photo: joe butler
ERIKA MCGANN lives in Dublin in her own secret clubhouse (which is actually an apartment) and spends her time solving mysteries and having brilliant adventures (well, she writes about them anyway). She likes cold weather (because it’s an excuse to drink hot chocolate by the gallon) and cheesy jokes (because cheesy jokes are always funny, even when they’re not funny). Her other books about Cass and the Bubble Street Gang, The Clubhouse Mystery and Making Millions are also published by The O’Brien Press. Making Millions was the UNESCO Dublin City of Literature 2018 Citywide Read for Children.
CASS AND THE
Bubble street GANG
First published 2018 by The O’Brien Press Ltd, 12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, D06 HD27 Ireland. Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777 E-mail: books@obrien.ie. Website: www.obrien.ie The O’Brien Press is a member of Publishing Ireland ISBN: 978-1-78849-022-1 Copyright for text © Erika McGann 2018 Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design and illustration © The O’Brien Press Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 13578642 18 20 21 19 Cover and internal illustrations by Vince Reid. Printed and bound by Norhaven Paperback A/S, Denmark. The paper in this book is produced using pulp from managed forests.
Published in
For Oscar, Danu and Inga Acknowledgements
Thanks to Helen Carr for helping me make another book better, to Emma Byrne and everyone at O’Brien Press. And a big thanks to Vince Reid for the wonderful illustrations that bring Cass and the gang to life.
A NG
tG e e r t s e bbl THE Bu
C h a p te r O n e I have a new mortal enemy. If you’ve ever had a mortal enemy then you’ll know what I mean. I’ve had a few mortal enemies in the past, but this new one is the mortallest mortal enemy I’ve ever had. I’m Cass, by the way. I’m ten years old, I’m very smart and I’m really funny. But I’m not laughing today. Because Ms Lee exists. Ms Lee is my new mortal enemy. She lives on my street. I really like living on Berbel Street. My house is there, my family is there (even though that family includes a pair 9
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of very annoying baby twins), but most importantly the Bubble Street Gang is there. The Bubble Street Gang is made up of me and my two best friends, Lex and Nicholas. We investigate mysteries, start businesses, fight injustice, and generally have brilliant adventures. We do all this from our very own clubhouse, hidden in the hedge at the end of Mr McCall’s field. (Our secret gang and our secret clubhouse are secrets, by the way, so make sure you absolutely, definitely, positively don’t tell anyone about them.) The Bubble Street Gang are genius detectives (well, I am anyway – the others are 10
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pretty good at helping out with my detecting) and we’ve solved some mind-boggling mysteries. When someone was breaking into our clubhouse, we caught them red-handed (it was Lex’s granny and her mates – don’t ask); we discovered that Nathan Wall and his snobby friends, Sasha Noonan and Jim Brick, have their own secret club (called the Na-Sa-Ji Club – terrible name, don’t ask); and I single-handedly solved the mystery of the invisible boy in my class who, it turns out, isn’t invisible at all. (His name is Martyn Nowak, and he lives on our street. He’s actually really nice and we’re all friends now. You can ask about that, if you like.) We called our last mission Operation Secret 11
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Alien Landing because I suspected that aliens were secretly landing in Mrs Leadbetter’s front garden. As it turns out, Mrs Leadbetter had been clearing out her shed and had left a rusty old barbecue in her front garden, which had left a reddy, mucky circle in the grass that looked like it had been made by the landing gear of a flying saucer, but it hadn’t. This does NOT prove that aliens have never landed, or will never land in Berbel Street, but for the time being I don’t believe they’ve been visiting Mrs Leadbetter. The reason I’m telling you all of this is because of Ms Lee and how she earned the title, Cass Okara’s Mortal Enemy. Ms Lee lives on Berbel Street, but she hasn’t been here for as long as I have. I’ve been here since I was born. Ms Lee only moved in a 12
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couple of years ago. My mum calls her ‘that lovely woman who lives in number twelve’. Mr Dixon calls her ‘that blow-in in number twelve who sings too loudly with the windows open’. Definition of ‘blow-in’: someone who hasn’t been somewhere for very long so shouldn’t be acting like they’ve been there forever, because they haven’t. My mum’s definitely not a blow-in because she grew up in our town. She went to school with Nicholas’s dad and Sasha Noonan’s parents (and I think Mrs Leadbetter), so most people in our street have been here for ages. My dad moved here from Nigeria to study nursing, but that was so long ago there were probably still dinosaurs, so I don’t think he counts as a blow-in anymore. 13
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Even though Ms Lee is just a blow-in, she decided that she would set up a Residents’
Association
in Berbel Street. As far as I can tell, a Residents’ Association
is
where
people from a street get together to complain about their neighbours, and their neighbours’ pets, and their neighbours’ trees that are too tall and hedges that are too bushy. And then after all the complaining is finished, the Residents’ Association makes up lots of rules to make everyone unhappy. We found out about all of this when 14
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Alanna Mitchell came running out of her house waving the latest newsletter (her dad’s the treasurer of the Association, so she saw the newsletter before any of us). ‘Yis have to see this!’ she yelled. ‘It’s horrible!’ I was about to give out to Alanna for interrupting – me and Dev Bahl were picking teams for a game of Relievo. We were on our midterm break from school and pretty much every kid on the street was out at the same time so it was going to be epic – but then I saw the look on her face. I grabbed the newsletter and started reading. ‘New rules for the street,’ I said. ‘No way!’ ‘Read them out,’ said Barry. Barry’s one of the smaller kids, and Alanna’s little brother. Lex fell out of a tree and landed on him once while she was pretending to be a 15
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mournful ghost during a ghost tour. But that’s not important right now. I read out the rules. ‘Number one: football, Rounders, Kerbs, Tig and all other street games are prohibited in residential areas. All such games are now confined to the green.’ ‘How can you play Kerbs on the green?’ cried Dev. ‘It’s got no kerbs.’ I went on. ‘Number two: defacing of the paths or tarmac with chalk, paint or any other material is now prohibited.’ ‘How are we supposed to draw safe zones for Space Invaders,’ Alanna said, ‘or play Hopscotch or stuff like that?’ ‘Number three: running, shouting, shrieking, screaming, and any other behaviour that 17
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may disturb residents is prohibited. Gentle calling, at a low volume, is permitted on the green.’ This one made my blood boil. ‘So when an army of mud monsters is attacking and there’s a massive battle on the green, we have to call gently at a low volume? Seriously?’ The rest of the new rules were all about parking and pruning and picking up after your pets, but there was enough in those first three to make it sound like all of our lives were ruined forever. There were whines and moans, and everyone was yelling ‘That’s not fair!’ over and over. Then two of the smaller kids started crying and had to be taken home. I tried to calm things down by saying that this was just a silly list of rules that the adults would never actually make us stick to, but everyone was 18
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too upset and the epic game of Relievo didn’t happen. I was gutted. Later that day, in Nicholas’s house, the new rules were all anyone would talk about. ‘No chalk on the paths? That’s so unfair.’ That’s my best friend, Nicholas. He’s into acting and drawing and arty things. ‘I draw something brilliant on the path outside our driveway every year for my dad’s birthday. He loves it. I was going to do the Mona Lisa this year, except with her laughing her head off. I’ve already started on the sketches.’ ‘Who’ll be laughing her head off?’ I asked. ‘The Mona Lisa.’ ‘Why do you keep saying “the Mona Lisa”? Just call her by her name.’ ‘I’m not talking about a person, I’m talking 19
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about the Mona Lisa. It’s a really famous painting. You’ve never heard of the Mona Lisa?’ ‘No,’ I said, as Nicholas gave me one of his annoying looks. ‘But I’ve heard of Nicholas … Annoying-face. Have you heard of him?’ ‘Brilliant.’ ‘Whatever,’ I said, ignoring Nicholas rolling his eyes. ‘It wouldn’t be a tragedy if you couldn’t copy someone else’s picture. It would be a tragedy if we couldn’t draw dens or safe zones or numbers or squares or anything else we need to draw when we’re playing on the street.’ ‘We’re not allowed to play on the street anymore at all. Only the green.’ That’s my other best friend, Lex. She’d been really down in the dumps ever since the new rules came out. Her parents said that the things in the 20
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rules that might ‘disturb residents’ included climbing trees, jumping off trees, climbing/ jumping off walls, hanging from trees/walls – basically everything that Lex likes to do. Lex is kind of quiet – she only really talks
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in front of her friends – but she was even quieter than usual that day. It was as if she was getting smaller and smaller, and quieter and quieter, and I was a bit afraid she was going to disappear altogether. ‘It’s not going to happen,’ I said. ‘I’m telling you, these rules aren’t for real.’ ‘What if they are?’ ‘They’re not. And I’m going to prove it.’ ‘How?’ asked Nicholas. I thought about it for a minute. Then it came to me. ‘I know exactly how. We’re going to have that epic game of Relievo that we should have had earlier! Come on, we’ve gotta go round up every kid on the street.’
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C h a p te r Two Epic games of Relievo or Tip the Can or Red Rover aren’t usually planned. They’re usually unexpected, like a gorgeous sunny day when the forecast said it would rain. It’s almost supernatural. Loads of kids are out playing on the street, in groups or pairs, and then out of nowhere – as if we’ve all suddenly got the same brain – we all realise that everybody’s out, and everybody’s in the mood for running and chasing and hiding and screaming. And then someone says the magic word: Relievo. But this game of Relievo couldn’t wait for that magic moment. It had to happen now. So me, Lex and Nicholas called to each 23
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and every house with a kid inside and dragged them out for an epic street game. I even called to annoying Bianca’s house (she’s a thirteen-year-old dog-walker who also thinks she owns the world). Bianca doesn’t usually play with other kids on the street because she’s in secondary school and thinks she’s too grown up for people like us. But even she can’t resist a game of Relievo when it happens. She agreed to come outside, but tried to pretend she was bored already. ‘So what are we supposed to be playing?’ she said, checking her fingernails. ‘Relievo,’ I said. ‘Me and Dev are picking teams. Dev, you go first.’ ‘Lex,’ Dev said immediately. Darn it. I should’ve gone first. ‘Bianca,’ I said. 24
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She’s annoying, but she’s surprisingly fast on her feet. ‘Jack,’ said Dev. It went on until everyone was picked, then we flipped a coin to decide who would be running and who would be chasing. My team were chasing, and I was fine with that. ‘You’ve got ten seconds,’ I yelled. Dev’s team screamed in excitement and took off in every direction. I started counting and my whole team joined in, getting louder and louder. ‘Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME!’ I’d seen Lex run towards Nicholas’s house, but there was no point chasing her. I’d never catch her this early on; we’d need a team attack near the end of the game to get Lex. I 25
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zeroed in on Jack instead. Alanna was closer, but there’s a trick to winning Relievo: you’ve got to catch a couple of the good runners first and keep them under guard (inside a box we’d drawn in chalk outside Lex’s house). If you only catch the slower runners first, the faster ones can zip in and free them (by stepping inside the box and yelling ‘Relievo!’), and you get stuck in an endless loop of catching and losing prisoners. We had two people guarding the box at all times. It was mine and Bianca’s turn, and I was pretty pleased with our catch so far. We had Jack, Alanna, Barry, Jamie and Dev (Bianca had caught Dev as he tried to escape over Mr Dixon’s wall – it was epic.) Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lex. ‘Nicholas!’ I yelled. ‘We need your help! 26
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Lex is gonna make a run for the box!’ Nicholas stopped chasing Sasha and ran to the box. I pointed out Lex’s position, hidden behind a pillar, and Bianca pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Bella’s over there!’ she cried. ‘She’s gonna try and free them too!’ ‘She’s just a decoy,’ I said. ‘Trust me, Lex is gonna make the run.’ Dev and the others in the box started shouting and cheering. Bella bolted forward. Bianca ran to block her and when Bella veered off down the street, Bianca followed. ‘No, Bianca, no!’ I yelled. Lex was already running at the box. Nicholas tried to block her but she zipped around him like a gnat. She was running straight at me. Her eyes were lit up and her mouth 27
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was curling in a little smile like she’d already won. Lex lives for this stuff. My heart was racing. Lex was faster than me, but I was clever. I had to predict which way she’d go. If I guessed right, I could grab her. If I got Lex, we’d have the game. This was it. This was the moment. She was nearly at the box. Her team-mates were going wild and Nicholas was yelling at me to stop her. I got ready to leap forward. The noise got louder and LOUDER and LOUDER and LOUDER. I reached out my hands and … A dark shadow fell between us. ‘What’s all this?’ a voice said suddenly. ‘Now, now, children, you know the new rules. Onto the green with you. And do remember to keep the noise to a minimum. 28
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That means no shouting, sweetie!’ On the word sweetie, the dark shadow pinched my chin. It was Ms Lee. My mouth fell open. Lex stood frozen behind Ms Lee with a puzzled expression. She’d been stopped midrun and her brain hadn’t caught up yet. What was going on? ‘All right, children.’ Ms Lee turned to the rest of the kids, holding up some sheets of paper. ‘I realise that you might not all be aware of the new rules from the Residents’ Association, so I’ve printed you off some copies. I’ll also be hanging laminated copies at designated spots around the street, so anyone can refer to the rules at any time. Chop, chop, now, off you go to the green. I don’t think any of your parents would 29
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like to receive a formal complaint from the Association about their child’s behaviour, would they?’ A few people groaned in protest, but one by one all the kids trudged towards the green. ‘That’s it,’ Ms Lee said, smiling. ‘Good children. You’re all very good.’ The game did not continue on the green. You can’t play Relievo on the green. On the street there are walls and cars and pillars and trees and bushes – loads of places to hide and places to climb to evade capture. There’s nowhere to hide on the green, except around the edges, but then everyone knows where to look. After standing pointlessly in the grass for a few minutes, everyone got bored and went home. 32
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I couldn’t believe it. The new rules were for real.
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