Gargoylz Blog » Barry the Basher

The church roof has been empty all week because the gargoylz have been visiting schools for World Book Day.  Did you do anything good yesterday for World Book Day?  Which character did you dress up as?  Ben was Spyboy and I was the evil Eagleman from ‘Spyboy and the Feathery Fiend’. That’s our favourite book at the moment.

Anyway, playtimes haven’t been as much fun without our stony friends. Ben and I tried to play Super special secret agents today but we made a big mistake!  We’d planned an awesome trick on those icky girls, Lucinda, Poppy and Tiffany. All week we’ve been making confetti bombs!  They’re easy peasy. Ben got some of the thin paper bags that his mum puts sandwiches in.  We filled them with all the paper bits from Dad’s paper shredder.  Our plan was to drop them on the girls when they go to have their playtime chat under the honeysuckle. 

So we got in position and when we heard the footsteps we dropped our bombs.  But we didn’t know that the girls had been overtaken at the last minute and our paper bombs splattered all over…. Barry-the Basher-Price!

He was really angry and started rampaging about.  We were sure he was going to find us any minute when all of a sudden it began to rain over his head.  It was Ira using his special power.  Before he could say ‘you’re bashed’ the paper and water turned to papier-mâché and got stuck on his head like a sort of drippy helmet.

It took three dinner ladies and Mr Duster the caretaker to get Barry free.  And then he had to walk round school with pink bits stuck on his stubbly hair because Dad had shredded some pink paper. Mrs Hogsbottom said he’d broken School Rule number 363 – boys must not have shredded pink paper in their hair.

So Ira saved us in the nick of time.

The gargoylz are off again next week to visit more schools but we’re going to spend all weekend with them. We’ve told our mums we’ve got a brass rubbing project at the church. I wonder what we’ll get up to. 

Oh… Toby wants to know if anyone saw them this week? They were in Brighton, Essex and Kent. They hid from the teachers of course!


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Ben only just managed not to get a bashing from the Basher. As soon as Barry marched up to him and whipped the gloves out of his pocket Ben said, “That’s very strange! How did those gloves get back in there? I had them on the walk and suddenly I felt someone take them out of my pocket, but there was no one around. That’s spooky!” (Quick thinking, Agent Neal) Anyway, Barry looked really frightened and ran off down the corridor shouting something about the Ghastly Glove Ghost was now haunting the school. We heard him getting told off by Mrs Hogsbum for breaking school rule number 386 – Boys must not shout about Ghastly Glove Ghosts in school time.’

Nan brought round some lovely cakes yesterday and that reminded me. We promised you all a scrumptious recipe and Barney chose this one – Muffins. He says it’s one of my nan’s best and it’s easy peasy. 

It looks like a lot of ingredients but the muffins are really easy to make. Get a grownup to help you.

Barney’s Favourite Muffins

You will need: 

  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 25g cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 175g caster sugar
  • 175ml milk
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 100ml sunflower oil
  • 75g plain chocolate chunks (don’t eat them all before you start)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Paper muffin cases
  • A 12-hole muffin tray
  1. Get your grownup to turn the oven on to 170ºC (375ºF, gas mark 5).
  2. Put muffin cases into a 12-hole deep muffin tray.
  3. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder; stir in the sugar. Add everything else and mix it all lightly together.
  4. Spoon the mixture into the cases. Bake them for about 20 minutes until they’re springy and not squidgy when your grownup gives them a poke. Cool for 10 minutes; then put on a wire rack and leave until cool.

Eat up as soon as they are cool!!!

Nan’s going to let us help her make some when Ben and I go round there on Sunday. The gargoylz are going to join in – when Nan’s not looking, of course.


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Max’s trick on his dad didn’t quite go to plan but it was very funny.  He rubbed lead from a pencil on a pair of glasses but he didn’t realise his mum was going to borrow them for a second to write a note. Then she took them off and set off to fetch Jessica from Brownies and as it was cold she put her furry hat on as well. It’s got two points like ears. Brown Owl thought she’d come dressed as a great horned owl! And Max’s mum never understood why. The lead had rubbed off by the time she got home so she just thinks that Brown Owl is owl-obsessed!

We thought school was going to be really boring today because Mr Widget was leading Year Four on a snowdrop hunt!  We were waiting in the playground to set off for Oldacre Wood when Barry Price, codename: The Basher, barged into us.  He knocked me flying and I dropped my gloves in a puddle which made him really laugh and made my hands really cold. Max lent me one of his and we had to keep swapping to stop our fingers freezing and snapping off!

When we reached the wood, we had to search for snowdrops. The girls all shrieked with delight and ran around poking and prodding in the leaves. Max and I mooched about. I mean, who wants to find flowers in a place full of great trees to climb? But then we heard some gargoyly giggling and Zack and Neb popped up. They’d seen what had happened in the playground and had brought me some of the vicar’s gloves to borrow. They were a bit big but nice and cosy.  Then we got ready to play a trick on Barry Price to pay him back for being so mean. We got Zack to pop invisible and Neb to blend with the wood and take the vicar’s big gloves and sit in the oldest, tallest, spookiest looking tree in the wood. Then we told Barry that no one had ever climbed that tree as it was haunted. Of course the Basher went straight up it. As soon as Barry was up high, and sneering down at us, Zack and Neb put the vicar’s gloves on and waved them in Barry’s face. Zack wailed that he was the Ghastly Glove Ghost and he hoped no one had been nasty or he would scare them till their hair fell out. Barry hasn’t got much hair but he was still terrified. Then Zack said in a really spooky voice that only thing the Basher could do to make up for it, was to pick the biggest snowdrop he could find for teacher. Barry jumped down the tree immediately. It was so funny to see him scampering about trying to find the biggest flower for Mr Widget. And when he did Mr Widget told him off as no one’s was meant to pick the snowdrops. He didn’t listen when Barry said that the Ghastly Glove Ghost had told him to do it. It was awesome!

We’re back at school now and I’ve got a few minutes on the class computer. The Basher hasn’t said a word to anyone since we got back. That makes a change. Uh oh! He’s staring at the vicar’s gloves that Zack and Neb scared him with. They’re sticking out of my pocket. I forgot to take them back to the gargoylz so they could take them back to the vicar.

I think he suspects that Max and I had something to do with the Ghastly Glove Ghost. We’re going to be in BIG TROUBLE! HELP!


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For some reason, Ben got into trouble for the fake poo! He swears no one saw him put it there.

Did you know there’s a contest called the World Conker Championship that takes place in October every year?  How cool is that!  Last Saturday we decided to hold our own competition with the gargoylz as there are lots of horse chestnut trees in the churchyard – and that’s where conkers come from.  It was a bit tricky trying to explain to the gargoylz that you have to put your conker on a string and whack someone else’s with it until one of them cracks. They had other ideas. We made a big pile of conkers first, but Toby and Azzan ran off with some of them and rolled them all along the church gutters and down the drainpipes. That made so much noise that the demon flower arrangers, Doris and Aggie, came out to see if the church was falling down! Luckily they didn’t spot us.

Then Zack decided to pop invisible and drop conkers down the vicar’s chimney. Out came the vicar. Luckily he didn’t spot us.

We’d just got all the conkers threaded when The Basher turned up. Unfortunately he did spot us. The gargoylz quickly hid behind the gravestones. The Basher was holding the biggest conker we’d ever seen. He said he was the Oldacre School Champion and challenged us to a conker fight and said if we didn’t fight he’d whack us over the head with his prize conker – The Killer. So we had to agree. Barry put his conker down and did his ‘warming up’ exercises. He looked really stupid wiggling his fingers in the air. Meanwhile Neb blended with the background and swapped the Basher’s conker for another big one. It was a mouldy one we’d found earlier. Barry didn’t notice. He picked it up, swung it round his head and gave Ben’s conker a massive whack before Ben was even ready. Barry’s conker burst and splattered him with mouldy bits.  It was awesome!  Barry ran off yelling that we’d cheated and we’d killed The Killer.

After that we had a great time with our Grand Gargoylz World Conker Championship – before Azzan got over excited and set fire to all the conkers!

Can’t wait for next weekend. We are going to a fantastic climbing course called ‘Be a Chimp’.


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17
Sep
Five-aside footie fun!

Posted by Max

I’m on the class computer and I’m supposed to be looking up tea cosies through the ages.   (I don’t even know what tea cosies are but they’re sure to be stupid if Miss Bleet’s interested in them!)

We had an awesome day on Sunday – a whole day of footie training.  It was run by Oldacre Town FC and we actually played on their pitch.  Ben and I had just started dribbling practice when someone else turned up – Barry Price.  And he’d brought his four cousins with him.  They barged about with the Basher, crashing into kids and spoiling everything.

Then we had a five-a-side competition.  Ben and I were in a team with Duncan and two boys we didn’t know.  We won our first match one-nil – Ben scored a dazzler – but then disaster struck.  We had to play Barry’s team with the Basher in goal.  They all flattened us like bulldozers.  They should have been red carded but the ref was scared of them.

Then the gargoylz came to the rescue. It was nearly the end of the match and we were five goals down and we heard a whisper from under the away bench.  It was Zack and Jelly.  They’d come to watch and realised we needed an emergency gargoyle trick.

Before we knew what had happened Jelly had turned into a squashy ball.  Zack popped invisible and suddenly the Jelly ball was sailing towards the goal.  Zack must have thrown him!  Barry thought it was the real ball and dived to save it. It got stuck to his hands and his cousins all rushed up to pull it off him. While they were doing that Ben and I both scored a hat trick and won the match six-five! And the best thing was that Barry and his cousins got told off for playing with a baby’s toy.

We were really helpful at the end of the match. We unstuck the ‘baby’s toy’ and said we’d get rid of it. The Basher and his cousins all scowled at us and we managed not to laugh as we took Jelly away.

Right got to go and find some tins of food.  Mrs Hogsbottom has ordered us to bring things in for the harvest festival next week.  She and Mr Widget are going to make a display and then all the food is going to be given to the old people in the village.  Mrs Hogsbum has told us that anyone who doesn’t do this will be breaking School Rule Number 836 – Children must not forget to bring in food for the Harvest Festival when the head teacher has ordered them to do it.

Whoops!  Here comes Miss Bleet and I haven’t found out what a tea cosy is.


6

30
Jul
Amusement park disaster!

Posted by Ben

We were so excited about the amusement park.  My mum took me and Max while his mum took our annoying sisters, Arabella and Jessica to a dolls’ museum – glad they didn’t get the tickets mixed up!  Of course the gargoylz sneaked into the car as well.

We’d just arrived and were making for the Cliff Drop Ride when disaster struck.  Barry Price, also known as the Basher, codename: School Bully, came round the corner.

He got in the queue behind us and dropped ice cream down our backs while we waited for our go. (Luckily it was a hot day)  Then he pelted us with peanuts when we were on the airplanes. We got our own back later though – thanks to the gargoylz.

We all climbed aboard the Supersonic Speedcoaster – the one that turns you upside down and has 15 twists. As the ride began, Cyrus sang quietly into Barry’s ear. He fell asleep straight away and missed the whole ride. And it was awesome. We were nearly sick it was so great. When we got to the end Barry woke up and couldn’t understand why the man was telling him to get out. Barry insisted the ride hadn’t started yet and had a tantrum. In the end his mum had to drag him away.

We had a wonderful time after that. The gargoylz’ favourite was the storybook slow river ride. While the boats went round they all hid among the exhibits. We heard lots of happy kids coming out talking about the stony models that squirted their parents with water! Gargoylz’ tricks are awesome!

Uh oh! Arabella’s coming. I bet she wants to show me all her photos of the dolls’ museum. Boring. Got to hide! 


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Last day of school! Hurray!

The play was awesome!  There were witches and walking trees and ghosts.  And at the end, the baddie, who was called Macbeth, got his head cut off and someone held it up.  It looked really real and dripped with blood and the Basher burst out crying. We didn’t need Ira to make it rain at all but we forgot to tell him so the whole audience got soaked! 

Anyway, the gargoylz really liked it so they invited us to go and watch them put on their version of the play in the churchyard. It was called MacGargoyle. Zack was MacGargoyle and he kept disappearing so it was hard to follow what was going on. Rufus, Eli and Azzan were the walking trees but they only had two leaves and a dandelion between them. We tried not to laugh. MacGargoyle’s head was a balloon with a face drawn on it so when Toby lifted it up, the wind blew it away and it popped on the spire.

Bart has just nudged my elbow.  He wants me to tell you a joke he heard in a school recently.

Q. What do you call an exploding ape?

A. A ba-boom!

We’re off to an amusement park on Monday – hurrah!


5

16
Apr
The fire breathing cat…

Posted by Max

Blog writer: Agent Black

This has been a great Easter holidays. We’ve done loads of tricks this week.  The best one was the prank we played on the Basher.

On Wednesday we went to see the gargoylz at the church. But just as we started a fantastic game of ‘had’ in the churchyard, the Basher loomed over his garden wall. He was the last person we wanted to see – the gargoylz only just hid in time. He said we had to tell him what we were doing and he climbed over the wall. 

Then I saw Azzan waving at me from behind a grave. Theo was with him and it gave me an idea. I nudged Ben to let him know we had a secret plan and then told Barry that we’d found a fire breathing cat. He scoffed of course and said he’d thump us for wasting his time.

I winked at Theo and he turned into a kitten and gave a sweet miaow. Azzan stayed hidden but just as the Basher bent down to peer at Theo, Azzan blasted a flame over Theo’s head.  Barry was so frightened he vaulted his wall and was inside his house shouting for his mum before you could say ‘dragon!’

 Of course Theo was convinced it was because he’d turned into a fierce tiger but it didn’t matter. The Basher didn’t disturb us again.

Back to school on Monday (boo!) but we’re going to play an awesome trick on super annoying Lucinda Tellingly (Yay!) We haven’t forgotten she was going to tell on us about the rainforest.


8


Ben Neal, superspy, here at the classroom computer.

Miss Bleet couldn’t believe it when she saw the beetle on her desk. She was wittering on about how it must be a homing beetle when Zack popped invisible and dropped it down her back. She had stopped screaming by home time.

Max and I have had an awesome footie competition this week.  It was Superspies v. Gargoylz. Max and I won on Monday night and the gargoylz won on Tuesday night – but that’s only because they cheated. We’d told Zack he couldn’t go invisible but he forgot and scored five goals.  So Wednesday’s match was the decider. But we’d only just got started when the Basher turned up. He’d seen something going on from his bedroom window.

The gargoylz just managed to hide in time but Max and I were too slow. Barry stormed over, snatched the ball and lobbed it up onto the school roof. Then he stood there laughing at us. Of course, getting your ball back from a high place is no problem when you’ve got secret gargoyle friends, but Barry doesn’t know that we have. And we couldn’t ask them to get it with him standing there. But then suddenly he shouted that there was a snake in the grass and he ran away! 

Good old Eli. His secret power is brilliant. Toby flew up and got the ball and we carried on with the match. At ten-all we decided to call the whole thing a draw!

Bart has just appeared at the window. He’s looking worried. I wonder what he wants. We’ll let you know next week . . .


10

29
Jan
The photo trick!

Posted by Max

Hello, Agent Black reporting!

Remember Ben and Azzan’s photo trick?  It should have been awesome.  All the pictures went up in the hall before school. Soon there was a deafening shriek. We put our earplugs in and rushed into the hall on our superspy propelling machines – codename feet. Arabella was yelling her head off because everyone was laughing at her picture. That is until they came across this really gruesome child holding a watering can over his head.  It was voted most ugly.  And then it turned out that Arabella had brought it in and it was Ben!  We had to hide in the boys’ toilets until the mocking stopped.  Barry the Basher Price was the worst.  He’s been on about it all week.  Until today.

Today I took my telescope (best Christmas present in the history of best Christmas presents) into school. Ben and I hid behind the bins with Toby and Zack and poked it over the top. We took it in turns to spy on Lucinda Tellingly picking her nose. But then the Basher snatched it and ran off! He was about to use it as a cricket bat when Zack popped invisible and snatched it back. It was great seeing the look on the Basher’s face when the telescope danced off in mid-air. He didn’t eat any of his chips at lunchtime. He just sat there muttering about the Telescope of Terror.

We’re going to play with the gargoylz all day tomorrow. The choir will be practising for a wedding in the church and Toby says he’s got a spectacular trick to play on them.

We’ll tell you all about it next time . . .


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