CHERUB: Class A - Robert Muchamore Page 0,46

spinning so fast, she never noticed that she still had the shotgun in her hand.
The padlock sprang open and James noisily rolled up the metal door of garage number eighteen. The Mustang looked better than the day it had come out of the showroom, thirty-five years earlier. Crazy Joe had spent serious money on it.
‘Bags I’m driving,’ James said, unlocking the driver’s door and lowering himself into the leather seat. Kerry didn’t care, she wasn’t into cars.
James moved the seat as far forward as it would go so he could reach the pedals. He’d learned on the private roads around campus in a little car with an engine the size of a thimble. He wasn’t prepared for the thunderstorm when the tuned V8 blasted to life, juddering through the pedals into his socked feet.
‘Hooooooly mother,’ James grinned, searching for the headlight control.
The road ahead lit up and the dials on the dashboard turned electric blue. James put the automatic gearbox in drive and rolled the gargling beast out of its pen.
The first couple of kilometres were dodgy. The car had big acceleration, but the brakes had much less bite than on a modern car. It caught James out when he nearly went into the back of someone at the first set of traffic lights. Once they were a few kilometres clear, he parked. Kerry found a road atlas under her seat and worked out the route home. By the time they got on to the motorway, James was feeling confident. When the road ahead was clear, he couldn’t resist slamming the accelerator and taking it up to 110mph.
The trim inside the car started to shake and Kerry started going bananas.
‘Really sensible, James,’ she shouted. ‘Two kids in a stolen car carrying guns and drugs. I tell you what: why don’t we attract lots of attention by slaughtering the speed limit?’
After seeing the way she’d dealt with Joe, James decided it might be best if he slowed down.
*
They parked the stolen Mustang at the back of a DIY store about a kilometre from Thornton. It was gone eleven o’clock and, now the adrenalin rush had worn off, James and Kerry felt like they could sleep for twenty hours.
‘We could leave the keys in the door and someone will nick it,’ James said.
‘It’s got our fingerprints all over,’ Kerry said. ‘Joyriders usually burn cars out. If we don’t want it to look suspicious, that’s what we’ll have to do.’
James gave the car an admiring glance. ‘Seems a shame to kill it.’
Kerry leaned inside and flipped open the glove box. She found Joe’s cigarettes and lighter, then tore pages out of the road atlas and screwed them up into loose balls. When there was a mound of paper on the passenger seat, she flicked the lighter and set the edges alight. They left the passenger door open so the fire could breathe, then ducked into some trees and waited until they were sure the flames had taken hold.
The front seats were quickly ablaze. Once the roof lining caught, the flames flashed into the back. The whole interior glowed orange and smoke started curling out from under the hood.
‘Better run,’ James said. ‘There’s bound to be a security guard round here somewhere.’
They’d only gone a hundred metres when the heat blew out one of the back tyres. A few seconds later, the fuel caught and the back end of the car went up in a fireball.
It was less than a kilometre home, but they were feeling their injuries and the walk seemed to take for ever. James had a pounding headache. When they staggered through to the kitchen, Ewart jumped up from the table, surprised by the state they were in. He made them both hot drinks and sandwiches while Zara and Nicole cleaned up their cuts and bruises.
‘Shower and go to bed,’ Zara said, after they’d explained what had happened. ‘Don’t bother getting up for school in the morning. You both need a good day’s rest.’
‘I better ring Kelvin first,’ James said.
‘OK,’ Ewart said. ‘Do that while Kerry’s in the shower, then go straight to bed.’
18. RISKS
James was out as soon as he hit the pillow and the next thing he knew it was 10 a.m. the following morning. He had six huge bruises, a couple of grazes and a giant scab on his bottom lip. When he stood up, his thigh muscle felt tight and he could only manage short steps.
Down in the kitchen, Joshua was on the floor playing with some