Read Online New Guard (CHERUB) by Robert Muchamore - Free Book Online

him before,’ Leon continued. ‘Sometimes he gives us a bit of weed as well.’
    ‘I love smoking joints,’ Oli said. ‘I had one that was like, twenty-five centimetres for New Year and I smoked the whole thing myself.’
    ‘Nice,’ Daniel said, trying not to meet his brother’s eye because he knew he’d laugh.
    They walked a couple of side streets, with the wind whipping rain and leaves. As they turned into a street of two-storey houses, an elderly woman came down an overgrown front path. She clanked her gate and set off at a decent pace towards the boys. When she was a few steps in front of the trio, a set of keys dropped from the woman’s coat pocket. She must have been hard of hearing because they made a clatter but she kept on walking.
    Daniel picked up the keys and turned to shout after the old lady, but Oli stood in front of him and raised a hand.
    ‘We could go in there,’ Oli said urgently, pointing up towards the house. ‘Keep your mouths shut.’
    Leon and Daniel exchanged glances.
    ‘Old people keep cash in the house,’ Oli said, as he watched the lady cut across the road. ‘Thousands sometimes. Or she might have antiques, or shit.’
    ‘She’s an old lady,’ Daniel pointed out.
    ‘ You’re an old lady,’ Oli said, as he looked across at Leon.
    ‘He could be right,’ Leon told his brother. ‘Old people don’t trust banks.’
    ‘What if there’s someone else in there?’ Daniel asked.
    ‘Even if there is, they’ll be old, like her husband or something,’ Oli said. ‘You wanna slave for your cousin for thirty quid when there could be all kinds of valuable stuff to rip off?’
    ‘He’s right,’ Leon said.
    Daniel handed Oli the dropped keys and the three boys glanced about, before dashing up ten metres of driveway towards the house.
    The front door was tatty, with a crack in the frosted glass. Oli took a minute, working out which of four keys undid the deadlock and the main lock.
    ‘It’s deadlocked, so there’s probably nobody else home,’ Oli noted, as he stepped into a gloomy house.
    It wasn’t very warm and there was a smell of damp in the hallway. The living-room had lots of framed photos, an old TV and an ancient video tape recorder with the clock flashing. Leon checked out the kitchen, which had a feeding bowl and a whiff of cats. Oli started opening jars along the counter top hoping to find money, but he only found stale biscuits, flour and gravy powder.
    ‘This isn’t worth the risk,’ Daniel noted.
    Oli laughed. ‘What risk? If they catch me they’ll put me in a secure care home. But I’m already in a secure care home. They might tighten up my curfew or move me back to secure corridor, but who really gives a shit?’
    As Oli said this he opened a cupboard under the sink and found a black enamel money-box on a shelf. It was narrow, and the inside was divided into sections with handwritten labels saying things like gas , telephone , vet and birthday .
    ‘Ker-ching!’ Oli said, rattling coins as he thumped the box on the dining-table. After popping off the lid, he stripped out eighty pounds in tenners, plus a five and a dozen pound coins. ‘I bet the old bag keeps more upstairs.’
    ‘We’re splitting this three ways,’ Leon said, as Oli led a charge upstairs.
    Daniel still seemed reluctant. ‘She’s just an old lady,’ he said, as he reached the upstairs landing.
    ‘So what?’ Oli said. ‘What have old people ever done for us?’
    There were two rooms and a bathroom upstairs. There was a jewellery box beside the woman’s bed. Oli pocketed a man’s sovereign ring and some diamond earrings, while Leon found another seventy pounds under a bar of soap in a drawer full of bras.
    Oli ignored the bathroom, then almost had a heart attack as he walked into the other bedroom. The large room was dominated by a hospital-style bed with an electric hoist above for lifting someone in and out, along with a portable toilet.
    The man in the bed was in his forties, with