‘You know what?’ James said, as he pulled on a white sock that didn’t match the first one. ‘I don’t see what all this fuss is about recruitment missions. It can’t be
that
bad being sent off to some children’s home to try and get another kid to join CHERUB.’
Kyle, who’d been on five recruitment missions for his many sins, nodded. ‘They’re not awful. They’re just really boring and a lot of the kids you meet in those places are complete scumbags; nicking your stuff and that. One time I got sent to this place in Newcastle. I had guys starting on me every five minutes. I was there for three weeks and I must have been in a row every day.’
‘Did you recruit anyone?’
Kyle nodded. ‘Those two blonde twins with the Geordie accents. Remember I pointed them out to you? They were only seven at the time, but they had more brains than all the other kids in that dump combined.’
*
There were three gymnasiums on CHERUB campus. Fitness training was taught in the oldest of them, which was still known as the Boys’ Gym, from the days when physical education was a single-sex affair. James had a soft spot for this dilapidated building, with its mahogany wall clock permanently stuck at a quarter to five, dim light bulbs suspended from long wires and shrunken floorboards that creaked underfoot. His favourite feature was the hand-painted sign hanging over the entrance:
Any boy bringing in mud or dirt on
his plimsolls will be thrashed
.
P.T. Bivott (Sports Master)
Today’s teacher was Meryl Spencer, a retired Olympic sprinter, who could think of a couple of kids she wouldn’t have minded thrashing if corporal punishment at CHERUB hadn’t been banned more than twenty years earlier.
The gym had been laid out with forty stations. Some were as simple as a foam mat with a laminated card on it saying
Push Ups
. Others were more complex: traffic cones set out for shuttle runs, a chest-press machine, a chin-up bar.
The thirty kids in the class picked a station to start at. They worked it for two minutes, after which Meryl would blast her whistle and the kids would run to the next. The whole circuit took eighty minutes and the only relief from exhaustion came at the two rest stops along the way. Anyone who looked slack found Meryl or her assistant yelling in their face, calling them soft and threatening them with
a good boot up the backside
.
Eight boys piled into the showers when the session ended. James towelled off and put on clean jeans, then flexed his chest muscles and biceps in front of the steamed-up mirror.
He’d sprouted eight centimetres in the last three months and packed on muscle since starting regular strength training.
Bruce flicked James’ back with his towel. ‘You little poser,’ Bruce grinned. ‘Stop poncing about.’
James turned away and grinned as he rolled deodorant under his arms. ‘You’re just jealous because I’m looking so beefy these days,’ he said. ‘It’s hardly surprising that half the girls on campus are chasing after me.’
‘You reckon, do you?’ Bruce huffed.
Kyle spotted a golden opportunity for one of his trademark wind-ups. ‘I think you’re right, actually,’ he said, stepping forward and putting his hand on James’ bum. ‘I think you’re hot stuff.’
James leapt half a metre in the air and screamed. ‘Cut that gay shit out, Kyle.’
After a great deal of persuasion from Kerry and a few others, James had eventually decided that there was nothing wrong with his friend Kyle being gay. Sometimes it still gave him the creeps though. He spun around and furiously shoved Kyle away, his face burning with rage as Bruce and the other boys started laughing. James realised the only way to save face was to outdo Kyle at his own game. He quickly balled up all the saliva he could muster, grabbed Kyle around the back of the neck and planted a massive soggy kiss on his cheek. Kyle recoiled in horror, with a glistening trail of James’ spit rolling down his face.
‘You filthy
little
…’ Kyle shouted, as he scoured his wet face on his towel.
‘What’s the matter?’ James asked sweetly. ‘Come on, baby. Won’t you give us a snog?’
Bruce and the others were killing themselves laughing, as Kyle bundled up his clothes and scrambled to the opposite end of the changing room.
*
Sunday lunch was an occasion on campus. It was the only meal of the week when the individual tables in the dining-room were pushed together. Table cloths were laid and places set with the good cutlery. The traditional Sunday roast with all the trimmings was James’ favourite meal of the week, but the atmosphere at his table was miserable, because everyone except Bruce was being briefed for their recruitment missions later that afternoon. Even the banter riding back and forth about James and Kyle fancying each other didn’t do much to lighten the mood.
Kyle, James and Gabrielle shared the first appointment with Zara. They strolled through the drizzle without speaking, their bloated stomachs deadening their progress.
The brand new mission preparation building was a kilometre away from the main building, where they’d eaten lunch. The banana-shaped construction looked impressive as you approached: a hundred metres of reflective glass, bristling with satellite dishes and aerials. Impressions took a turn for the worse when you got close and realised that the paths up to the building comprised wooden boards laid over mud. There were still wheelbarrows, cement mixers and building materials everywhere and the high-tech entry system that was supposed to identify you by scanning the lattice of blood vessels in the back of your eye had a soggy
Out Of Order
notice drooped over it.
The three kids passed along a corridor that smelled of new carpet tiles. The offices all had the names of CHERUB mission controllers printed on the locked doors.
Zara Asker was one of the most senior mission controllers. She had a big office at the end of the corridor, with a semicircle of floor-to-ceiling windows and some rather swish-looking furniture with lots of curving wood and flashy chrome trim. She struggled out of her seat as the kids walked through her open door, revealing a set of baggy dungarees stretched over an almost nine-month-pregnant belly.
‘Well, well, well,’ Zara grinned, nodding at James and Kyle. ‘Dr McAfferty told me it wouldn’t take long to find a few bodies to send on recruitment missions. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you two hooligans here … And you must be Gabrielle, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.’
As Gabrielle and Zara shook hands, James couldn’t help smiling guiltily. Zara had been one of the controllers on his last mission and he’d got on well with her.
‘How’s Joshua these days?’ James asked.
Zara broke into a smile. ‘He’s grown a lot since you last saw him. His back teeth are pushing through and he’s driving me and Ewart crazy. As a matter of fact, any time you fancy coming over to the staff quarters to baby-sit …’
James laughed. ‘I’ll give that offer a miss, thanks.’
‘OK,’ Zara said, returning to business. ‘I take it you all know what a recruitment mission entails? We’ve put together a background scenario and false identity for each of you and you can expect to be sent off to a children’s home within the next week. As with any other CHERUB mission, you have an absolute right to refuse to undertake it. However, if you refuse in this instance, I expect Dr McAfferty will issue you with an alternative punishment, which you can expect to be a lot less pleasant than a few weeks in local authority care.
‘When you arrive at the children’s home, your job is to check everyone out. You’re looking for a potential CHERUB recruit, which means a smart, physically fit kid. Family ties are a big no-no. Foreign language skills and identical twins will be looked upon very favourably. It’s all in the mission briefing.’
Zara leaned across her desk and handed James, Kyle and Gabrielle a photocopy of the standard briefing for recruitment missions.
‘Good candidates can get shipped off to foster homes in no time,’ Zara continued. ‘So if you spot someone who looks the business, get on to me or one of the assistant mission controllers straight away and we’ll arrange to have the kid drugged and brought here to undertake the recruitment tests …’
There was a gentle knock on Zara’s open door.
‘John,’ Zara said, breaking into a smile. ‘Good to see I’m not the only mission controller who comes in on Sunday afternoons.’
James turned around and instantly recognised the silver-rimmed glasses and pale, bald head of John Jones. John had only just taken a job as a CHERUB mission controller, but James had worked with John the year before when he was still employed by MI5, the adult branch of British intelligence.
‘I thought I spotted James in here,’ John said awkwardly. ‘You’re not sending him out are you?’
‘He got himself in
another
spot of bother,’ Zara explained. ‘Mac wants him to go on a recruitment mission, but I’m sure he’ll yield if you’ve got James pencilled in for something important.’
James’ heart leapt at the prospect of escape.
John Jones nodded. ‘Perhaps I could have a quick word, in confidence?’
Zara looked at the kids. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Would you step out into the corridor for a jiffy?’
As soon as James shut Zara’s office door, Kyle glowered at him.
‘I can’t believe you’re gonna weasel your way out of this, James,’ he said indignantly.
James folded his arms and broke into a smug grin.
It was ten minutes before Zara pulled her door open and the three kids filed back in. ‘Well, James,’ Zara said. ‘I just rang Dr McAfferty and you’re off the hook, provided you accept the mission John is going to offer you at a briefing later this evening.’
‘
So
jammy,’ Kyle whispered under his breath.
James couldn’t help smiling.
‘I wouldn’t look so satisfied if I was you,’ John Jones said. ‘You might decide you’d prefer the recruitment mission when you see what I’ve got lined up for you.’
Eleven kids had started basic training three months earlier. Lauren stood to attention in the snow with the five others who’d made it to the final checkpoint on their snowmobiles. Mr Large, the head instructor, was eyeballing her.
‘Can anybody here tell this young lady what polar bears do in the winter?’ he shouted.
A couple of kids grumbled a response: ‘Hibernate.’
‘That’s right, Miss Thicko,’ Large grinned. ‘They dig a big hole under the ice and they drift off to snoozy land until the daffodils pop up in springtime. If you’d
bothered
to study the training manual, you’d also have seen that bears eat fish and live on the ice floes near the coast. Not out here, over a hundred kilometres inland. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Lauren said meekly.
‘And the radio. Why did you forget to switch on the encryption device?’
‘I was cold and tired, and …’ Lauren saw Mr Large’s eyes bulge out behind his snow goggles and realised she was giving the wrong answer. ‘Sorry, sir … No excuse, sir,’ she said sharply.
Mr Large shoved Lauren to the ground and plunged his size-fifteen boots into the snow on either side of her head.
‘When I woke up this morning, Lauren
Adams
,’ Large spat, ‘my back hurt. It hurt the same way it’s hurt every
single
morning since a nasty little girl hit me with a spade five months back. Can you remind me who it was that did that?’
‘Me, sir?’ Lauren inquired innocently.
‘If I’d had my way, you would have been permanently excluded from CHERUB.’
Lauren had been surprised that Mr Large hadn’t made training harder for her from day one. Now she had the horrible realisation that he’d saved up his revenge for the very end.
‘And
so
,’ Mr Large said, ‘to the ultimate test of courage that was mentioned in all of your mission briefings. There’s been a slight change of plan. The briefing should now read,
Ultimate test of
Lauren’s
courage
.’
Lauren felt a tear welling up behind her snow goggles as the icy ground chilled her back. She didn’t reckon she could face a third attempt at basic training. Failure now would be the end of her CHERUB career.
Mr Large crushed Lauren’s knuckles as he tugged her back to her feet.
‘Who’s the best swimmer out of you six trainees?’ Mr Large asked, eyeballing Lauren again.
‘Me, I suppose,’ Lauren said.
‘That’s
riiiiight
, isn’t it?’ Mr Large said cockily. ‘Quite the little mermaid, I recall … So if one of you had to swim across a fast-flowing river, grab six lovely grey CHERUB T-shirts and then swim back again, you’d be the ideal candidate. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes sir,’ Lauren barked, trying desperately not to show Mr Large how upset she was. He absolutely loved it when he made a trainee cry.
Mr Large took a step back and addressed the whole lineup. ‘I’d suggest that all of you do what you can to help Lauren out; because if she doesn’t come back with the T-shirts, I’ll make each of you swim across individually and fetch your own. The river is four hundred metres away, over the brow of the next hill. I’d suggest you get moving if you want to be indoors by sundown.’