all your flaws. We’ll work on your fitness levels, we’ll start you off with intensive language and combat courses. You’ll be astonished at what our training can help you to achieve, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s for everyone. Becoming a CHERUB agent is probably the toughest thing you’ll ever do – Dante, next left into the trees and keep the speed down. The road up to the basic training compound is bumpy, and I don’t fancy going into an early labour.’
‘Have you got any other kids?’ Dante asked, as he steered the buggy on to a narrow path between the trees.
Zara shook her head. ‘Joshua will be my first and after this pregnancy my last.’
Lauren smiled. ‘So you’ve named him already?’
‘Yes,’ Zara said. ‘My husband Ewart and I both liked the name. He’s been Joshua since the day we found out he was a boy.’
‘So you said my brother’s in basic training,’ Lauren said. ‘How does that work?’
‘Careful, Dante!’ Zara said urgently, as the buggy clattered into branches at the side of the path. ‘Ten mph, no faster.’
Dante enjoyed driving the buggy. It reminded him of what Ross’ daughter Tina had said after he’d woken in the night: about how his life would go on and how he’d be able to do special things that would have made his parents happy.
Zara continued her explanation. ‘Anyone over ten years old who’s reached the required fitness level will go into basic training. It’s a one-hundred-day course and the idea is that your mind and body are pushed to the limits every minute of every day. Once you pass you’ve earned your grey CHERUB T-shirt and you’ll be qualified to go on undercover missions.
‘If we stop here we should be able to see the trainees doing their morning combat session through the fence.’
Dante stopped the electric cart. After he’d helped Zara out of the buggy, she led the trio over muddy ground. They ended up behind some bushes, with the mesh fence around the training compound in front of them.
‘Keep your voices down,’ Zara whispered, as she glanced at her watch.
Thirty metres away stood a massive fellow with a bristly moustache and a white CHERUB T-shirt stretched over vast muscles. In front of him stood six trainees. They wore light blue shirts with numbers on the back, but you could barely read them because they were so muddy. The kids had bare feet and the giant instructor had them all in a line, endlessly repeating a complicated combo of four Karate moves.
‘That’s Norman Large,’ Zara explained. ‘He’s not exactly the most loved member of campus staff amongst you kids, but he does a bloody good job of turning out highly trained agents.’
It took Lauren several seconds to recognise her twelveyear-old brother. Not only was James filthy, but his blond hair had been shaved down to a number one and he had a dirty bandage over a wound on his cheek. He’d lost a lot of puppy fat since the last time Lauren saw him and she was impressed by the way he strung together the rapid sequence of Karate moves.
‘Partners, sparring,’ Large shouted.
‘Which one’s your brother?’ Dante whispered as the trainees split into three pairs.
‘In the middle,’ Lauren said. ‘Squaring up to the little Asian girl.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ Dante noticed. ‘He’s miles bigger.’
‘That’s Kerry,’ Zara explained. ‘And I wouldn’t worry on her behalf.’
Zara didn’t need to explain her remark because Instructor Large blew his whistle for the sparring to begin. Lauren watched aghast as Kerry ducked below her brother’s clumsy kick, then drove her body upwards, lifting James off the ground, throwing him over her back and dumping him in the mud. Kerry then jammed her heel between James’ shoulders and ruthlessly wrenched his arm into a painful lock.
Lauren clutched her hand over her mouth in awe as James moaned in pain and thumped on the mud in submission.
‘That Kerry girl is awesome!’ Dante said. ‘She could be a pro wrestler with skills like that.’
Zara smiled at Dante. ‘I heard that you liked wrestling and who knows? With the skills you learn here, maybe you could be a pro wrestler some day.’
As the six trainees started a second round of sparring, Dante stepped back from the fence and broke into a relieved smile. For the first time since the night his parents died, he felt like he had some kind of future without them.
12. RED
After their tour of campus, Zara took Dante and Lauren into the dining-room for a very