The Bare Bum Gang and the Holy Grail

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: King Arthur

  Chapter Two: The Smelly Good Deed

  Chapter Three: The Quest

  Chapter Four: An Old Friend Returns

  Chapter Five: The Gatekeeper

  Chapter Six: The Tunnel of Doom or Death or Something

  Chapter Seven: Going Underground

  Chapter Eight: The Wasteland

  Chapter Nine: Land and Sea Operations!

  Chapter Ten: The Tower

  Chapter Eleven: The Approach to the Grail

  Chapter Twelve: A Surprise

  Chapter Thirteen: The Grail

  Chapter Fourteen: The Escape

  Chapter Fifteen: The Return of the Grail

  The Art of Tracking

  About the Author

  Also by Anthony McGowan

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Ludo, Noah, Jamie, The Moan and Jennifer are THE MIGHTY BARE BUM GANG! Well , OK, not that mighty, but they are about to face their toughest challenge yet.

  An old tramp begs the gang to save his mysterious treasure from an abandoned block of flats. Standing in their way are ruthless security guards, a terrifying tunnel of doom and a vicious dog that is almost certainly Zoltan, Hound of Dracula.

  Could the tramp really be King Arthur reborn? Could his treasure be fabled Holy Grail? Probably not, but anything is possible …

  To Patrick Hayes,

  godchild extraordinaire

  Chapter One

  KING ARTHUR

  I WAS IN the park with Noah, trying to get the walkie-talkies to work. Getting walkie-talkies to work is one of the most difficult things in the world to do – about as hard, on average, as strangulating a crocodile with your bare hands, or eating a fried egg without getting a dribble of yolk down the front of your jumper. However, as leader of the Bare Bum Gang, doing impossible things such as strangulating crocodiles, etc., was part of my job.

  Noah was on one side of the park, and I was on the other. ‘Come in, Blue Baboon. Are you receiving me?’

  Blue Baboon was Noah’s secret code-name.

  ‘No,’ yelled Noah. ‘But I can hear you anyway. And if you call me Blue Baboon again, Ludo, I’m going home.’

  Noah didn’t like being called Blue Baboon, because some baboons have blue bottoms, so he thought it meant that I was calling him a baboon’s bum.

  I’d changed the batteries, fiddled with all the switches and dials, and bashed the walkie-talkies on the floor for a while, but it made no difference. We might as well have been talking into our shoes.

  It was then that I saw the tramp. Our town only had one proper tramp. I didn’t know his real name, but everyone called him King Arthur, because he used to wear armour like one of the Knights of the Round Table. Of course, his armour wasn’t real. He’d made it himself. The breastplate was a biscuit tin, his helmet was a paint can, his shield was a car hubcap, and for his lance he had a mop handle.

  Some people said King Arthur was a loony. That was wrong for two reasons. The first is that you shouldn’t call people loonies even if they are, in fact, as crazy as a coot, because it may hurt their feelings. Secondly, I didn’t think that King Arthur was a loony.

  Being a tramp is a very hard job, and if I were a tramp, I’d probably pretend that I was a Knight of the Round Table as well, to take my mind off how rubbish my life was. So, my theory was that he didn’t believe he was a Knight of the Round Table, he just pretended to be one, as a game.

  Miss Bridges says that I’ve got something called a Vivid Imagination, and it’s probably the same with King Arthur.

  We often used to see him wandering around, looking in the bins in the park for items of interest, or sitting outside Sainsbury’s with his helmet in his lap, asking people politely if they had any spare change. My dad always gave him a pound, and I was allowed to put it in his helmet.

  Normally King Arthur walked in a shuffly way, because his shoes were broken and flappy and tied together with string, and maybe also because he had bad legs. But now I saw that he was trying to run, which was hard for him. And he was holding the shield over his head. Then I saw why he was running.

  The Dockery Gang.

  Not all of them, just Dockery, Stanton and Larkin. They were behind King Arthur, laughing and jeering.

  And throwing stones.

  Now, don’t get me wrong – throwing stones is one of my favourite things to do in the world, but not at helpless old people. Or at your next-door neighbour’s windows, unless it was only an accident, and anyway I was aiming at a tin can on top of our fence, and it was completely unfair that I lost ten weeks’ pocket money to pay for it.

  Seeing poor King Arthur being attacked like that made me very angry. Even Dockery had never sunk this low before. Without even thinking I ran over to them.

  ‘Stop it, you stupid idiots,’ I yelled out.

  I know I should have thought of something more rude and funny than idiots, but I was just too furious.

  Dockery paused halfway through throwing a stone, and looked at me. His face went from laughing, to blank, to smiling wickedly.

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘I just want you to stop.’

  ‘Ha! And what if I don’t want to? What are you going to do about it, cry all over us? That’ll really hurt.’

  Larkin and Stanton guffawed, which is a special kind of laugh for idiots.

  ‘Me? I won’t do anything about it,’ I replied calmly. ‘But I know someone who will.’

  By this time Noah had come up beside me. He was about as much use in a fight as a wet lettuce (actually, even I was only about as much use as a dry lettuce, but that’s not the point).

  Dockery stopped guffawing.

  ‘Noah,’ I said, without taking my eyes from Dockery.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Call Jennifer on the walkie-talkie. Tell her to get over here pronto. Tell her to put on her karate outfit – she’s got some butts to kick.’

  Jenny was the girl in our gang. Even though I originally didn’t want her to join, I now thought that every gang should have a girl in it. Just one, though. You don’t really want more than one girl per gang, because then you’ll be in a girl gang, which is one of the worst kinds of gang to be in. Before you know it you’ll be neck-deep in Barbie dolls and My Little Ponies and perfume and flowers.

  But one girl is perfect, especially if she’s Jenny. The thing is that Jenny is brilliant at karate, tae kwon do, judo and kung fu, and is quite capable of kicking the butts of Dockery and his gang without breaking a sweat.

  ‘But – but . . .’ stammered Noah.

  ‘Just do it.’

  Then he got it.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  He twisted a dial and pressed a knob.

  ‘Jenny, are you receiving me? Over.’

  Then a pause, while he pretended to listen.

  ‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘We have a situation here.’

  Another pause. More pretend listening.

  ‘You’ll be right over? Great. And you’ll bring the Ninja Death Stars? Excellent.’

  And then all we could see were the backs (and butts) of Dockery, Stanton and Larkin as they ran for their lives.

  Chapter Two

  THE SMELLY GOOD DEED

  I WAS SO pleased with our trick that it took me a few seconds to remember King Arthur. I looked around and for a moment I thought he’d gone, flapping away in his flappy shoes. But then I saw a heap on the floor and realized it was him.

  Noah saw him too. ‘It’s the tramp,’ he said. ‘I
think he needs help.’

  We ran over to where he was lying. It didn’t look too good. King Arthur was on his back with his eyes shut and his mouth open. It didn’t smell too good, either. I know it’s hard keeping fresh and clean when you’re a tramp, but King Arthur was one of the smelliest tramps around. On a scale of one to ten, where one is having a sniff of a nice flower and ten is having your nose stuck right up a skunk’s bum, King Arthur was about a nine point seven.

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked Noah, fearfully.

  ‘I don’t think so. Usually when you die, your eyes are all starey wide open, like this.’ I did an impression of a starey-eyed dead person.

  ‘Then why isn’t he breathing?’

  Noah sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Noah was easily my best friend, but he definitely spent too much time on the verge of tears. I kept meaning to have a word with him about it, but it would only make him cry if he thought people were talking behind his back about how much he cried.

  I looked more carefully at King Arthur. I’d never seen him this close up before. His helmet had fallen off and rolled away on to the grass. He had a beard and long hair, which looked just right for a Knight of the Round Table, except it was all greasy and dirty. I could see a couple of teeth, which was all he had left. One was at the top on the left and the other was at the bottom on the right, which must have been really annoying.

  Noah seemed to be right – I couldn’t see him breathing at all. I poked him.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr, er, King Arthur. Are you OK?’

  Nothing. Not even a twitch.

  ‘You’re going to have to give him the kiss of life,’ I said to Noah.

  ‘Why me?’ he wailed.

  ‘Well, you’re the doctor.’

  That was true. Noah was our official Gang Doctor. He carried dock leaves around for when we got stung by nettles, and if we got a grass cut he would wee on it for you to stop you getting gangrene, which is when a cut goes bad and your whole body turns into a disgusting gloopy mess, like porridge, and you die in terrible agony.

  ‘But I don’t know how to do the kiss of life, not properly. I’ve only seen it on the telly. I might do it wrong. I might suck when I’m supposed to blow. And anyway,’ he said, finally beginning to cry, ‘he’s so smelly. I know it’s not his fault and it’s hard being a tramp, but I think I’d be sick in his mouth, and that would only make things worse.’

  It was time for me to be a leader.

  ‘Right then,’ I said, in my most grown-up voice. ‘You run to Mrs Cake’s house and ask her to phone for an ambulance. I’ll stay here and . . . and . . . see what I can do.’

  Mrs Cake lived in a bungalow next to the park. She had a nasty little dog called Trixie, who used to like chasing us. But I didn’t think Trixie would attack, not when we were on a mission to save the life of King Arthur. Only the most evil dogs in the world, such as Hitler’s dog, Attila the Hun’s dog, or Zoltan – Hound of Dracula, would attack a boy on a mercy mission. Also, Trixie was the girlfriend of our Gang Dog, Rude Word, so she would probably spare Noah because of that.

  Without saying anything else, Noah ran off. I think he was glad to have a useful job that didn’t involve being too close to the tramp.

  I looked down at King Arthur again. If you half-closed your eyes he really did look like a king, with his beard and long hair. And here he was, dying, right in front of me.

  Well, I couldn’t let that happen. Noah might not know how to do the kiss-of-life, but I did. My scout group did a lesson in Artificial Respiration, using a special Kiss-of-Life dummy called Doris. I ran through what we’d learned.

  First, you check the mouth for obstructions, which means twigs, rocks, mice, vomit, puke, etc. Then you lift up their neck and sort of shove their head back. Then you squeeze their nose, and only then are you allowed to blow into their mouth. Or something like that.

  I knelt down beside the tramp.

  Close up, the stink was even worse. In school we’d been doing the Victorians, and they had something called The Great Big Stink, which was because all the poo and general yuckiness of London went into the River Thames and it whiffed so badly that millions of people died from the sheer rottenness of it, and the rest of them ran away to India, Africa, etc., etc., and invented the British Empire.

  Well, as bad as The Great Big Stink stank, it probably didn’t smell as bad as King Arthur, up close.

  But that didn’t matter. He was a human being, just like you or me or the Queen, and he deserved to live. Holding my breath, I got ready to deliver the kiss of life.

  I had just begun to open his mouth to check for the twigs, mice, etc., when one of King Arthur’s bloodshot eyes opened.

  ‘Who the heck are you?’ he spluttered.

  It was such a shock I thought I was going to have a heart attack, and then he would have had to give me the kiss of life.

  ‘Oh, sorry, I thought you were dying.’

  King Arthur opened his other eye. ‘We’re all dying,’ he said, ‘from the day we’re born.’

  ‘You sound like my friend The Moan,’ I said.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow, but then flopped down again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘Just need to rest my eyes for a minute.’

  His eyelids drooped.

  ‘My friend’s gone to call for an ambulance,’ I said, trying to reassure him.

  It had the opposite effect. His eyes pinged open again and he tried to get up.

  ‘No doctors. Doctors kill you sure as anything. If they put me in that hospital I’ll never get out alive!’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘They’ll look after you – they’ll give you a comfy bed and nice dinners so you won’t have to sleep on a bench or eat rubbish out of the bins any more.’

  Then, in the distance, I heard the sound of the ambulance siren. I looked up and saw the ambulance on the track leading up to the park. From the other direction I saw Noah running. He’d done well.

  King Arthur sat up and grabbed my arm. His nails were like long black claws. Suddenly I was slightly afraid. I tried to pull away, but the tramp gripped me like an eagle with its talons in its prey.

  ‘Boy,’ he hissed. ‘Listen to me. Listen good, before they get here. I’ve a treasure. A special thing. A magical thing. It’s in my place. My place in the high tower.’

  Then King Arthur let go of me, and pointed with his bony finger. The place he pointed to was a ruined block of flats called Corbin Tower. It had once been bright and shiny and new, but now most of the windows were broken and the concrete was the colour of dead fish, and it stood in the middle of a wasteland. There was a high, barbed-wire fence all around it. No one was supposed to live there. In fact it was about to be blown up to make way for a new leisure centre and luxury apartments.

  ‘But you can’t live there,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard there are wild dogs and giant rats and all kinds of other scary stuff. My dad told me there are monsters and ghouls too, but that’s just to stop us from trying to play there.’

  ‘Monsters? Ghouls? Aye, maybe, maybe,’ said King Arthur, his voice rasping and rattling like chains being dragged over gravel. ‘But listen now, boy. You go, top floor. You bring me back my precious thing. You bring it. Swear to me.’

  And King Arthur gripped me tighter and pulled me close, so his face filled my vision, and I could smell his graveyard breath.

  And I could not stop myself from answering, ‘Yes.’

  But again King Arthur said, ‘You swear? On your life?’

  ‘On my life,’ I said, my voice barely a murmur.

  Chapter Three

  THE QUEST

  AT THAT MOMENT the paramedics from the ambulance arrived, a man and a lady wearing green uniforms.

  Noah, panting, was right behind them.

  ‘He’s alive!’ he yelled delightedly. ‘I thought he was a gonner.’

  ‘Charming,’ said King Arthur.

  The paramedics had a special wheely s
tretcher that went down low so they could put the tramp on, and then high again so they could push it to the ambulance.

  The lady paramedic said, ‘Well done, boys. You did exactly the right thing.’

  I nearly asked if there was a reward for saving tramps, old people, etc., etc., but I stopped myself in case the nice ambulance lady thought that we only did it for the money.

  Noah and I were feeling quite pleased as we watched the ambulance drive away. It’s exactly what the Bare Bum Gang was all about – saving lives, I mean. That, and eating sweets, crushing our enemies, throwing stones in puddles, etc.

  Noah told me that he’d called the others as well, so I thought this might be a good time for a gang feast.

  At that moment something made me turn round, and I saw Larkin lurking behind the broken seesaw. Dockery must have told him to hide and spy on us. I wondered if he was close enough to have heard what King Arthur had said.

  When he saw that we were looking at him, he ran away, although that might have been because the rest of the gang had just appeared – the rest of the gang being Jenny, her brother Phillip, and Jamie.

  We usually called Phillip ‘The Moan’, because there was nothing he wouldn’t moan about. If you gave him a bag with a million pounds in it, he would complain about it being too heavy, or he would say it was the wrong sort of bag. Technically, The Moan was our Gang Admiral, although we didn’t actually have a navy yet.

  We only ever called Jenny Jenny (or sometimes Jennifer), because if we called her anything else, such as Silly Cow, Duck Face, Monkey Bum, Stinky Cheese Girl, etc., etc., she’d have kicked us all into next week, and not even the beginning of next week, such as Monday or Tuesday, but half past eleven on Sunday night.

  Jamie was our Gang General, because he was brave and not very clever. If you were being mean about him, you’d say that each time he counted on his fingers he came to a different number. If you were being kind, you’d say that he was never wrong by more than two.

  ‘What’s been going on?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Important things,’ I replied importantly. ‘Too important to talk about here, where spies are lurking. Let’s go to the den and I’ll tell you the whole story. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.’