The Dog’s Dinner

As if in response to Bob’s words Jack’s tummy rumbled loudly.

“As a matter of fact right now I’ve got an empty stomach,” Jack confessed. “I don’t suppose you could make this machine give me some money, could you? If you did I could get myself something to eat on the way home”.

“Nice try” said Bob, “but no can do. If I start giving away money I might blow my cover. Off you go.”

With his stomach still rumbling with hunger Jack headed for home. He’d need to summon the others.

As well as being a GUNGE agent, Jack was also an inventor. He loved nothing more than fiddling around with bits and pieces to make prototypes of his latest ideas. Recently he had been working on remote-control flying machines. After spending some time on a remote-control Frisbee he was currently developing a new and improved helicopter.

When he got home Jack made himself a quick toasted-cheese sandwich to deal with his hunger and then ran up the stairs to his room. He pulled out his latest experiment from its storage place under his bed. It was a magnificent model helicopter, built from bits and pieces scavenged from a dozen different kits. Jack’s hybrid helicopter was designed to fly higher and carry a greater weight than any of the ones you could buy off the shelf in the model shop.

Jack opened his bedroom window and placed the chopper on the windowsill. He then fixed the payload carrier – an old hamster exercise ball – to its landing gear. He ripped a piece of paper from the back of his school rough book and wrote a quick note to his friend Oscar – Meet me in the tree house ASAP – and then stuffed the note inside the ball. Now he was ready.

Jack picked up the remote control and started up the little helicopter’s engine. It lifted into the air and flew perfectly, under Jack’s careful piloting, towards the house that backed on to Jack’s back garden. This was where Oscar lived. Jack carefully negotiated his flying machine through the branches of the tree at the bottom of Oscar’s garden and around the shed suspended in the tree, which was their base of operations. Finally the chopper approached Oscar’s bedroom window.

Jack bit his lip. Now for precision flying – one mistake and his precious experiment would be smashed to pieces.

Carefully Jack made the helicopter bump gently into the window. Back and forth, back and forth; the chopper tapped quietly on the glass. Would it be loud enough for Oscar to hear? Suddenly the window opened and Jack wrestled with the controls to back the aircraft out of the way of the glass. Oscar appeared at the window and saw the helicopter hovering there, with the ball hanging underneath it.

Pressing the joystick, Jack flew the helicopter forwards so that Oscar could reach out and take the message. He read it and then gave a big thumbs-up sign to Jack. Mission accomplished.

A few minutes later the pair of them were in the tree house. Oscar held up the helicopter.

“Your latest invention?” he asked.

“Yep,” said Jack.

“What’s so special about it?”

“It can lift really heavy weights,” said Jack.

Oscar pulled a face. “Wow. That’ll come in really useful”, he said sarcastically.

Jack ignored him, pulling another gadget out of his pocket. “Now to get Ruby over here”, he announced.

Oscar was peered at the small black object in Jack’s hand. “What’s that then?” he asked. “Modified GPS? A radio transmitter?”

Jack waved it under Oscar’s nose.

“Mobile phone,” he said and, laughing, began to dial Ruby’s number.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_47dbd0de-dc3e-5323-b6fc-7d20e803ab8e)

It didn’t take long for Ruby to reach them. Less than ten minutes after making the phone call Jack and Oscar heard a loud crashing sound from somewhere below the tree house.

“That sounds like Ruby”, said Oscar with a grin.

Ruby was a girl, but she wasn’t like most of the girls at Oscar and Jack’s school. She shared both the boys’ interests: she liked gadgets as much as Jack did and she loved any kind of dangerous sport, the way Oscar did. If anything, she was even more of an adrenaline addict than him – she was forever trying her hand at all sorts of wild activities, but always while keeping it secret from her mum.

Jack and Oscar ran to the door of the tree house and looked down. Below them there was a large hole in the hedge that ran between Oscar’s garden and the alley.

The hole was Ruby-shaped.

Ruby herself, dressed in knee- and elbow-pads and a helmet, was standing on a skateboard in the garden. Jack saw that Ruby was holding on to a string and was pulling in a large kite attached to the other end.

“I’ve been trying kite-boarding,” she yelled up at them, while wrapping the string deftly round a handle.

“Does your mum know?” wondered Oscar.

“Course not,” replied Ruby, grinning. “She thinks I’m pony-trekking!” She sniffed, then took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose. “Actually, my mum wanted me to stay in today, because I’m getting a cold. But I convinced her that my pony needed brushing”.

Jack saw that beneath her knee pads she was wearing jodhpurs.

Having finished wrapping up the string Ruby placed the kite and skateboard at the bottom of the tree and began to remove a large heavy belt.

“What’s with the utility belt?” asked Jack, noticing that the belt was decorated with wide pockets that looked full of heavy objects.

“Ballast,” said Ruby, but with her blocked nose the word came out strangely.

“No need to be rude, he only asked!” replied Oscar.

“Ballast,” said Ruby more slowly, dropping the belt on the ground. “This is an adult-size kite, if I didn’t weight myself down like this, I’d be flying!”

“Sounds cool!” said Oscar, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, flying would be cool, but how would you land safely, doughnut?!”

Ruby started climbing the ladder to join the lads in the tree house.

“So what’s up?” she asked. “Another alien?”

“Let Snivel explain,” said Jack. A few minutes later the three of them were settling down inside the tree house, ready for Snivel’s briefing.

Snivel was a poor abandoned dog that Jack had adopted.

At least, that’s what Jack’s mum thought.

In reality Snivel was a sophisticated robot made using alien technology acquired by GUNGE operatives. Most of the time he looked like a relatively normal dog (albeit a rather scruffy one with three eyes) but at the right command from Jack he would transform into an alien trap.

Oh, and he ran on snot, instead of batteries.

The third eye was a design flaw that Jack was beginning to find endearing. Snivel, on the other hand, said it made his vision blurry and gave him a headache.

Snivel sat in front of the three kids and pressed a concealed button behind his ear. Instantly a holographic image was projected from his nose into the air in front of him. Jack and the others had a brief glimpse of a revolting-looking insectoid creature before the hologram flickered, and disappeared.

Startled, Jack turned to Snivel. The robot dog’s eyes were half-closed (all three of them) and he was swaying on his feet.

“Need… power…” said Snivel. “Need… snot.”