit scared to see five pirates come marching into his shop. Mr Widgett was a small, hairy man and he was holding a small, hairy dog in his arms. The little dog had bright eyes and a pink tongue that stuck out.
‘Can I help you?’ asked Mr Widgett, putting the dog on the floor. It immediately began to bark and bounce up and down at the same time.
Captain Blackpatch eyed it with annoyance.
‘We want a dog,’ he declared. ‘Not that titchy tiny kind of thing, but a proper dog.’
‘A big one,’ said Lumpy Lawson, holding a hand above his head to show how big the dog should be.
‘With big teeth,’ added Polly.
‘Big and sharp as sharks’ teeth,’ declared Molly.
Bald Ben gave Mr Widgett and the bouncy dog a friendly smile. ‘I like that one,’ he murmured.
The other four pirates turned and stared at Bald Ben. Captain Blackpatch shook his head and growled. ‘That dog is about as big as a melon and about as much use.’
‘Except you can eat melons,’ Polly butted in.
‘You can eat small dogs,’ said Lumpy Lawson, which wasn’t very nice of him at all. Mr Widgett let out a tiny, horrified squeak and Lumpy turned rather red. ‘So I’ve been told,’ he went on quickly. ‘With gravy. I’ve never tried it myself.’
Mr Widgett cleared his throat carefully and said that, as it happened, he did have an Irish wolfhound, which was one of the biggest kinds of dog in the world. Captain Blackpatch nodded eagerly.
‘A wolfhound, eh? That sounds just the job. A wolfhound! It must be very fierce if it’s a wolfhound.’
‘With big sharp teeth,’ added Polly.
‘I said that first,’ Molly argued. ‘I said sharp as sharks’ teeth. Nurr.’
Mr Widgett brought in the wolfhound. The dog was truly large, almost as tall as Polly and Molly. The shaggy giant stood there and blinked brainlessly at them.
‘Her name is Flower,’ Mr Widgett told the pirates.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t call a great big fierce dog like that Flower!’ snorted the captain. ‘We are going to call it Heart-Ripper.’
‘Crunch-Munch!’ said Lumpy.
‘Bum-Biter!’ yelled Polly.
Bald Ben looked at the huge, grey, shaggy wolfhound. ‘Cuddles,’ he said with a soft smile, and the big beast leaned up against the muscle-bound pirate and licked his hand.
Mr Widgett gave the pirates a couple of sacks of food and off they went back to the truck. With a lollop and a flollop Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles leaped into the back. The Indoor Pirates clambered up after her and the wind blew through the dog’s shaggy fur and big, floppy ears all the way home.
In the driving seat Captain Blackpatch smiled broadly. He knew it was going to be just brilliant when they got back to the house. They would be safe forever with their enormous burglar-biting guard dog.
The wolfhound soon made itself at home at number 25 Dolphin Street. First of all, it sniffed its way to the kitchen. On the way there it knocked over the coat stand in the hallway, swept the telephone off the table with its waggy tail and crashed through the kitchen doorway so hard that the door smashed into the wall and made a picture fall off and break on the floor.
‘Stop it!’ yelled Captain Blackpatch. ‘I’ve only just tidied everything up!’
‘We did the tidying!’ shouted Polly.
‘Exactly,’ added Lumpy, and the pirates glared at their captain.
Blackpatch grunted and grumbled and finally pointed out that the other pirates had only done the tidying up because he had told them to, so really he should get the credit.
Meanwhile, Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles was steadily eating her way through breakfast, lunch, tea, supper and all food stops in between. By the time she had finished the kitchen floor was covered in ripped packets and chewed shreds of cardboard. Food lay scattered in every direction.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Captain Blackpatch clutched his hat in despair. The dog gazed at him vacantly, licked her chops, wandered into the lounge and threw herself on the sofa. The sofa was so surprised that it fell over backwards, and there the two of them lay – the sofa and the dog – and Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles went to sleep.
And snored.
VERY LOUDLY.
Captain Blackpatch folded his arms and gazed at the wolfhound. ‘That beast is going to be a very good guard dog,’ he said determinedly. ‘Now we shall be able to sleep safe in our beds, which reminds me that I need some sleep myself. You lot tidy up while I go upstairs and have a rest, I’m worn out.’
‘But you’ve only been up an hour or so, Captain, said Bald Ben.
‘Ben, I have been thinking and thinking is very tiring. Good night.’
‘Good morning, said Polly pointedly.
‘Good afternoon,’ Molly contradicted.
Captain Blackpatch disappeared upstairs while the remainder of the Indoor Pirates tidied up, again. They had just finished when their new wonder guard dog woke up. Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles got to her feet, stretched her long body and knocked over two dining chairs. Then she decided to go exploring.
The dog wandered out into the hallway and headed up the stairs. The four pirates grinned at each other. Their brave captain was up there, asleep. They crept up the stairs behind the wolfhound so that they could see what was going to happen next.
Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles went into the bathroom and tried eating the soap. She didn’t like it so she spat it on to the floor in several chewed-up, useless lumps. She climbed into the tub, dumped the towels from the towel rail into the bath and somehow managed to turn on the shower.
In the next few seconds several things happened. The dog got soaked, the towels got soaked, the dog tried to jump out of the bath but slipped on the wet sides and fell over. She rolled about getting even wetter and finally managed to heave herself out of the tub. Then she fled from that nasty room where it rained all the time and headed straight for Captain Blackpatch’s bedroom.
Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles burst through the door without even opening it. The panels splintered into a thousand fragments of wood. The dog hurled
herself on to the bed and immediately began to roll about, frantically trying to get herself dry.
Captain Blackpatch was struggling beneath the weight of the bedraggled dog and the whole thing turned into a gigantic wrestling match.
‘Help!’ yelled the captain. ‘Save me!’
‘WOOF!’ went the dog and promptly sat on his face.
‘Gerroff! You’re suffocating me!’ squawked Captain Blackpatch.
‘WOOF!’ repeated the wolfhound.
‘And don’t bark in my ear, it hurts!’
‘WOOF!’
They struggled and fought and barked and shouted until at last the bed legs broke, the bed crashed to the ground and both dog and pirate rolled on to the floor. By this time the captain’s bedroom had turned into a huge tangled, mangled pile of sheets and blankets, with muddy paw marks going in every direction.
In the end, it was Bald Ben who saved the day. He waded into the mess, grabbed the wolfhound with his muscly arms and pulled her from the wreckage. Ben carried the hound downstairs and outside to the truck. He dumped her in the back. The other pirates trooped out, followed at length by a very dishevelled and angry, but silent, captain.
Blackpatch drove them all straight back to the pet shop. Mr Widgett looked at the pirates in surprise, while the little hairy, bouncy dog did a lot of bouncing and barking and wagged his tail very hard at Bald Ben and tried to leap into his arms.
‘This wolfhound is useless,’ snapped the captain. ‘I have never come across such a useless, dopey dog. We want a different one.’
‘This one,’ smiled Bald Ben, because by this time the bouncy dog had finally managed to jump into his arms. It was of course the dog that Bald Ben had wanted all along.
And so the pirates left Heart-Ripper-Crunch-Munch-Smelly-Belly-Bum-Biter-Cuddles at the shop and took their new small dog home, where she soon settled in and proved to be a very good guard dog indeed – despite her size.
Captain Blackpatch told the other pirates to tidy up the house but this time they refused. So the captain had to sort out the bathroom and his bedroom while the others stayed with their new small dog downstairs and tried to think of a good name.
‘Bouncer,’ suggested Lumpy Lawson.
‘Smelly-Belly,’ said Molly.
‘You said that last time, stupid,’ snapped Polly. ‘Bum-Biter is much better.’
‘You said that last time,’ argued Molly. ‘Stupid yourself.’
The twins argued and Bald Ben gazed fondly at the little dog nestling in his lap, with his tongue still sticking out.
‘Cuddles,’ said Bald Ben firmly. ‘Without all those other bits we had before. Just Cuddles.’
And they all went to sleep.
(Except for Captain Blackpatch, who was still tidying up, and besides, his bed was broken.)
THE END
