Free Labradoodle on the Loose by T.M. Alexander Page B

us. Bee’ll be fine, won’t you?’ said Patrick.
    â€˜We can’t leave her. She’s
eleven
,’ said Louis. He waved his arm across the room. ‘They’re all
eleven
.’ Patrick didn’t look as if he cared whether we were eleven, or whether we were elves. He just wanted to go out. I decided the brothers (well him anyway) weren’t as nice as I thought.
    Bodger, Slim and Rasher headed for the door.
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Slim. ‘Just having a laugh.’
    Teapot stayed where he was – leaning back on his chair with one foot resting on the edge of the table. Copper Pie kicked Teapot’s leg away and he nearly fell over backwards. ‘Steady on,’ he said. (I thought people only spoke like that in old films.) Then he got up and left.
    Louis followed them all out. ‘I’ll be back in a sec, Bee.’
    The back door banged shut.
Phew! Crisis over
. The exact second I had that thought there were two quick hard knocks on the front door.
Or maybe not
. . .

Knock, Knock . . .
    We all looked at each other. There were two more short sharp raps on the door. We did more looking.
    â€˜It must be them,’ said Lily. ‘Mucking about.’
    â€˜Must be,’ said Jonno.
    â€˜Same,’ said Fifty.
    â€˜So no point answering,’ said Copper Pie.
    â€˜Unless it’s your mum,’ I said to Bee.
    â€˜She has a
key
, Keener.’
    Whoever was knocking definitely didn’t have a key. This time there were three raps.
    â€˜I’d better get it,’ said Bee. ‘Maybe Patrick’s stuffed Louis in a tree or something.’
Not the first explanation I’d have thought of, but Bee knows her brothers better than we do
.
    Bee hurried to the door and we shadowed her. I don’tknow why but I was a bit spooked. She opened the door.
    â€˜You took your time —’ The person at the door stopped mid-sentence.
Oh dear!
It was Sergeant Farrow, dog-finder, little-sister-finder, and, at this moment, not the nice police-man we knew, but an angry-looking policeman. He had the same woman officer with him.
    â€˜Hello,’ said Fifty.
    â€˜Not you kids again,’ he said.
Not pleased to see us
was an understatement.
    â€˜Is there a problem?’ said Jonno.
    â€˜Yes, that is usually why we bang on doors at . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘. . . ten o’clock at night.’
    What had we done?
The only thing I could think was that maybe
The Italian Job
was a 15 certificate and the TV licensing people had a monitor inside the telly and could see we were only eleven.
    â€˜Are your parents in?’ said the woman police officer.
    Bee shook her head. ‘But my brother’s here.’
    â€˜Where exactly?’ said Sergeant Farrow.
    â€˜In the garden, I think,’ said Bee.
    He scanned our faces before he continued. ‘There’s been a complaint about the noise coming from this house. And suggestions of a fight.’ I knew he thought it was us. If only Bodger and Teapot and that lot hadn’t just left.
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Jonno. ‘It wasn’t us.’
    â€˜Of course it wasn’t,’ said Sergeant Farrow. ‘It was all the other people in the house.’ He made a point of lookingbehind us for all the non-existent people. ‘Shall we see if we can find that brother?’
    We moved aside to let the two of them in. Bee went to the kitchen, they followed and we trailed behind. No whispering, no funny looks. I don’t know about the others but I was thinking about the Three Strikes Law – we’d lost the dog, stolen Probably Rose and were guilty of being in a noisy house. Did that mean we were in big young-offenders’-institute-type trouble?
    Louis came in the back door at the same time as Bee stepped into the kitchen from the hall. He saw the uniforms. They saw him.
    â€˜Well, well, another familiar face,’ said Sergeant Farrow.
    Louis went beetroot, worse