Buried Alive! by Jacqueline Wilson Page A

either.
    â€˜Please don’t!’ I begged.
    But that just made him grin.
    â€˜Ready steady
GO
!’
    â€˜Hey! You! Stop that! Get away from my boy!’
    It was Dad, over at the rocks, scrambling down, the other spade in his hand.
    Prickle-Head waved the spade in mid-air.
    â€˜Hey, Boss, we’d better scarper,’ said Pinch-Face.
    He started running.
    Prickle-Head whirled the spade one last time and then threw it as far as he could. Then he ran too.
    â€˜Oh, Tim!’ Biscuits gasped, still rolled up in a ball clutching his stomach. ‘Are you all right?’
    â€˜Oh, Biscuits!’ I said. ‘Are
you
all right?’
    We both felt very wrong indeed. I cried a bit. And so did Biscuits. And then Dad got to us and dug me out, and rubbed Biscuits’s tummy, and gave us both a big hug.
    â€˜I couldn’t believe my eyes!’ he said. ‘Thank goodness I decided to bring you the other spade. How dare those boys behave like that!’ He waved his fist at Prickle-Head and Pinch-Face who were scrambling up the cliff.
    â€˜You stupid bullying little thugs! And you’re mad to be climbing that cliff. You’ll break your necks – and it’ll serve you right.’
    Prickle-Head yelled a very rude word at Dad.
    â€˜Just wait till I find out exactly who that lad is,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve a good mind to go to the local police. That wasn’t childish rough play – that was atrocious bullying. Imagine burying you in the sand like that, Tim! How did he do it? Didn’t you struggle?’
    I hesitated.
    â€˜Mm.
I
actually buried Tim in the sand,’ said Biscuits.
    â€˜
You
did, Biscuits?’ said Dad. ‘Good Heavens! Why? Tim’s your friend.’
    â€˜I know. It was just a silly joke. I wasn’t really going to leave him like that. I just hid for a minute. But then Prickle-Head came down the cliffs—’
    â€˜Biscuits tried to stop him,’ I said. ‘He was very brave.’
    â€˜It was still my fault you were stuck there and couldn’t run away from him,’ said Biscuits. ‘What’s your mum going to say when she finds out?’
    We all three thought about Mum.
    â€˜Ah,’ said Dad. ‘Well. Seeing as there’s no lasting harm done . . . shall us men keep quiet about it? We don’t want to worry your mum, Tim. You know what she’s like.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    â€˜
Yes!
’ said Biscuits.
    â€˜So, if we dust you both down, and mop you up a bit, Mum won’t need to know. But I’m still in two minds whether to go to the police or not. Or if I could track down where the boy is staying I could have a serious word with his father.’
    We saw Prickle-Head that evening when we went to a fun fair with Kelly and Kelly’smum and Kelly’s mum’s boyfriend Dave and Kelly’s little brother Dean and Kelly’s baby brother Keanu.
    Prickle-Head was there with
his
mum and his dad and several pricklet brothers and sisters. They all looked almost as fierce and frightening as their big brother Prickle-Head. His
mum
looked fierce and frightening too. She was shouting at the older children. Then Prickle-Head’s dad whacked them hard about the head. He gave Prickle-Head a couple of extra smacks. Prickle-Head’s dad looked far far far fiercer and more frightening than Prickle-Head.
    Dad decided that he wouldn’t have a serious word with him after all.

Chapter Seven

    KELLY WAS BARELY talking to me. Biscuits had told her about our last desperate encounter with Prickle-Head.
    â€˜You took Biscuits to our beach?’ Kelly cried indignantly. ‘You rat. You total traitorous flea-ridden slimy-tailed rotten rat!’
    She kept repeating this, with yet more ratty embellishments, all the while we told her about our narrow escape.
    â€˜Do shut it, Kelly. You don’t own the beach,’ said Biscuits. ‘Don’t you realize, I got beaten to a