CHERUB: The Sleepwalker (3 page)

But there was some relief as the roll continued and the jet came full circle. Although the aircraft continued to shudder, some sense of normality returned as people realised that they were back the right way up and apparently staying there.

‘Everybody get in your seats and fasten your belts,’ a steward shouted tersely as he stepped over the debris in the aisle and rushed to help his stricken colleague.

The interior of the jet became oddly calm as people, not knowing what to expect, cast their eyes upwards as if awaiting instructions from god.

Too stunned to speak, Angus found himself being manhandled by the three adults he was lying across. He was soon standing in the aisle, facing the embarrassing reality of tracksuit bottoms down to his knees.

But people had other things on their minds, and even Megan was too shocked to smirk as her mother tugged Angus back to his seat.

‘Sit down and pull your belt on tight, sweetheart. Are you OK?’

Angus’ chest hurt where he’d been pinned against the seatbacks, but it wasn’t bad and he gave his mum a reassuring nod, before turning to thank the stocky man who’d saved him from a nasty bump on the head.

‘What happened?’ Megan asked.

Her grandmother reached across and put a hand on the girl’s knee. ‘It was probably just turbulence, sweetie.’

‘But there was that big bang,’ Angus said anxiously, searching for the Gameboy he’d left resting on his seat.

A calm female voice came over the intercom. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Maxine O’Connor, your co-pilot. We appear to have suffered a mechanical failure and my colleagues and I are currently trying to establish the exact cause. In the meantime, please stay in your seats with your seatbelts tightly fastened and keep the aisles clear to enable the crew to access any injured or distressed passengers. Also we appear to have some injuries, so if there is a doctor or other medical practitioner onboard, we would appreciate it if you could make yourself known to the cabin crew at this time.’

Lauren wanted a chance for a good talk with Bethany, so she was pleased when Coral found a couple of playmates and started chasing around the car park.

The two teams of four boys were wheeling the golf carts out of the workshop into the open air. Several had taken off their overalls and Bethany was surprised by James’ look. While she’d been away, he’d let his hair get longer, he wore a silver stud in one ear, a black short-sleeved shirt, ripped Diesel jeans and a pair of skateboarder shoes with fat red laces.

‘What happened to football shirts and trackies?’ Bethany asked, clearly – but reluctantly – impressed by the transformation.

‘He’s still going out with Dana,’ Lauren explained. ‘She kept taking the mickey at how he dressed like a chav and he’s got totally vain. You see how he leaves the top two buttons of his shirt undone? He’s been working his chest in the gym and wants everyone to know it.’

‘That’s sick,’ Bethany laughed.

‘A bit camp if you ask me,’ Lauren smirked.

‘Definitely a big improvement though,’ Bethany said. ‘So what about you and Rat?’

Bethany had more experience with boys than Lauren, who recoiled half a step with embarrassment. ‘We’re still good mates, you know?’

‘Who cares about that?’ Bethany tutted. ‘I want to hear about tangled tongues and fingers roaming inside forbidden garments.’

‘Every now and then we end up doing something,’ Lauren said, feeling more and more awkward. ‘Like, if there’s a birthday party and there’s a lot of snogging going on.’

A yell came out of the workshop and everyone went quiet and turned towards Terry Campbell. His long white beard and cable-knit jumper made him look like a man who spent his weekends tinkering with steam engines, but he was arguably the smartest man on campus.

As director of CHERUB’s technical department, Terry handled tasks from fixing the espresso machine in the staff lounge to preparing specialised equipment for missions and writing the software that integrated the hundreds of CCTV cameras and sensors that protected campus from intruders.

Terry was passionate about encouraging bright youngsters to become engineers and in his spare time he ran projects with groups of CHERUB agents. Over the years he’d helped teams of youngsters make everything from motorised gliders to solar-powered drinks coolers.

‘Listen up,’ Terry said, addressing the whole crowd. ‘I’ve done some weight and power calculations and these carts could easily top a hundred kilometres an hour. Racing at that sort of speed in golf buggies isn’t exactly safe, so instead of racing wheel-to-wheel we’re going to do a time trial and see who can make the quickest run from this car park here, across campus to the lot behind the dojo and then back again via the main building.’

A disappointed groan rippled through the crowd.

Lauren mumbled to Bethany, ‘That’s so lame. I only turned up in the hope of seeing fireballs and carnage.’

It took almost twenty minutes for Terry to spread sentries along the improvised circuit to make sure that nobody got mown down by one of the souped-up golf carts. As the race drew near, more kids and staff had come out to the garage and groups stood at various points around the circuit.

Wearing a crash helmet and flameproof overalls, Rat shook hands with fourteen-year-old Stuart Russell, who was driving the rival cart.

‘I
hate
Stuart,’ Bethany said. ‘Why are his front teeth so big? He looks like he’s been gnawing at a tree trunk.’

Lauren grinned. ‘Shakeel’s captain of the other team, but I guess we’ve got to support James, Jake and Rat.’

‘They’re our boys,’ Bethany nodded, before taking a deep breath and bellowing with all her might: ‘Come on
Teeeeeeam
Rat.’

Rat climbed into his cart. Andy helped him do up the three-point safety harness as Bethany’s chant set off a round of jeering in the crowd. It was hard to judge, but James’ team seemed slightly more popular.

‘Win and I’ll flash you my tits!’ Bethany shouted.

Lauren laughed. She’d forgotten how outrageous Bethany could be when she got carried away. From behind, a girl called Tiffany – who used to be a friend until Bethany dropped her iPod in the bath – shouted, ‘Who’d want to see your flabby bod, Bethany Parker?’

Within a second Bethany had stormed over to Tiffany and was right in her former friend’s face. ‘Do you want a smack in the gob?’

Tiffany put her hands on her hips. ‘Try it. See where it gets you.’

So Bethany did, and the crowd’s attention turned away from the imminent race towards the two thirteen-year-old girls rolling in the gravel. Both were skilled martial artists, but that didn’t stop it turning into an old-fashioned cat fight, with the pair grappling one another, churning up the tiny stones, yanking hair and clawing with long nails.

‘Dirty cow,’ Bethany screamed.

‘You can talk you boy-crazed slapper,’ Tiffany screamed back.

Jake grinned at James. ‘I love watching girls fight, they’re
so
funny.’

After thirty seconds, Bethany’s recent lack of fitness and combat training began to tell. She gasped for air as Tiffany pressed her knees on Bethany’s shoulders and avenged the opening punch in the mouth.

Lauren realised that her friend was about to get hammered. She charged in and grabbed Tiffany around the waist. Meanwhile, Terry Campbell had ploughed into the crowd with his two team captains behind him.

‘Pack it in you two,’ Terry shouted, as Lauren dragged Tiffany away.

James and Shakeel grabbed Bethany as she stood up, but she tried to charge at Tiffany.

‘Lemme go,’ Bethany snorted. ‘I’m gonna rip her eyeballs out.’

Tiffany didn’t regard her opponent’s best friend as a neutral, and she flailed about trying to kick and elbow Lauren until a couple of older girls grabbed hold and told her to calm down.

‘Stop being so bloody stupid,’ Terry Campbell shouted, as Bethany and Tiffany shot evils at each other through the fading sunlight. ‘Any more of this nonsense and I’ll report both of you to the chairwoman.’

Tiffany wagged her finger. ‘You’re lucky your pal saved you. Five more seconds and I would have busted your jaw.’

James still had his hands gripping tightly under Bethany’s armpits, and he pulled her back as she reared forwards and snarled, ‘Hardly surprising, Tiffany. Your big butt weighs more than my whole body.’

‘Stop it,’ James ordered. He let Bethany go, but as he did so he gave her a sideways shove to emphasise that he was stronger than her and that she wouldn’t get far if she made another lunge for Tiffany.

‘Dammit,’ Bethany said angrily, as she combed her fingers through her dark hair, showering the ground with bits of gravel. ‘I can’t believe she pinned me. I’m so weak; I’ve got to get back in training.’

‘She’s not worth getting punishment laps over,’ Lauren said soothingly, as she rested her hand on Bethany’s back. ‘And you didn’t do that badly. That first punch: she’s bleeding out the corner of her giant trap.’

‘I owe you one,’ Bethany grunted. ‘I’d have lost half my front teeth if you hadn’t pulled her off.’

By this time most of the crowd had turned back towards the race. Terry Campbell looked up at the sky to check the light before taking a stopwatch from the pocket of his overalls. Bruce pressed the button to start up the motorcycle engine and within ten seconds the air was filled with blue haze.

‘Another blow for the environment,’ Lauren coughed.

Terry lowered his hand to indicate that he’d started the stopwatch and Rat floored the accelerator pedal. James smiled proudly as a few chants of ‘Go Rat’ came out of the crowd. Everyone seemed impressed as a cart that had spent a decade pootling around campus at fifteen kph blasted uphill with its back wheels chucking up dust and gravel.

‘We’re running the engine on the highest octane super unleaded,’ James explained to the girls, as Jake and Andy joined them. ‘We’ve altered the fuel injection so that it puts a very rich fuel mixture into the cylinder to increase power and we even downloaded a hack for the engine management chip so that you can rev it much harder and—’

Lauren interrupted. ‘Like I
really
care about your stupid engine, geek boy. We’re just here hoping we get to see something blow up.’

James realised he sounded a bit of a saddo as Terry counted out a full minute before releasing Stuart’s cart on to the circuit. Shak’s team had stripped the roof from their cart and James was worried because it looked more stable as it powered up the hill.

‘Ready to lose, my man?’ Shak beamed, as he gave James the finger.

Despite being a year younger, Shak was taller than James and had a similar chunky build. ‘I’m so glad we took the top off. And finding that set of fresh tyres at the scrap yard should give us way more traction.’

‘But our computer hack gives us at
least
twenty extra horsepower,’ James bragged.

Shak shook his head exuberantly. ‘It’s not how much power you’ve got, baby. It’s how much power your wheels can get down on the road.’

Bethany and Lauren looked at each other and deliberately broke into loud yawns, as the drone of the high-powered carts receded into the distance.

‘I think I preferred it when James was only obsessed with girls,’ Lauren said.

‘I’ve got a joke about that,’ Shak said happily. ‘Who wants to hear it?’

‘Nobody,’ Jake said firmly. ‘You and your bloody jokes …’

‘Why are motorbikes better than women?’ Shak asked, ignoring the protests.

Lauren tutted. ‘Because you don’t need permission every time you want to ride on your motorbike.’

Shak was disappointed. ‘You’ve heard it.’

‘You told it at the dinner table last night,’ Jake pointed out. ‘It wasn’t funny then either.’

‘Where’s Dana anyway, James?’ Shak asked. ‘Didn’t your bird want to see your dinky little cart getting crushed, along with your ego?’

James shrugged. ‘She’s reading some book. She said she’s happy for me to be involved in this project as long as she doesn’t have to hear anything about it and I don’t come near her until I’ve washed off the smell of petrol.’

‘Sensible girl,’ Lauren nodded. ‘Although I question her taste in boys …’

‘It’s one of the coolest things about Dana,’ James said. ‘She likes her own space and she doesn’t mind if I go off and do my own stuff.’

‘I thought she was going to that racing place on work experience with you,’ Andy said.

James nodded. ‘Yeah, if she gets the other place.’

‘What work experience?’ Bethany asked.

Lauren pointed at James. ‘All the fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds are doing two weeks’ work experience. Mr Campbell set James up with some university mate of his who runs a motorcycle racing team.’

Jake shook his head. ‘He’s so lucky. Most kids end up working in a clothes shop or something like that.’

‘James is always lucky,’ Shak noted. ‘He’s got more jam than Sainsbury’s.’

Everyone’s ears pricked up as it became clear that the distant drone of two motorbike engines had become the distant drone of one. The crowd went quiet and the rival crew members traded nervous glances, wondering who’d broken down.

James felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He slid it open and heard his girlfriend’s voice.

‘Is the flaming golf cart on the road towards the main building anything to do with you?’ Dana asked, clearly amused by the idea that James’ pride and joy was going up in smoke.

‘Flaming?’ James gasped. ‘Can you see the driver? Is he OK? Can you tell if it’s Stuart or Rat?’

James was worried by the news of flames. He’d reattached a faulty fuel line before Rat set off. If he hadn’t done it properly it could easily break off and cause a fire when leaking fuel touched the hot engine casing.

Lauren got pushed aside as the two teams of nervous boys gathered around the phone at James’ ear.

‘It’s some way from where I’m standing,’ Dana said. ‘The driver looks OK and a couple of the staff are running up there with fire extinguishers.’

James was desperate to know whether it was his cart. ‘Can’t you run up there to get a proper look?’

‘I’m upstairs in my room,’ Dana explained. ‘I’d have to put some trousers on and wait for the lift. Mind you there is one thing. The first buggy that went by had a roof and this one looks like it doesn’t.’