The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom (6 page)

It was pitch black. I was in Mrs Cake's front
garden.

I was holding the rotten egg.

Dockery and his gang had a supply of
rotten eggs that they kept in their den the
same way the Bare Bum Gang kept sweets.
Dockery had written dates on them in felt
tip. Some of them were two years old, which
was how you knew they were really, really
rotten. Eggs of Mass Destruction, you could
call them.

I sneaked up to the front door. I could
hear the snickering Dockery and his
greasy friends behind the hedge.

I was supposed to throw the Egg of Mass
Destruction through Mrs Cake's letter box.
I wasn't happy about this, and I knew it
was a Bad Thing, but it was the only way
I'd be allowed to join the Gang.

I reached the door. I could see some
light escaping from between a chink in
the curtains, and I could hear the telly. I
paused.

'Get on with it, poo-brain,' hissed Dockery
from behind me. 'We haven't got all night.'

With my heart in my throat I carefully
lifted up the flap. The sound of the telly
spilled out. People were laughing. I held the
egg up in front of the opening. I felt sick.
I felt dirty.

'Come on,' said Dockery, louder this
time.

I put the egg through the letter box.

Except that I didn't.

I tried to, but it wouldn't fit. Tap-tap-tap,
it went, as the shell clicked against the metal.
I was so relieved I could have cheered. It
was great. I'd tried to post the egg, but it
wouldn't fit. I'd done my best, so they'd
have to let me in the Gang, but poor old
Mrs Cake wouldn't have stinky egg on her
floor.

I let the letter-box flap fall shut. It sounded
as loud as an explosion. The next thing I
heard was Trixie yapping like a demented
yapping machine invented by a mad scientist.
Trixie was Mrs Cake's Jack Russell terrier.
Her favourite food was children's legs. That's
Trixie, I mean, not Mrs Cake, who'd probably
never even tasted a child's leg.

I don't know why, but somehow the
yapping dog froze me. I just couldn't move. It
was as if I'd been zapped with a paralysing
ray.

The top half of the door was made
of knobbly-wobbly glass, and I could
see Trixie jumping up on the inside, her
pointy snout snarling and snapping. I
suppose you shouldn't really be afraid of
a dog that's
only a little bit
bigger than a
rat, but Trixie
was definitely
scary. After all,
quite a few
things are small
and scary – like
scorpions, black
widow spiders,
evil dwarfs and
Brussels sprouts.

And then, looming up behind Trixie, I
saw the dark shadow of Mrs Cake herself.
We used to say that Mrs Cake was a
witch, but that was silly, because you don't
really get witches any more, except in books.
But even though I knew she couldn't be
a witch, and that she was, in fact, quite
nice, I was still a little bit worried that
if she caught me putting a smelly rotten
egg through her door she might turn me
into a frog, or at least give me warts.

The egg was still in my hand. Mrs
Cake fiddled with the latch on her door. I
crammed the egg into my back pocket the
second before the door opened.

Mrs Cake smiled. Trixie snarled.

'Hello, dear,' she said. Mrs Cake, I mean,
not Trixie.

'H-h-h-hello.'

'It's little Ludo, isn't it? What is it you
want? Is your football in the back garden
again?'

'N-n-n-n-no. Sorry. I, er, came round to
see if you needed anything. At school our
teacher said we had to ask helpless old
people if they wanted us to go shopping for
them or rescue them if they were in danger
or just be nice to them if they were sad and
lonely because they had nothing interesting
in their lives apart from
Countdown
and
Coronation Street
.'

That part was actually true, although I
can't remember if those were Miss Bridges'
actual words. Anyway, I said it all so quickly
that I doubt if Mrs Cake understood it all.

'How kind,' she said. 'Why don't you come
inside and I'll see if I've got something nice
for you?'

No one had ever been inside Mrs Cake's
bungalow before. It was obviously a trap.

She was going to lure me in so she could
wartify me in private.

I expected it to smell of old lady in there,
but it just smelled of house. Her carpet,
though, was so thick I thought I was going
to sink into it up to my neck.

'Just come into the living room and I'll
get you some sweets. Or would you rather
have a pickled onion?'

'Some sweets, please.'

Then Trixie started to bite my shoes,
which made me jump up and down, while
Mrs Cake shouted, 'No, Trixie, no!' Finally
she wrestled the horrid little dog into the
kitchen and then out of the back door.

'You sit down, dear,' she shouted (Mrs
Cake, not Trixie). There was a baggy old
chair and a baggy old sofa. I sat on the
sofa.

CRUNCH .

STINK.

The egg!

The gloopy slime oozed over my backside
and the stench rose up like poison gas.

Mrs Cake came in, smiling, carrying a
plate of biscuits.

'Sorry, got to go,' I yelled. 'I've had an
accident!' And I ran out of the room and
through the hall and out of the front door,
trailing the eggy cloud behind me.

If there was an Olympic gold medal for
embarrassment, I'd have won it.

It was the next evening, a Sunday, and
I was standing in front of the Dockery
Gang outside their den, explaining what
had happened.

'You sat on the rotten egg?' Dockery was
laughing so hard that tears rolled down his
fat face.

'And you said you'd had an accident, so
the old bat probably thought you'd pooed
your pants,' added Larkin, a big line of slimy
drool dangling out of his mouth.

'It wasn't funny,' I said. 'My mum had
to throw my trousers away because of
the smell. They were my third favourite
pair.'

The whole lot of them were bent double
by now, laughing like hyenas.

'OK, boys,' said Dockery at last. 'I say he's
in. I haven't laughed so much since Miss
Bridges slipped and broke her arm in the
playground last year.'

'I didn't think that was very funny,' I
said.

I liked Miss Bridges. She was kind and
also good at doing the voices when she
read us a story.

'Yeah, well, that shows what you know,'
Larkin replied, stepping up close to me.
'Because it was funny. But not as funny as
this.' Then he tried to push me in the chest.
But this time it didn't work. I'd noticed one
of the others had moved behind me, and I
knew they were going to do the same trick
again. When Larkin shoved, I dodged to
one side, and he stumbled forward and fell
over Furbank, who was the one kneeling
down. They ended up sprawling together
on the floor.

I thought I might be in for it from the
others, but they laughed even harder than
they had when it was me falling over or
getting rotten egg on his trousers. Weird sort
of gang, I thought, where they're not even
nice to each other.

Dockery dragged them both up off the
ground and gave them a little shake.

'Enough messing about, boys,' he said,
still chuckling. 'We've got to have a little
celebration to, er, celebrate our new
member.'

'Good idea,' said Larkin. 'Sweets and
Coke, that's what we want.'

Dockery loomed over me. 'Right, give us
two pounds then,' he said.

'Two pounds!' I exclaimed. 'What do you
mean?'

'Three pounds then. It goes up every time
you complain.'

'I'm not complaining, I just didn't realize
I had to pay to be in.'

'Four pounds. Do you want to be in this
gang or not?'

Actually, I wasn't sure any more. I'd
decided that there might be worse things
in life than not being in a gang, especially
if the gang tried to make you be horrible to
old ladies and then gave you smelly trousers.
But it was hard to say that when Dockery
was looming over me like an evil German
zeppelin bomber airship.

So I nodded.

'Cough up then,' said Larkin.

'I haven't got any money with me.'

'Well, you'd better go and get some
then.'

So I went home, got the four pounds
out of my talking robot piggy bank, and
brought it back. Then Dockery sent me to
the newsagent's to get the supplies. I wasn't
allowed to have any of the Coke or sweets
because that was the rule.

But it was done.

I was in.

I was officially a member of the Dockery
Gang.

Yippee.

I was sitting by myself at break time the
next day. I was reading my space-dinosaur
book, which is one of my favourites. It's
about dinosaurs in space. They fight other
dinosaurs, who are also in space. It's one of
the best books ever written about dinosaurs
in space. But for once I couldn't concentrate
on it. Jenny, Noah, The Moan and Jamie
were chatting together. I wanted to go and
talk to them, maybe hang out for a bit.
I even closed my book, using a piece of
cabbage I'd hidden in my pocket to keep
my page. (I'd hidden the cabbage in my
pocket because otherwise Mrs Muffit, the
dinner lady, would have made me eat it at
lunch time.) But then, before I'd had time
to get up, Alfie joined them, and he said
something. They all looked at me quickly
and giggled.

It was because they were laughing at
me that they didn't see Dockery and his
gang come sneaking up. They had to
sneak up these days because of Jenny.
Jenny was a black belt at every martial
art you've ever heard of, including tae
kwon do, karate, bum-kicking and happy
slapping, so sneaking up followed by
lightning attacks and running away was
their only hope. They grabbed hold of
Noah, and wrestled him to the ground.
Furbank ripped off one of his shoes and
chucked it to me before Jenny could do
anything to stop them.

I wasn't expecting the shoe, but I caught
it anyway, because I'm good at catching as
long as it's not something hard like a cricket
ball or a Ninja death star.

'Throw it on the roof,' Dockery yelled at
me.

There was a flat roof covering the bike
shed. It was where things always got thrown
– shoes, lunchboxes, Year One kids.

I could feel everyone looking at me. The
Dockery Gang, the Bare Bum Gang, the
Commandos (that was another gang who
weren't our enemies or our friends), even
the ordinary no-gang kids.

I sensed that this was a Decisive Moment
in World History. What happened next
would change my life for ever, along with
the lives of everyone else involved and
possibly the whole planet, including Alaska
and Borneo.

It came down to this:

I could throw the shoe on top of the bike
shed or I could give it back to Noah.

I thought for a second.

Then I took very, very careful aim.

And I threw the shoe.

It sailed through the air towards the bikeshed
roof. It looked like a perfect shot, but
then it dipped, pinged off the gutter and
bounced on the ground.

Normally by now Jenny would have
been busy chasing off the Dockery Gang,
handing out a few slaps and kicks (if you
can hand out a kick, that is – I suppose really
you have to foot it out). But she ignored
the Dockery Gang, and came up to me.
Her face was an interesting purple colour.
Usually her hair was arranged to look like
a volcano exploding out of the top of her
head, but today she had it in about four (or
maybe five) plaits, all sticking out in different
directions. She reminded me of that famous
monster from Greek mythology called the
Medusa, who has snakes instead of hair, and
if you looked at her you turned into stone
and then died in horrible agony.

That should probably have been a
warning.

'Hello, Jenny,' I said.

Or that's what I
tried to say. What I
actually said was:

'Hell—OW!' and
then I fell, not on the
floor, but into a big
square plastic box
that was behind me.
The box was half full
of beanbags, which made it actually quite
a nice thing to fall into. The headmistress,
Mrs Plunket, had insisted that there was a
box of beanbags in the playground, which
she thought would provide interesting
entertainment for us children. I suppose she
honestly believed we'd toss them gently to
each other, boys and girls all playing nicely
together. Or perhaps we'd practise walking
about with them balanced on our heads.
She was mistaken in that view.

As I lay in the beanbag box, Jenny came
and loomed over me. I knew better than
to try to get out. She'd only push me back
in again. Also, Jenny was polite and well
brought up and didn't hit people when they
were cowering on the floor, or in boxes,
although I was hardly cowering at all,
more just sort of lying there, looking up at
the sky and minding my own business.

'I hoped we might have been wrong
about you, Ludo,' she said, sounding more
sorrowful than angry. 'But now I see we
weren't. You're just a dirty Dockery dog. I
can't believe I ever liked you even a bit.'
I wanted to explain some things to Jenny.

I wanted to explain that I'd have given
anything to be back in the Bare Bum Gang.
That I didn't want to be in Dockery's stinky
gang. That I'd deliberately aimed the shoe
so that it bounced off the gutter, and that
it was probably the best throw I'd ever done
in my life, because any old idiot could have
just thrown it up on the roof. I wanted to
explain that Jenny was my favourite girl
in the whole world, the only one I didn't
think was really silly, the only one I liked
to sit next to in the Gang den or anywhere
else.

But I didn't say any of that. I couldn't
think of the words until it was too late
and Jenny's back was turned. I could have
sworn the snakes hissed and spat at me as
she walked away.