The Daredevil Desperados of Destiny Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is the fourth volume of Charlie Small’s journal and it was found under even more unusual circumstances than normal! The publishers were informed through the website, www.charliesmall.co.uk, of a possible sighting of Charlie. Excitedly, one of our intrepid editors packed her bags and by plane, hot-air balloon and donkey, travelled to the valley where Charlie had last been seen. He wasn’t there. Our agent searched high and low, and lower still, but could not find him. She did meet a skinny gunslinger in a bar who, when asked, just spat and said he’d never heard of Charlie Small. But our editor had already spotted a familiar-looking notebook propped behind a whisky bottle, and when the outlaw’s back was turned, she slipped it in her pocket and left.

  This is the journal that was hidden behind the bottles. It proves beyond a doubt that Charlie Small is still out there, still having adventures. There must be more notebooks to find, so if you do come across a curious-looking diary, or see a boy who is an expert with a lasso, please do contact us via the Charlie Small website.

  (If, at any time, you are challenged to a gunfight by a skinny young Desperado, just say no. I’ve heard he is as fast as a rattlesnake!)

  A DAVID FICKLING BOOK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Charlie Small

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of the Random House Group Ltd., London, in 2008.

  David Fickling Books and the colophon are trademarks of David Fickling.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-385-75141-4 (trade)

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-79290-7

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Looking Down The Barrel Of A Colt 45

  Things Go From Bad To Worse

  Accused

  Challenged

  The Fight

  Wild Bob’s Fireside Story

  Bob Ffrance Becomes An Outlaw

  I Phone Home

  Riding Into Trouble

  Freecloud

  How Not To Get On A Horse

  A Quick And Painful Riding Lesson

  Horatio Ham

  Gunfight At Trouble Town

  The Lariat Kid

  Destination Destiny

  Entering Destiny

  The Desperados

  My New Pals

  Three Hours Later

  Joining The Desperados!

  Later That Day

  The Following Day

  The Next Day

  The Day After That

  Staring Disaster In The Face!

  Any Umbrellas?

  Time For A Trim

  Plans

  The Following Day

  The Lariat Kid Strikes

  The Biggest Bullion Raid In Trouble’s Troubled History - NOT!

  Mayhem In Main Street

  A Tornado Of Bullets!

  The Schoolmistress Comes To Our Aid

  Changing The Guard

  Showdown At The Pink Elephant Saloon

  Clearing The Table

  Stopped In My Tracks

  Trouble County Jail

  A Prisoner In Trouble

  Hanging Around In Space

  Nagachak

  Escape From Trouble Jail

  I Kick The Bucket

  A Rattling Fun Time!

  A Rattling Bad Time

  Caged!

  A Quick History Lesson!

  The Great Escape

  Bird Food!

  A Stone’s Throw

  A Leap Of Faith

  The Great Chase

  Divide And Rule

  Celebration

  Sleep Glorious Sleep!

  Later

  Invitation To A Fight

  Sending Signals

  An Appointment With Fear

  Ham’s Hordes

  Parley

  Swallowed Up In A Bison Stampede

  Jakeman’s Patented Hydraulic Bison

  Jakeman!

  Operation Demolition

  So Long To The Desperados

  On My Way Home

  A Not So Helpful Hand

  Down The Tubes

  Subterranean Denizens

  BUMP!

  ‘Ouch!’ I cried as I rolled to a stop. Looking back, I could see that I had tumbled down a huge gorge between two cliff walls. The ground beneath me was dusty and scrubby, and I was just about to get up and dust myself down when I heard a familiar click behind my left ear.

  ‘Where d’ya think you’re goin’, boy?’ asked a soft voice. I turned around carefully, with my arms raised, and found myself staring down the barrel of a Colt 45.

  ‘Oh, shucks! It’s a bad day for you, boy,’ said the young man looking at me. Piercing blue eyes shone from a dirty, grimy face; his long, greasy hair hung down to his shoulders, and he had the meanest grin I’ve ever seen.

  ‘I’m Wild Bob Ffrance, the most wanted outlaw in the whole of the wild and wicked west – and you’ve just barged into my camp.’

  Oh no! Help!

  With a twitch of his pistol, he signalled me towards a campfire that glowed behind some scrubby bushes, and from where the smell of cooking drifted.

  ‘Hands behind your head, boy, and no funny business or I’ll splatter your brains on the ground like a mess of baked beans.’

  I did as I was told! I put up my hands and walked towards the fire, expecting to hear the bang of his gun and feel the sting of a bullet between my shoulder blades at any second.

  This is just typical, I said to myself. There you were, safe and sound and living the life of a hero with old Granny Green, when you decide you want to go exploring again; then you want to find your way back home. And before the end of the very same day, here you are being marched at gunpoint by a crazy, trigger-happy cowboy. Brilliant!

  ‘Turn around. Now, sit down on that rock and keep quiet,’ said Wild Bob Ffrance, and again I did exactly as I was told. Well, almost!

  ‘Look, I’m no threat to you,’ I began to say. ‘I just stumbled down …’

  P’TANG! Wild Bob’s gun spat a tongue of orange flame and a bullet ricocheted off the rock where I sat. P’tang … p’tang … p’tang! The sound echoed across the evening sky.

  ‘What part of “sit down and keep quiet” do you not understand?’ said the man, spitting into the dirt at his feet.

  ‘Well, I …’

  P’TANG! Another bullet chipped the rock, just by my left hand, stinging my fingers. OK, I got the message!

  ‘Now, let’s see what you’ve got in there,’ he said, pointing to my rucksack. ‘Hand it over, nice and easy.’

  The outlaw took my rucksack, his gun still trained on me, and tipped it up. My telescope and magnifying glass, the maps, my journal and all the other paraphernalia, fell to the ground.

  ‘It’s my explorer’s kit,’ I said helpfully.

  ‘It looks like a spy�
��s kit to me,’ said the gunman through gritted teeth. ‘You were sent by Horatio Ham to spy on me, weren’t you, you low-down dog?’

  ‘Ham! Who’s Horatio Ham? I’m just trying to …’

  ‘Shut your jabbering, boy,’ the cowboy replied. ‘I know a sneaking, slinking spy when I see one. Well, you’ve been spying on the wrong man this time.’ He flicked open the chamber on his pistol and started reloading it with bullets from his gun belt.

  Yikes! Was this going to be the end of all my adventures?

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ I said. My heart was thumping so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mister Spy,’ said the outlaw, clicking his gun shut. ‘I’m not a murderer. It’s going to be a fair fight; don’t let anybody say that Wild Bob isn’t fair. I’m challenging you to a fastest-to-the-draw gunfight!’

  Fair! Who was he trying to kid?

  ‘I can’t use a gun,’ I cried, very scared indeed. ‘I’ve never even held one before.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. Everybody knows how to use a gun. Why, I was given one as a christening present!’

  ‘Well, I was given a silver napkin ring for mine,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know how to use a gun. So, sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t fight you!’

  Wild Bob Ffrance stared at me for a moment, then smiled and put his gun down on a rock. Phew! I thought. I’ve got out of that one!

  ‘OK. Maybe you can’t fight with a gun,’ said Ffrance. ‘So, I’ll make it easy for you; follow me.’ And he led me into a clearing by the cliff where I had fallen. It was scarred with cracks and caves of all shapes and sizes.

  The outlaw turned his back to the cliff and faced me. ‘If you can’t use a gun, you’ll have to use something else,’ he said. ‘So, choose your weapon, boy; any weapon you like.’

  With that, he took a huge Bowie knife from his boot and sent it juddering into a nearby tree. Before it had even finished vibrating, he pulled a slingshot from his pocket and launched a stone through the air, knocking a crow from the branch of a cactus plant; finally, he unfurled a long leather whip from his belt and, flicking it with a loud crack, plucked the knife back out of the tree; the knife span up into the air, and he casually caught it in his free hand. ‘What’s it to be, boy?’ he asked.

  I was done for. This outlaw was a phenomenon! He was an expert with a gun, a knife, a slingshot, a whip and who knows what else? I wasn’t an expert at anything. (Well that’s not entirely true; the Perfumed Pirates of Perfidy had taught me to be an expert sword fighter.)

  ‘Do you have any cutlasses?’ I asked, praying that he would say no so I didn’t have to fight.

  ‘Not much call for cutlasses in the Wild West,’ replied Ffrance, and spat on the ground. ‘You’ll have to choose something else.’

  It was obvious that he wasn’t going to let me off and I was going to have to fight. But what else was I good at? It was then I noticed the lasso, curled around the pommel of a black leather saddle that had been placed in the shade of the cliff face.

  Well, I was good at swinging through trees and climbing the rigging of a pirate ship. I was an expert at dangling from the end of puppet strings; I had become very good with all sorts of rope on my various adventures. Maybe I would be good with a lasso as well! There was only one way to find out. I pointed at the rope.

  ‘The lasso?’ asked the outlaw. I nodded. ‘So, you’re a rope merchant, are you?’ And he tossed the coil of rope to me.

  ‘Oooof!’ The weight of the lasso knocked me to the ground, and Wild Bob Ffrance smiled as I struggled back to my feet. This was ridiculous. How on earth was I supposed to throw the lasso when I could hardly lift it up?

  ‘It looks like you’re having a bit of trouble, boy,’ chuckled Wild Bob. ‘So, just to make things a bit fairer, I’m gonna fight you barehanded … with one arm behind my back … standing on one leg … and with one eye closed!’

  I think he was starting to find me a bit of a joke!

  ‘Ready?’ he asked. I unfurled the coil of rope until I found the loop of the lasso, and started to swing it over my head like I’d seen the cowboys do on telly.

  ‘Ready!’ I cried, but the rope got tangled around my arms, slipped down over my head and ended up curling around my ankles. I toppled over once again.

  Wild Bob smiled as I scrambled to my feet once more. ‘Are you ready now?’ he asked again. ‘Now, FIGHT!’

  And he hopped towards me on one leg, while looking through one eye. He should have looked ridiculous, but he looked as mean as a wild cat.

  Clumsily, I swung the rope and threw it, hoping that somehow the loop would fall around the outlaw and I could bring him down … but it went sailing off in completely the wrong direction!

  What happened next happened very, very fast!

  As I threw the lasso, I saw to my horror that the mouth of the cave right behind Wild Bob Ffrance was suddenly filled by the biggest, sleepiest and grumpiest grizzly bear I’ve ever seen. As my lasso sailed away in the wrong direction, the grizzly bear raised his huge paws above Wild Bob’s head and gave an ear-shattering roar. Instantly, the outlaw dropped to one knee, turning to face the grizzly and going for his gun at the same time. But his gun wasn’t there; it still sat on the rock where he had left it with his other weapons.

  The bear began to lumber towards the defenceless outlaw. At the same instant my wayward lasso fell onto Ffrance’s revolver, sending it clattering from the rock. The gun hit the ground and went off. P’TANG! The bullet hit the rocks above the mouth of the cave, and a lump of granite the size of a pineapple fell straight onto the grizzly’s head with a sickening crack!

  The bear stopped in his tracks. He blinked once; he blinked twice, and slowly went cross-eyed. With a huge sigh, like a deflating bouncy castle, he dropped down onto all fours. Wild Bob rushed to get his gun, but the grizzly bear had ambled away in a complete daze. He didn’t know what day it was any more!

  ‘WOW! That was some mighty fancy rope work, boy,’ said Wild Bob. ‘You saved my skin and no mistake, even if you are a spy for Horatio Ham.’

  ‘Oh, it’s OK,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘But I am not a spy for Horatio Ham, honest I’m not. My name is Charlie Small, and I’m just a boy who’s trying to get home.’

  ‘I think I believe you; but don’t you know it’s not safe to be wandering through this territory while Ham is about?’ said Bob. ‘I think you’d better stick with me for the time being.’ And the young man came striding over to me and shook my hand. ‘You’ve just made a friend for life, Charlie Small; and after the way you lassoed my pistol, I’m going to call you the Lariat Kid from now on.’

  ‘What’s a lariat?’ I asked.

  ‘A lariat is another word for a lasso,’ said Wild Bob. ‘I thought you would have known that, being an expert and all.’

  ‘Oh yes, lariat. I remember now,’ I said quickly.

  Wild Bob chuckled. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s go and see if my supper is ready.’

  Now I’m ready for bed, camping out under a large, pale moon that floats in an indigo sky. My head is spinning from Wild Bob’s tales, and I’m writing up my journal before I go to sleep.

  Earlier today, back in Wild Bob’s camp, I collected up the bits and pieces of my explorer’s kit, checking they were all there as I put them back into my rucksack.

  1) My multi-tooled penknife

  2) A ball of string

  3) A water bottle (full to the brim once more)

  4) A telescope

  5) A scarf

  6) An old railway ticket

  7) This journal

  8) A pack of wild animal collector’s cards

  9) A glue pen (to stick any interesting finds in my book)

  10) A glass eye from the steam-powered rhinoceros

  11) The hunting knife, the compass and torch I found on the sun-bleached skeleton of a lost explorer

  12) The tooth of a monstrous river crocodile

  13) A magnifying gl
ass

  14) A radio

  15) My mobile phone with wind-up charger

  16) The skull of a Barbarous Bat

  17) A bundle of maps, collected during my travels

  18) A few doubloons from the Betty Mae

  I have lost some things on my journey (my pyjamas had been shredded by the giant snow worms; Jenny and I scoffed the Paterchak mint humbugs and Kendal mint cake as soon as we had freed ourselves from our puppet prison; the large slab of whale meat was devoured by Braemar, the white wolf), but I replaced them with equally useful stuff from the store in the village where Jenny and her grandmother live.

  19) A bag of marbles

  20) An automatic travel umbrella

  21) A large slab of Granny Green’s toffee

  22) A plastic lemon full of lemon juice.

  (A squirt of lemon juice can make the most disgusting ingredients just about edible!)

  A useful collection of things, I think you’ll agree.

  Then, as coyotes howled in the distance and the tumbleweed rustled in the breeze, Wild Bob handed me a delicious plate of beans and bacon. As we ate, he told me the story of how he had become an outlaw. I soon realized he was as innocent of being a bandit as I was of being a piratical terror on the high seas.

  It all began a long time ago when Bob was about eight years old. His mum and dad had a small farm called Two-Eyes. They had a very happy life until, one day, a man called Horatio Ham bought the rest of the land in the valley and started up as a cattle rancher.

  Now Ham was a bully, pure and simple, and he wanted to own the whole valley, especially the river that tumbled out of the surrounding hills and flowed straight through the Ffrance farm. If he owned the river, he could control the supply of water to the nearby town of Trouble, and therefore the town itself.

  First he tried to buy the farm, but Bob’s parents weren’t interested. So he had his men sneak onto the land at night and smash the farm machinery; when he drove a herd of cattle through the farm and ruined all the crops, he won. Bob’s parents couldn’t take any more and they packed up and moved into Trouble.