The Dealer

  “What’s happened here?” Meryl shouted.

  “They got in a fight,” James explained. “Bruce is under his duvet and won’t come out.”

  Meryl smiled. “Won’t he now?”

  She leaned over the bed.

  “Bruce,” she shouted. “You’re gonna have to face the music for hurting Kerry. Stop acting like a baby and get out of there.”

  “Go away,” Bruce said, tightening the duvet around his head. “You can’t make me come out.”

  “You’ve got three seconds,” Meryl shouted. “Or I’m gonna seriously lose my temper.”

  Bruce didn’t move a muscle.

  “One,” Meryl said. “Two . . . Three.”

  On three, Meryl grabbed the tubular frame of Bruce’s bed and tipped it on to its side. Bruce thumped onto the floor and Meryl whipped the duvet off him.

  “Stand up,” she shouted. “You’re eleven years of age, not five.”

  Bruce jumped to his feet. His face was a teary mess. Meryl grabbed his shoulder and shoved him up against the wall.

  “I want all three of you in my office. You’re in serious trouble. This kind of behavior is not acceptable.”

  “Me and Gabrielle didn’t do anything,” James pleaded. “We tried to break it up.”

  “We’ll discuss it in my office,” Meryl said. She took a deep breath and realized that James and Bruce still stank.

  “You two have ten minutes to shower, put clean clothes on, and get downstairs. And if anyone starts up this hiding under the duvet nonsense again, I’ll have them running laps until they puke, every day for the rest of their miserable lives.”

  Chapter 4

  GRASS

  “What did you do this time?” Lauren asked. “When did you get back to campus? How come they sent you home early?”

  James was half asleep in bed and he wasn’t in the mood for his nine-year-old sister. Lauren had knocked on his bedroom door three times. When James ignored her, she picked the lock. The most irritating things about living at CHERUB was that every kid knew how to pick locks. James was planning to buy a bolt next time he went into town. There’s no way to pick a bolt.

  “Come on,” Lauren said, sitting herself on the swivel chair at James’s desk. “Spill the beans. Everyone saw the ambulance take Kerry to the medical unit.”

  Lauren was James’s only family since their mum had died the year before. James loved his sister, but he still spent a lot of his life wishing she’d go some place and stick her head in a bucket. She could be a total pain.

  “Tell us,” Lauren said sharply. “You know I’ll just sit here bugging you until you do.”

  James threw back his duvet and sat up, picking at a gluey eye.

  “Why are you up so early?” he asked. “It’s pitch black outside.”

  “It’s half past ten,” Lauren said, turning slowly around on the chair. “But it’s raining.”

  James swung out of bed and peered through the blind. Rain trickled down his window. The sky was gray and the outdoor tennis courts were under water.

  “Great,” James said. “There’s nothing like British summer to cheer you up.”

  “You’ve got a good tan,” Lauren said. “Mine’s almost gone and I’ve only been back from the hostel three weeks.”

  “Best holiday I’ve ever had.” James grinned. “We’ll have to try and fix it so we go at the same time next year. Me, Kerry, and about six other kids had this massive race on the quad bikes.”

  “Racing’s not allowed,” Lauren said.

  “Isn’t it?” James smiled, guiltily. “Anyway, there was a humongous crash. Me and Shakeel. You should have seen the state the bikes were in. Front tires ripped off, petrol gushing everywhere. It was mad.”

  “Did you get hurt?”

  “Shakeel twisted his ankle, that’s all. I can’t wait for next year.”

  Lauren smiled. “We dared Bethany’s brother to drive one of the quad bikes through the dining room. It was so funny when he got busted. . . . Anyway, are you gonna tell us why they kicked your butts home early, or not?”

  James slumped miserably back on his bed, realizing he was now about as far as you get from racing over sand dunes.

  “I got totally stitched up,” he said.

  “Give over, James, you always say that.”

  “Yeah, but this time it’s true. Bruce and Kerry had a punch-up. They trashed our room and Kerry busted her knee, but Meryl sent me and Gabrielle home early as well. We’ve got to go see the chairman this afternoon.”

  “You must have done something,” Lauren said.

  “Lauren, all me and Gabrielle did was try to break the fight up. It was a total miscarriage of justice. Meryl wouldn’t let me get one word in.”

  “Makes up for all the things you haven’t been caught for,” Lauren grinned. “How’s Kerry?”

  “She’s in loads of pain. They had to do a medivac: flew her home on a special plane because she can’t bend her leg.”

  “Poor Kerry,” Lauren said.

  “I’ll go and see how she is when I’ve got my uniform on. You coming?”

  “I’ve got karate class in a minute,” Lauren said, shaking her head. “I want to be in top form when my basic training starts.”

  “Oh yeah,” James grinned. “Only a month to go now. I’m gonna have such a laugh hearing about all the ways the instructors make you suffer.”

  Lauren folded her arms and scowled at her brother. “You’re not scaring me, you know.”

  • • •

  The medical unit was a ten-minute walk from the main building. When James got to Kerry’s room, Gabrielle was already there.

  “Look what your friend did to her,” Gabrielle said, as if it was somehow James’s fault.

  Kerry was propped up on pillows beneath a NIL BY MOUTH sign. MTV blared from the portable TV hanging over her bed. She was on painkillers, but still had wet eyes and looked like she hadn’t slept.

  James put Kerry’s MP3 player on her bedside table.

  “Thought some tunes might help take your mind off it,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind me going in your room.”

  “No problem,” Kerry said. “Cheers.”

  “Has the doctor seen you?” James asked.

  Kerry nodded, pointing to a light box on the wall.

  “Show James the thing,” she said.

  There was already an X-ray mounted on the light box. Gabrielle walked up and switched on the lamp.

  “That’s Kerry’s kneecap,” Gabrielle explained, pointing to a round gray area on the X-ray. “See the four black bars?”

  James nodded.

  “Those are the metal pins put in when Kerry broke her kneecap two years ago. When Bruce twisted Kerry’s leg, that pin there shifted. So now Kerry’s got a piece of metal sticking out the back of her kneecap. Every time she moves, the metal cuts into the tendons underneath.”

  “Yuk,” James said. “What can they do about that?”

  “They’re taking her to hospital,” Gabrielle said. “They’re operating this afternoon. Kerry can’t eat or drink before the anaesthetic. They’re going under her kneecap and cutting out the bent metal. The broken bone has grown back together, so the metal isn’t doing anything now anyway.”

  James felt queasy imagining surgical instruments poking around inside his leg.

  “OOOOOOOOHHH God!” Kerry screamed.

  “What?” James asked, rushing over to the bed. “Are you OK?”

  “It’s nothing,” Kerry said. “I just moved my foot. This is actually more painful than when I broke my knee.”

  She let out a low groan. James sat beside the bed and stroked her hand.

  “Has Bruce been to see you?” he asked.

  “No,” Gabrielle huffed. “Like that little jerk would have enough class to come and apologize.”

  “James,” Kerry said, “will you do us a favor?”

  “Course,” James said. “Name it.”

  “Go and see Bruce. Tell him I’m not making a big de
al out of this.”

  “You call this no big deal?” James laughed. “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not,” Kerry said. “I don’t want this turning into some massive feud. Remember I told you I broke Bruce’s leg when we were red shirts?”

  “Sure,” James said.

  “It was in karate practice. Bruce fell awkwardly. I came down on him full force and crunched his leg. I never should have done something like that in practice. Bruce was cool about it. He shrugged it off like it was nothing. Everyone does stupid stuff sometimes. Remember that one, James?”

  Kerry held out the palm of her right hand. It had a long scar where James had stomped it during training. “You can’t hold grudges against people for every mistake they make,” she said.

  “Point taken,” James said. “I’ll speak to him.”

  • • •

  James hated the row of plastic seats outside the chairman’s office. If you had to see him for something good, Dr. McAfferty—usually known as Mac—let you straight in. When you were in trouble, he kept you hanging outside in suspense. James sat between Gabrielle and Bruce. He was combed and deodorized, in his neatest set of CHERUB uniform: polished boots, army-green trousers, and a navy T-shirt with the CHERUB logo embroidered on the front. The other two wore the same, except they were only entitled to wear gray T-shirts. Bruce had four red lines down his face where Kerry had clawed him.

  Kerry might have forgiven Bruce, but Gabrielle wasn’t talking to him. James felt like he was on a tightrope. Every time he said something to one of them, the other one huffed as if he was siding against them. James realized it was easiest if he kept quiet.

  They waited a good half hour before Mac finally leaned out of his doorway. He was in his sixties, with a neat gray beard and a Scottish accent.

  “Come on then,” Mac said wearily. “Let’s sort you three out.”

  James led the way towards Mac’s mahogany desk.

  “No, no, come and look at this,” Mac said, heading towards an architectural model standing on a table by the window.

  The kids stepped up to the model of a crescent-shaped building. It was a meter long, made entirely out of white plastic, with polystyrene trees and tiny white figures walking along paths outside.

  “What is it?” James asked.

  “It’s our new mission preparation building,” Mac said enthusiastically. “We’re turning those shabby offices on the eighth floor into extra living space and building this beauty to replace them. Over five thousand square meters of office space. Every big mission will have its own office, with new computers and equipment. We’ll have encrypted satellite links to our mission controllers all over the world, as well as to British Intelligence headquarters and the CIA and FBI in America. This model just arrived from the architect’s office. Isn’t it fantastic?”

  The kids nodded. Even if they’d hated it, they wouldn’t have wanted to get on Mac’s bad side by saying so. Mac treated CHERUB campus like his own personal LEGO set. He was always having something built or knocked down.

  “It’s an eco-building,” Mac enthused, lifting the plastic roof off so the kids could see the offices filled with miniature furniture inside. “Special glass retains the heat, so it stays warm in the winter. Solar panels on the roof power fans and heat the water.”

  “When’s it being built?” Bruce asked.

  “It’s already being made in prefabricated sections in a factory in Australia,” Mac said. “That way we can minimize the number of construction workers we have to let loose on campus. Once the concrete base is poured, the whole lot is bolted together in a few weeks. Fitting out the interior should be completed early in the new year. You wouldn’t believe the amount of arm twisting I’ve had to do to secure the funding.”

  “It’s really cool,” James said, hoping his enthusiasm would translate into a lighter punishment.

  “Anyway, I suppose I have to sort you three hooligans out,” Mac said. He clearly would have preferred to go on about his new building all afternoon. “Plant your bums at my desk.”

  The three kids sat in the leather chairs opposite Mac. Mac leaned over his desk, interlocked his fingers and stared at them.

  “I’ve already spoken to Kerry,” he said. “So what have you lot got to say for yourselves?”

  “It’s well unfair that me and Gabrielle got sent home,” James said. “We were the ones who tried to break the fight up.”

  He noticed Lauren and her best friend, Bethany, with their noses squished against the outside of the window behind Mac’s desk.

  “As I understand Meryl Spencer,” Mac said, “the four of you came back from a training exercise, went into your room, and began taunting one another and bickering. Is that true?”

  The kids gave a mix of shrugs and nods. Outside, Lauren and Bethany were sticking their tongues out and mouthing rude words.

  “As far as I’m concerned, that makes all four of you responsible for what happened,” Mac said. “Gentle ribbing leads to teasing, which leads to nastiness and, as in this instance, it sometimes leads to violence and an eight-thousand-pound bill for an air ambulance. While each of you is serving your punishment, I want you to reflect that you’d all be enjoying another two weeks of holiday if you’d had the sense to behave decently towards one another instead of winding each other up. Is that understood?”

  The three kids nodded. James hated how Mac’s way of twisting the facts around made him feel partly responsible for Kerry getting hurt. What made him even more annoyed was Lauren sticking a sheet of paper up to the window that said JAMES SUCKS in giant black letters. Gabrielle couldn’t stop herself smirking.

  “By way of punishments, I want the three of you to report to the head gardener after you finish lessons every afternoon. We don’t have enough staff to give the lawns the attention they deserve in the summer, but you guys putting in two hours’ mowing a day for the next month will certainly help.”

  James groaned to himself. With extra fitness training in the mornings and mowing in the evenings, the next month was turning into a nightmare.

  “Any questions?” Mac asked.

  The kids shook their heads and stood up to leave.

  “And James,” Mac said.

  James turned back. “What?”

  Mac raised a picture frame off his desk and turned it towards James. It showed Mac standing with his wife, his six grown-up children, and an ocean of little grandkids.

  “James, would you kindly inform your sister that the glass in this picture frame gives me a very good reflection of everything that’s going on outside my window. I want to see Lauren and Bethany in this office and you can tell them that they’ll be joining you on gardening duty for the rest of the week.”

  Chapter 5

  SLEEP

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  James got up at 5:30 a.m., despite his whole body begging him to stay under the duvet. He put on his running clothes and headed to the athletics track as the sun rose over campus. It took him an hour to run twenty-five laps: a distance of ten kilometers. He showered, then traded some homework with Shakeel over breakfast. Lessons went from 8:30 until 2:00, with half an hour for lunch. After lessons, there was karate practice topped off with forty-five minutes’ circuit training. Boiling hot, James downed half a liter of orange juice and collected one of the ride-on mowers from the gardeners’ storeroom. It wasn’t hard driving the mower, but the sun was on him the whole time and the grass pollen made his eyes itch.

  It was 6:15 p.m. by the time James got his first chance to relax. Dinner was a social event, with everyone mucking about and catching up on gossip. Most cherubs had done their homework before dinner and had the evening to themselves, but the mowing meant James hadn’t even got started. Homework was supposed to be two hours a day. Some teachers were decent. Other piled on so much work it took heaps longer.

  When James got back to his room it was gone 7:00. He sat at his desk, spread out his textbooks, and opened his homework diary. In the two weeks he’d been ba
ck on campus, James had acquired a backlog of homework that sucked up every second of his free time.

  It was a warm evening, so James left his window open. A breeze clattered into the plastic slats of his blind. James’s eyes were gluey and the words in his textbook drifted out of shape. His head slumped on the desk and he dozed off before he’d written a word.

  • • •

  Kyle lived across the hall. He was nearly fifteen, but he wasn’t much bigger than James.

  “Wakey, wakey,” Kyle said, flicking James’s ear.

  James’s head shot up from his desk. He opened his eyes, inhaled deeply, and looked at his watch. It was gone ten o’clock.

  “OHHHHHH crap,” James said, startled. “If I don’t get this history report done by tomorrow, I’m dead meat. It’s a two-thousand-word essay and I haven’t even read the chapters in the textbook.”

  “Get a deferral,” Kyle said.

  “I’ve had a deferral, Kyle. And I’ve had a deferral of the deferral. I’ve got extra laps to run before school and mowing after. There aren’t enough hours in the day. I spent all day Sunday doing homework and I still keep getting further behind.”

  “You should speak to your handler.”

  “I tried,” James said. “You know what Meryl said?”

  “What?”

  “She said, if I was so snowed under with work, how come I had time to spend sitting in her office whinging?”

  Kyle laughed.

  “I swear, they’re trying to kill me,” James moaned.

  “No,” Kyle said. “They’re trying to instil a sense of discipline in you. After a month of being worked like a dog, maybe you’ll think twice about ignoring the rules next time. It’s your own stupid fault. All you had to do on holiday was keep in half reasonable shape and study the briefing for the hostage training. Everybody warned you. Me, Kerry, Meryl, Amy. But you always reckon you know better.”

  James angrily swept his arm across his desk, shooting his books and pens on to the floor.

  “Good idea,” Kyle grinned. “That’ll solve your problems.”