Man vs. Beast Read online

  ‘Yes, sir,’ James said gloomily, cursing his luck as the phone went dead in his ear.

  5. RETIREMENT

  If you were in trouble, Dr McAfferty prolonged your suffering by making you wait in suspense outside his office. Nine-thirty rolled on to ten as James, Lauren and Bethany sat on a line of leatherette chairs, anxiously drumming and twitching a variety of body parts. Mac’s assistant sat at the desk in the middle of the outer office, typing letters, taking calls and scowling at the KEEP SILENT sign if they dared make any noise.

  The kids wanted to make a good impression and all three wore pristine CHERUB uniform: freshly waxed combat boots, olive cargo pants and the T-shirts that denoted their rank. Grey for Bethany, navy for James and black for Lauren.

  The longer James sat there thinking about his situation, the angrier he got with his sister for dragging him into this mess.

  It was almost eleven when they got called in. Mac’s office was a stately affair, with a giant oak desk and floor to ceiling bookshelves. Many of the shelves had been emptied and the books stacked into cardboard boxes, ready for shipping out.

  James was surprised. ‘I thought you were here for another couple of months.’

  Mac gave the bookshelves a sad glance from behind his desk. ‘I don’t retire until the end of July,’ he said. ‘It’s just easier taking things home a few boxes at a time.’

  ‘Is it true that you didn’t want to go?’ Bethany asked.

  Mac smiled. ‘CHERUB might be a special organisation, but I have to retire at sixty-five, the same as any other government employee. Besides, this is a young man’s – or woman’s – job. All the responsibilities of a headteacher, politician and spymaster rolled into one. I don’t have the energy I used to have and there are plenty of souls more than capable of replacing me.’

  ‘Like who?’ Lauren asked.

  As Mac’s retirement drew near, the identity of the new chairman had become the hot topic on campus.

  Mac gave the kids an odd expression, part serious, part misty eyed, before speaking in an uncharacteristically severe voice. ‘Please sit down at the desk. We’re here to discuss your futures, not mine. In particular, the consequences of last night’s unauthorised mission.’

  ‘How come you found out about it?’ James asked, as he sat down between the two girls.

  Mac’s voice softened and he almost broke into a smile. ‘One of the office staff caught Martin Newman stealing a key to the generator room.’

  Lauren and Bethany both gasped.

  ‘As you well know, Bethany,’ Mac continued, ‘young Martin has a crush on you. He was reluctant to tell on you and only admitted that he was stealing the key for you two after I threatened to ban him from undercover missions if he didn’t spill the beans.

  ‘I had your rooms searched while you were in class and found Lauren’s masterplan,’ Mac said, as he held up a large sheet of photocopied paper. ‘Once I knew it wasn’t a serious security breach, I decided to let you go ahead. It’s always interesting to see what you kids are capable of.’

  As Mac spoke, James studied the masterplan. It was all in Lauren’s neatest writing, with diagrams, maps, details of when the raid was going to take place and what equipment they needed. But his eyes were drawn to the bottom of the paper and a section beneath an underlined title:

  PROS AND CONS OF TAKING JAMES:

  PROS:

  In love with Kerry, so easy to blackmail and will

  do what he’s told.

  Strong – James can carry tons of stuff!

  CONS:

  Hates Bethany – they ALWAYS row.

  Bit of an idiot.

  ‘What the fu …’ James muttered when he finished reading, only backing away from the last word when he remembered where he was sitting.

  As Lauren turned red and shrank into her chair, Mac smiled. The document had clearly had precisely the humbling effect he’d intended.

  ‘James, you can go back to your lessons,’ Mac said. ‘I’m obviously not impressed with your role in this affair and you can consider yourself officially warned. But you were forced into this by your sister and I think it is she and Bethany who deserve to be punished.’

  James ought to have been relieved at getting off, but Lauren’s list of pros and cons was so clinical that it left him feeling like he’d been punched in the head. He loved his sister more than anyone in the world, including Kerry, but at that moment it didn’t seem like the feelings were mutual.

  ‘It’s not what it looks like, James!’ Lauren yelled, getting out of her chair and twisting around as James skulked out of the office.

  ‘Lauren Adams, sit down,’ Mac snapped. ‘I don’t often get angry, but you two are pushing all the wrong buttons.’

  Lauren felt queasy as she lowered herself into the chair. She’d never seen Mac this angry before, which was weird because she thought she’d been in much more serious trouble the time she’d hit Mr Large with a spade.

  ‘I deal with all kinds of trouble on campus,’ Mac roared. ‘Kids get in fights, kids don’t do their homework or get lippy in class. I can live with those things, because it’s a normal part of growing up. But one thing I can’t abide is bullying.

  ‘We train you to manipulate people during undercover operations, but it is absolutely unacceptable to use those skills to make your fellow cherubs do things they don’t want to. Bethany Parker, you knew Martin Newman had a crush on you and you made him all kinds of promises that you had no intention of keeping. Lauren stooped even lower: blackmailing her own brother into doing something that might have landed him in serious trouble.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Lauren gasped. ‘It wasn’t bullying. All the stuff we did was to help Jake and the other trainees.’

  ‘Well hoorah for you,’ Mac said sarcastically. ‘Your tactics might have been more subtle than shoving a kid up against a wall and threatening to thump them, but anything that involves forcing people to act against their will counts as bullying in my book.’

  ‘I didn’t even know she was blackmailing James,’ Bethany interrupted.

  Lauren turned sharply towards her best friend. ‘You came up with most of the plan in the first place.’

  Bethany raised her hands apologetically to Lauren. She hadn’t meant to try shifting the blame, but that’s how it had sounded.

  ‘You know what I think, Lauren?’ Mac said. ‘You’re one of our most capable agents, as you demonstrated in your planning and execution of last night’s little escapade. You’re also one of the youngest black shirts in the history of CHERUB. I don’t for one second believe that you’re a bad person at heart. But I do think that the success you’ve had over the past year has rather gone to your head. You’ve started getting too big for your boots.

  ‘I’m giving both of you four hundred punishment laps around the athletics track. As you run, perhaps you can think about your casual disregard for our rules, for campus property and – far more importantly – the utterly dreadful way you’ve behaved towards James and Martin.

  ‘I’ll also be cancelling your next month’s pocket money to pay for the damage to the barbed wire and I’ll expect you both to write carefully considered apologies to your victims.’

  The girls were gobsmacked by the four-hundred-lap punishment, their usually overactive jaws getting a well earned break as their mouths dropped open.

  Then Mac smiled a little. ‘You don’t have to run it all at once, obviously. I’ll give you three weeks to fit the laps in. Twenty laps works out at eight kilometres per day and you’ll even get a day’s rest in the middle.’

  Lauren felt tears welling up in her eyes. The running was going to be tough, but she’d survived worse. What really worried her was the gaunt look on James’ face as he steamed out of the office. It was like she’d ripped out his heart.

  6. ADMISSION

  320 laps later

  Lauren could run eight kilometres easily, but doing it every day was entirely different. Without time to recover, aches and pains didn’t
heal and after four days the fifty-minute run became too much. CHERUB’s athletics coach, Meryl Spencer, advised Lauren to split the laps into morning and evening sessions and take it slowly, by walking or jogging most of the way.

  This made the laps manageable, but also meant they took a two-hour bite out of Lauren’s day, which, like all cherubs’, was tightly scheduled with lessons, homework, combat training and occasional mission training exercises.

  On top of everything else, the lifts in the main building were closed for annual maintenance. Lauren and Bethany looked shattered as they rounded the sixth-floor landing. They’d both showered after their evening laps. Wet hair ran down their backs and they held carrier bags stuffed with damp towels and running kit.

  ‘Here,’ Lauren said, holding her bag out to Bethany. ‘Dump this in my room, will you? I’ve made up my mind, I’m gonna go see if James is in.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Bethany said sharply. ‘Let him stew for a while. He’ll come running when he wants something out of you.’

  ‘AAAARGHHH!’ Lauren said, shaking her hands at the side of her head. ‘Stop speaking like that, Bethany. It’s you thinking like that what got us into trouble in the first place.’

  ‘Thinking like what?’ Bethany said indignantly.

  ‘You always plan out how everyone is gonna react.’ Lauren said. ‘You’ve always got to think five steps ahead.’

  ‘Fine. Give us your dirty washing,’ Bethany tutted. ‘Just don’t blame me if you make everything worse.’

  Part of being best friends was being able say stuff that you’d only dare to think about your other mates. Lauren and Bethany always had little digs at each other, but it never turned into a big row.

  ‘Wish me luck?’ Lauren grinned, as Bethany snatched the rustling bag.

  ‘Yeah,’ Bethany smiled back, ‘but if our pocket money hadn’t been confiscated, I’d bet you every penny that James’ll blank you.’

  ‘With friends like you …’ Lauren said, tailing off as she started down the sixth-floor corridor towards her brother’s room.

  As Lauren closed on James’ door, she realised it was going to be awkward and kind of hoped he wasn’t in. She didn’t do her usual distinctive knock, because she didn’t want to get marching orders before making it through the door.

  ‘What?’ James asked aggressively, as he turned away from the homework piled on his desk and saw his sister in the doorway.

  Lauren felt sad as she edged into the room. ‘You don’t really hate me do you, James?’

  It was a difficult question and James didn’t want to answer it. ‘I’ve got a massive Russian essay to write,’ he said irritably. ‘I don’t have time for this now.’

  Lauren had been preparing a speech in her head the whole time she’d been doing her evening laps, but now she was on the spot her mind was blank and all she could do was whine.

  ‘I’ve said sorry like fifty times, James. I even bought you that game for your Playstation. What more do you want me to do?’

  ‘I don’t want anything from you. I told you to take the game back to the shop.’

  Lauren had felt really bad about the whole blackmail thing ever since the meeting in Mac’s office, but she was also slightly aggrieved that James hadn’t forgiven her.

  ‘It’s not like you’re so perfect yourself, you know,’ Lauren said. ‘You’ve dumped me in the shit enough times, you’ve broken my stuff, you’ve even hit me.’

  ‘I know I’ve got a stupid temper,’ James barked back. ‘But I’ve never sat around a table with all my friends, plotting stuff out and telling everyone that you’re an idiot.’

  ‘I swear it wasn’t like that,’ Lauren said desperately. ‘I know it looked cold written down on that sheet of paper, but all I was thinking about was helping Jake and Rat. I was just trying to make the plan work and writing stuff down as it came into my head. Bethany never saw it until you did, in Mac’s office.’

  ‘You didn’t give a damn about my feelings, or getting me into trouble.’

  ‘I got it wrong, James,’ Lauren gasped, ‘and I’m really, really sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sorry, or so wrong in my whole life. But I’m being punished: I’m totally knackered, my legs ache, my thighs are all chafed, and I’ve got massive blisters on my heels.’

  James smiled fleetingly. Lauren hoped she’d talked her brother round, but after an instant she realised it was a sly smile, not a forgiving one.

  ‘I know what your game is,’ James said, wagging his finger knowingly. ‘Kyle put you up to this, didn’t he?’

  Lauren was baffled. ‘How the hell does Kyle come into this? He’s only been back from his mission for a week and I haven’t exactly had a lot of time for socialising lately. I passed him in the corridor one time and congratulated him on getting his black T-shirt, but that’s it.’

  ‘So, you don’t know anything about the mission we’re going on?’ James said, clearly unconvinced. ‘It’s pure coincidence that you happened to come waltzing in here tonight, after me and Kyle had a mission briefing this afternoon?’

  ‘James, I came in here to apologise again,’ Lauren groaned. ‘Bethany was right, I shouldn’t have bothered. I mean, I miss talking and hanging out with you James, but if you don’t believe a word I say, there’s not much I can do.’

  ‘I don’t hate you,’ James said. ‘Just …’

  James felt angry with himself for warming to Lauren’s argument. He stood up and pointed to a spot of carpet, directly in front of himself.

  ‘Get over here,’ James said.

  Lauren didn’t know if she was going to get a hug, a slap, or what, but she stepped forward.

  ‘You think you know people,’ James said, laying his hands heavily on Lauren’s shoulders. ‘I thought I knew you.’

  Lauren felt a shiver down her back as James scowled. He didn’t so much look at her, but right through her. The intensity was a nasty reminder of how badly she’d hurt his feelings.

  ‘Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that Kyle said nothing about our briefing?’

  Lauren sounded a little scared. ‘I don’t know anything about any mission, James. What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.’

  James realised he was acting weird and let go.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘It’s a pretty hefty coincidence that’s all. You’d better not be lying.’

  Lauren slapped a hand against her side. ‘How many times do you want me to say it?’

  ‘Me and Kyle got called down to the mission preparation building by Zara Asker this afternoon,’ James explained, finally deciding to trust his sister. ‘It looks like we’ll be going on a mission in a week or so, but we need a third person to cover all the angles. Someone younger, preferably a girl. You were the obvious choice, but I told Zara I wasn’t having it.’

  Lauren shook her head. ‘Thanks a bunch.’

  ‘Zara agreed that it was no good having us both on a mission if we weren’t getting along. She asked me and Kyle to think of another girl about your age who could go instead. So I thought about Bethany, and Victoria, and Melanie, and Chloe and that whole girlie crowd of yours … I kind of realised that I’d much rather be on a mission with you than with any of them.’

  Lauren was flattered, but tried not to let it show.

  ‘Kyle’s been going all out to persuade me to make up with you,’ James continued. ‘That’s why I was so paranoid when you turned up in my doorway.’

  ‘Right,’ Lauren said, twisting her leg awkwardly and looking down at the floor. ‘So …’

  ‘So, there’s another briefing at eleven tomorrow. If you want to come on the mission with us, I guess that’d be OK.’

  7. UNCOMFORTABLE

  Next morning, Lauren and James bumped into each other as they headed towards mission preparation after second lesson. They spoke without really saying anything, carefully measuring every word so as not to open up wounds.

  As usual, the state-of-the-art retina identification system t
hat controlled access to mission preparation was out of order. A note pinned on the door explained a more primitive enforcement system:

  ANY KID WE FIND WHO DOESN’T

  BELONG IN HERE WILL BE MADE TO RUN

  AROUND THE ASSAULT COURSE UNTIL THEY PUKE!

  Zara’s spacious office was fifty metres down a gently curved corridor. She was in her mid-thirties, but seemed older, with a mumsy air even when sitting behind a desk that clearly belonged to someone important.

  Sixteen-year-old Kyle Blueman slouched on a suede-covered sofa off to one side, with his boots propped on a glass-topped table. He was reading from a stack of vanilla-coloured folders that contained police surveillance reports. Kyle had always been on the small side, but a recent growth spurt, bleached hair and a dusting of facial hair meant he’d finally started to look something like his age.

  ‘Ah-ha,’ Zara said, smiling as James and Lauren stepped up to her desk. ‘Have the terrible twosome made up?’

  Before James could answer, a little shriek came up from the floor beside the desk. Zara’s three-year-old son, Joshua, scrambled away from a spread of toys and stood in front of James, begging to be picked up.

  ‘James, James, James,’ the toddler gasped excitedly, as he got raised off the ground by his hero.

  ‘You’re getting sooooo big, I can hardly lift you up,’ James lied.

  ‘Sorry to inflict him on you, James,’ Zara grinned. ‘Our child minder buggered off to Corfu with her boyfriend without giving us any notice and Ewart’s had to take Tiffany to the doctor’s with a temperature.’

  ‘Nightmare,’ James laughed. ‘Remind me never to have kids.’

  Zara nodded. ‘Whoever the new chairman turns out to be, I’m gonna be straight round their office demanding employee day-care.’

  Little Joshua gave James a pleading look. ‘Play with me?’