The Bare Bum Gang and the Holy Grail (3 page)

‘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.’

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.

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.