The collusion

Phil the gardener had called his dog Jeremy, to hide that it was really a bear. He’d found it next to the sand pit the teenagers frequented when the local landlord wasn’t willing to turn a blind eye, covered in chewing gum and sneezing.

The fur had gone: only one trick worked with gum, and Phil wasn’t putting the bear in his freezer. But it had looked eager to stretch its legs, so he’d found the old lead. And there’d been a nip in the air, so he’d dug out the Halloween costume from 1976.

And that had been that.