‘Righty ho,’ James said. ‘I’m not sure about this spa thing though. Have you ever been to one? It looks girly to me.’
‘Can’t say I have,’ Kyle said. ‘But you should have seen the girls cooing over the brochure when we booked up.’
‘So you’re going?’ James asked.
‘I know it’s not your cup of tea James, but the girls went to the dune buggy place because they knew you’d like it.’
‘I guess,’ James said, clearly not convinced.
‘Besides, there’s five of us lads, so I expect we’ll just stand around taking the piss out of each other.’
‘Who knows, maybe I’ll even like it, eh?’
‘Exactly,’ Kyle said. ‘See you down at breakfast.’
After waiting for Kerry and the others to head off to the dining-room, James crept down the back stairs to the lobby and stole a rose from the floral display. When he reached the dining-room, he put it between his teeth and knelt in front of Kerry.
‘Good morrow my sweet,’ he said, making a poor attempt at a posh accent as he handed her the rose. ‘Please accept my apologies for my caddish behaviour last night.’
Kerry smirked. She twirled the rose between her thumb and forefinger and addressed the whole table.
‘Who thinks I should kiss and make up?’
Everyone started to laugh, and comments flew around the table ranging from
kick his arse to marry him and get it over with
. James was a little bit scared because he’d left himself open for Kerry to humiliate him if she wanted to.
‘I tell you what,’ Kerry said, as she leaned forward and kissed James on the cheek. ‘I’ll accept your apology, so long as you go and fetch me another piece of toast from the counter.’
*
It was early Sunday afternoon when Lauren arrived at the Aldrington Care Centre, or the ACC. She’d spent the entire drive with a set of detailed paperwork spread across the back seats of a Range Rover Sport. As well as ploughing through a series of briefings on human trafficking, she had to read and remember all the details of a background story that had been carefully prepared by John.
Her name was Lauren Yuran, daughter of an English mother who’d died in childbirth. She’d lived in eastern Russia with her father until the age of eight, but had been sent back to live with her British grandmother when he was imprisoned for his role in an armed robbery. Unfortunately, her grandmother died of a heart attack within a year and she’d spent the last three years living in children’s homes and with a succession of short-term foster parents.
She was returning to Aldrington Care Centre following an unsuccessful placement with foster parents in Croydon and as she spoke Russian the chief supervisor at the care home – who knew nothing about the CHERUB operation – had agreed to place her in a room with the mysterious Anna.
Lauren Adams’ previous experience of a care home had been in London, in the time between her mum dying and her being accepted into CHERUB. She’d expected a similar type of building with shabby corridors and mildew in the bathrooms. But ACC was less than two years old and modern care facilities are built quite differently.
There was a small office and a central kitchen where main meals were prepared, but the home itself consisted of five self-contained units. Each unit was built like a terraced house, with a kitchen and living-room downstairs and six large bedrooms upstairs with accommodation for two children in each.
John had packed a large bag of Lauren’s things and with Lauren in tow, he wheeled it across a deserted playground and up to the front door of unit three.
‘It’s open,’ a kid shouted.
Lauren pushed the door and stepped into a large kitchen, with two washing machines running and notices taped everywhere:
You must clean the worktops before preparing any food. Stack ALL cups and plates inside the dishwasher after meals
, and in giant orange letters,
No snacks or other treats before homework is complete and signed off by the house parent on duty
.
The kitchen was extremely hot and Lauren was slightly flustered by the bare chest of a good-looking teenager sitting at the dining table reading the latest Caroline Lawrence book.
‘I’m looking for Chris Powell,’ John said hopefully.
‘He’s off today,’ the kid explained. ‘Madison is on duty. She’s in the front room playing video games.’
Three little kids sitting on the carpet all turned around when Lauren and John stepped into the room. Madison appeared to be in her thirties. She wore a pair of inexplicably large glasses with red plastic frames and a T-shirt with Lego men on it.
‘Hi Lauren,’ Madison said brightly, as her giant earrings jangled. ‘I’m one of your house parents. Welcome to ACC. These three are Luke, Seb and Oonah, and you’re going to be upstairs sharing a room with Anna.’
Lauren gave the three little kids an awkward wave as they glanced away from the Playstation to acknowledge her.
‘And you must be John Clarkson,’ Madison continued, as she reached out to shake John’s hand.
‘That’s right,’ John lied.
‘Have you worked at Croydon social services for long?’ Madison asked.
‘I’m retired actually,’ John said. ‘I’m doing a few weeks’ cover for someone on maternity leave.’
‘Well, feel free to stop in the kitchen and make yourself a cup of tea. I’ll show Lauren up to her room.’
John shook his head. ‘I’d better get going. I want to watch the four o’clock match on Sky.’
As Madison stepped out of the room, John made a telephone shape with his hand and mouthed the word
later
to Lauren.
As Lauren and Madison jointly carried the big case up to the first floor, the house parent began explaining various rules and rotas and asked if there were any kinds of food she particularly liked.
‘And this is your roommate, Anna,’ Madison said brightly as they stepped into a comfortable-looking bedroom with a giant black stain in the middle of the carpet. ‘I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. If you’ve got any questions, I’m just downstairs.’
The two beds were space savers, with wooden ladders leading up to the sleeping area. There were child-sized wardrobes, chests of drawers and pull out desks underneath.
‘Hey there,’ Lauren smiled, as she went up on tiptoes and peeked at Anna.
Anna sat on her bed playing with a bead necklace kit. There wasn’t much of her. She was ten centimetres shorter than Lauren, with a tiny waist, china white skin and fragile hands and feet. Lauren was chunky like her brother and imagined that she’d be able to lift Anna over her head as she might have done when playing with a toddler.
When Lauren had to read some massive computer hacking textbook, or found herself melting on some brutal training exercise in high summer, she used to consider quitting CHERUB. But she knew it was worth it when she saw someone like Anna and realised that her mission might help save her and other girls just like her from being abused.
‘You stare for?’ Anna stuttered. She’d only been learning for a few weeks, so her English was pretty terrible.
‘Sorry,’ Lauren said, before switching to Russian. ‘You sound Russian.’
Anna brightened up as she turned to face Lauren. ‘Do you speak Russian?’
‘Not much since I moved to England, so I’m out of practice, but my father was Russian. I lived there until three years ago.’
‘Amazing,’ Anna grinned, as she clapped her hands together. ‘I only speak when the translator comes and then all they talk about are my problems, so I don’t answer.’
‘I know that feeling,’ Lauren nodded. ‘The carers just keep going
on and on
. Sometimes I just want to stick my iPod on and tell them to get stuffed.’
Anna burst out laughing. ‘I can’t believe you’re a Russian.’
‘I can practise my language with you,’ Lauren grinned. ‘What a
weird
coincidence …’
It was late Sunday night and James was back at campus. He was watching TV in bed when Lauren called.
‘Yo, bitch,’ James grinned. ‘How’s it hanging?’
‘Not bad, gay boy,’ Lauren said softly. ‘The girl I’m supposed to be chumming up seems nice, but she’s
really
quiet. I spent the afternoon showing her how to make Scoubidous.’
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘I’m in our bathroom, Anna’s in the next room. Did you make up with Kerry?’
‘Pretty much,’ James nodded. ‘I think she cut me some slack ’cos it was my birthday bash.’
‘And how was the spa?’
‘Good,’ James grinned. ‘This
gorgeous
woman gave me a massage and it was bloody hilarious because Bruce got this dirty great fat bloke with hairy knuckles. Then we all got kicked out of the steam room for throwing buckets of cold water around. And
then
I saw this beauty therapist and she put this mud pack on my face and gave me a manicure.’
‘I can’t believe I missed it,’ Lauren moaned. ‘I’ve
always
wanted to go to one of those places.’
‘You know how my nails are usually all broken and dirty? They’re all neat and shiny now and she gave me some tips and a bottle of this special lotion to put in the bath. It’s supposed to dry my skin out and stop me from getting spots.’
‘So all you boys enjoyed it?’
‘Except Bruce,’ James laughed. ‘I didn’t expect to, but I’d definitely go again if someone else was paying. And you should have seen Kerry and Bethany in the beauty shop afterwards. They spent a
fortune
.’
‘On what?’
‘I dunno, it all just looked like expensive pots of smelly gunge to me. We got you a little present, ’cos you missed out. It’s like a gift set of all these different oils and this wooden ball thingy for massaging your back. Oh and don’t worry, I checked before we paid and they said it didn’t contain any animal products or stuff that was tested on animals.’
‘Thanks, James,’ Lauren said. ‘By the way, I’ve got some great photos from last night on my phone. There’s a superb shot of that old colonel waving his walking stick when we mooned him off the balcony.’
*
James had a 7 a.m. combat training session on Monday mornings, so he was knackered when he reached the dining-room at quarter past eight. Meryl cornered him as he headed towards Kerry and Kyle at their usual table.
‘Nice healthy start.’ Meryl stared pointedly at James’ tray, which was stacked with bacon, eggs, beans, fried bread and hash brown.
‘Don’t you start on that,’ James moaned. ‘You know Zara’s made them turn the Coke machine off until lunchtime now?’
Meryl shook her head. ‘You drank Coke with
breakfast
?’
‘Not every day … And I only ever drank diet ’cos the normal kind makes me fat.’
‘Anyway,’ Meryl said, looking mildly horrified. ‘I’ve noticed that you’re only studying for five GCSEs and a Further Maths A-level at the moment. Your schedule looks
very
light, so we’re going to have to make some adjustments.’
James tutted. ‘But I’ve already got Maths and Russian A-levels, miss. My Spanish is good enough to pass an A-level already, and I’m so good at maths that I’ll ace Further Maths and Physics when I get around to taking them. Five A-levels will get me into whatever university I want.’
‘James, I’m fully aware that CHERUB language training and your exceptional ability in mathematics means that you’ll have no problems getting into university. But that
doesn’t
mean I’m going to allow you to spend the next three years coasting. All cherubs are bright and we expect you to push yourselves. Kerry should be able to get three easy language A-levels when she takes them next summer, but she’s still studying for nine GCSEs and she’s almost a year younger than you.’
‘Yeah, but …’ James stammered. ‘I mean, Kerry’s a good all-rounder. I’m rubbish at anything where you need to do loads of reading and writing. She can write an essay in half the time it takes me.’
‘Well, if you don’t want any more academic work, there is one other option.’
James perked up. ‘Is there?’
‘Our head training instructor, Mr Pike, is always on the lookout for kids who are willing to help prepare some of the red-shirts for basic training. Especially at the moment, what with Mr Large recovering from a heart bypass and Miss Smoke on maternity leave.’
‘Oh,’ James said, clearly not keen on Meryl’s suggestion.
Cherubs were often asked to help out with training younger kids, but training instructors were some of the least popular staff on campus and helping them out didn’t win you many friends. Plus, training instructors often worked as hard as or even harder than the trainees themselves.
Meryl smiled. ‘If you don’t want to help Mr Pike with training, James, I’ll have to enrol you on a couple of extra academic courses. I hear that Mr Reddit is starting a new Latin for Beginners and there are GCSE courses in sociology and economics that started a few weeks back. Once you’ve caught up on the backlog, you’ll probably find them quite enjoyable.’
‘No,’ James gasped. ‘Come off it, Meryl, you know I’ll hate every minute. And Latin? I mean, what the hell use is that unless you want to grow up and become a Latin teacher?’
‘How about helping Mr Pike then?’
James looked sullenly at his tray of breakfast. ‘I suppose it’s the lesser of two evils.’
‘Great,’ Meryl smiled. ‘You’ve got an appointment to see Mr Pike after lessons this afternoon.’
‘But…’ James spluttered. His heart sank as he realised that Meryl had stitched him up.
‘I didn’t think you’d go for the Sociology and Latin,’ Meryl smiled. ‘Now you’d better go eat your plate of grease before it gets any colder.’
*
Lauren would have to attend a Brighton secondary school, but it was going to take a few days to sort out a place and that didn’t exactly break her heart. When all the other kids in her unit had eaten breakfast and gone off to school, she pushed open the door of her room and began going through Anna’s stuff.
It was a pitifully brief search. Anna had stepped off the boat with nothing but the clothes she stood up in and had collected only a few items of clothing and knick-knacks in the weeks since she’d arrived in Britain.
Lauren flipped carefully through a collection of note books filled with Anna’s felt-tip drawings. She had a deliberate style, with thick black outlines carefully coloured in. Some pages were doodles, while others documented Anna’s attempts to learn English, with rows of tiny pictures and hand-drawn images with descriptions written in English and spelt out phonetically in the Russian alphabet beneath them.