CHERUB: Dark Sun Read online

  Robert Muchamore was born in 1972 and spent thirteen years working as a private investigator. CHERUB: The Recruit is his first novel in the series.

  The CHERUB series has won numerous awards, including the Red House Children’s Book Award. For more information on Robert and his work, visit www.muchamore.com

  Praise for the CHERUB series:

  ‘If you can’t bear to read another story about elves, princesses or spoiled rich kids who never go to the toilet, try this. You won’t regret it.’ The Ultimate Teen Book Guide

  ‘My sixteen-year-old son read The Recruit in one sitting, then went out the next day and got the sequel.’ Sophie Smiley, teacher and children’s author

  ‘So good I forced my friends to read it, and they’re glad I did!’ Helen, age 14

  ‘CHERUB is the first book I ever read cover to cover. It was amazing.’ Scott, age 13

  ‘The best book ever.’ Madeline, age 12

  ‘CHERUB is a must for Alex Rider lovers.’ Travis, age 14

  BY ROBERT MUCHAMORE

  The Henderson’s Boys series:

  1. The Escape

  2. Eagle Day

  3. Secret Army

  4. Grey Wolves

  5. The Prisoner

  Coming soon

  The CHERUB series:

  1. The Recruit

  2. Class A

  3. Maximum Security

  4. The Killing

  5. Divine Madness

  6. Man vs Beast

  7. The Fall

  8. Mad Dogs

  9. The Sleepwalker

  10. The General

  11. Brigands M.C.

  12. Shadow Wave

  CHERUB series 2:

  1. People’s Republic

  2. Guardian Angel

  Coming soon

  www.hodderchildrens.co.uk

  Copyright © 2008 Robert Muchamore

  First published in Great Britain for World Book Day 2008

  by Hodder Children’s Books

  This eBook edition published in 2012

  The right of Robert Muchamore to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 91074 2

  Hodder Children’s Books

  A Division of Hachette Children’s Books

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  An Hachette UK company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  WHAT IS CHERUB?

  CHERUB is a branch of British Intelligence. Its agents are aged between ten and seventeen years. Cherubs are mainly orphans who have been taken out of care homes and trained to work undercover. They live on CHERUB campus, a secret facility hidden in the English countryside.

  WHAT USE ARE KIDS?

  Quite a lot. Nobody realises kids do undercover missions, which means they can get away with all kinds of stuff that adults can’t.

  WHO ARE THEY?

  About three hundred children live on CHERUB campus. Among the agents are fifteen-year-old JAMES ADAMS and his twelve-year-old sister LAUREN. Their friends include BRUCE NORRIS, ANDY LAGAN and Lauren’s on-off boyfriend ‘RAT’ RATHBONE.

  CHERUB T-SHIRTS

  Cherubs are ranked according to the colour of the T-shirts they wear on campus. ORANGE is for visitors. RED is for kids who live on CHERUB campus but are too young to qualify as agents (the minimum age is ten). BLUE is for kids undergoing CHERUB’s tough one-hundred-day basic training regime. A GREY T-shirt means you’re qualified for missions. NAVY is a reward for outstanding performance on a single mission. The BLACK T-shirt is the ultimate recognition for outstanding achievement over a number of missions.

  1. RANCID

  July 2007

  Honeywill Community School was a dump, but it was the last day before summer holidays so at least everyone was happy. Teachers who hadn’t cracked a smile since September let classes play Nintendo in the sun, the headmaster was bounding around in sunglasses and tennis shorts. Kids even took beatings with good grace, knowing their next appointment with the bullies wouldn’t be for at least six weeks.

  All the displays had been torn off the walls in Greg’s second-floor form room. He stood on a chair, leaning out of the classroom window with his school tie fixed around his head like a bandana and all his shirt buttons undone. Lunchtime was in full flow on the concrete playground below: girls chatting in huddles, boys playing football and a massive queue at the water fountain because it was the hottest day of the year so far.

  ‘Smell that,’ Zhang said, as the overweight Chinese boy thrust a clear plastic tub up towards Greg’s nostrils.

  The stench hit Greg like a fist. He recoiled violently, jumping off the chair and almost sprawling out as he backed into a metal paper basket.

  ‘You know it’s bad!’ Zhang grinned, swinging the pot back towards Greg’s nose.

  ‘Get off!’ Greg shouted, coughing and retching as he scrambled away between desks. ‘Is that your mum’s cooking?’

  Zhang shook his head as he placed the lid back on the tub. ‘It’s coleslaw from the school canteen. Says use by November fourteenth, but I just found it at the back of my locker.’

  The third boy in the classroom was a skinny lad called George and he was cracking up laughing.

  ‘Shut your mouth, stick boy,’ Greg shouted. ‘Unless you want me to rub your face in it.’

  But now that the lid was safely back on the coleslaw, Greg saw the funny side himself and he smiled even more when he saw the mound of junk Zhang had cleared out of his locker: text books covered in mud where Zhang had dumped his football boots on top of them, food wrappers, dirty tissues and a bottle of correction fluid that had leaked over his exercise books and dried into a hard white lump.

  ‘Animal,’ Greg snorted. ‘Is that a locker or a TARDIS? I don’t even know how all that junk fitted in there.’

  Zhang’s bulky frame swaggered across the room towards his two mates. ‘Greg, your locker’s neat because you’ve only been at this school for half a term.’

  George shook his head. ‘No Zhang, his locker’s neat because he’s not a revolting fat slob.’

  Zhang didn’t like being called fat and stepped up to George to face him off. ‘You want a slap?’

  The pair had been best mates since nursery school, but that didn’t mean Zhang wouldn’t get physical if George mouthed off.

  Greg tried to prick the tension. ‘You’re such a pair of tarts,’ he sneered. ‘Go on, snog and make up like you always do.’

  Zhang took a step back before turning around and staring Greg out, but he wouldn’t have dared do anything: Greg was only average height for a Year Eight, but he was sturdy and biceps bulged under his rolled-up shirt sleeves.

  ‘Oh Greg, I forgot,’ George said, as he scooped the last of the junk in his locker into the open mouth of his backpack. ‘I’m getting dragged to some barbecue at my aunt’s house on Saturday, Zhang’s flying off to China on Sunday – so if we’re gonna have the X-box sleepover, I’m afra
id it’s tonight or not at all.’

  ‘Oh,’ Greg said awkwardly, running his hand through a tangle of dark hair.

  ‘You can still come, right?’ George asked.

  Greg shrugged, pulling a little Nokia out of his pocket. ‘Sure, I guess. I mean… I’ll just text my dad to make sure, but there’s nothing else going on, so I can’t see why not.’

  ‘Cool,’ George said, slamming the door of his locker before wiping his brow on his sleeve.

  ‘I take it my cousin Andy can still come?’ Greg asked. ‘I know you’ve never met him, but he’s the biggest laugh, I swear.’

  ‘More the merrier, I say,’ George answered, before making a big huffing sound. ‘I don’t mind the sun, but it’s just too hot today!’

  Greg laughed. ‘This is nothing. When I lived in Australia you’d get days like this in winter.’

  Zhang tried to copy Greg’s Australian accent. ‘When I lived in Auuuuuustralia it was four hundred degrees in the shade. It was so hot the koala bears dropped out of the trees ready-cooked.’

  ‘Don’t mock the accent,’ Greg smirked. ‘It drives the chicks wild.’

  ‘No accounting for female tastes,’ Zhang said. ‘The meat-heads they go out with…’

  ‘Just because Amy blew you out twice,’ George grinned, as he strolled towards the window.

  ‘Oh and you’re such a stud,’ Zhang replied.

  George stood on the chair by the window and leaned out to cool off in the breeze. He heard a distinctive laugh in the playground below and looked straight down.

  George turned back inside. ‘Zhang!’ he yelled eagerly. ‘Gimme that coleslaw. My sister’s standing right under this window.’

  Greg and Zhang rushed over, dragging chairs behind them.

  ‘Nice,’ Zhang grinned, as the three boys leaned out and stared down into the sunny playground. ‘Your sister’s so fit.’

  ‘Eww,’ George shuddered. ‘You wouldn’t fancy her if you’d seen her in the bath, shaving her hairy-arsed legs.’

  ‘Face facts,’ Greg said, shaking his head. ‘If Sophie was anything other than your fifteen-year-old sister you’d be perving at her the same as everyone else.’

  ‘It’s personality that counts,’ George noted. ‘And she’s a grade-one pain in the butthole.’

  ‘You know what I don’t get?’ Greg said, looking across at Zhang. ‘How does George, with his Twiglet arms and legs, get to have a total babe for a sister?’

  ‘Shut up,’ George ordered.

  Greg and Zhang did shut up. Not because George had told them, but because he’d popped the lid off Zhang’s tub of eight-month-old coleslaw.

  ‘That’s so rank,’ Greg moaned.

  ‘It’s bubbling,’ George said, trying not to breathe. ‘The tub is actually warm!’

  ‘Lob it then,’ Zhang said impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Greg looked across and saw doubt all over George’s face.

  ‘Do it,’ Zhang urged. ‘Remember: Sophie lent her ex-boyfriend half your PSP games and you never got ’em back.’

  George shook his head and moved to put the lid back on the pot. ‘Better not. If my old lady found out she’d make a misery of my whole summer holidays.’

  ‘You chicken!’ Zhang tutted. ‘I knew you’d bottle it.’

  As George lined up the lid to pop it back on, Zhang reached over and batted his arm. The coleslaw shot up out of George’s hand. He tried catching it but the pot glanced off his fingertips and headed for the ground.

  Greg looked down and got a surprise: Sophie and her gaggle of mates had scattered to avoid a football rifling across from the adjacent Astroturf.

  ‘Watch where you’re kicking that, you knob!’ Sophie shouted.

  George, Zhang and Greg watched open mouthed as a bare-chested Year-Ten boy charged in to grab the football. The tension made it feel like slow motion: Sophie and her friends moving away, the coleslaw pot spinning in the air and the beefy Year Ten running in to retrieve the ball.

  ‘Zhang you idiot!’ George gasped.

  The tub of rancid coleslaw hit the Year Ten’s neck as he scooped the football off the concrete. The brown mass erupted, spattering down his bare back and up as far as the top of his shaven head.

  Upstairs, the three boys dived away from the window, but in his haste George forgot to duck and whacked the back of his head on the frame.

  ‘You moron!’ George shouted to Zhang, as he jumped down off the chair. ‘That was Thomas Moran. If he finds us we’re dead.’

  ‘Who’s Thomas Moran when he’s out shopping?’ Greg asked.

  George anxiously rubbed the bump on the back of his head. ‘Just one of the hardest kids in Year Ten, that’s all. Him and his mates are all rugby players. Big rugby players.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t see us,’ Greg suggested. ‘They might not even know what window it was thrown from.’

  Zhang crept up to the window and peeked out. ‘They saw us!’ he gasped, before ducking back down. ‘Sophie and all her mates are pointing up. Moran and another big dude are sprinting towards the main entrance.’

  George was waving his bandy arms around, working himself into a complete state. ‘Why did you hit my arm you idiot? Those guys aren’t gonna take prisoners. If they catch us, they’ll kick our heads in.’

  Greg swept his backpack off his desk and headed for the door. ‘Less panic, more running,’ he suggested.

  ‘This is so bad,’ George shuddered.

  As Zhang belted outside into the corridor Greg grabbed George by his collar and yanked him towards the door.

  ‘Calm down, you’ll be OK,’ Greg said. ‘But we’ve got to start running, now.’

  By the time George and Greg got out into the hallway, Zhang had already made it to the main staircase, thirty metres away. He’d hoped to get down to the first floor and hide out in a classroom there, but he had no chance because the two big Year Tens were already bounding up from the ground floor.

  ‘There’s the fat one!’ Thomas Moran shouted. ‘You wait till I get my hands on you.’

  Zhang’s shoes squealed on the corridor tiles as he saw Greg and George belting out of the classroom in the opposite direction.

  ‘Guys,’ Zhang yelled desperately, running as fast his chunky legs would allow. ‘Guys, wait up!’

  2. LAKE

  The British countryside is dotted with secret government installations: nuclear research facilities, weapons dumps, communications monitoring centres. CHERUB campus was in the highest security category, surrounded by government-owned forest and marked on maps as an artillery firing range.

  Anyone ignoring the warning signs and driving up the approach road towards campus’ solid black gates would be greeted by guards armed with Heckler and Koch machine guns. You couldn’t even view campus from the air because the sky overhead formed part of the protected airspace around a military airbase five kilometres to the east.

  If you had been allowed to overfly CHERUB campus you’d have seen a set of buildings similar to those you’d find at a wealthy boarding school, surrounded by sports pitches and outdoor tennis courts. More unusual were a banana-shaped building bristling with satellite dishes, four helipads and beyond a large oval lake a wooded area, containing an assault course and an outdoor shooting range.

  The weather was glorious and more than half the kids on CHERUB campus had taken their lunch outside to eat by the lake. Some kids cooled off with a paddle, but swimming was presently banned because it might disturb the family of ducklings living on a muddy embankment near the lake’s centre.

  Twelve-year-old Lauren Adams lay on the lawn near the lake’s edge, toes curled in the grass, surrounded by daisies and using her arm to keep the sun out of her eyes. She’d managed to get her favourite sushi box from the canteen before they ran out and the sun made her whole body feel wonderfully warm, but she was still depressed because she was in trouble and it wasn’t her fault.

  A fair-skinned boy called Andy Lagan sat on the grass next to Lauren. He
put his Manga down and tapped her arm. ‘Zara’s here,’ he said grimly. ‘Better start putting your boots on.’

  Lauren wanted time to freeze so she could stay on the warm grass for ever. ‘God,’ she moaned, sweeping blades of grass off her soles as she sat up.

  All cherubs wore a military style uniform during school hours: a T-shirt with CHERUB logo – the colour of which depended upon your rank – olive combat trousers with zip-off legs and lightweight black boots. As Andy pulled his grey T-shirt over his chest and started moving uphill, Lauren hurriedly pulled balled-up socks out of her boots.

  ‘You’d better shift,’ Andy shouted back at her. ‘Zara’s gonna be in a right mood.’

  Zara Asker stood on a tarmac path fifty metres uphill. She had one hand on her hip and leaned on one of the electric carts that staff used to move around campus. Zara was thirty-seven years old; she wore a flower-print dress and still carried some of the weight from the birth of her second child a year earlier.

  Belying her mumsy appearance, Zara held one of the most senior jobs in British Intelligence. As the chairwoman of CHERUB, she was a headteacher and a spymaster rolled into one. Zara was usually popular with the kids in her charge, except when it was time to dish out punishments.

  Lauren rushed to join Andy and six other CHERUB agents up on the path, with her boot laces dragging behind her. There was a boy and girl in their early teens, but the main clump comprised four grey-shirt boys aged ten and eleven. They were all mates and their unelected leader was the spiky-haired Jake Parker.

  ‘Right you lot, line up,’ Zara said stiffly, before eyeballing Jake’s soggy trousers and ketchup-stained shirt. ‘Is that how you present yourself to the chairwoman?’

  Lauren couldn’t stand Jake and enjoyed his discomfort as he hurriedly tucked in his shirt. ‘Sorry, Miss,’ Jake said meekly. ‘I dropped my hot dog.’