“It’s a baby, Kerry,” he said, “I’ve seen one before, they all look exactly the same.”
Kerry tickled Joshua’s belly.
“That’s James,” she said. “Isn’t he Mr. Grumpy today?”
“Ooogy woogy woo,” Nicole added.
Ewart was striding across the grass towards them, carrying an icebox and some bottles of soft drinks. He was a big muscular guy, with bleached hair and half a dozen earrings. He wore a Carhartt T-shirt and old jeans with the legs ripped off.
Zara was older than her husband. She looked like a typical harassed mum, with scraggy hair and puked-up milk on her T-shirt. Like most CHERUB staff, she was a former pupil. She’d gone to university and worked for the United Nations before returning to CHERUB as a mission controller. Kyle had worked with Zara a couple of times before. He said she was one of the best mission controllers to get. Everyone agreed. Ewart was the toughest.
“Hey, Nicole,” Kyle said, swatting a fly away from his paper plate. “You should have seen how happy James was when he found out you got on this mission.”
James sat up, surprised by Kyle’s outburst. Nicole turned away from the baby.
“Was he?” she said, breaking into a smile. “Is that right, James?”
James was flustered. Kerry would kill him if she found out he’d paid Kyle to get Nicole on the mission.
“That’s right,” James spluttered. “I’ve never got a chance to know you, but the few times I’ve spoken to you, you’ve always seemed . . . nice.”
“Thank you, James,” Nicole smiled. “I was worried I’d be the odd one out because you three are already close.”
Kyle grinned. “And James fancies you.”
“Piss off, Kyle,” James said.
Kyle was one of James’s best mates, but he was always trying to con you or wind you up. Sometimes it got annoying. Zara cuffed Kyle around the back of the head.
“I’m only telling the truth,” Kyle said.
“Kyle, behave,” Zara said sharply. “And James, you watch your language in front of the baby.”
James could feel his face burning with a mix of anger and embarrassment.
“I know James doesn’t fancy me,” Nicole said. “Everyone knows James and Kerry have a thing going.”
“Says who?” Kerry gasped.
“Yeah,” James said defensively. “Me and Kerry did basic training together and we’re good mates. It doesn’t mean we fancy each other.”
Kyle laughed. “If you say so, lovebirds.”
“At least I’ve had a girlfriend,” James said, looking at Kyle. “You’re nearly fifteen and I’ve never seen you anywhere near a girl.”
Kyle looked offended. “I’ve had girlfriends.”
James grinned, sensing he’d put Kyle on the back foot.
“Girls in dreams don’t count, dickhead.”
A second later, James found himself dangling in the air with Ewart eyeballing him.
“Fifty laps,” Ewart barked.
“What?” James gasped.
“You shut that filthy mouth in front of my son.”
“He’s a baby,” James said. “He can’t understand a word.”
“But he’ll learn,” Ewart snarled. “Get over to the running track, now.”
Fifty laps of the track took two hours and left you for dead when you stiffened up the next morning. Zara intervened before James boiled over and told Ewart where to shove his laps.
“Ewart, darling,” Zara said gently. “James needs to be here while we discuss the mission. I’m sure an apology will be sufficient.”
James, still suspended in mid-air, didn’t think anyone deserved an apology, but it was better than running laps.
“OK,” James said. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Zara asked.
“I shouldn’t have sworn in front of the baby.”
“Apology accepted, James,” Zara said. “And Kyle, quit being smart. You’re the senior agent on this mission. I expect you to help the less experienced agents, not keep stirring up trouble.”
After Ewart had put him down, James straightened his clothes, sat on the grass, and started piling chicken drumsticks and sandwiches on to a paper plate. Nicole shuffled up beside him and pinched a couple of his crisps.
Zara began reading notes from a long list.
“OK, as you all know, we’re leaving first thing the day after tomorrow. Pack light. There are seven of us and it’s a small house. State school starts Tuesday, giving us nearly a week to settle in before term starts. I’ve prepared a hundred-and-sixty-page dossier on Keith Moore, his associates, and his family, I want all of you to read it and memorize as much as you can. . . .”
Chapter 7
MOVING
It was pandemonium. They had a big moving van and a people carrier. The van was already stuffed, mostly with baby stuff like pushchairs and walkers. Kerry had five bags of clothes and junk, which James had to hump downstairs because her knee was still weak. Kyle, who was always ridiculously neat, wanted to take his clothes rail, eight pairs of shoes, and his own ironing board. Ewart was going beserk, using language that would have earned James thousands of laps.
“I’m only making one trip,” Ewart shouted. “So you lot better sort yourselves out.”
James was the only one who’d followed instructions to pack light. He had a backpack, with toiletries, spare trainers, a jacket, and a few changes of clothes. His PlayStation and TV had gone ahead the day before with the furniture.
Lauren came tearing around the corner towards them. She was in uniform and she was crying. It was the last thing James expected.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, bundling his sister into his arms.
Her T-shirt was sweaty and the sobs made her whole body shudder.
“Just . . .” Lauren sniffed.
James pulled her tighter and rubbed her back.
“Is someone bullying you, or something?”
“I’m ten in two weeks,” she explained. “It’s doing my head in thinking about basic training.”
Lauren acted tough most of the time, but she couldn’t always keep the nine-year-old girl inside herself under control. Whenever there was a chink in her armor, she came to James for comfort.
“Lauren, I passed training,” James said, feeling a bit emotional himself. “I’d never done karate and I could barely swim. With all the fitness and combat exercises you’ve done, you’re a million times better prepared than I was.”
Lauren dragged her wrist over her eyes. Kerry got Lauren a tissue.
“Come on, kids,” Zara shouted, as she climbed into the people carrier. “I want most of this drive out of the way before Joshua wakes up and starts screaming.”
“I wish you weren’t going away,” Lauren said.
“Bethany’s going into training with you,” James said. “She’ll probably be your partner. You two will do great.”
Lauren stepped back from James. Kerry gave her a quick squeeze.
“Just think, Lauren,” Kerry said. “In four months, basic training will be a memory and you’ll be able to go on missions. I’ll bet you, any money you like.”
Lauren smiled a bit. “Yeah. I hope so.”
“If you want,” James said, “I can probably arrange for you to visit us in Luton on your birthday. We can have a laugh.”
Lauren looked surprised. “Will they let me?”
“They won’t mind. It’ll be good experience for you: getting a taste of what it’s like being out on a mission and stuff.”
“You better go then,” Lauren sniffled, dabbing her eyes with the tissue. “I don’t know what made me start crying. It just . . . Sorry . . . I feel really dumb now.”
James pecked his sister on the cheek, before saying good-bye and climbing in the back of the people carrier.
Kyle leaned out of the side window. “You’ll make it through training, Lauren,” he shouted. “Don’t go losing any sleep.”
James pulled up the door and buckled his se
atbelt.
“Sorry I shouted, James,” Zara said, from the driver’s seat. “I didn’t realize Lauren was upset. Is she OK?”
“I think so,” James nodded.
Lauren waved as they drove away. James’s eyes were a bit damp, but he wasn’t worried. Lauren had a good brain and she was fit. A serious injury was the only thing likely to stop her getting through basic training.
• • •
Ewart and Nicole traveled in the moving van with the luggage. Zara drove the people carrier, with Kyle next to her in the front. James and Kerry sandwiched Joshua’s baby seat in the back. The baby woke up an hour before they arrived. Kerry had a go at feeding him, but he screamed his head off. She passed him over to James while she hunted round her feet for a bottle Joshua had batted on to the floor.
Joshua stopped screaming as soon as James took him. When Kerry tried to take Joshua back, he went nuts again. Kerry gave James the bottle and Joshua began drinking calmly.
“Looks like we’ve found James’s job for this mission,” Zara said, grinning. “He likes you for some reason.”
Kyle laughed. “Kerry probably traumatized him with the funny faces she was pulling the other afternoon.”
James wasn’t used to babies. He was terrified he might do something wrong and either hurt Joshua or get puked over. It turned out OK, apart from a few dribbles of milk. After feeding, Joshua lay quietly in James’s lap playing with the laces on his shorts. Once James got used to it, he thought having the warm little body wriggling on his lap was quite cool.
• • •
A third of the houses in the Thornton area were boarded up. The detached homes looked decent enough, but nobody wanted to live in them because of the airport a kilometer south. Every few minutes, a couple of hundred people thundered overhead, shaking the ground and filling the air with the sickly smell of jet fuel.
You only ended up living in Thornton if you didn’t have a choice. The residents were a mix of refugees, students, ex-convicts, and families who’d been chucked out of better places for not paying the rent.
A gang of lads had to stop their football match to let Zara drive through. Ewart and Nicole had arrived minutes earlier. Nicole had unpacked the mugs and started making tea.
The windows in the house were triple glazed to keep out the aircraft noise, but that didn’t stop everything vibrating. Besides, it was too warm to leave every window closed.
There were three bedrooms between seven people. Kyle and James got a box room with bunk beds, a chest of drawers, and a tiny wardrobe.
“Just like old times,” James said, remembering when he and Kyle shared a room in a council home before he joined CHERUB.
“There’s nowhere to hang my clothes,” Kyle said miserably. “They’ll get creased.”
“You can have the whole wardrobe,” James said. “I’ll just dump my stuff in the bag or under the bed.”
“If there’s anything that stinks in this room, I’m chucking it out,” Kyle said. “I don’t care if it’s a sock or a seventy-quid pair of trainers—if it smells like you, it’s going in the bin.”
James laughed. “I’d forgotten what a complete tart you are.”
• • •
Zara made dinner for everyone: fish fingers and oven chips, with frozen peas.
“Sorry,” she said, handing plates to the line of kids in front of the TV. “You better get used to my cooking. It’s not exactly gourmet.”
Something crashed outside the living room window. All the kids downed cutlery and bundled towards the window. There was rubbish all over the front lawn and a metal dustbin rolling towards the gutter. A couple of boys were sprinting off down the pavement. Ewart burst out of the front door, but they’d disappeared up an alleyway.
As James mopped his last chip through his ketchup, Ewart strode in and switched off the TV.
“I always watch Neighbours,” Kerry gasped.
“Not today you don’t,” Ewart said. “You kids have a job to do.”
“Go outside and start making friends,” Zara said. “There’s bound to be some dodgy characters in an area like this, so stick together. I want you back here as soon as it gets dark.”
“And James,” Ewart said, “you better pick all that rubbish off the front lawn before you go.”
“Why’s it my job?” James said bitterly.
Ewart broke into a smile. “Because I said so.”
James thought about starting a row, but you never win against someone like Ewart.
• • •
It was easy starting conversations. The summer holidays had dragged on for weeks and the local kids were bored. James and Kyle played street football until they got knackered. Kerry and Nicole stood by the curb, nattering with a bunch of girls. When it started getting late, the four of them got invited to a kiddies’ playground.
There was nothing special about it: a burned-out park keeper’s shed sprayed with graffiti, a busted roundabout, a climbing frame, and a slide. But once the sun started to go down, it came alive. Kids aged between ten and sixteen gathered in fours and fives; smoking, arguing, and being loud. There was a tense atmosphere. Flash kids dressed like Nike commercials ripped into refugees dressed out of the charity box. Boys were trying to get off with girls and there was a rumor going around about a gang from another neighborhood turning up and starting a fight.
Apparently, a kid had been stabbed in the playground a couple of months earlier. He’d ended up with between eight and two hundred stitches, depending on what version of the story you believed.
“This is boring,” Kerry said, after half an hour of standing around without anything happening except a lot of talk. “We better go home.”
“You go if you want,” James said. “I’m staying to see if a fight breaks out. It might be good.”
“It might also be dangerous,” Kerry said. “I’ve seen a couple of kids with knives and Zara told us to be home before . . .”
James interrupted, mocking Kerry’s voice. “Zara told us da-de-da-da. . . . Chill out, Kerry, what’s the point of having a curfew unless you’re going to break it?”
Kerry looked at Nicole for moral support. “Are you coming?”
“No way,” Nicole said. “I want to see some action.”
They all waited another twenty minutes. A guy aged about fifteen came over and started chatting up Nicole. Then someone’s mobile rang and a rumor shot around. There was a car coming.
“So what?” Kerry asked.
“Stolen car,” one of the local kids explained. “Joyriders. They usually put on a good show.”
Fifty-odd kids piled out of the playground and hurried to a deserted car park a few hundred meters down the road. A cheer when up when everyone spotted the headlights. It was a Subaru Impreza turbo, metallic silver with a giant wing on the back. The driver did a couple of handbrake turns, spinning the car and stinking up the air with tire smoke. Then he overdid it and smacked into a bollard, leaving a massive graze down one side of the car. The audience whooped and cheered, even though he’d nearly splattered a couple of girls standing astride their bikes.
“These guys are nutters,” James giggled. “I’d love to have a go at that.”
Kerry gave him a filthy look. “It’s so stupid. They could kill themselves, or an innocent bystander.”
“Loosen up, Kerry,” James said. “You sound like an old fart.”
The Subaru squealed to a halt a few meters away. As the cloud of tire smoke cleared, the driver and his mate opened the doors and ran around the car to switch seats. They both looked about fifteen.
“Where are our babes?” the new driver shouted.
A couple of tarty-looking girls jogged to the car and clambered in the back. When they were inside, the driver lit up the rear tires and started driving circuits around the neighborhood. He skidded on every corner, nearly losing the back end a couple of times on sharp turns. When the car was out of sight, you could still hear the engine and squealing tires. The joyriders kept coming back
to the car park for more adulation from their audience.
The excitement level went into overload when a police siren went off. James was hoping to see a chase, but the joyriders didn’t fancy their chances. They slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and merged into the crowd of kids as three police cars turned into the car park.
Everyone started running. One of the guys they’d been playing football with tugged James by his T-shirt.
“Don’t stand there gawping,” he said urgently. “The pigs will bust you if they get hold of you.”
Kerry, Kyle and Nicole were already gone. James sprinted off, but the whole of Thornton looked identical in the dark and he couldn’t remember the way home. He ended up in the center of the neighborhood, in a large paved square with lanes of identical houses branching off in six different directions.
“You know which way?” a voice asked breathlessly.
James spun around. It was a massive relief to see Kyle. Kerry and Nicole were with him.
“We can ask one of the policemen,” Kerry said.
“Are you totally brain dead?” James asked, tapping his head. “The police are looking for two boys and two girls. They’ll nick us.”
Kerry looked perplexed. “But we didn’t steal the car.”
“Kerry,” Kyle said, laughing, “how naïve are you? In an area like this, cops and kids are like oil and water: They don’t mix.”
“Well,” Kerry said indignantly, “none of this would have happened if we’d gone home when I said.”
“Oh, shut your smug hole,” James said.
“So, which way?” Nicole asked.
• • •
They were all out of breath when they burst through the front door. It was pure luck finding the right street at the second attempt, without bumping into any cops. Zara leaned out of the kitchen into the hallway.
“Ahh . . . Here they are. My little monsters,” Zara grinned. “Late as usual.”
The kids were expecting a roasting, but they got off because there was an old couple sitting at the table in the kitchen, drinking tea with Zara and Ewart.
“This is the adopted family,” Ewart explained. “Kids, meet Ron and Georgina. They live next door and they brought us homemade biscuits to welcome us to the neighborhood.”