CHERUB: People's Republic (9 page)

‘Yes, sir,’ Ryan said sourly.

Ryan had to get into the changing room for his plan to work, but he acted all pissy as he jogged across the gym. He’d shown little enthusiasm in PE class ever since he arrived, because acting the jock wouldn’t win favour with a geek like Ethan.

As Oldfield lined the boys up for their next exercise, Ryan’s nose got a blast of boy stink. The locker room was designed for a whole year group of 150 boys to change. There was a smart central area, with play boards and padded benches arranged in a horseshoe where coaches could draw diagrams and whip up team spirit before a big game. One side had the coaches’ office and shower block, while the rest was slatted benches and rows of lockers radiating out from the centre.

With less than forty boys out in the gym, most of the locker space was free. The seventh grade cliques all had regular spots. Ethan wasn’t proud of his body, and changed at the far end of a row with Yannis and some other nobodies.

Ryan’s plan was easy to explain, but hard to execute. He had to get a bully pissed off at Ethan, then step in and save the day before Ethan got his butt kicked. The major complicating factors were that the plan couldn’t work if anyone knew Ryan had caused the trouble, and the fact that Ryan’s class didn’t really have any bullies.

There were a few tough kids, but Twin Lakes Middle was in a solid neighbourhood and its seventh graders didn’t habitually stab each other or make nerds drink toilet water.

The one source of tension Ryan had picked up at Twin Lakes was racial. Of the fourteen boys in class 7G, nine were white, one came from India and the other four were Latino. A lot of the white kids were rich. They lived in boss neighbourhoods near the ocean and mostly hung out with other white kids. The Latinos tended to be poorer. Many of their parents worked menial jobs, in restaurants, gas stations and even as maids or servants for rich families.

There was no bully in Ryan and Ethan’s class, but there was one kid who was tough and volatile. Guillermo was heavyset, ten centimetres taller than Ryan and none too bright. In the three weeks Ryan had been at Twin Lakes, he’d seen Guillermo storm out of classes, punch lockers and throw a massive hissy fit when he couldn’t find his homework.

Ryan’s first task was to locate Guillermo’s locker. He always changed with a big group of Latino boys in the row of lockers furthest from the coaches’ office. Once Ryan had checked the toilets and shower cubicles to make sure he was alone he headed up there, placed his pack on a bench and unzipped it to reveal a clear-lidded tackle box. It was divided into thirty small compartments, each containing several keys.

CHERUB agents are taught techniques for picking locks, but it’s a slow process and Ryan had to open multiple lockers to find Guillermo’s stuff. Luckily lockers are only designed to prevent casual theft. There are always master keys so that teachers, swim instructors or whoever can replace lost keys. After making calls to the FBI regional office in San Francisco Amy had got a set of master keys for all the most common types of locker.

According to the embossed logos on the front, Ryan was looking at lockers made by Nova. The master keys were arranged alphabetically and tagged by manufacturer. Ryan found eight keys for Nova. Four were obviously the wrong shape, two were complicated jobs tagged
luxe
and
golf
which didn’t sound right. The final pair were almost identical and tagged
Nova standard A & B
.

Ryan took the A key and used it to open the first two closed lockers, hoping to find Guillermo-sized clothes and his distinctive green and orange backpack. The third locker needed the B key, and confusingly contained the phones and wallets of three lads who’d left their book bags and clothes out on benches.

After deciding that none of the stuff on hooks was Guillermo’s, Ryan opened two more lockers before straddling the changing bench to try the other side. The first one was the jackpot: the green and orange bag, with Guillermo’s shorts, basketball vest and hoodie dumped on top of it.

But someone was coming into the room. Shawn was a black kid, not in Ryan’s class. The only time Ryan had spoken to him was when they’d been on the same team doing relay runs in gym class earlier that week.

‘Oldfield’s got some
major
bug up his arse this morning,’ Shawn moaned, as he tore off a grey T-shirt revealing good muscles with a light sweat on them. ‘Must have worn this shirt for PE twenty times, but today he says I’ve got to wear the proper shirt with the Twin Lakes logo.’

Ryan tried to sound smooth, though he knew it looked odd, being in front of an open locker in the wrong part of the locker room.

‘You’re new, ain’t ya?’ Shawn said, as he disappeared down another row of lockers. ‘I’d put your stuff down here, unless you wanna get towel whipped by a bunch of taco eaters.’

‘Could be right, yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

Shawn’s locker slammed and he jogged out in his proper PE shirt, muttering about Mr Oldfield enjoying sexual relations with his own mother. Ryan gave it a couple of seconds before turning back to Guillermo’s locker.

As he rummaged through a pair of shorts with pizza sauce spattered down the legs, Guillermo’s phone and keys slid out of the pocket, bouncing off the bottom of the locker and hitting the tiled floor hard. The phone was a Nokia brick from the stone age, covered with marker pen and smiley faces drawn in nail varnish.

Ryan decided it would be good to leave the keys on the floor in front of Guillermo’s locker. He then shut the metal door, grabbed his pack and crossed to the area where Ethan and Yannis changed.

Ethan was easier because he always used the same locker, though Ryan had to give master key B a good jiggle before it popped open.

Ryan jumped as Mr Oldfield shouted through the door leading in from the gym. ‘Ryan Brasker, you have sixty seconds or I’m in your face holding a detention slip.’

The jolt threw Ryan into a shudder, wasting valuable seconds. Once he was sure Mr Oldfield had gone away, Ryan switched Guillermo’s phone from vibrate to the loudest ring setting before reaching inside Ethan’s locker.

Ethan’s pack was stuffed with books, as well as sandwiches and a wodge of Internet printouts from a chess site. Ryan pushed his hand inside the pack, dropped Guillermo’s Nokia down amidst pencil stubs and long-forgotten chocolate bars, then slammed the metal door.

This crucial part of the operation was over, but Ryan still didn’t fancy detention. He’d prepared for a quick change by wearing his Twin Lakes PE top under an unbuttoned shirt and his green school issue shorts were revealed as he tugged down baggy cargo shorts and pulled them over his trainers.

Ryan crossed to the back of the room again and shoved his own stuff into a locker a few doors along from Guillermo. He pulled the rubber band with the key attached over his wrist and jogged out. Mr Oldfield was waiting for him by the exit as boys climbed ropes in the background.

‘Something’s not right with you, Brasker,’ Oldfield said.

Ryan wondered if Shawn had become suspicious and snitched. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he said warily.

‘You pack muscle,’ Oldfield said, as he leaned in close. ‘You ever wrestled?’

‘No, sir,’ Ryan said.

‘You’re built like a kid who could wrestle or play ball. But your attitude stinks.’

Ryan didn’t answer.

‘Don’t it?’ Oldfield repeated, loud enough for the kids doing rope work to glance around.

‘If you say so, sir,’ Ryan said.

‘Twenty laps, then join the rest of the group. Now move!’

Ryan stifled a smile as he started to run. Twenty laps of a little gym was nothing, and despite a couple of close scrapes, the first part of the plan was in place.

11. GYM

The lunch bell was ten minutes away as three classes of seventh-grade boys fed into the locker room. A few went for showers, but the majority settled for a squirt of body spray and a dry top.

The six Latino boys grouped at the back with Guillermo were all in the no-shower camp. Ryan stood a couple of metres from them, wiping a sweaty chest with his balled-up PE shirt.

Guillermo discovered his house keys on the floor when he stepped up to open his locker. Just as Ryan hoped, he noticed that his phone was missing when he dropped the keys back into the pocket of his shorts.

Loads of kids were shouting and locker doors slammed, but everyone heard Guillermo’s high-pitched shout.

‘Which one of you dick wads took my phone?’

Nobody took much notice. Guillermo took everything out of his locker to make sure it hadn’t dropped down at the back, then did a three-sixty look around, before crouching down and peering under the slatted changing bench.

‘Have you checked inside your bag?’ a skinny kid asked.

Guillermo got right up in his face and spoke aggressively. ‘I don’t keep my phone in my bag. It goes in my pocket with my keys.’

The kid was half Guillermo’s size and he held up his hands as he backed off. ‘Just trying to help, man.’

‘If someone’s messin’ they
better
give it up now,’ Guillermo shouted.

Despite saying the phone couldn’t be in his backpack, Guillermo unzipped all the pockets and pulled everything out to be sure. By the time he’d finished, his face had gone bright red and his movements were all jerky like he was about to explode.

‘If one of you is tricking me, man,’ Guillermo said angrily. Then he shouted again. ‘Who took my bastard phone?’

Ryan was dressed now, and getting tense. The lunch bell wasn’t far off. Kids who’d changed were crowding around the exit and the plan would come to nothing if Ethan carried Guillermo’s phone out of the locker room before someone tried to call it.

It would seem suspicious if Ryan suggested someone call Guillermo’s phone to see if it rang, but he was almost that desperate when a boy called Sal approached Guillermo holding his own phone.

‘Don’t fret, bro,’ Sal told Guillermo. ‘What’s your number? I’ll call it.’

Guillermo looked madder than ever, but Sal was one of the biggest kids in the seventh grade so Guillermo didn’t snap at him.

‘It’s on vibrate,’ Guillermo said.

‘Still might hear it moving,’ Sal said. ‘Ain’t gonna do no harm. What’s your number?’

The ringing sound struggled to be heard over forty hyped-up kids, but it was enough to send Guillermo and Sal on a charge.

Ryan feigned disinterest as the pair barged through the crowd around the door and steamed across the room. They found a mystified Ethan digging down his bag for the ringing phone.

Guillermo grabbed Ethan by the scruff of his hoodie and bounced him hard against a locker. ‘What you doing with my phone, bitch?’ Guillermo roared. ‘You don’t like having teeth in your head?’

Everyone had turned towards the action, and Ryan made sure he was close enough to dive in. Ethan was absolutely crapping himself, while Yannis had shrivelled into a corner, acting like he didn’t even know who Ethan was.

‘I didn’t steal your phone,’ Ethan said, as he rummaged desperately in his bag.

‘Then how come you got it, you skinny piece of shit?’

Guillermo banged Ethan against the locker again as he held out the grafittied Nokia. Ryan stepped forward to make his move, but Sal grabbed Guillermo’s arm before he got there.

‘That weedy bitch didn’t steal your phone,’ Sal said.

Guillermo gave Sal a mean stare. ‘Then why’s it in his hand?’

‘You said it was on silent,’ Sal said. ‘But that thing went off like a car horn. Someone else put that phone in his bag. Someone trying to stir up trouble.’

Guillermo’s none too massive brain mulled this over for a couple of seconds, before deciding that Sal made sense. The tension dropped out of the room, but Ryan felt sick because his plan was down the toilet.

Now the threat of violence had receded, Yannis reverted to being gobby. ‘Who’d steal a shit phone like that anyway?’ he said. ‘I had a better one than that when I was eight.’

Yannis had misjudged badly. Guillermo might have his phone back, but he was still angry and suspicious about being tricked.

‘What you say?’ Guillermo shouted. ‘You wanna see if you’re still dissing my phone after I’ve stuffed it up your big fat arse?’

Yannis looked scared, and Sal’s reaction came as another surprise. Ryan didn’t know if Sal was sensitive to remarks about the Latino kids being poor, or if he had some past beef with Yannis, but he flipped from peacemaker to aggressor and gave Yannis an almighty slap across the face.

Shocked
ooohs
and mean laughs went through the crowd.

‘Smack that fatty boy up!’ one of the Latino kids shouted.

‘We can’t all be rich boys like you,’ Sal told Yannis, as he drove a finger into his belly. ‘So you shut your mouth.’

Ryan realised his rescue plan was back on. Sal and Guillermo were both bigger than him, but he reckoned he could handle both if he moved fast and knocked one of them out with his first blow. Before Ryan got his chance, he was jostled by three other Latino kids.