Danny Dynamite Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Watch out, Danny!

  Billy the Skid is about to hit town!

  Danny and his friends love playing in Bodley Street with its heaps of pets, friendly neighbours and spooky old churchyard. But when Billy the Skid, terror of the playground, shows up, Danny has to think of a dynamite plan to stand up to the bully!

  An action-packed story from one of today’s most popular children’s authors.

  Chapter One

  THIS IS THE story of how Danny Dynamite stood up to the dreaded Billy the Skid and his gang of mountain bikers.

  It all began on a warm summer’s evening in August. Danny and his mates were out in the street, playing cricket.

  The twins, Donna and Daisy, were on the boundary. Rosie the Rottie was with them. Rosie belonged to the twins. She was a great big slopbag.

  Cats were everywhere, snoozing in heaps on window sills, in doorways, on the tops of walls.

  Bodley Street was a good street for cats. It was a good street for children!

  The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Clive had just hit a six! A happier scene it would have been hard to imagine.

  But wait! Just a short distance away . . .

  Chapter Two

  WATCH OUT! THE bad guys are coming! Billy the Skid and his gang of mountain bikers are riding through the streets. The meanest bunch in town!

  “Yeeeeee-hah!”

  The blood-curdling cry echoed round the rooftops and bounced off the walls.

  “Yeeeeee-hah!”

  Once upon a time there was a playground chant which went like this:

  Billy Skiddo and his men

  Don’t care how and don’t care when.

  Bash you, mash you,

  Pulp you up and trash you!

  Out to get you if they can,

  Beware of Big Bill Skiddo Man!

  Whole streets were cleared in seconds when Billy the Skid came riding through. Little children ran crying to their mums. Even big children didn’t stop to argue.

  Nobody argued with Billy the Skid. He was the terror of the playground. Now he was on the warpath, so beware!

  Billy Skiddo’s come to town

  With his men to do you down.

  Out to get you if they can,

  Beware of Big Bill Skiddo Man!

  Meanwhile, back at Bodley Street . . .

  Thwack!

  Straight into the churchyard! Now what were they to do? Who was going to be brave enough to go and fetch it?

  No-one liked going into the churchyard, even in daylight. It was dark and spooky, full of dead guys in their graves. Also, a girl at school had once told Leanne that there were ghosts.

  Danny was just about to say that he would go, as long as the dogs went with him, when there came the sound of an ear-piercing shriek:

  “Yeeeeee-hah!”

  Everyone froze. Billy the Skid and his gang of mountain bikers had hit Bodley Street!

  Chapter Three

  Billy Skiddo’s been and gone

  See the damage he has done!

  All that you can do is run,

  Run from Billy Skiddo!

  “I AIN’T GONNA run!’ said Clive.

  “Me neither,” said Russell.

  “Gotta do something!” said Clive.

  But what?

  “We could set the dogs on ’em,” said Omar.

  Not a very good idea. Rose was a great big slopbag. She even ran from spiders.

  And Toby was too small.

  “So what we gonna do?” said Daisy.

  “What we gonna do?” said Donna.

  It was Danny who came up with an idea. Danny’s mum and dad ran a fruit and vegetable stall in the local market.

  Danny said that what they would do was start collecting all the old squashy tomatoes and pulpy oranges and slippy, slimy cabbage leaves that his dad threw out at the end of every day.

  “We’ll keep ’em till they’re all stinky and gungy and when the Skid comes back we’ll pelt him with ’em!”

  “It’ll make him awful mad,” said Omar.

  Nobody listened to Omar. Billy the Skid was a bully, and you had to stand up to bullies. Their teacher, Mr Biswas, had told them so.

  They were going to teach Billy a lesson! When he came back, he was going to be pelted!

  Chapter Four

  THE DAYS PASSED, and Omar began to breathe a little easier. Maybe Billy wasn’t going to come back. Maybe he had decided to stop being a bully. Miracles do happen!

  But not this time.

  And here they came, the mountain bikers, with Billy at their head.

  “Quick!” cried Danny. “Get the gubbins!”

  The gubbins was all the old fruit and veg that they had been collecting. They had kept it in a big plastic dustbin sack, and now it was all stinky and gungy and absolutely disgusting. And Billy was going to be pelted!

  “I don’t reckon they’ll be back in a hurry,” said Clive.

  Oh, but Clive was wrong! Nobody threw rotting veg at Billy the Skid and got away with it.

  Next morning, when Danny and his mates came out to play . . .

  He didn’t know how to spell, but the message was clear.

  “He’s really mad,” wailed Omar.

  The Skid was hopping mad. He’d be back!

  Chapter Five

  NOW WHAT WERE they to do? They had tried standing up to the bully and it had just made him mad.

  Maybe Mr Biswas was wrong. Maybe standing up to bullies was not what you should do.

  That was what Danny’s mum always said.

  But Danny wasn’t just going to sit back and do nothing!

  “I’ll think of something,” vowed Danny.

  And he did! Danny’s mum was quite right: you can’t fight violence with violence. But Mr Biswas was right, too: you have to stand up for yourself.

  “I’ve got an idea!” cried Danny.

  It was a good idea, but he would need someone to help him.

  Clive? Russell?

  Omar? Leanne?

  What about the twins?

  The twins looked at each other. Poor Rosie was under the kitchen table and wouldn’t come out, and the twins were seriously annoyed.

  They nodded.

  Down with bullies! Down with the Skid! Next time Billy came, they were going to be ready for him.

  Chapter Six

  A FEW DAYS later . . .

  Billy the Skid was in town!

  By the time the gang came hurtling through, the street was empty – except for one small figure at the far end.

  Danny stood there, hands on hips, blocking the path.

  Billy’s lip curled. Who did this little squit think he was?

  “Get out the road!” roared Billy.

  But Danny just went on standing there.

  “If you don’t go away and leave us alone,” said Danny, “the Big Bad Bogeymen will get you.”

  Big Bad Bogeymen? Billy threw back his head and gave a great guffaw.

  This silly little squit needn’t think he could scare Billy the Skid with his soppy baby talk!

  Danny stood his ground. “This is our street,” he said. “You’ve got to behave yourself if you come into our street.”

  Billy couldn’t believe it! No-one spoke to him like that! He jumped off his bike and rushed at Danny. Danny turned and ran. Hot on his heels came Billy the Skid.

  Clang! went the churchyard gate, as it slammed shut behin
d them.

  No time to stop and look! Billy was going to get that little squit and teach him a lesson.

  He was going to hash him, bash him, mash him to a pulp.

  He was going to whack him, thwack him –

  Danny put on a spurt. Heart hammering, blood pounding, he ran as he had never run before. Ran like the wind. Moved like dynamite!

  He had to reach that far gate before Billy got him.

  He made it – just! The gate banged shut in Billy’s face.

  Now Billy was locked in the churchyard and couldn’t get out!

  He wasn’t scared, of course. Not he! Billy the Skid wasn’t scared of anything.

  Except perhaps ghosts. If there were such things. But there weren’t.

  Were there?

  Help! What was what? Over there in the corner? Aaaaargh!

  A white shape had risen from one of the graves and was coming straight for him. And there was another! Like two horrible maggots, gleaming in the dusk.

  Billy panicked. He hurled himself at the gate and scrabbled over.

  The gang watched in amazement. Could this be their great leader? The great Skid?

  “L-l-l-l . . .”

  Billy pointed with shaking hand. The gang looked; their jaws dropped. The gate had opened and two glistening maggots could be seen sliming their way into the shadows. Ugh! Horrible!

  The gang moved so fast you’d have thought a herd of rattlesnakes were after them.

  Danny passed them on his way back. Billy the Skid was grey and shaking. What could have happened? He must have seen the Bogeyman!

  And now the twins came shuffling out through the churchyard gate. They were wearing two of their mum’s best pillowcases. The pillowcases had had eye holes cut into them and been daubed with silver paint.

  Their mum was not going to be pleased!

  Or maybe she would be when she heard the full story; how Danny Dynamite, with a little help from Donna and Daisy, had stood up to the bullies. How together they had defeated Billy the Skid!

  There is a new playground chant now. It goes like this:

  Billy Skiddo wets his knickers

  When he sees a ghost that flickers.

  He’s afraid of bogeymen!

  Runs off like a frightened hen!

  Who’s afraid of Bill the Skid?

  No-one, after what he did!

  About the Author

  JEAN URE had her first novel, Dance for Two, published while she was still at school and has been writing ever since. She studied at drama school, where she met her husband, and is now a full-time author of books for both young readers and adults with more than fifty titles to her name including Plague 99, which won the l990 Lancashire Book Award, and a series of novels for the Corgi Freeway list, including A Place to Scream.

  She has also established herself as a perceptive and witty writer for much younger readers with such titles as Help! It’s Harriet! (Collins), Captain Cranko (Walker) and Spooky Cottage (Heinemann).

  DANNY DYNAMITE

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 15866 9

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Random House Group Company

  This ebook edition published 2012

  Copyright © Jean Ure, 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Martin Chatterton and George Hollingworth, 2012

  First Published in Great Britain

  Corgi Childrens 2012

  The right of Jean Ure to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

 

 

  Jean Ure, Danny Dynamite

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