CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,69

short-sleeve blue shirt with a thin leather tie loose at the neck and scruffy emo hair. He reached out and James shook a spindly hand.

‘Hey,’ Martin said. ‘Having fun?’

‘Spraying graffiti for four and a half hours,’ James smiled. ‘How could I not?’

Teeth looked at the area James had cleaned on one of the security screens behind his head. ‘Looks like you did OK.’

‘I hear you’ve got a new bike,’ Martin said. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Dunno,’ James said. ‘I’m itching to give it a blast.’

‘We just had Martin’s assistant call in sick for tonight,’ Teeth explained. ‘Saturday night is always busy, tonight particularly so because it’s a Brigands open night. Martin needs someone to help on the crêpe kiosk between six and midnight. Have you got any plans?’

James shrugged. ‘I was gonna phone my girlfriend Ashley, but nothing’s fixed so I guess I could.’

‘It’s best to get there early,’ Martin explained. ‘That way I can show you the ropes and let you practise cooking before we get busy.’

‘No problem,’ James grinned. ‘So if I’m serving food I’d better get home and clean up and stuff.’

‘Enjoy the bike,’ Teeth said, as James and Martin headed outside together.

James threw his wet overalls into a locker in the staff room and belted downstairs to the Leather and Chrome garage. The mechanic recognised him from earlier and dangled the key under his nose.

‘Good to go,’ he smiled. ‘Your mum took all the paperwork home. Just be careful, I’d feel guilty about taking that restrictor off if you wrap yourself around a tree on the way home.’

After putting his riding leathers over his shorts and T-shirt James fired up the bike. Everything about it from the weight and engine noise felt bigger than the Honda he’d arrived on that morning. He felt apprehensive as he opened the throttle and pulled away.

The Kawasaki growled as he cut down the side of the cars queuing to get out of Marina Heights. The streets were crowded with Saturday shopping traffic and James spent several minutes hemmed behind a white van in the high street. But once the traffic broke on to the A-road heading towards home he caught a break in the oncoming traffic and pulled out to accelerate.

The exhaust made a beautiful rumble and before James knew it he’d touched sixty miles an hour and had to dab the brakes to slow down as he dodged back into his own lane. He was tempted to gun the bike and see how fast he could go, but he wanted to get a feel for it, so for now he was content to roll at forty with the wind blasting him and the sun toasting his back.

*

‘I think Teeth likes you,’ Martin said, as James stood inside the crêpe kiosk wearing jeans, a white polo shirt and a Marina Heights apron.

‘I recognised him from his wrestling days,’ James explained, watching as Martin ladled batter on to one of the three circular hot plates used for cooking the French-style pancakes.

‘He’d have loved you mentioning that,’ Martin said, using a wide plastic paddle to spread the batter into a thin circular layer. ‘The trick is to make sure there’s enough fat to stop the batter sticking. Then watch until the top of the batter starts to harden. That’s when you flip her over with the paddle to brown the other side.’

‘It’s boiling hot here,’ James said, wiping the beads of sweat off his brow as he studied the tubs of ingredients and machines on all sides. Crêpe fillings ranging from banana ice cream to chilli-beef were lined up under a glass counter. Behind was a coffee and tea machine and a fridge full of cold drinks.

‘You get used to the heat,’ Martin said. He moved his steaming crêpe across to a plastic shelf where they added the fillings and sauces. ‘OK, grab the ladle and have a try. No pressure, but the girl who called in sick tonight is worse than useless, so if you get this right you might find yourself in here permanently, rather than with your rubber-gloved mitt unclogging a toilet.’

James misted the hotplate with oil before carefully ladling out some pancake batter. As he spread it with the paddle a couple of drips ran off the side of the plate.

‘You used a bit too much,’ Martin explained, ‘but it’s spread nicely. Now you just need to flip it before it burns. You see how the batter glistens when it’s wet? As soon as that stops, that’s your cue to