Authors: Robert Muchamore
‘
Heeeeeere’s
Johno!’ Johno grinned, throwing the door out of the cubicle before laying into Zhang with hard punches. ‘Guess where I’m gonna stick your head!’
As Zhang screamed for mercy, Greg pushed
George back towards the showers and faced off Thomas Moran. Greg was tough looking, but one of the youngest in his year and only just about to turn thirteen. Thomas was bigger in every direction and his cropped hair and the sweat streaking down his muscular torso made him look fearsome.
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‘You’re a cool guy,’ Thomas sneered. ‘Why you hanging out with a fat freak and a skinny freak anyway?’
‘I don’t want any trouble,’ Greg said
diplomatically. ‘But I’m warning you, my dad’s a kickboxing instructor. I know how to handle myself.’
Thomas laughed so hard that he showered Greg with spit. ‘Bring it on, titch. Show us your moves!’
In t he background Zhang screamed out as
Johno dunked his face into the toilet bowl and pulled the f lush.
Thomas turned back and saw Zhang on his
knees, with Johno’s whole weight pressing down on his back.
‘Nice one, Johno,’ Thomas jeered. ‘I reckon these t wo could do with a hair wash as well.’
Greg twisted back around his left shoulder and pulled his hand up tight above his wrist. As Thomas turned back Greg thrust upwards, smashing the palm of his hand against Thomas’ temple.
Thomas Moran’s neck snapped around so fast that his eyeballs didn’t have time to follow. George recoiled in horror as he watched Thomas crash
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backwards into the changing-room wall
with nothing but pure white in his eyeballs. Unconscious, the beefy Year Ten slid down the wall at a weird angle, ending up with his legs splayed out and his torso lying across the changing bench.
‘Jesus!’ George gasped. ‘What have you done?’
Greg didn’t answer because he’d stepped over Thomas’ legs and headed confidently past the rows of hooks and into the toilet block. It was a nast y space: mud and piss all over the f loor, broken sinks and a smell you didn’t even want to think about.
It would have been difficult for Greg to pull Johno out of the cubicle. Luckily, Johno turned to see his pal Thomas slumped on the f loor and charged forwards with both fists swinging. Greg ducked, then bobbed up and drove a punch hard into Johno’s nose.
Caught off guard, Johno stumbled back as Greg launched a devastating assault. His blows hit all the weak spots: a dig in the ribs, two knees in the kidneys and a final chop behind the neck that sent Johno sprawling.
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Johno ended up on the rank f loor, clutching hands over his bloody nose. Zhang staggered out of the cubicle, his shirt drenched and toilet water streaking down his face. Greg let him deliver a single kick in revenge for the bog-washing before pulling him back.
‘Johno’s had enough,’ Greg smiled. ‘You
OK, Zhang?’
Zhang had taken a beating and his voice
trembled. ‘That toilet was nast y.’
‘You’ve got bus fare,’ Greg said. ‘Go home, take a shower. You’ll only miss half of first lesson and we’ll cover for you.’
Over on the f loor near the urinals, Johno was coughing and trying to find his feet.
Greg pointed Johno’s way and snarled, ‘You stay down until we’ve left.’
As Zhang headed out George came over from the changing area where he’d been nervously inspecting Thomas Moran.
‘I think he’s alive,’ George said.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Greg replied. ‘Little tap on the temple never killed anyone. He’ll have concussion and a nice headache to remember me by.’
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‘We’d better get out of here,’ George said. ‘If someone sees this . . .’
‘Just gimme a sec,’ Greg said, grabbing a horrible grey sliver of soap stuck on the side of the only working sink and t urning on the tap. ‘Can’t walk around with your blood all over my fists, can I Johno?’
Johno had a rugby player’s build and was nearly six feet tall, but he’d propped himself against the wall and was fighting back tears.
Greg dried his hands on his trousers as George followed him out into the corridor.
‘What if Johno grasses you?’ George asked anxiously.
‘Yeah right,’ Greg smiled. ‘They’re both t wice my size. Who’s gonna believe that story?’
‘I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes,’ George gushed. ‘I owe you, man. I thought I was gonna get serious beats. I know you said you knew some kickboxing moves, but I never knew you were
that
good. Usually when people brag about being a black belt or some crap like that it’s all made up . . .’
‘My dad’s an instructor,’ Greg said. ‘I practise
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every day after school.’
‘Awesome,’ George said. ‘Nobody’s gonna give us any hassle once this story spreads around.’
Greg smiled coyly as they rounded the bottom of the staircase, heading back to their second-f loor form room. He’d lied about his dad, a man who’d really died in Australia fifteen months earlier and had never kickboxed in his life.
Greg’s full name was Gregory Rathbone, but the other agents on CHERUB campus always
called him Rat.
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4. PUNISHMENT
The assault course on CHERUB campus was a t wo-kilometre circuit, complete with rat-infested tunnels, rope swings, climbing walls, jagged rocks and a fast-f lowing stream. A normal t welve-yearold might complete the course in an hour, although the chances are they’d fail at least one obstacle because of some weakness – like being scared of heights, not having enough strength to swing over the hanging bars, or good enough balance to cross the narrow beams.
But the eight kids Zara Asker sent for
punishment had all completed the course hundreds of times during their basic training. Andy Lagan and Lauren Adams both had personal-best assault
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course times below t went y minutes. They still found running the course exhausting, but they could handle it and it certainly didn’t satisf y Instructor Speaks’ definition of a punishment. Miss Speaks was the kind of woman you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. Her shoulders were huge, her voice boomed like she’d swallowed a megaphone and she was particularly proud of her massive arms, which enabled her to beat everyone on campus at arm wrestling, including all of the male training instructors.
To make the assault course tougher, Speaks gave the eight kids backpacks containing ten to fifteen kilos of lead plates, depending upon their age and height. Bet ween the obstacles, she’d marked out exercise stations where the agents had to perform squats, crunches, jumping jacks or whatever. And as if that wasn’t enough, the assault course was fitted with traps which made the course more difficult if someone was on hand to operate them.
The course started with a run up a fift y-metre slope. In places it was so steep that you had to use rocks as footholds and haul yourself up lengths of
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knotted rope. If you got this wrong you’d roll down to the bottom if you were lucky, or split your head open on a rock if you weren’t.
The top of this hill was the highest part of the assault course, from which an instructor could survey the entire training compound. After a short run over f lat ground were three long beams placed t wo metres apart. At ten centimetres wide, crossing them didn’t require exceptional balance, but you needed some nerve because after the first few steps the ground dropped away and you found yourself suspended above a stagnant pool surrounded by beds of stinging nettles.
Some of the older agents on campus worked as assistants to the training instructors. Fifteen-yearold James Adams had snapped up the chance to escape double History and help Miss Speaks out, especially as he’d spent the previous evening on his PlayStation instead of writing his essay on Napoleon.
James sat on a wooden platform suspended
bet ween t wo oak trees which overlooked the narrow beams. His mate Bruce Norris squatted a couple of metres away, while in bet ween were t wo
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red punchbags, suspended from a sturdy branch in the canopy above.
In the distance James and Bruce heard kids grunting as t hey hauled themselves up the slope, while Miss Speaks leaned over the edge taunting them.
‘Move it, brats!’ Speaks bellowed, as she kicked a clump of dry earth down the slope on to the trainees. ‘Grab that rope and heave . . . You call that heaving? You’d
better
put some oomph in unless you want your butts enrolled on a t womonth after-school fitness programme.’
James smirked as his sister Lauren’s head emerged over the top of the slope. The assault course was easier if you worked with a partner and Andy was just a couple of steps behind her. The pair were starting their third circuit out of four and the hot weather was doing them in.
Lauren’s face was bright red and sweat streamed out of her tied-back hair. Andy’s grey shirt had dark sweat patches under the arms, while their trousers and bare arms were encrusted with filth after crawling through the t unnel and wading across a muddy stream basin.
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‘Push-ups,’ Speaks screamed. ‘I want t went yfive. Don’t gawp like a pair of prunes. Move, move, move!’
James watched as his sister and Andy hit the ground. Lauren was stocky and easily knocked off t went y-five push-ups, despite having t welve and a half kilos of lead on her back. Andy’s skinny arms were not only weaker than Lauren’s, they were gangly – meaning he had to move a lot further to complete each push-up. After fifteen his arms gave out.
‘What the hell is that?’ Speaks demanded.
‘Call yourself a man? Your girlfriend’s tougher than you.’
Andy tried to make a sixteenth push-up – he was in good shape and could manage fort y when he hadn’t just completed t wo circuits of the assault course on the hottest day of the year – but his shoulders ached and his arms shuddered before collapsing back to the hot earth.
‘You’re so weak,’ Speaks shouted, as she planted her size-eleven boot on the back of Andy’s head.
‘You’re a mealy little worm. What are you?’
Andy found it hard to speak because his lips
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were squished in the dirt. ‘Mweely lwttle worm,’
he gasped.
‘Wriggle like a worm then,’ Speaks shouted. Humiliated, Andy wriggled his hips and f lailed his arms in the dirt. Lauren scowled furiously at the instructor.
‘Are you eyeballing me, sister?’ Speaks shouted.
‘Why don’t you abandon him? What use is this little worm to you?’
‘He’s my partner,’ Lauren said loyally.
‘Tell you what,’ Speaks said, sounding like she’d just had the greatest idea in history. ‘He’s ten short. How about you get down in the dirt and do ’em for him?’
Lauren didn’t like it, but she wanted the instructor out of her sight so she hit the dirt and started counting Andy’s press-ups. Her lead-filled pack was chafing all the skin on her back, she was boiling hot, her arms hurt and sweat dripped off the end of her nose into the dirt.
Strict discipline, tough punishments and hard physical training were the three worst things about being a CHERUB agent, but they gave cherubs an edge that enabled them to work safely undercover
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and accomplish tasks well beyond the scope of ordinary kids.
There was nothing to stop Lauren or any other agent quitting campus and going to live an ordinary life with a foster family, but even when her lungs burned and her boots were full of blisters she never considered it. Because when you showered off, patched up your wounds and looked in the mirror you saw an extraordinary person looking back at you. Three years earlier, Lauren had arrived on campus as a bright but perfectly ordinary nineyear-old. Now she was one of the most highly rated agents on CHERUB campus. She spoke f luent Spanish and Russian, was fit enough to run ten kilometres without getting out of breath, could handle a car on a skid pan, load and shoot any firearm you cared to name and if she couldn’t get her hands on a weapon she also knew several ways to kill you with her bare hands.
As Lauren made the tenth and final upwards push, Miss Speaks’ enormous hand pressed down against her pack. The harder Lauren fought to straighten her arms, the more Speaks pushed against them.
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‘Back-chatting a guest on campus,’ Speaks tutted.
‘Are you regretting it now, you vile little tramp?’
Lauren tried not to think about how this was all Jake Parker’s fault as she gritted her teeth and stared at the dirt. Sweat was now pouring down her face and her stomach muscles felt like they were going to explode, but failure wasn’t an option: Miss Speaks would only devise some other form of torture.
Lauren finally came close to getting her arms straight, but Speaks shoved downwards and Lauren found her nose back in the dirt and grit sticking to her sweat y face. In basic training cherubs are taught to shut out pain and focus on a seven-word mantra:
This is tough but cherubs are tougher
. Lauren closed her eyes and silently mouthed it to herself. Finally, after almost a minute of straining, Miss Speaks released her grip and Lauren completed the push-up.
‘Determined,’ Speaks said admiringly, as Lauren staggered to her feet. ‘You’ve got heart.’