the wrong side of. Her shoulders were huge, her voice boomed like she’d swallowed a megaphone and she was particularly proud of her massive arms, which enabled her to beat everyone on campus at arm wrestling, including all of the male training instructors.
To make the assault course tougher, Speaks gave the eight kids backpacks containing ten to fifteen kilos of lead plates, depending upon their age and height. Between the obstacles, she’d marked out exercise stations where the agents had to perform squats, crunches, jumping jacks or whatever. And as if that wasn’t enough, the assault course was fitted with traps which made the course more difficult if someone was on hand to operate them.
The course started with a run up a fifty-metre slope. In places it was so steep that you had to use rocks as footholds and haul yourself up lengths of knotted rope. If you got this wrong you’d roll down to the bottom if you were lucky, or split your head open on a rock if you weren’t.
The top of this hill was the highest part of the assault course, from which an instructor could survey the entire training compound. After a short run over flat ground were three long beams placed two metres apart. At ten centimetres wide, crossing them didn’t require exceptional balance, but you needed some nerve because after the first few steps the ground dropped away and you found yourself suspended above a stagnant pool surrounded by beds of stinging nettles.
Some of the older agents on campus worked as assistants to the training instructors. Fifteen-year-old James Adams had snapped up the chance to escape double History and help Miss Speaks out, especially as he’d spent the previous evening on his PlayStation instead of writing his essay on Napoleon.
James sat on a wooden platform suspended between two oak trees which overlooked the narrow beams. His mate Bruce Norris squatted a couple of metres away, while in between were two red punchbags, suspended from a sturdy branch in the canopy above.
In the distance James and Bruce heard kids grunting as they hauled themselves up the slope, while Miss Speaks leaned over the edge taunting them.
‘Move it, brats!’ Speaks bellowed, as she kicked a clump of dry earth down the slope on to the trainees. ‘Grab that rope and heave… You call that heaving? You’d better put some oomph in unless you want your butts enrolled on a two-month after-school fitness programme.’
James smirked as his sister Lauren’s head emerged over the top of the slope. The assault course was easier if you worked with a partner and Andy was just a couple of steps behind her. The pair were starting their third circuit out of four and the hot weather was doing them in.
Lauren’s face was bright red and sweat streamed out of her tied-back hair. Andy’s grey shirt had dark sweat patches under the arms, while their trousers and bare arms were encrusted with filth after crawling through the tunnel and wading across a muddy stream basin.
‘Push-ups,’ Speaks screamed. ‘I want twenty-five. Don’t gawp like a pair of prunes. Move, move, move!’
James watched as his sister and Andy hit the ground. Lauren was stocky and easily knocked off twenty-five push-ups, despite having twelve and a half kilos of lead on her back. Andy’s skinny arms were not only weaker than Lauren’s, they were gangly – meaning he had to move a lot further to complete each push-up. After fifteen his arms gave out.
‘What the hell is that?’ Speaks demanded. ‘Call yourself a man? Your girlfriend’s tougher than you.’
Andy tried to make a sixteenth push-up – he was in good shape and could manage forty when he hadn’t just completed two circuits of the assault course on the hottest day of the year – but his shoulders ached and his arms shuddered before collapsing back to the hot earth.
‘You’re so weak,’ Speaks shouted, as she planted her size-eleven boot on the back of Andy’s head. ‘You’re a mealy little worm. What are you?’
Andy found it hard to speak because his lips were squished in the dirt. ‘Mweely lwttle worm,’ he gasped.
‘Wriggle like a worm then,’ Speaks shouted.
Humiliated, Andy wriggled his hips and flailed his arms in the dirt. Lauren scowled furiously at the instructor.
‘Are you eyeballing me, sister?’ Speaks shouted. ‘Why don’t you abandon him? What use is this little worm to you?’
‘He’s my partner,’ Lauren said loyally.
‘Tell you what,’ Speaks said, sounding like she’d just had the greatest idea in history. ‘He’s ten short.