CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,59
your names will go to the top of the list for Saturday work and summer jobs. All you’ve got to do is pick out a bike, get one of your parents down here and we’ll sort the whole deal. You could be riding home on one of these bikes tonight.’
James was a bright kid, but he’d never faced a hardcore salesman like Rhino before and the prospect of driving an unrestricted 500cc Kawasaki around all summer pressed all his buttons.
‘I could so go for that ER5,’ James smiled, walking back out into the sun with Nigel. ‘Do you think you’ll get one?’
Nigel shook his head. ‘No bike is worth a summer of cleaning toilets, serving burgers and scraping gum off of furniture. Besides, I’ve got a little gig selling spliff to Julian and that whole crowd of kids. I only make thirty or forty quid a week but it pays for my own weed and my bike insurance and I don’t have to lift a finger.’
‘Nice,’ James nodded. ‘So why don’t you buy the bike with your drug money?’
Nigel laughed. ‘Oh yeah, I come home on a 500cc bike and my ma’s not gonna ask where I got the money from, is she?’
‘Good point,’ James admitted.
‘And if you want to buy some shit to smoke anytime, just ask.’
James shook his head. ‘I tried marijuana a couple of times but I couldn’t get into it for some reason.’
‘Probably some cheap crap is why,’ Nigel said. ‘The stuff I sell is great. It’s all grown down here in Devon. Hundred per cent organic, THC levels are through the roof.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ James said warily, as he reached his bike. ‘What you gonna do now?’
‘I stink,’ Nigel said. ‘I’ll go home and take a shower and I’ve got an essay to write. I think everyone’s meeting up on the beach this evening. If you give me your cell number I’ll text you the where and when.’
21. HANG
Chloe spent the afternoon supermarket shopping, and when the kids got home she told them that dinner was whichever ready meal they picked from the selection crammed inside their American-style fridge-freezer.
James got first dibs on the microwave and did a lasagne. He headed into the living-room after claiming that the curry Lauren and Dante were heating up was stinking the place out. But the smell followed him into the living-room when they brought their food through a few minutes later.
‘You not eating?’ Lauren asked Chloe, who sat on an armchair with her feet under her bum.
‘I had lunch at the tapas bar,’ Chloe explained.
‘Good?’ Lauren asked.
‘Very,’ Chloe nodded. ‘This old boy sitting next to me started chatting me up. He had pots of money judging by the gold Rolex and the offer of a day out on his yacht.’
‘Oooh, Chloe’s got a boyfriend,’ Dante laughed as he dipped naan bread into his chicken korma.
‘So have you,’ Lauren grinned. ‘Or it won’t be long judging by the way you were canoodling with Anna on the bus ride home.’
James perked up at the mention of a girl. ‘Good tits?’ he asked.
Dante laughed. ‘Not huge, but nice.’
‘What are we talking?’ James asked. ‘Kiwi fruit, apples, oranges, mangos, melons?’
Lauren tutted. ‘James, not all boys are animals like you.’
But Dante surprised her. ‘Big firm oranges, heading towards grapefruits,’ he grinned. ‘Although nothing compared to this girl I went out with when I was in Ireland.’
Lauren’s heart sank as she watched Dante cupping his hands in front of his chest. ‘Jesus, you’re worse than my brother,’ she complained, as she wapped him with a rolled-up TV guide.
‘It’s just tits,’ James smirked.
‘Tits, tits, wonderful tits,’ Dante sang.
Chloe sounded cross. ‘I’m not sitting here listening to you two talking about breasts,’ she said firmly. ‘Show some respect. How would you like it if we sat here talking about penises?’
James looked down at his plastic dish, chasing the last piece of lasagne with his spoon. ‘How’s the mission budget coming?’ he asked. ‘Only I might need a couple of grand for another bike, plus the insurance.’
Lauren scoffed. ‘Why would you need another bike?’
‘I might get invited on a run with the Monster Bunch,’ he explained. ‘If I do, Nigel says I’ll need a bike that can cruise at seventy or eighty miles an hour.’
James wanted the bike badly and had left out two important facts: Nigel hadn’t mentioned anything about him being invited on a run and he’d said that the Brigands cruised at up to a hundred, not at seventy or eighty.