The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom by Anthony McGowan Page A

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.

Chapter Three
THE SPECIAL MIXTURES
    So you can see why we all wanted
revenge. We had a big debate about what
to do. Jamie and The Moan wanted to
sneak into the Dockery den and wee all
over it.
    'We've got to fight wee with wee!' Jamie
demanded.
    I could see how that would have been
fair, but also disgusting.
    'We are a civilized gang,' I said. 'We do
not go around weeing in other gangs' dens,
even if they deserve it.'
    'Well what can we do then?' said The
Moan. 'We can't let them get away with
it.'
    'Science,' I replied. 'Dockery is no better
than a baboon, or a pig. He may think it's
OK to wee on people's things, but I don't.
We're going to invent something better than
wee.'
    'What do you mean "better than wee"?'
    'I mean something even better than wee
for making dens smell horrid.'
    'Poo?' asked Jamie hopefully.
    'No, not poo,' I