Moses and Mildred

The day King Kong and I were kidnapped started off like any other Saturday."

So writes Moses, Uganda's most notorious schoolboy, at the start of his yet another wild adventure.

The deputy headmaster, Mr Karanja, has decided that the two friends must have their hair cut. They spend a pleasant morning in town, enjoying the freedom from Mukibi's Educational Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen - until a sleek Mercedes Benz appears and their 'holiday' comes to an abrupt end. Their hairstyle thrusts them deep into the criminal underworld and they only escape being sold into slavery by the skin of their teeth.

This is the fourth of Moses' witty chronicles of life in Uganda's most awful school.

Moses and his friend, King Kong, set a dorm in their school, Mukibi's Educational Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen, on fire - accidentally of course. Thus it is that the Dorm 3 inmates find themselves camping out in tents by the river and up to their necks in trouble. n nIt is while they are trying to push a tent pole into the stony ground that King Kong digs up a bag containing gold watches, bracelets, necklaces, rings, and six cameras in smart brown leather cases! n nNeedless to say, the boys are unable to keep their great discovery to themselves and, before long, they are involved with thieves and with the police as King Kong disappears. n n'Moses the Camper' is the ninth title in the adventures of Barbara Kimenye's mischievous Ugandan schoolboy.

"A girl student in a place like this would be scandalous!" exclaims Mr Karanja, deputy headmaster of Mukibi's Educational Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen. Mr Mukibi, however, thinks it is a splendid idea and so do the boys when they hear the sensational news. n nMoses and King Kong, who are the first to meet Juli Sekabanja, are not so sure. But Juli has decided that the two friends are just the allies she needs to help her catch a gang of spies she claims to have discovered. Thinking of their share of the reward, they agree. n nBy the end of this hilarious adventure, even Mr Mukibi has changed his mind about the merits of co-education!

It's half-term. Most of the boys at Mukibi's Educational Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen are going home for the holiday, but Moses and King Kong have a better plan. Why not sneak off and spend the weekend in Tororo, the nearby town, and have some fun by themselves while the staff think they're at home and their families think they are at school? n nIt's a great idea, but, as so often happens with the two friends' great ideas, things tend to go a bit wrong. First of all they meet Finito, a seedy-looking old man, but he's in a remarkably interesting line of business, and he offers the boys a well-paying job. It isn't really their fault that Finito shortly finds his business in ruins and himself on the run from the police. The boys too have their own problems: Mr Karanja, the school's deputy headmaster, is hot on their trail. n n'Moses on the Move' is the seventh title in the adventures of Barbara Kimenye's mischievous Ugandan schoolboy.