The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom

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Authors: Anthony McGowan

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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

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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.

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.

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