CHERUB: Class A - Robert Muchamore Page 0,65

a stiff punishment; otherwise, we’ll have every kid on campus taking pot shots at the training staff.’
‘Please let me stay,’ Lauren begged. ‘I’ll do whatever you want and I’ll be so good, I swear.’
‘James,’ Mac said. ‘Do you have any thoughts on how we should make Lauren suffer?’
James looked uneasily at his sister.
‘It’s obviously got to be the worst punishment going,’ he said. ‘And it’ll have to last the whole two and a bit months until she can restart basic training.’
‘Agreed,’ Mac nodded.
‘What about cleaning toilets and changing rooms?’ James said. ‘Everyone always says that’s really horrible.’
‘Not hard enough,’ Mac said, sweeping the idea away with his hand. ‘Kids get toilets and changing rooms for swearing or skipping lessons. It’s unpleasant, but all it boils down to is pushing a mop and squirting disinfectant.’
‘Worse than toilets, then,’ James said, trying to work out how Mac had twisted the situation around so that he was trying to think up some awful punishment for the person he was supposed to be helping out.
‘Well,’ Mac grinned. ‘It just so happens, I did have an idea. There’s a drainage problem in the wooded area on the far side of campus. The fields keep flooding because the ditches have gradually become blocked up with silt. I reckon someone Lauren’s size would take a couple of months to clean them all out. She’ll have to work hard, every day before and after school, plus all day on Saturdays and Sundays. How do you like the sound of that, Lauren?’
‘I’ve got to be punished,’ Lauren said, nodding meekly. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.’
‘Ditches it is,’ Mac said, clapping his hands together. ‘And I’ll be putting you on final warning, Lauren. That means if you do one more thing wrong, you’ll get kicked out. And I mean every tiny thing. Run in the corridor, you’re out. Miss a homework assignment, you’re out. Get to class late, you’re out. For the next three months, you’re walking on eggshells. Your behaviour must be immaculate. Is that understood?’
Lauren nodded.
‘And there’s one more condition,’ Mac said. ‘For you, James.’
‘For me?’ James gasped.
Mac nodded. ‘You’ve talked me into giving Lauren a final chance. In return, I want something from you. If Lauren breaches her final warning, I want you to promise that you’ll stay at CHERUB.’
James thought for a couple of seconds. ‘But you’ll put her with a family nearby so I can still see her when I’m not on missions?’
Mac nodded. ‘That seems reasonable.’
‘I suppose, then,’ James said.
It seemed pretty convenient, the way Mac had found the perfect punishment for Lauren. James suspected Mac had worked everything out in advance. The expulsion threat was a ploy to make him and Lauren squirm.
‘And of course, Lauren,’ Mac grinned, ‘once you’ve cleaned out those ditches and start your second attempt at basic training, I’m sure Mr Large will wreak his own special revenge.’
*
Lauren slept in James’ room. The bed was a double, but the two of them still cuddled up in the middle. Lauren woke early and didn’t seem too miserable, considering that the next five months of her life looked like being a living hell.
‘Have you got a diary?’ she asked.
‘It’s in my desk,’ James said, still buried under his duvet.
Lauren used the diary to work out that it was one hundred and seventy-four days until she finished her punishment and basic training. She took a sheet of paper and began writing the numbers from 174 down to zero in her neatest writing.
James poked his head out of his covers. ‘What are you doing, Lauren?’
‘Making a countdown chart. For the next hundred and seventy-four days, I’m not gonna whinge or cry about anything. I’ll take this piece of paper everywhere I go. However bad it gets, all I’m going to think about is how many hours it is until I can tick off the next number. In one hundred and seventy-four days I will pass basic training. I swear it, on our mum’s grave.’
James scrambled out of bed.
‘No way,’ he said angrily. ‘You can’t swear something like that on Mum’s grave. Some things are out of your control. What if you get injured, or sick?’
‘I won’t,’ Lauren said sternly. ‘If something hurts, I’ll close my eyes and think about the piece of paper in my pocket.’
‘It’s a good idea to focus your mind,’ James said, sliding his legs into a pair of tracksuit bottoms. ‘But try and be realistic. There are quite a few kids who’ve taken three or more