The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Also Available

  Coming Soon

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One THE RAID

  Chapter Two THE MYSTERY BOY

  Chapter Three THE SPECIAL MIXTURES

  Chapter Four AMBUSHED!

  Chapter Five RESCUE?

  Chapter Six THE DISCOVERY

  Chapter Seven THE TRAGIC FAL L OF LUDO

  Chapter Eight POOR OBI-WAN

  Chapter Nine ALFIE

  Chapter Ten THE UNTHINKABLE (OR THE UNDOABLE)

  Chapter Eleven THE TEST

  Chapter Twelve YIPPEE!

  Chapter Thirteen THE SHOE

  Chapter Fourteen OVERHEARD

  Chapter Fifteen AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  Chapter Sixteen THE BRIL LIANT PLAN (AND A TALKING POT TY)

  Chapter Seventeen THE TREE

  Chapter Eighteen DISCOVERED!

  Chapter Nineteen NOAH'S TAIL - I MEAN TALE - OR IS IT TAIL? OK THEN – NOAH'S STORY

  Chapter Twenty THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE LIMPOPO RIVER

  Chapter Twenty-one VICTORY!

  Ludo's Top Ten Tips for Repelling Your Enemies

  Extract: Football Face Off!

  Battle Of The Dogsnatchers

  COMING SOON!

  Astrosaurs

  Cows In Action

  Astrosaurs Academy

  The Revenge Files Of Alistair Fury

  THE BARE

  BUM

  GANG

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  Also Available:

  THE BARE BUM GANG AND

  THE FOOTBALL FACE-OFF

  THE BARE BUM GANG BATTLE

  THE DOGSNATCHERS

  Coming Soon:

  THE BARE BUM GANG

  AND THE HOLY GRAIL

  www.barebumgang.com

  ANTHONY MCGOWAN

  Illustrated by Frances Castle

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407049922

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  THE BARE BUM GANG AND THE VALLEY OF DOOM

  A RED FOX BOOK

  ISBN: 9781407049922

  Version 1.0

  First published in Great Britain by Red Fox,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  This edition published 2009

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Text copyright © Anthony McGowan, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Frances Castle, 2009

  The right of Anthony McGowan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Set in Bembo MT Schoolbook

  Red Fox Books are published by Random House Children's Books,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOU SE GROU P Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  To Gabriel McGowan,

  coolest boy in Year 5

  Chapter One

  THE RAID

  The path through the Valley of Doom was narrow, and the dark, humid jungle closed in all around us. Sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes. Exotic birds screeched in the trees, and I could hear the sound of giant, blood-sucking leeches squirming their way towards us through the undergrowth.

  We were deep in enemy territory, so we had to keep absolute radio silence, and if anyone burped or farted they had to do it really, really, really quietly.

  The mission had been planned with the utmost care and attention. We were equipped with the latest hi-tech gear. I had my best binoculars, a magnifying glass, a bow and arrow, one of the walkie-talkies, and a cheese sandwich. The Moan (Phillip) had his cowboy pistols (with caps, so they made a good loud bang), a spear, the lemonade bottle filled with Special Mixture Number Seven, and a sausage roll. Noah, our Gang Doctor, didn't believe in weapons so he carried the funnel, a banana and six little cartons of orange juice.

  Jennifer, the Moan's sister, was also unarmed, but that was because she was lethal in Ninja-style hand-to-hand combat and all she needed was her tracksuit. And her hands. Hand-to-hand combat is hard if you haven't got any hands – say if they were eaten by piranha fish while you dangled them over the side of your boat on the Amazon river.

  Jennifer had the balloons in her bum bag. She hadn't brought any food supplies, but I said she could have half of my cheese sandwich, because I'm so nice.

  Jamie, our Gang General, was wearing his camouflaged commando trousers, which looked really cool. He'd also blackened his face with burnt cork. You do that so the enemy can't see you at night. The trouble was it was half past ten in the morning, so he looked a bit silly, although none of us had the heart to tell him. As well as his black face and combat trousers, Jamie had the other walkie-talkie.

  The walkie-talkies would have been brilliant for a secret mission like this, except that the batteries had run out. The Moan said that meant they were about as useful as a chocolate teapot, but then I pointed out that a chocolate teapot was actually very useful indeed because you could eat it. In fact it was miles better than a real teapot, because we don't even like tea.

  I suppose I'd better explain the balloons and the funnel and the Special Mixture Number Seven. But to explain that I'll have to explain why we were on the mission in the first place.

  Chapter Two

  THE MYSTERY BOY

  Jennifer, who is a girl and therefore has a very acute sense of smell, was the first to notice it.

  'Poooooooooooh!' she screamed, one evening when we met up in the den after school. 'Smell that, Ludo!'

  'What?' I asked.

  'Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'

  'Eh?'

  'It smells of wee in here. Absolutely stinks.'

  And it did. We all agreed. Our den smelled of wee.

  'I think I'm sitting on a wet patch,' said Noah, on the verge of tears. We'd all got used to Noah being on the brink of tears. He wasn't a complete cry-baby, just a bit of a wuss.

  'Let's get out of here,' I said.

  So, Noah, me, Jenny, Jamie and The Moan crawled out into the fresh air.

  But fresh air wasn't the only thing waiting for us outside. There was a boy there too. A boy none of us recognized. He had hair so blond it almost looked white, and his eyebrows and eyelashes were the same weird pale colour.

  'Hello,' he said, in a weedy, friendly voice.

  'Hi,' we all said together, because we're not one of those gangs that attack on sight like a pack of rabid wolves.

  'I saw who did it,' the new boy said.

&
nbsp; I stepped forward. I was Gang Leader so I was in charge of important discussions.

  'Did what?'

  'Messed with your den.'

  'You mean weed in it?'

  'Yes. It was that big boy, the one called Docherty – something like that.'

  'Docherty? You mean Dockery?'

  'That's it. I've only just moved here so I don't know everyone's name yet. But not just him – his friends were there too.' Of course.

  The Dockery Gang.

  The Dockery Gang were the mortal enemies of the Bare Bum Gang. Maybe I should explain why we were called the Bare Bum Gang, which is, I admit, a pretty embarrassing name for a cool gang like us to have. But even explaining how we got the name is quite embarrassing, so all I'll do is say that it began as an insult, but then became something we were proud of, a bit like in the Olden Days, when warriors would show their scars and stumps and things to prove how brave they were.

  Back to the wee. There was definitely only one person in the world nasty enough to wee in our den. Some other people might have weed on the roof, but only a criminal mastermind like Dockery would crawl in and wee on the carpet.

  And I knew why he'd done it. Dockery and his mob had always wanted to take over our brilliant gang den, which everyone admits is probably the best gang den anywhere in the universe. But even though Dockery and his mates were bigger than us, we'd always managed to thwart – which means stop – their evil plans.

  Like all brutal dictators and rotten bullies, Dockery hated anything good that didn't belong to him. So even though he couldn't capture our den, he wanted to spoil it for us.

  And this is what he'd stooped to – weeing in our den, so that it smelled all horrible.

  He'd probably got his whole gang to save up their wee for hours beforehand so that they had enough of it to ruin our den.

  'Are you sure it was him?'

  'Pretty sure – big, strong, ugly—'

  'That's him all right.'

  'What are you going to do about it?'

  'Do about it? Mmmm . . . not sure yet.

  We'll have to think it over. By the way, what's your name?'

  'Alfie.'

  'Well, Alfie, thank you very much for telling us about Dockery. Sometimes we let new people into our gang. Jennifer, for instance.' I pointed at Jenny, so Alfie would know which one I meant. 'So there's always a chance we might let you in our gang.'

  'There's not enough room,' hissed The Moan. 'Not unless someone leaves.'

  'Oh yes. But you never know what might happen. One of us might move away or fall into a coma or get attacked by a python—'

  'Or a boa constrictor,' said Noah.

  'Or a boa constrictor,' I continued. 'So you might get a chance. Anyway, you should probably go home now so we can plan our revenge.'

  'All right. Bye then,' said Alfie, and he walked off, looking a bit sad.

  'I think you should have been nicer to him,' said Noah.

  'He did tell us about Dockery,' added Jenny.

  'Perhaps you're right,' I said. 'We'll let him play with us next time. But now let's try to shift this stink.'

  We threw out the old carpet. That got rid of the worst of the smell, but you could still get a faint whiff of something yucky. Noah went home and came back with some of his mum's incense sticks, and we used our special gang matches to burn them. That took away the last of the wee smell, but The Moan thought the perfumy smell it left instead was even worse.

  Luckily our sweet stash hadn't been damaged by the weeing incident. It was in a biscuit tin buried in a hole in the floor, so it would have taken some quite impressive, armour-piercing wee to destroy it, and there's no such thing as that kind of wee.

  Chapter Three

  THE SPECIAL MIXTURES

  So you can see why we all wanted revenge. We had a big debate about what to do. Jamie and The Moan wanted to sneak into the Dockery den and wee all over it.

  'We've got to fight wee with wee!' Jamie demanded.

  I could see how that would have been fair, but also disgusting.

  'We are a civilized gang,' I said. 'We do not go around weeing in other gangs' dens, even if they deserve it.'

  'Well what can we do then?' said The Moan. 'We can't let them get away with it.'

  'Science,' I replied. 'Dockery is no better than a baboon, or a pig. He may think it's OK to wee on people's things, but I don't. We're going to invent something better than wee.'

  'What do you mean "better than wee"?'

  'I mean something even better than wee for making dens smell horrid.'

  'Poo?' asked Jamie hopefully.

  'No, not poo,' I said wearily. 'Poo is even more disgusting than wee, and not scientific at all. We're going to invent a stinky potion, and attack the Dockery den with that.'

  'Brilliant idea,' said Noah, who nearly always supported my plans.

  So then we spent the next week developing the right formula. To begin with we tried following the instructions in George's Marvellous Medicine, which is an excellent book by Roald Dahl. That meant getting every kind of gloopy stuff from the bathroom and kitchen and garage and mixing them up together. The trouble with that plan was that, even though it looked foul, it ended up smelling quite nice. We didn't try drinking any because then we'd either grow enormous like in the book or, more likely, die in agony of poison.

  That was Special Mixture Number One.

  Special Mixture Number Two involved us all collecting ear wax, bogeys, sweat and anything else not very nice that came out of our bodies, except for wee and poo (because we're not baboons or savages).

  Special Mixture Number Two was a failure because even after a week we only had about a teaspoonful altogether. Noah calculated that to get enough to ruin the Dockery den would take twelve years, by which time we'd all be grown up and have jobs, such as postman (or lady), window cleaner, banker, shop assistant, astronaut, lawyer, doctor (or lady doctor), etc., etc., etc., and we would be too busy to use it.

  Special Mixture Number Three was some milk I'd left to go sour, mixed up with an egg I'd left to go bad. It was in my milkshake beaker, because it had a lid. The mixture was coming along quite nicely when my dad found it and drank it, thinking it was a milkshake. He spent the rest of the day in the toilet while Special Mixture Number Three tried to escape out of both ends of him at the same time.

  Special Mixture Number Four was made of Marmite mixed with water. I thought it smelled disgusting; so did Noah, but Jennifer and The Moan actually liked it; and Jamie, who would have got the deciding vote, had a blocked nose and so couldn't smell it at all.

  Special Mixture Number Five wasn't really a special mixture at all. Jamie had the idea of setting off a whole load of Smarties-tube Fart Bombs (STFBs) inside the enemy den. To begin with we all thought that was quite a good idea, which was a surprise because Jamie had only ever had one good idea in all the time we'd known him. But then Noah worked out that we'd need about a hundred STFBs to properly stink out the den, and the only way to set them off would be by stamping on them actually inside the den. So whoever did the stamping would be caught in the stink blast, and probably stinked (or stunk) to death.

  Special Mixture Number Six was good. There was a duck pond in the park on the other side of the town. The water in it was a greeny-browny-slimy-stinky mess. Sometimes you'd see tadpoles wriggling about in the murk, but they always died before they became frogs because the water was so toxic. I think the main reason it was so rank was because the ducks used it as their toilet. We scooped up a bucketful of the water, making sure we got some of the dead-tadpole-and- duck-poo muck from the bottom of the pond. I mixed it up with a stick. Already it smelled like a tramp's underpants.

  'If we leave this to stew for a couple of days, it'll be perfect,' I said.

  I kept it in our garage. Every chance I got I went in to check on it. Each day the smell got a little bit worse, but I was still dissatisfied. I never once felt like being sick when I smelled it. It lacked something. So, on the third day, I did a w
ee in the bucket. That was all it took. The addition of wee turned Special Mixture Number Six into Special Mixture Number Seven.

  And, OK, you might say that weeing in the bucket was cheating, after I'd said that weeing was for baboons and pigs, etc., etc. However, I would argue that it was all perfectly scientific, because we had other things in the bucket as well, and mixing stuff up together and seeing how it smells is how science got invented in the first place.

  Now all we needed was a Special Mixture Number Seven delivery system. Our combined brains came up with the idea of filling balloons with the mixture, which we would then hurl into the enemy den. One advantage of this plan was that we could use it even if Dockery and his gang were in their den. In fact it would be even better if they were.

  So that was why we were marching through the Valley of Doom equipped with the lemonade bottle full of Special Mixture Number Seven, some empty balloons and the funnel to fill them.

  Chapter Four

  AMBUSHED!

  Our den is at one end of the wood, and the Dockery den is at the other. The Dockery den isn't really a proper den at all, but a tent, which is cheating. To reach it we could either have gone round the wood or taken the muddy track that runs through the trees.

  After we left the den (I was the last one out to make sure we hadn't left any sweets or anything lying around to attract wild animals, savage beasts, dangerous cannibals, etc., etc.), we decided to take the forest track, because it's more exciting and this was a secret mission after all. The track was probably first made by dinosaurs in the Olden Days when the wood was first invented, and then kept open by sabre-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, cavemen and knights as time went on.

  It always feels like an adventure when you walk through the woods, even though it's not that far from the centre of our town. As soon as you get into the trees, the whole outside world disappears and it's just you and crowding branches, thick ferns, birds and whatever else is lurking in there.