The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-Off by Anthony McGowan Read Free Book Online Page A

sister, Phillip,’ said Noah. ‘Is she good at sport?’
    â€˜Well,’ said The Moan reluctantly, ‘she’s in lots of sports clubs. She goes off to do stuff almost every evening. I don’t pay much attention to it. But yes, actually, I think she
is
sporty. When she throws things at me, she usually hits the target.’
    â€˜There’s another thing,’ I said. ‘I feel really rotten about what we did to her . . .’
    â€˜What
we
did?’ said Noah.
    â€˜OK, what
I
did. And this way we get a player who might actually be quite good,and I can sort of say sorry to her.’
    â€˜But do we really want a girl in our team?’ said Phillip. ‘Especially if she’s my sister?’
    â€˜In life you don’t always get exactly what you want,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you have to do something because it’s right, even when you don’t really want to.’
    There was nothing much more to be said, and, anyway, just then Jennifer shouted from outside, ‘I’m going home.’
    â€˜Hang on,’ I shouted back, and we all crawled out again.
    Jennifer was waiting for us. ‘What were you talking about?’ she asked.
    â€˜Well, er, you, basically.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜We’d like to ask you something.’
    â€˜What? It better not be to do with showing my bum.’
    â€˜No, it’s nothing to do with that. If you want to, you can play in our football team.’
    â€˜That’s not really a question.’
    I sighed. Jennifer wasn’t making this easy.
    â€˜OK then, will you play in our football team?’
    â€˜Say please.’
    â€˜Please.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜No. Not unless you say how sorry you are.’
    â€˜I’ve already said sorry.’
    â€˜Say it again.’
    â€˜I’m really sorry for what I did.’
    â€˜And you have to give me a kiss.’
    â€˜WHAT!’
    â€˜A kiss.’
    â€˜That’s definitely not fair.’
    Then I heard Noah behind me say, ‘Go on, Ludo. You’ve gone this far. It won’t kill you.’
    I think the boys might have been enjoying this.
    â€˜All right then,’ I said miserably, ‘but not on the lips.’
    â€˜Yuck, no. On the cheek.’
    â€˜You don’t mean your bum cheek, do you? Because if you do, you can just forget it and the whole deal is off.’
    â€˜You are
so
immature. No, not on my bottom, although that would be what I believe is called poetic justice. I mean here, on my face.’
    She pointed to her left cheek. Someone pushed me from behind. I walked slowly forwards, aiming my lips exactly where she had pointed. I didn’t want her to say I’d done it in the wrong place so she could make me kiss her again. But as I stepped forward I put my foot in a Smarties-tube fart-bomb trap, so a horrible smell came out at the same time as the kiss, which actually landed on her arm, because I’d half fallen into the hole, and that all led to quite a lot of commotion, with Jennifer pulling away, going ‘Pooooooooohhhh,’ and the boys allrolling about laughing, and me collapsing on the floor.
    But then Jennifer came back and helped me up, saying, ‘Good trap,’ and we all sort of laughed together, not anyone laughing at anyone else, but all of us laughing at everything.

Chapter Fifteen
THE TRAITOR UNMASKED
    At five to three we all met at the pitch. Only Phillip had a real football kit; the rest of us were wearing ordinary white T-shirts and shorts, but I still think we all looked pretty good. I was surprised to see that there were quite a lot of spectators, maybe thirty kids.
    Amazingly, Mrs Cake was there as well, with Trixie. Trixie was on a lead, but she still kept leaping up trying to bite the nearest child. I don’t suppose there was a lot of excitement in Mrs Cake’s life, so watching some little kids get kickedaround by some slightly bigger