CHERUB: Class A

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Serves him right for taking drugs,’ Kerry said.

  ‘Give over, Kerry, all he did was take a puff on a joint. He would never have got caught if Nicole hadn’t collapsed.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Kerry said. ‘If something’s against the law, you shouldn’t do it. Especially drugs.’

  James started to laugh.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘You,’ James said. ‘You’re always such a goody two shoes.’

  Kerry jabbed a finger in James’ ribs.

  ‘What was that for?’

  ‘I’m not a goody two shoes.’

  James grinned. ‘Little Miss Perfect.’

  ‘Take that back or I’ll make you sorry.’

  James mocked her voice. ‘Take that back or I’ll make you sorry.’

  ‘Don’t start repeating what I say.’

  ‘Don’t start repeating what I say.’

  ‘That’s it, James,’ Kerry said angrily.

  ‘That’s it, James.’ James leaned forward and planted a cheeky kiss on Kerry’s face. She broke into a smile.

  ‘I knew you weren’t really mad at me,’ James giggled. ‘I’m too delightful.’

  He stopped giggling when he realised it wasn’t Kerry’s nice smile. It was her evil smile. She jabbed James in the ribs again, then used the moment while he was in spasm to wrap her arm around the back of his neck and wedge him into a headlock under her arm.

  ‘Still goody two shoes, am I?’ Kerry grinned as she tightened her grip.

  ‘No,’ James croaked.

  ‘Quite sure?’

  ‘You’re not a goody, Kerry,’ James squirmed. ‘Just … Please … Let me go.’

  Kerry let James loose. As he straightened up, James couldn’t help but see the funny side of being effortlessly humiliated by a twelve-year-old girl wearing pink and white striped socks with penguins embroidered over the ankle.

  Kerry got off the bench.

  ‘Where are you going?’ James asked.

  ‘Romantic stroll,’ she explained, as she marched towards the trees. ‘Are you coming or not?’

  *

  After their walk, James, Kerry and a big bunch of other kids spent Sunday evening at the bowling alley in the nearest town. They got beaten three games to two by the identical twins, Callum and Connor. James and Kerry had a total laugh. James had never felt so relaxed with a girl before. Now he’d asked Kerry out, it seemed dumb that he’d spent so long finding excuses not to.

  James lay awake until gone midnight. His body was still running on Miami time and it was early evening over there. He tucked his hands under his head and stared at the shadows on the ceiling.

  He wondered how Junior was doing in hospital and got pissed off when he remembered that April still had his Nike watch. But the KMG mission already felt distant, like part of some other kid’s life. James Beckett was no more. James Adams felt warm and comfortable under his duvet. He realised he was the happiest he’d been since his mum died.

  James thought about life on campus. He knew the quickest routes around every building. He knew everyone’s names. Which kids not to start a conversation with in the lift because they’d bore you to tears. Which teachers would have a laugh with you and which ones would hammer you for the tiniest little thing.

  James knew there would always be mornings when he woke up and didn’t want to get out of bed for two hours’ combat training, or a brain-numbing double history lesson. But when he pulled on his uniform and walked down to breakfast, he knew most other kids looked at him with respect. Whenever James got to the dining-room and looked around for a seat, there were always a few tables where he could sit amongst friends, spreading the latest gossip and winding each other up.

  A year earlier, CHERUB campus had been a bunch of strange faces, winding corridors and scary teachers. Now it felt like home.

  EPILOGUE

  KELVIN HOLMES was sentenced to three years’ youth custody for conspiracy to supply drugs. Most of the younger boys who worked as delivery riders for KMG got off with police cautions and supervision orders. A few who had previous drug convictions received 3–6 months in youth custody.

  Without funding from Keith Moore, the JT Martin youth centre and boxing club closed its doors for the final time after the 2004 Christmas party. No charges were brought against KEN FOWLER, who died of a heart attack a few months later.

  MADELINE BURROWS, the nice lady who called James with his deliveries, got a five-year prison sentence, as did her younger brother JOSEPH BURROWS (Crazy Joe). Over 130 other members of KMG received prison sentences as a direct result of the MI5 surveillance operation on Thunderfoods.

  Dinesh’s dad, PARVINDER SINGH, received a twelve-year prison sentence. DINESH SINGH and his mother moved away, to live near relatives in south London.

  KEITH MOORE spent over a week being interviewed by DEA officials at their headquarters in Washington DC. Keith was bitter about the Lambayeke cartel’s brutal attempt to steal his money and provided a mass of information that led to the immediate seizure of $130 million in drug money and the arrest of several senior figures within the Lambayeke organisation.

  Keith was later flown back to Britain, where he pleaded guilty to numerous charges relating to money-laundering and drug-trafficking. The judge sentenced Keith to eighteen years in prison and recommended that he should not be considered for early release until he had served at least ten.

  The police have uncovered £12 million of Keith’s personal fortune, but he is still believed to have at least another £40 million in secret bank accounts.

  JUNIOR MOORE fully recovered from his injuries and flew back to Britain. Shortly afterwards, he was expelled from Grey Park school for persistent truancy. His mother said she was ‘sick of his behaviour’ and didn’t want him ending up like his father. She found him a place at a tough boarding school that specialises in dealing with difficult boys.

  APRIL MOORE quickly grew tired of James Beckett not responding to her text messages and e-mails. She returned James’ best watch to the address where the Beckett family had supposedly moved and it was eventually forwarded to CHERUB campus. When James opened the envelope, he found his watch had been hammered into a dozen pieces. It was accompanied by a note reading: ‘You could at least have had the decency to dump me to my face. Hope you die slowly, April.’

  JOHN JONES announced he was leaving MI5 after nineteen years’ service. He has accepted a new job as a CHERUB mission controller.

  EWART & ZARA ASKER are expecting their second child in April 2005.

  NICOLE EDDISON now lives with two retired cherubs on a farm in Shropshire. She has two young stepbrothers who she adores and a boyfriend called James. She attends twice-weekly counselling sessions and is slowly coming to terms with the loss of her family.

  Dr McAfferty’s beloved mission preparation building is on schedule to be completed in February 2005. He conducted a review of Nicole’s recruitment to CHERUB, to see if any mistakes had been made. His report reached the following conclusion:

  ‘If anything, the tests Nicole Eddison completed before being asked to join CHERUB show that she had an above average chance of becoming a successful agent. Unfortunately, no recruitment test yet devised can account for all the complexities of human nature. It seems likely that a small number of unsuitable candidates will be recruited into CHERUB for as long as the organisation exists. All we can do is remain vigilant and try to keep this number to a minimum.’

  A few weeks after James returned from Miami, AMY COLLINS left campus to live with her brother in Australia. James was part of the crowd that waved her through the departure gate at Heathrow airport.

  It took KYLE BLUEMAN and LAUREN ADAMS two months to clean out all the ditches at the back of campus. Kyle was suspended from missions for another four months. Lauren re-entered basic training, with her daily countdown paper in her pocket and a grim determination to make it through no matter how tough Mr Large tried to make it.

  After a few weeks back on campus,
KERRY CHANG was sent to Hong Kong on a mission that looked set to last several months. James and Kerry are exchanging daily e-mails and occasionally speak to each other on the phone.

  JAMES ADAMS used his time on campus to catch up on schoolwork. He has recently started studying for GCSE exams in three of his strongest subjects, has begun regular weight training, and narrowly failed a second-dan black belt grading in Karate class. He expects to be assigned to another undercover mission in early 2005.

  READ ON FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER

  OF THE NEXT CHERUB BOOK,

  MAXIMUM SECURITY.

  1. COLD

  Before you entered basic training, you probably heard stories from qualified CHERUB agents about the nature of this one-hundred-day course. Although every basic training course is designed to teach the same core abilities of physical fitness and extreme mental endurance, you can expect your training to differ from that of your predecessors in order to retain the element of surprise.

  (Excerpt from the CHERUB Basic Training Manual)

  It looked the same in every direction. The sunlight blazing off the field of snow made it impossible for the two ten-year-old girls to see more than twenty metres into the distance, despite the heavily tinted snow goggles over their eyes.

  ‘How far to the checkpoint?’ Lauren Adams shouted, breaking her stride to stare at the global positioning unit strapped around her best friend’s wrist.

  ‘Only two and a half kilometres,’ Bethany Parker shouted back. ‘If the ground stays flat, we should be at the shelter in forty minutes.’

  The girls had to shout for their voices to override the howling wind and the three layers of clothing protecting their ears.

  ‘That’s cutting it close to sundown,’ Lauren yelled. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

  They’d set off at dawn, dragging lightweight sleds that could be hooked over their shoulders and carried as backpacks on difficult terrain. The good news was, the two CHERUB trainees had the whole day to trek fifteen kilometres across the Alaskan snowfield to their next checkpoint. The bad news was that at this time in April, the daylight lasted just four hours and wading through half a metre of powdery snow put enormous strain on their thighs and ankles. Every step was painful.

  Lauren heard a howling noise rising up in the distance. ‘It’s gonna be another big one,’ she shouted.

  The girls crouched down, pulled their sleds in close and wrapped their arms tightly around each other’s waists. Just as you can hear waves approaching a beach, out here in the Alaskan snowfields you could hear a strong gust stirring up in the distance.

  They were both dressed for extreme cold. Lauren’s normal underwear was covered with a long sleeved thermal vest and long johns. The next layer was a zip-up suit made from polar fleece that covered her whole body, except for a slit around the eyes. The second fleece was designed to trap body heat. It looked like a baggy Easter bunny suit, minus the pom-pom tail and sticking up ears. Then came more gloves, another balaclava, snow goggles and waterproof outer gloves that went all the way up to Lauren’s elbows, ending in a tightly fitting elastic cuff. Finally, on the outside was a thickly padded snowsuit and snow boots with spiked bottoms.

  The clothing was enough to keep them comfortable as they walked, despite the temperature being minus eighteen centigrade, but this dropped another fifteen degrees whenever a strong gust hit. The wind pushed the insulating layers of warm air between the girls’ clothes into all the places where it wasn’t needed, leaving nothing but a couple of centimetres of synthetic fibre between their skin and the ferociously cold air. Each blast ripped into their bodies, delivering searing pain to any exposed area.

  Lauren and Bethany used their sleds as windbreaks when the gust hit. A spike of cold air punched through the tightly fitting rim of Lauren’s goggles. She pushed her face against Bethany’s suit and squeezed her eyes shut, as snow and ice pounded deafeningly against her hood.

  When the gust passed and the snow had settled, Lauren brushed the dusting of powder off her suit and stumbled back to her feet.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Bethany shouted.

  Lauren stuck up her thumbs. ‘Ninety-nine days down, one to go,’ she shouted.

  *

  Lauren and Bethany’s home for the night was a metal container painted in a high visibility shade of orange. It was the kind of container you’d normally expect to pass on the motorway, mounted on the back of an articulated truck. There was a radio mast and a shattered flagpole lashed to the roof.

  The girls had beaten the darkness. The sun’s distant face was already touching the horizon and the light it sent through the mist of falling snow gave the whole landscape a powdery yellow hue. The girls were too exhausted to appreciate its beauty; all they cared about was getting warm.

  It took a few minutes to dig out the snow from around the two metal doors that formed one end of the container. Once they were open, Lauren dragged the two sleds inside, while Bethany searched along a wooden shelf until she found a gas lamp. Lauren closed the metal doors, creating a boom that would have been deafening if the girls’ ears hadn’t been shielded by their outdoor clothes.

  ‘We’ve got even less fuel tonight,’ Lauren shouted, as the lamp erupted in an unsteady blue glow. She looked at the single bottle of gas as she peeled off her goggles and outermost set of gloves. Her hands were freezing, but it was impossible to manipulate anything with three sets of gloves on.

  On the first night of their week in the Alaskan wilderness, the girls had found two large bottles of gas in their shelter. They’d heated the room until it was toasty, cooked lavishly and warmed up water to wash with. The fun ended abruptly when the gas ran out in the middle of the night and the indoor temperature rapidly dropped back below freezing. After this harsh lesson, the girls took pains to ration their energy supply.

  Bethany fixed a hose from the gas bottle to a small heater and lit just one of its three chambers. This would slowly bring the temperature inside their container above freezing. Until it did, the girls would keep as many of their outdoor clothes on as the task at hand allowed.

  They spent the next few minutes rummaging through the supplies that had been left for them. There were plenty of high-energy foods, such as tinned meats, flapjacks, instant noodles, chocolate bars and glucose powder. They also found their mission briefings, clean underwear, fresh boot liners and floor mats. Combined with the pots, utensils and sleeping bags packed in their sleds, it would be enough to make the nineteen hours until the sun returned reasonably comfortable.

  Once the girls had ensured that they had all the basics, Lauren couldn’t help wondering what was under the tarpaulin at the back of the container.

  ‘That’s got to be something to do with our mission for tomorrow,’ Bethany said.

  They stepped across and dragged the tarp off a giant cardboard box. It was over two metres long and almost up to Lauren’s shoulders. Scraping at the layer of frost over the cardboard revealed a Yamaha logo and an outline drawing of a snowmobile.

  ‘Cool,’ Bethany said. ‘I don’t think my legs could handle another day trudging through that snow.’

  ‘Have you ever driven one?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Nah,’ Bethany said, shaking her head excitedly. ‘But it can’t be much different from the quad bikes we drove last summer at the hostel … Let’s open our briefings and work out what we’ve got to do tomorrow.’

  ‘We’d better take our temperatures and radio base camp first,’ Lauren said.

  There was a radio set already linked up to the aerial on the roof. Its battery was cold and it took several seconds for the orange frequency display on the front panel to light up. While they waited, the girls took turns measuring their body temperatures with a small plastic strip that you tucked under your armpit.

  The indicator lit up between the thirty-five and thirty-six degree marks on both of them. It meant the girls were running slightly below normal body temperature, which is exactly what you’d expect for two people who’d just spent
several hours in extreme cold. Another hour would have been enough for them to develop early symptoms of hypothermia.

  Lauren grabbed the microphone and keyed up. ‘This is unit three calling instructor Large. Over.’

  ‘Instructor Large receiving … Greetings, my little sugar plums.’

  It was reassuring hearing a human voice other than Bethany’s for the first time in twenty-four hours, even if it was that of Mr Large, CHERUB’s head training instructor. Large was a nasty piece of work. Pushing kids through tough training courses wasn’t just part of his job; he actually enjoyed making them suffer.

  ‘Just reporting in to say that everything is fine with me and unit four,’ Lauren said. ‘Over.’

  ‘Why aren’t you using the coded frequency? Over,’ Mr Large asked angrily.

  Lauren realised her instructor was right and hurriedly flipped the scramble switch on the front of the receiver.

  ‘Oh … Sorry. Over.’

  ‘You will be tomorrow morning when I get my hands on you,’ Large snapped. ‘Minus ten house points for Hufflepuff. Over and out.’

  ‘Over and out,’ Lauren said bitterly. She put down the microphone and kicked out at the side of the metal container. ‘God, I really hate that man’s guts.’

  Bethany laughed a little. ‘Not as much as he hates you for knocking him head first into that muddy hole with a spade.’

  ‘True,’ Lauren said, allowing herself a grin as she recalled the event that had brought her first attempt at basic training to an abrupt end. ‘I suppose we’d better get cracking. You start translating the briefing. I’ll go outside and bring in some snow to melt for drinking water.’

  Lauren found a bucket and grabbed the torch out of her sled. She pushed the metal door of the container and squeezed herself and the bucket through a small gap, so as not to let out too much heat.