At big school we'd stuck together through thick and thin, me watching his back and him watching mine. When we were old enough, we formed the Gang, before it was even called the Bare Bum Gang. I was Leader and he was Gang Doctor. The others, The Moan, Jamie, Jennifer, they all came later. We were the originals. We were the heart. I could stand the others rejecting me, but not Noah.
'Hi,' he said.
'Hi,' I said.
Then we didn't say anything for a few moments. Noah looked at me, and then down at his shoes.
Then he said, 'Can we have a talk?'
'Is it all about what a rubbish leader I was, and how I ate all the sweets, and about how much better things are now that Alfie's in your gang instead of me?'
'No!' said Noah violently. 'It isn't about any of those things.'
And then it all came out in a gush.
'It's terrible now. I hate it. I'm sorry about what we did to you. I know you wouldn't have stolen the sweet stash. Alfie's taken over the Gang and made himself the leader and it's not like it used to be. We don't do anything fun any more, but the others don't really mind because he gives them sweets and presents, especially Jennifer, because he wants her to be his special friend. And none of our traps are properly looked after any more and the Smarties-tube Fart Bombs haven't been filled up for ages, so they probably won't even work if we get attacked. And even worse, Alfie told us that we could do a wee just outside the den, when everyone knows that you have to go at least a hundred metres away when you do a wee or the smell will give away your position to your enemies and wild animals.'
By this stage I'd led Noah into the kitchen and poured him out some milk to calm him down.
'Yes,' I said, in my wise voice, 'it's exactly like the last days of the Roman Empire, when they had rubbish emperors who cared more about feasts and watching ladies dance around with hardly any clothes on than looking after their borders, such as Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall. But what am I supposed to do about it? It's not my gang any more. I'm in the Dockery Gang now.'
'Don't be silly,' he replied. 'I know you're not really in the Dockery Gang. I read about it in a spy book. It's called "being in deep cover". But I saw what you did with my shoe. That's why I came here. You deliberately threw it so that it hit the gutter, didn't you?'
'Well, er, yes, I suppose . . .'
'And you're only pretending to be in the Dockery Gang, aren't you?'
'Oh, yes, well . . .'
'I knew it. So you're a kind of spy, just finding out their secret plans, aren't you?'
'Yes, that's it, I guess . . .'
And when Noah put it like that, it all fell into place. Yes, I was a secret agent. I did aim the shoe so that it hit the gutter and not the roof. Yes, I was planning a brilliant campaign to defeat our enemies and win back the trust of the Bare Bum Gang.
'Let's go to my room,' I said, 'and I'll tell you all about it.'
The very next day Alfie received a letter written on a scrunched-up piece of paper with bogeys smeared on it. The English was completely rubbish, with useless spelling and bad handwriting, exactly as if the person who wrote it was a stupid big bully. This is what it said:
At the same time Dockery received a letter written on pink notepaper decorated with flowers and smelling of perfume.
The writing was incredibly neat and the spelling was perfect. In fact just the sort of letter you would get from a creepy swot.
Chapter Sixteen
THE BRILLIANT PLAN
(AND A TALKING POTTY)
OK, so I guess you're desperate to find out what my plan was. You'll probably have realized by now that coming up with brilliant plans is my speciality, but this one was the most brilliant I'd ever had. In fact it was probably in the top ten most brilliant plans ever invented in the history of the world, even if I say so myself.
The thing about this brilliant plan is that it arrived in the nick of time. You see, getting massacred in the Valley of Doom, and then being kicked out of the Gang, and then temporarily joining the Dark Side, had dented my confidence, and it's hard to think up brilliant plans when your confidence is dented. But Noah's visit had changed all that. Heroes often have periods when they lose their powers and have to go off and sulk for a while. It makes the story much more exciting. Well, I'd definitely lost my powers. And, if I was being honest, I'd have to admit that I'd gone off and sulked.
But now I was back, and my powers were back, and I was ready to rock!
Perhaps the most important part of any plan is good preparation. Lots of perfectly good plans in the history of the world went wrong because of bad preparation, such as the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. It also works the other way round (or vice-versa), such as when England won the World Cup in 1966. Well, I wanted my plan to be like winning the World Cup, and not like getting all blown to pieces in the Charge of the Light Brigade.
When preparing a good plan you need to have everything arranged in steps. The first step was writing those two cunning letters.
The second step was getting some fresh batteries for my walkie-talkies, which I'd been meaning to do for ages anyway. They each needed two AA batteries, four altogether. I dug around in my toy cupboard and got out all my old toys that used batteries, including three robots, a remote-controlled digger, a scary clown that laughed at you in a way that gave you nightmares, and a toy train that made embarrassing chuff-chuff noises.
Not a single one worked.
So then I moved on to the rest of the house. I found two batteries in my dad's electric toothbrush, which my mum got him because she said his teeth were looking green. Then I extracted (which means took out) two more from my sister Ivy's electronic potty.
According to the instructions, the potty was supposed to say 'Well done' and 'Good girl' and 'That's a big one' when you did a wee or a poo in it. But my sister's didn't work properly, and it shouted at you in Chinese, saying things like 'HONG CHOW PONG YU', which frightened her so much that she didn't go to the potty for a whole week, and had to go to hospital to get her poo extracted (which means – oh, I already explained that) by a doctor with a special kind of spoon, called a poo spoon. So taking the batteries out of it was probably the best thing you could do, and not stealing at all.
The third step was to check on the supplies of Special Mixture Number Seven. There was still some left in the bucket in the garage, but not quite enough, so I filled it up with more wee. Technically this made it Special Mixture Number Eight.
The fourth step was Noah's responsibility. He went secretly round to see everyone in the Bare Bum Gang – except of course evil Alfie – and told them the plan. No, not the whole plan, just the part they needed to know, which was where and when they had to meet up, and what to bring with them.
The rest was down to me, my raw courage, and the stupidity of my mortal enemies.
Chapter Seventeen
THE TREE
I'd been up in the tree for half an hour. Half an hour is actually quite a long time to spend in a tree, even if you find a comfortable perch. Usually, when you go up into a tree, it is to get something, such as a ball that is stuck there, or perhaps your trousers, which have been thrown into the tree by a big bully, like Dockery. You don't normally hang around. Hanging around in trees is what you do if you're a monkey or a squirrel, or some other tree creature.
The tree I was in was exactly the same old oak tree I'd mentioned in the letters to Alfie and Dockery, in the deepest, darkest part of the Valley of Doom, not far at all from where we'd been ambushed. It was quite an easy tree to climb, because it had lots of branches near the ground. But I had to go fairly high up to make sure I wouldn't be seen (or heard or smelled, in case I let out a little tummy squeak).
Normally I don't like being high up in anything. It's not the heights I'm afraid of, so much as falling from them and smashing my head in. But I was on a mission, and missions are no places for scaredy cats.
So I gritted my teeth and climbed about as high u
p in the tree as a medium sized giraffe could reach. Giraffes can reach even further than you'd think because their tongues are as long as a killer python (or boa constrictor). Not that giraffes use their tongues for killing, unlike chameleons, and possibly some aliens who have poisonous tongues shaped like harpoons that they use to paralyze you so they can eat you comfortably later on, say when they're watching telly or at a disco.
One of the main problems with trees is that they don't have toilets in them, so when you have to do a wee, you just have to sprinkle it about, willy-nilly. Actually that's quite good fun, although a bit dangerous, because it's not easy to hold on properly and wee willy-nilly at the same time.
I checked to make sure that the walkie-talkies were working, and that the Gang were still in place.
'Blue Baboon, can you hear me? Over.'
I should point out that 'Blue Baboon' was the code name for Noah.
'Yes, I can hear you loud and clear, Ludo – er, I mean Supreme Starfighter General.'
In case you haven't guessed, Supreme Starfighter General was my code name.
'Don't forget to say "over" when you finish. Over.'
'Sorry. Over.'
'Everyone in place? Over.'
'Yes, Supreme Starfighter General. Over.'
I think I heard some sniggering in the background, but it might just have been the wind in the leaves.
Noah's job had been to get the rest of them to the correct position. They were hiding in the high ground above the Valley of Doom. Noah hadn't told the Gang the whole plan. He hadn't even told them what we suspected about the evil Alfie. When you find stuff out for yourself, you learn it much better than if someone just tells you. That was the whole point of the plan – to let my friends find out for themselves how wrong they'd been.
I'd just finished my second wee (because I was bored and wanted something to do, not because I really needed one) when I heard voices.
This was it.
This is what I'd been preparing for.
The great plan was beginning.
'I wonder what that little squirt wants,' said a loud voice I recognized at once as belonging to Dockery. I peered down through the branches, and saw four kids.
'Why don't we just punch him and steal his sweets?' said another voice.
'We had a deal, remember, and a deal's a deal, even when it's with a weasel like Alfie. Still, if I ever find out he's double-crossed us again, then he gets it.'
'Gets what?'
Then I heard the sound of a fist thumping into a palm, followed by laughter. They were right underneath me now.
Then Dockery said, 'Is it raining?'
'Don't think so, why?' replied one of the others.
'I thought I felt something drip on me.'
Whoops! That must have been the last of the wee filtering down through the leaves.
Then another voice said, 'Here he comes now. This better be good.'
It was time to get the equipment ready. I'd already tied a long piece of string round the aerial of my walkie-talkie, ready to lower it down, so that it would pick up what was said.
A walkie-talkie isn't like a phone – you can talk or you can listen, but you can't do both at the same time. To transmit you have to hold down a button when you speak. My plan was to fasten the button down with sticky tape, so it transmitted constantly. I got the tape out of my pocket and wrapped it round lots of times, so it looked like this:
The walkie-talkie was now transmitting, and I hoped Noah could hear it. Very carefully I lowered it down on its string.
'Hi,' came the weak, girlie voice of Alfie.
The others grunted at him. That was their way of saying hello.
'What did you want to tell us, then?' said Dockery.
'Me?' replied Alfie. 'I thought you wanted to tell me something.'
'But you sent me a letter saying you had some vital information about those dweebs in the Bare Bum Gang.'
'No I didn't. You sent me a letter – I knew it came from you because the spelling was very poor. You said to meet you here.'
'No, it was you what wrote the letter. It was on pink paper, just the sort you'd write on.'
'I haven't even got any pink paper. My paper is yellow.'
Well, that was all quite funny, but it wasn't much use to me. I needed some more incriminating evidence.
'I don't know what you're playing at,' growled Dockery, 'but I do know it's something sneaky. You spied for us and told us that those stupid Bare Bum kids were going to raid our den, but then you double-crossed us. For all I know you've got some other sly scheme up your sleeve.'
That was more like it!
'Just bash him,' said Larkin.
'Yeah, mash him,' said Furbank.
'No, please!' squealed Alfie. 'I'll tell you all their other secrets. I'll tell you where the traps are! I'll give you more sweets and money!'
Perfect.
'It's too late for bribery. Wait a minute – what's that?'
'What's what?'
'That dangly thing.'
'What dangly thing?'
'That dangly thing dangling there.'
It was then that I realized they were talking about the walkie-talkie. I'd let it dangle too low. Before I could pull it up, Dockery grabbed the end and yanked. Of course I could have let go, but my walkie-talkie was my favourite toy, and I held onto my end of the string.
You can guess what happened.
I lost my balance and began to fall out of the tree.
Chapter Eighteen
DISCOVERED!
They say that before you die your life flashes before your eyes, but all that flashed before my eyes were leaves. Actually, flashes is probably the wrong word. The oak tree was so thick with leaves and twigs and branches that my fall was the slowest in history. I slid and bumped and crunched my way down until finally I found myself on the ground in a pile of dry leaves.
I looked up into the astonished faces of Alfie and the Dockery Gang. Before they had time to recover from their surprise, I snatched the walkie-talkie from Dockery's hand, and yelled, 'NO AH, ATTACK! ATTACK NOW! GIVE THEM EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!'
I just hoped that they had been listening, and that Noah would understand what had happened, and what he had to do. I expected to hear them charging down the slope to my rescue, just as I'd arranged with Noah.
The group around me looked even more startled than when I'd fallen out of the tree. They glanced nervously into the bushes on either side.
But there were no war cries from the Bare Bum Gang; no charge, no rescue. I'd been abandoned. Either the walkie-talkie hadn't transmitted properly, or they hadn't heard it, or they didn't believe it, or they didn't care. My plan had failed.
Dockery laughed. 'Ha ha ha. What have we got here? Little Ludo did a bit of spying himself, did he? Hoping his friends might come and save him? Looks like he hasn't got any friends. Well, now you're going to get what every spy gets.'
Then he turned and grabbed Alfie, who'd been skulking out of the way, looking pretty miserable. 'Now I see what you were up to. In this together, eh? I never should have trusted you. Well, you get the same punishment.'
'What's that?' asked Larkin, almost panting with pleasure.
'We dunk 'em!'
The Dockery Gang roared their approval.
What he meant was that he was going to throw us in the Great Grey-Green Greasy Limpopo River. It wasn't very deep, but it was muddy and yucky and full of slime and all kinds of horrible creepy-crawlies and leeches and eels, as well as the gnats and mosquitoes and flies that buzzed over it.
A dunking in the stream was about as bad as it could get. I tried to make a run for it, but Dockery threw his huge arm round me, and started shoving me and Alfie backwards towards the edge of the stream. The others formed a line in front of us.
'Well, Alfie,' I said, looking at him, 'we're done for now. You see what happens when you act like a sneak?'
He couldn't return my gaze, but just looked down and shuffled backwards towards the
muddy stream, meekly accepting his fate.
And then I saw something that cheered me up by about eight million per cent. The Dockery Gang were facing us, shoving us towards the stream. So I could see what was happening behind them. And it was good.
Really good.
Chapter Nineteen
NOAH'S TAIL
- I MEAN TALE -
OR IS IT TAIL?
OK THEN – NOAH'S STORY
I'm about to cut to a new scene now, like they do in the movies. I'm going to use my imagination to pretend that I am Noah, back about ten minutes ago, waiting up above the Valley of Doom.
Oh, I wonder what's happening with brave old Ludo hiding high up in that giant oak tree (this is meant to be Noah thinking – I'll do all his thinking in slanty writing, so you can tell). I do wish he'd call again on the walkietalkie. Oh, how nice, a pretty birdie flying by. Ah, look, what a nice flower.
'I'm sick of waiting here,' says Jamie.
'Me too,' says Jenny. 'And these really stink.'
She's holding out her high-powered water rifle.
But it isn't filled with water. It's filled with Ludo's superb new Special Mixture Number Eight, the most lethal and toxic yet. We are all heavily armed. We each have two pistols and one rifle. This is all part of Ludo's brilliant plan. (I told you it was brilliant – see, even Noah agrees.)
'I think this is all stupid,' moans The Moan. 'In fact I think this is worse than stupid. It's plain dumb. I don't know why we're here. Ludo's been thrown out of the Gang, and we all know he'll do anything to get back in it. I reckon this is all just a big trick. And where's Alfie anyway? I know he's turned out to be a bit of a flop, but he's still in the Gang.'
The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom Page 5
