Free The Bare Bum Gang and the Holy Grail by Anthony McGowan

album. Then he looked inside again. He turned the box upside down and shook it.
    ‘Where is it?’ he asked, half puzzled, half annoyed.
    ‘It’s there,’ I said, pointing to the book. ‘Your pictures . . . you as a baby . . . your life . . .’
    ‘But my money? My treasure, where’s that?’
    ‘Oh. The money jar. We’re sorry, but . . . well, we couldn’t get it.’
    I didn’t want to tell him the whole story. It was too depressing.
    But just then, I sensed that someone else had come into the room.
    ‘’Ere,’ said a rough and very familiar voice.
    It was Dockery.
    What on earth could he be doing here?

    He shoved his way between the rest of the Bare Bum Gang to reach the bed. He was holding out a glass jar. A glass jar full of pennies. ‘Me and the boys . . . well, we had a little think.’ Dockery was sort of talking to the air between me and King Arthur, not looking at either of us. ‘Felt a bit rubbish. Thought we’d . . . well, anyway, here.’
    He put the jar down on the bed. King Arthur’s bony hands went straight to it, stroking and caressing it like a cat.
    ‘And we added a couple of quid extra,’ Dockery continued. ‘Buy some flowers or something.’
    ‘Thank you, thank you,’ murmured King Arthur.
    ‘Better take these too,’ Dockery said, now looking at me. He placed my U-boat Captain’s binoculars on the cabinet.
    Then he put his big face close to mine. ‘If you ever tell a living soul about this, you’re history, get it?’
    I nodded, and Dockery barged out.
    Me, Noah, Jenny, Jamie and The Moan all looked at each other, not even knowing what kind of expressions to put on our faces.
    ‘We should probably go now as well,’ said Noah in the end.
    ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough weird things for one day.’
    We all said goodbye to the king, and left the room.
    ‘That wasn’t quite what I expected,’ said The Moan, as we walked down the hospital corridor.
    ‘No,’ I said.
    ‘He didn’t care about the photographs at all,’ said Jenny, sadly.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Bit of a waste of time, really,’ said Jamie.
    Then I realized I’d left the binoculars behind me in the room.
    ‘Back in a sec,’ I said.
    One of the old guys in King Arthur’s room had woken up, and he smiled at me when I came in. My binoculars were still next to the box on the cabinet by the bed. I expected to find King Arthur still stroking his money, but the jar, forgotten, was on the cabinet too.
    The old king had the photo album open at the first page, with the picture of him as a little baby in a giant pram. His eyes sparkled and his cheeks were wet with tears.

    His lips were moving, but I could hardly make out what he was saying.
    ‘Avalon,’ it might have been. ‘Oh, Avalon.’
    I ran back to join the others. They were outside the hospital by the time I caught up with them.
    ‘What now?’ said The Moan, scuffing his shoes on the ground, in a disgruntled way.
    ‘Something fun, I hope,’ said Jamie.
    ‘I’d prefer it if it didn’t involve stinky tunnels and getting chased by mental dogs,’ Noah chipped in.
    The Bare Bum Gang certainly needed cheering up. Then I remembered something, and checked my watch.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I do think we’ve earned some fun and some excitement. And I know just the thing. Follow me.’
    I led them all across town, refusing to answer their questions about where we were going.
    It was only when the grim outline of Corbin Tower began to loom over us that they guessed.
    ‘It’s today, isn’t it?’ said Jenny.
    ‘It certainly is.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Jamie asked.
    ‘BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM,’ said The Moan, right in his face.
    ‘Oh yeah!’
    A big crowd had already begun to gather, at a safe distance, to watch the demolition of Corbin Tower. There were quite a lot of children from our school, plus plenty of grown-ups. There were two police officers to make sure everyone stayed where they should. There was one adult I didn’t