Our gang den was probably the finest ever constructed in the history of the world. It was partly tunnelled into the side of a hill, and the entrance was disguised by a weeping willow tree. We had lots of traps around it to deter our enemies (chiefly Dockery and his gang), the best of which was probably our famous Smarties-Tube Fart-Bomb trap. It was the traps that stopped the Dockery Gang from sneaking up on our den in order to conquer it, smash it in, wee in it, etc., etc.
When we were all safely inside the den, and munching away on sweets from the sweet stash (mainly jelly worms, with a few wine gums and cola bottles for variety), Noah and I told the others all about saving the tramp.
‘Would you really have given him the kiss of life?’ Jenny asked, in awe.
I nodded. I felt like someone who’d heroically given up his life, even though I hadn’t really given up anything, which was pretty cool.
‘Disgusting!’ moaned Jamie, making puking gestures by pretending to stick his fingers down his throat.
‘I think it’s brave and wonderful,’ said Jenny, which made me blush.
To stop everyone noticing the blushing business, I quickly told them about King Arthur’s treasure.
‘What do you think it is?’ asked Jamie. ‘Money?’
‘It might be pieces of eight and gold doubloons and jewels,’ said Jenny.
‘More like old tramp rubbish,’ said The Moan. ‘Tin cans and mouldy newspapers and a half-eaten sausage roll he’s found in a bin.’
‘I think you’re all wrong,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it’s valuable in the way money and jewels are valuable. And I don’t think it’s just loony tramp rubbish either. I think it’s something out of the ordinary – something . . . amazing.’
Noah gasped, Jenny sighed, The Moan tutted, and Jamie blew a spit bubble.
Then Noah said, ‘What were his exact words?’
I thought hard, trying to remember. ‘He said, “I’ve a treasure. A special thing. A magical thing.”’
‘So he did definitely say treasure?’ Jenny asked.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘So it could easily be jewels? Emeralds and rubies and sapphires?’
‘Well, maybe. But I just don’t think he meant that kind of treasure. I think it was something more – oh, I don’t know, important than mere emeralds and gold doubloons.’
‘There’s nothing mere about gold doubloons and emeralds,’ said The Moan. ‘With that sort of treasure, real treasure, I mean, you can buy anything you want. You could buy Chelsea Football Club, and then sack all the players and buy rubbish players and make them play so Chelsea lost every match, like they ought to.’
In case you hadn’t realized, The Moan didn’t like Chelsea very much.
‘Or you could help to save the poor people in Africa,’ added Noah.
Noah often talked about helping the poor people in Africa, partly because his great-great-great-great-great-great-granny and granddad came from there, but also because he was nice.
‘Or you could buy some really good sticks,’ said Jamie.
Jamie liked sticks.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said The Moan. ‘Why would you buy sticks? You can find sticks anywhere, for free. You might as well buy leaves or . . . or dog poo.’
‘I don’t want any dog poo. And I was talking about special sticks.’
‘What kind of special sticks?’
‘I dunno. Gold ones, maybe.’
That seemed to satisfy The Moan. He could see the point of buying some gold sticks.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t think this is going to be a pirate type of adventure with treasure and pieces of eight and golden sticks. I think this is going to be an adventure from the days of knights and chivalry. Remember, we’re talking about King Arthur’s special thing. And what was the original King Arthur’s special thing?’
‘His big sword, what-do-yer-call-it? Ex-scabby-butt,’ said Jamie. ‘Or is it Ex-halibut?’
‘A halibut is a flat fish,’ said Noah. ‘I think you mean Excalibur.’
‘Yeah, that,’ said Jamie.
He swished about in the air as if he were wielding Excalibur. Or perhaps it was one of his special golden sticks.
‘That would actually be quite cool, if it were true,’ said The Moan. He pretended to fight with Jamie, both using invisible swords.
‘I didn’t mean the sword,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of the Graily Hole. No, I mean the Holy Grail.’
‘That’s just a fairy story,’ said The Moan.
‘And what exactly is a grail anyway?’ asked Jenny.
‘A grail? Well, it’s some kind of a holy thing. I think it might be a cup. Or a plate.’
‘Or a teapot?’ said Jamie.
‘No, definitely not a teapot. They didn’t have teapots in the time of knights.’
‘Sounds rubbish,’ said The Moan.
‘But I don’t think it matters exactly what King Arthur’s treasure is. I made a promise, and our mission is clear. We have to find the tramp’s old lair at the top of Corbin Tower in the wasteland, get the treasure and bring it back for him.’
‘I don’t quite see how it has to be our mission,’ said The Moan. ‘I don’t want to go to that spooky old tower even if there is real treasure in it.’
‘It does sound quite dangerous,’ added Noah.
‘And there are the giant rats and . . . other things,’ said Jamie, although he didn’t sound too bothered. The only thing Jamie was afraid of was custard. If it even touched his bowl he’d start crying and go off to hide in a corner.
‘For once I think Phillip is right,’ said Jenny. That was a bit of a shock. Jenny never agreed with anything The Moan said. ‘But not because of that nonsense about monsters. I read in the paper that they’re finally going to demolish Corbin Tower on Monday.’
‘Monday!’ I exclaimed. ‘That means we only have one more day to get the Holy Grail—’
‘Or emeralds,’ chipped in Jamie.
‘You’re not seriously still going to go in, are you?’ asked The Moan, shaking his head.
‘I made a promise,’ I replied. ‘And you’re right. I can’t ask you to come with me. It is too dangerous. There are unimaginable perils awaiting whoever attempts this quest, including giant rats, wild dogs, maybe some poisonous snakes, evil dwarfs, quicksand, etc., etc., all ending in a gigantic explosion bigger than when an asteroid crashed to earth and killed every single dinosaur in the world in a second. No, I can’t ask you to come. I’ll go alone.’
There was a silence after that, while everyone appreciated my amazing bravery, gumption, pluck, etc. I could sense Jenny’s admiration, bathing me like radiation from a nuclear power station core, except good radiation rather than bad.
The silence was broken by Noah.
‘I’ll come,’ he said quietly. Some people might say that Noah was the most cowardly member of the Bare Bum Gang, just because he cried quite a lot, but I knew deep down he was probably really brave – the second bravest, in fact, after me. Well, maybe third, if you include Jamie, except that I’m not sure if you should include him, because his bravery was connected to him being a bit thick.
In fact, Jamie was the next to speak.
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid of rats. Or getting blown up.’
See what I mean?
‘Well, if you’re all going, I’ll go too,’ said Jenny.
I smiled at her and she smiled back.
That just left The Moan.
He fiddled about with his shoelaces for a while, and then finally said, ‘OK, me too. I’m not letting you lot get all the emeralds and rubies, leaving me with nothing but the wine gums.’
That was it. The whole team. Me, Noah, Jamie, The Moan and Jennifer.
Except for one, that is.
Guess who?
We arranged to rendezvous the next day after breakfast, at the vandalized bus shelter near Corbin Tower. I told them all to come fully kitted out for the most dangerous and exciting adventure of our lives.
br /> Chapter Four
AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS
I WAS THE last person to reach the bus stop, the first stage in our quest to recover the Holy Grail for King Arthur. I wasn’t last because I was a slowcoach, or because I’d been watching telly, but because I had to go and fetch the final member of the Bare Bum Gang.
‘Rude Word!’ yelled Jenny when she saw him.
I don’t mean that she shouted out any old rude word, such as ‘bum’, ‘fart’, or ‘poo’.
No, you see, Rude Word, as I’ve already mentioned, is the name of our Gang Dog. For reasons way too complicated to explain, he lived half the year with me and half the year with someone called Declan, who went to our school but was in a completely different gang called The Commandos.
Now, Rude Word was not one of those pretty dogs with lovely floppy ears and big eyes. Nor was he one of the clever dogs that can do amazing tricks. He couldn’t roll over, play dead, fetch a stick or say the word ‘sausages’ when you moved his mouth up and down like a dog I saw once on the telly. He wasn’t any good at finding treasure, and he’d never caught a Frisbee (although he had once eaten one). He was as ugly as a bucket of toads and his only trick was licking his bottom while also scratching his ear.
He only had one, by the way. I mean ear, not bottom. Well, he only had one bottom as well, but that’s usual among dogs. And humans. There may be some space aliens that have two or more bottoms, but we haven’t discovered them yet, and, actually, I hope we never do.
Anyway, now the summer holidays had started, it was my turn to have Rude Word (or Rudy, as we sometimes called him, because it seemed a bit less rude) again.
When I collected him, Declan looked very sad. However, his mum and dad looked the opposite of sad, by which I mean happy. They were architects and lived in a very posh house, and everything in it was white, except for a few things that were black.
Or at least that was how it used to be before Rude Word got to work on it. He’d eaten big chunks out of most of the furniture, which I’d expected. He also seemed to have eaten most of a wall, half of the DVD player, and the taps in the bathroom. And now, as well as the white and the black, there were quite a few splodges of brown, caused by . . . well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.
He was very pleased to see me, especially when he saw that I’d brought him a jelly worm. He licked my face, which was a bit like putting my head into a warm toilet, i.e. (or is it e.g.?) not very nice.
Declan had bought him a new collar and lead. The collar had a tag on it engraved with RUDE WORD – which was cool, as that was also his name.
Of the rest of the gang, Jamie was pleased to see Rudy, and The Moan was sort of neutral, like Switzerland in the war. Noah didn’t really get on with dogs, but even he tried to smile. He could probably see how useful it might be to have our own trained attack dog when facing monsters, etc.
The bus stop where we met was on the road that went along the edge of the wasteland. The wasteland wasn’t always a wasteland. There used to be lots and lots of little houses all squished together. The little houses were knocked down before I was born, and the tower block was built in the middle. The area around the tower was supposed to have been all green and lovely with trees and bushes and playgrounds and tennis courts, but the land turned out to be polluted and poisoned and nothing would grow except weeds and plastic bags. I can still remember when people lived in the tower, but they never looked very happy, and eventually they all moved out, and King Arthur moved in.
Now that the tower block was going to be demolished, the whole area was basically a giant building site with cranes and wrecking balls and dumper trucks and piles of building materials.
We all stood and looked at it now, staring through the wire fence that surrounded the site. The wasteland was as brown and grey as an old man’s teeth, and the tower reached into the sky like a bony witch’s finger. It had been sunny when we’d all set out, but now the sky was dark and gloomy. Even Rude Word looked depressed. Normally, when he was in a new place, he’d make a point of weeing on everything (and everyone), but now he just made a whining sound, and hugged my leg. I don’t suppose I was the only one wishing he (or she, in Jennifer’s case) was back at home lying in front of the telly watching cartoons.
‘Let’s get this done,’ I said, trying to sound more hopeful than I felt.
‘Have you got a plan?’ Noah asked.
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But first let’s do an equipment check.’
I made everyone unload what was in their packs. Jenny had a hairbrush (useful, she explained, in close hand-to-hand combat), some lip salve (cherry flavour), and a spare thingy for tying her hair up. Jamie had a sausage roll and a scotch egg which he said were dual function – you could eat them, or throw them at your attackers. The Moan had a pack of Top Trump cards (‘In case we get bored,’ he said), and Noah had his full expedition-grade medical kit.
I had the best gear. I’d brought my new multi-tool, which I’d got for my birthday. It was really clever, and had lots of useful gadgets hidden away in it, such as: some scissors; a thing for getting stones out of horses’ hooves; a magnifying glass; a hammer; some pliers and a (very small) saw – useful for sawing (very small) twigs in half. I also had some string (only my second-best string, in case I lost it), some matches with the heads dipped in melted wax to keep them dry, a harmonica (to play in prison if we got captured), my pen torch, a tube of toothpaste (you can use it to dissolve the bars on prison windows, plus it’s good for brushing your teeth with) and, best of all, my German U-boat Captain’s binoculars. I knew they were German U-boat Captain’s binoculars because that’s what the man in the market said when he sold them to my dad. I suppose you could argue that they were evil binoculars, because U-boats used to sink our ships in the war, but you can’t really blame the binoculars for that.
Anyway, they were probably the best binoculars in the world, so I didn’t mind if they were a little bit evil, say ten to fifteen per cent. It’s only when things get to be twenty-five to fifty per cent evil that you should throw them away.
We put our things back in our packs and I led the way along the road to the main gate into the wasteland. Like I said, there was a high fence all around the site. The bottom part of the fence was just ordinary wire, but the top part was razor wire, which is like barbed wire, but more deadly. It’s designed to rip your guts open so your insides, including your liver, kidneys, intestines, stomach, etc., etc., all fall out if you try to climb over it, which I think should be against the law and illegal.
The gate was usually locked up with a chain, so you couldn’t just push it open. However, it was lower than the fence and, most importantly, there wasn’t any razor wire on top to slice your guts open. The top of it was level with my head.
‘What now?’ asked The Moan.
‘We go over,’ I replied. ‘Give me a leg up, Jamie.’
Jamie was as strong as an ox. Well, a small ox. A baby one. But that’s still quite strong, compared to, say, a newt or a rabbit. Without complaining he knelt on all fours and let me climb on his back. It was still a long way up to the top of the gate, but I managed to swing one leg over.
At exactly that moment, a loud voice rang out.
‘Oi! You! What do you think you’re playing at?’
And with the voice there came a terrifying growling and snarling, as if a Hound of Hell had been loosed upon us.
Jamie collapsed, leaving me dangling with one leg on each side of the gate, which, I can tell you, was not very comfortable.
But that was the least of my problems.
Chapter Five
THE GATEKEEPER
I LOOKED UP and saw a man striding towards me. He was dressed like an SS Stormtrooper with a black uniform and a black helmet and big black boots and he was waving a long black truncheon and he looked about as mean as a velociraptor with toothache. He had a badge on his black jacket with a picture of a mailed fist (which isn’t actually a fist you post through the mail, but a
fist covered in chain mail).
It wasn’t the man who’d done the snarling, but the gigantic dog straining at the leash he was holding.
The man had emerged from a little hut with the words GROUP 9 SECURITY written on it, along with a bigger version of the mailed fist from the badge.
I hadn’t realized the building site was controlled by Group 9. Group 9 Security were infamous, which is the bad version of famous. It was well known that if they caught you messing about where you shouldn’t be, whether on a building site like this, or a car park, or if you were being naughty in the shopping centre, they’d give you a great big kick up the bum and then take you to the police, who’d put you straight in jail and throw away the key.
The Group 9 dogs were even more infamous. It was said that they were given torn-up boys’ trousers mixed in with their dog meat to train them to bite you on the bum. It worked like this: Yum yum yum (that is the dog thinking, by the way), this is nice dog meat – not sure about these bits of trouser, though – but wait, let me think . . . I suppose that means that nice dog meat like this lives inside trousers, so all I have to do to get as much nice dog meat as I like is to chew up whoever is wearing trousers, especially if it is a small boy.
This dog was even uglier than Rude Word, as well as being much bigger. He was dragging the Group 9 Security man as if he was a little child. The dog’s lips were curled back, showing his huge fangs, which looked like this:
It was the kind of dog cave men would have used to help them hunt woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, woolly giant bears, woolly giant killer sheep, etc., etc.
Being a mammoth-eating dog’s dinner was not how I wanted to die. I tried to get down off the gate, but it was really hard to swing my leg back over. Jenny was screaming at me, and Noah and The Moan pulled and tugged, which just made things worse. The dog was getting closer and closer, along with the Group 9 man and his nasty truncheon. In the end I just sort of fell off – luckily onto the outside, or I’d have been gobbled up for sure.