Read Online CHERUB: People's Republic by Robert Muchamore - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Muchamore
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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
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
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