Chloe smiled and spoke in the same kind of voice. ‘Not that we’d ever dream of blackmailing him.’
‘OK, I’m sure Max would love you to come,’ Ryan said, as the girls sat at the table on either side of him.
‘So do you want to come shopping with us?’ Ning asked him.
Ryan laughed. ‘Girls’ clothes shops do sound enticing, but I’m afraid it’s homework and then a session in the recycling centre.’
‘That’ll teach you to batter old ladies,’ Grace said.
Before Ryan could reply, he heard the distinctive ring of his Ethan phone. As he pulled it out of his sweatshirt, he stood up and jogged through a glass door on to a patio outside.
‘Hiya, mate,’ Ryan said. ‘How’s tricks? How’s the arm doing?’
‘Arm still hurts like shit,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m in Dubai, man.’
‘What?’
‘Dubai,’ Ethan repeated. ‘All my Kyrgyz documentation came through, so they shipped me out. Fourteen-hour flight, at least it was first class.’
‘Where you at now?’ Ryan asked.
‘Some hotel,’ Ethan said. ‘I don’t know how much this call is costing, Ryan. Are you sure your dad won’t mind?’
‘My dad’s company has like a billion cellphones. Don’t sweat it, they’ll never notice your bill. So who’s with you?’
‘Just this dude who met me at the airport. He works for my grandma Irena.’
‘Did you get my latest chess move on Facebook?’
‘Yeah,’ Ethan said. ‘But you didn’t get that good that fast. You’re getting help from a web forum or something.’
‘I may have asked a friend for some advice,’ Ryan said guiltily.
‘I’ll play you in a live game online,’ Ethan said. ‘That’s when we’ll see how good you’ve really got. So I’m just mooching around and there’s Internet on my TV. Can you get online?’
Ethan still thought Ryan was in California and Ryan quickly calculated the time difference.
‘It’s three in the morning,’ Ryan said. ‘I need my beauty sleep.’
‘Aww, shit!’ Ethan said. ‘Sorry to wake you. I’m so jet-lagged.’
‘What time is it in Dubai?’
‘Early evening. We’re driving to Sharaj Airport tomorrow morning – that’s one of the other Emirates. I’ll be flying off to Kyrgyzstan in one of my family’s shit box Russian planes. Then I’ve got to meet my grandma and all my cousins and stuff.’
‘It might be nice to meet your family,’ Ryan said.
‘Don’t take the piss,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m freaking out. I’m a California boy. Grew up on the beach. Palm trees, malls, Silicon Valley. Now I’m heading off to live with a bunch of peasants who think playing football with a goat’s head is the height of sophistication.’
‘It might not be that bad,’ Ryan said. ‘And whatever happens, keep hold of that phone and stay in touch, yeah? When I get time, we’ll go for some Facebook chess.’
‘Of course I’ll stay in touch,’ Ethan said. ‘You’re my only friend. Plus you saved my life twice, so you’re my guardian angel too.’
‘I’m too far away to save your life in Kyrgyzstan,’ Ryan said. ‘So look after yourself.’
‘Chess,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
As Ryan pushed his Ethan phone back into his pocket, he looked back inside the dining-room and was pleased to see Ning jabbering away comfortably with Chloe and Grace.
50. NEW
It was half-seven and pitch dark as Ryan and Ning strode across CHERUB campus, heading for the paintball range.
‘Good day?’ Ryan asked.
‘Really good,’ Ning said. ‘Got some cool jeans. Trainers, shoes, loads of new tops and a backpack. You?’
‘Logged another five hours recycling. That’s eighty-six down. Only three hundred and thirty-nine to go.’
‘I just can’t see you losing your temper like that,’ Ning said. ‘You seem so … Nice makes you sound wimpish, but you know what I mean.’
‘I’ve got no idea what came over me,’ Ryan said. ‘Pushing Dr D probably wasn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s definitely in the top three.’
‘And how was your Facebook chess game?’
‘Ethan thrashed the pants off me, like always. I feel really sorry for him. I’m the only friend he’s got and I’m basically manipulating him to try getting information about the Aramov Clan.’
‘His life would be even worse if you weren’t involved,’ Ning said. ‘And I hope you do get information. I’ve got personal reasons for wanting to see Leonid Aramov strung up by his balls.’
By this time they’d reached the mesh fence around the paintball zone. There was a big red sign up saying Face masks must be worn beyond the red line and Paintball range must not be used without permission.
‘You ever done paintball before?’ Ryan asked, as they turned into a grimy concrete changing shed.
Most things on campus were kept neat, but this was where people changed after shooting paint at one another. Over the years all the paint stains got smeared together into a brown sludge that covered every surface and squelched underfoot.
‘Now you see why we dug up those old clothes for you,’ Ryan said.
‘Took you long enough,’ Max moaned. ‘We were about to start without you.’
Max, Alfie, Chloe and Grace were already kitted out with gloves and masks, and had a few paint splats where they’d tried out the new weapons.
‘Evening all,’ Ryan said. ‘So what are Max’s guns like?’
‘Fragging awesome,’ Alfie said. ‘I put mine on automatic, shot at a tree and there were bits of bark flying off.’
‘I think I prefer the old single-shot weapons,’ Grace said. ‘It’s more skilful than random blasting.’
‘No way,’ Max said exuberantly. ‘Automatic is so extreme, Ryan. There’s like a hundred times more bullets flying around with these babies. It’s absolutely mental.’
‘Are we playing or yapping?’ Alfie asked. ‘Doris is expecting me back by ten.’
‘Who’s Doris?’ Chloe asked.
‘Alfie’s new girlfriend,’ Max explained. ‘She’s a yucca plant.’
‘Ok,’ Chloe said, as she gave Alfie a stare. ‘That’s so weird, I’m not delving any deeper.’
Ryan reached into a box and found gloves and face masks for himself and Ning. ‘Never go into a room with guns without your mask fitted,’ he explained. ‘The triggers are really light, so they can go off by accident and you could lose an eye or something.’
‘Right,’ Ning said. ‘Does it hurt when you get shot?’
‘You might have some little bruises tomorrow,’ Chloe said, as she patted Ning’s back. ‘But Ryan’s layered you up with clothes, so it won’t be much.’
‘What about teams?’ Ryan said. ‘Maybe I should stay with Ning and then balance it up with Alfie because he’s the best player.’
‘Nah!’ Chloe said, as she grabbed Ning. ‘Battle of the sexes: boys versus girls. Are you with us, Ning?’
‘I guess.’
‘Woo-hoo, girl power,’ Grace shouted. ‘Remember, Ning, if you see a boy aim for the balls.’
Ryan rapped his knuckles between his legs. ‘I’m wearing my cup.’
They fitted their masks, then walked through to the next room, where the paintball guns and ammunition were all set out on racks.
‘Pop off the lid and load ammo in the hopper,’ Chloe explained, as she helped Ning. ‘Then stuff as much spare as you can carry in your pockets.’
It had rained on and off the last two days and the ground was squelchy as they headed out into the gloom.
‘The game is hunt the flag,’ Chloe explained. ‘We start at one end, boys at the other and flag in the middle. To win, we’ve got to get the flag to the boys’ end. If you get shot by a paintball, you have to run to the back and wait thirty seconds before you can start again.’
‘The thirty seconds is on the honesty system,’ Grace added. ‘Which
basically means everyone cheats. You wanna give your gun a test fire?’
Ning pulled her trigger and got a little backwards kick as six paintballs flew out of her gun and cracked off the surrounding trees.
‘Nice,’ Ning said.
‘Is everyone in position?’ Max shouted, from the opposite end of the range. ‘Three … two … one … charge!’
Ning belted through the trees, with her gun ready as Chloe and Grace raced ahead. Mud spattered her trousers, plants whipped her legs and the visor made it hard to see.
For the next two hours Ning ran, jumped, slid down embankments, shot her gun, got shot, tripped on tree roots, crept, ambushed, won, lost, cheated, bundled, scrapped and finally watched in despair as Ryan ran the flag into their end zone to beat the girls by five rounds to four.
Ning got back to her room after ten, muddy and breathless. It took ages showering mud and paint out of her hair. When she got out she straddled bags filled with all her new clothes and crashed face first on to her bed. She was exhausted, happy and her whole body shuddered with excitement.
She’d stepped out of darkness into a bright new world.
The adventure continues in CHERUB: Guardian Angel
Ning must get through a hundred days of basic training, before being sent back to Kyrgyzstan.
Ethan faces a new life with his extended family in Bishkek, but his grandmother Irena – the head of the Aramov Clan – is sick with cancer and his uncle Leonid wants him dead.
Ryan uses his online friendship with Ethan to get information that could destroy the Aramov Clan. But when TFU’s scheme goes wrong, the clan splits into two heavily-armed factions engaged in an all-out war.
Read on for an exclusive first chapter of the next CHERUB book, Guardian Angel.
1. SHORTBREAD
12 March 2012
Twelve kids had started basic training back in December, but four quitters, two cracked bones, a badly sprained ankle, a chest infection and an asthma attack meant only three were left as the sun came up on the course’s hundredth and final day.
Instructors Kazakov and Speaks had spent the night in the cabin of a dilapidated trawler, playing cards and sipping whisky while their captain navigated choppy waters off Scotland’s west coast. Daybreak had a rugged beauty: golden sky, islands shrouded in mist and the little boat struggling against the sea. But the three trainees appreciated none of this because they’d spent the night out on deck, pelted by sea spray in temperatures close to freezing.
The closest thing the trio had to shelter was a mound of fishing gear. They’d dug in under buoys and rope and huddled together, hooking their limbs around slimy netting so that big waves didn’t pitch them across the deck.
Ten-year-old Leon Sharma had the warm spot in the middle, propped against his twin Daniel with his face nestling the broad back of twelve-year-old Fu Ning. Leon had one eye open and there was enough light for him to see the angry red mosquito bites on Ning’s neck, and her pale blue training shirt stained with grass, blood and rust-coloured Australian dirt.
Before basic training Leon wouldn’t have been able to sleep on a wooden deck with freezing Atlantic water sloshing about, but the instructors kept trainees in a near-permanent state of exhaustion and his body had conditioned itself to take whatever sleep was on offer.
But pain had woken him up before the others. He’d lost his footing and crashed into a bush on a speed march the previous day. A thorn had driven beneath his thumbnail, splicing it down the middle and leaving a throbbing, bloody mess at the tip of his right thumb.
It was the newest and most painful of two dozen cuts, scabs and blisters on Leon’s body, but an even greater torment came from a growling stomach. The fall meant he’d missed his target time for the march and Instructor Speaks had thrown his dinner on the fire as punishment.
Tantalisingly, Leon had food within reach. Trainees weren’t supposed to carry food, but Leon knew Ning had a secret stash of biscuits in her pack. He’d seen her swipe them from the hostess’s trolley on their plane back from Australia a few days earlier.
Ning had hooked the straps of her backpack around her ankles to stop it getting washed away. As a mini-wave swept the deck and sploshed through the mound of ropes, Leon reached towards the zip on Ning’s pack.
It was a risky move: Ning was two years older and a champion boxer who could easily batter Leon if he pissed her off. Despite the throb of the trawler’s propeller shaft and the sounds of wind and water, the click of each zip tooth felt like a gun going off.
Once he had an opening big enough for his hand, Leon felt blindly inside Ning’s pack. He burrowed past underwear, which had been hand-washed but packed before fully dry. Grains of sand stuck to his arm as he went deeper, feeling the smooth handle of Ning’s hunting knife, then at the very bottom pairs of shortcake biscuits in plastic wrapping.
As Leon pulled up shortbread, his palm touched a larger packet. It was rectangular, with the biscuits sitting in a plastic tray and a spongy feel when he pushed down. It had to be Jaffa Cakes.
Saliva flushed Leon’s mouth as he anticipated the tang of orange and chocolate melting against his tongue. As a small wave washed over the deck, he pulled out the little package and ripped it open with his teeth. Leon hadn’t eaten in eighteen hours and stifled a satisfied groan as he crammed a spongy biscuit into his mouth whole.
Soooo good!
He practically inhaled the second, but as the third Jaffa Cake neared Leon’s mouth a hand touched his shoulder, making him jump.
‘You just gonna scoff them all yourself?’ Leon’s twin, Daniel, asked quietly.
Leon turned to face his brother and spoke in a whisper. ‘You got dinner last night. I’m starving.’
‘I’ll tell Ning,’ Daniel threatened, as he aimed his pointing finger at her back. ‘She’ll crack you like an egg.’
Leon knew his brother wouldn’t really grass, but this knowledge also reminded him of his bond with his twin. He pulled the biscuit apart and gave Daniel the bigger half.
As Daniel made a quiet-but-appreciative mmm, the sliding door at the rear of the trawler’s cabin opened with a crash.
‘Wipe your top lip,’ Leon said anxiously, as he chewed fast and flicked chocolate flakes off his shirt. ‘If he sees us eating we’re dead.’
As Leon zipped Ning’s pack and swallowed the evidence of his crime, Instructor Speaks stepped on to the lilting deck. Everything about Speaks said hard man, from the wraparound sunglasses and shaved black head, to the mirror-shined size-fourteen combat boots on his feet.
‘Sleep well, maggots?’ Speaks boomed, cracking a smile as he woke Ning with a dig in the ribs. ‘On your feet. Line up at the double.’
Sleepy eyes blurred as Ning disentangled herself from the fishing gear, and both shoulders burned where her pack had rubbed them raw on the previous afternoon’s speed march. When Speaks closed up, Ning expected a shove for being slow, but his arm delved past her into the rope mound and swooped on the wrapper from a pack of Jaffa Cakes.
Speaks held it up for inspection, jaw agape in mock horror. Ning realised one of the twins must have swiped it from her pack and glanced back to scowl at them.
‘Well, well!’ Speaks said, as the three trainees attempted to stand in line on the swaying deck. ‘A serious breach of the rules. Mr Kazakov, come look at this.’
Kazakov was in his mid-fifties, but the grey-haired Ukrainian instructor looked as fit as he’d been thirty years earlier when he’d fought for Russian Special Forces in Afghanistan. He was already on his way outside when Speaks called and he came on deck holding a mesh sack filled with fluorescent life vests.
‘Who ate these Jaffa Cakes?’ Speaks shouted. ‘Fess up now and I won’t be too hard on you.’
Ning was anxious: if the instructors started an investigation and searched her pack they’d find the other biscuits she’d nabbed on the plane.
‘It’s just litter, sir,’ Leon said. ‘It probably blew on deck while the boat was docked.’
&nb
sp; But it was a poor lie and Speaks instantly noticed chocolate stains where Leon’s front teeth met his gums. The giant instructor squished Leon’s cheeks between thumb and forefinger and yanked him out of line.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s liars,’ Speaks roared, as he gave Leon a shake, then grabbed his bad thumb and squeezed hard. ‘Still snivelling over that pathetic little graze?’
Leon winced with pain as the scab over his broken thumbnail split and blood trickled down his hand.
‘How dare you lie to me!’ Speaks hissed. ‘Just because it’s the last day of training, don’t think I’ll take it easy on your bony arse. Get your kit bag over here. Let’s see what other contraband you’ve got.’
Leon had teary eyes and drips of blood pelting the deck as he walked back to the rope mound and grabbed his pack.
While the instructors concentrated on Leon, Ning yawned and took in her surroundings. The trawler was idling into a natural harbour, with near-vertical cliffs rising out of the mist a couple of hundred metres away.
Kazakov pointed towards land and began a lecture as Speaks ripped open Leon’s pack and threw all his stuff out over the sodden deck.
‘It’s now just before 7 a.m. and basic training ends at midnight,’ Kazakov began. ‘Somewhere on that island you’ll find three grey CHERUB T-shirts. If you find a T-shirt and put it on, you can congratulate yourselves on passing basic training. Give us a call on your radio and we’ll come and pick you up. But if anyone’s not wearing a shirt by midnight, I’ll see you back on campus in three weeks’ time and you’ll start training again from day one. Questions?’
Daniel raised his hand. ‘Sir, are our T-shirts all together, or hidden separately?’
Kazakov considered the question as he reached into the sack and handed Ning a life vest.
‘Figure it out,’ he said eventually.
Once her life vest was zipped up, Ning went down on one knee and began pulling a waterproof rubber cover over her backpack. While she did this Leon began gathering up his gear, which was washing around the deck. But as he bent forward to take his water bottle Instructor Speaks grabbed a handful of his shorts and lifted him into the air with one muscular arm.
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