enough to touch the ceiling without a ladder and easily grabbed a handle to pull down the wooden flap over the loft hatch. He went up on tiptoes, reached inside the dark hole and pulled out an automatic pistol with a silencer screwed on the front.
Dana looked shocked as Barry took the clip off and reloaded to make sure it wasn’t jammed.
‘What’s that for?’
Barry broke into a big smile. ‘Got a little problem with some devils.’
*
‘I thought this was the one,’ Lauren groaned.
She stared into a small cupboard at the end of an underground corridor. There was condensation dripping off the ceiling and the tiles at their feet were curled up from the damp.
‘I remember the map Rat drew. I was sure this was the right one.’
James was starting to lose patience. ‘Admit it, we’re lost.’
‘We’re not lost. I know roughly where we are, I just think we took a wrong turn when we passed that room with all the stacking chairs in it.’
James looked at his watch. ‘Well it’s nearly half-six. We’ve been going for fifteen minutes already and we can’t afford to wander around here all night.’
‘I know, I’m not stupid,’ Lauren said crossly. ‘If you’d shut your gob for a minute and let me think … I came down the corridor from the office. Took two left turns, down the spiral staircase and then …’
James started walking.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m finding the first exit sign, heading upstairs and clearing out of here.’
‘I’m sure I can find it, James,’ Lauren said as she started to follow him. ‘I recognise all these corridors.’
‘That’s because they all look exactly the same.’
A door clanked open fifty metres in front of them and a man in a chef’s uniform emerged, pushing a metal trolley stacked with tins of mixed fruit. They backed up to the wall as he headed for the exit.
‘At least we’re not missing a good dinner,’ James grinned. ‘I can’t stand fruit cocktail.’
They gave the chef half a minute to clear out before moving off again, turning left when they reached the T-junction at the end of the tunnel.
Lauren glanced at her watch as they walked. ‘James, we’ve got time. Can’t you let us have one last go at finding it?’
James tutted. ‘Fine, but then we’re out of here.’
Rat’s voice sounded a few centimetres behind their ears. ‘I’m sure I can help if you tell me where you want to get to.’
‘Jeeeeeesus,’ James gasped, as he and Lauren spun around in a state of shock. ‘Where did you pop out from?’
They realised he’d emerged through a door they’d passed a few steps back.
‘I knew you were up to something,’ Rat said, looking at Lauren. ‘You left the chute open behind yourself in the post room.’
James rapidly considered his options. He could easily knock Rat unconscious and bundle him back into the room, but he didn’t want to hurt his friend and Rat’s usefulness was obvious.
‘If I tell you the truth, will you take us to Susie Regan’s office?’
Lauren looked anxiously at James. ‘You can’t.’
Telling someone about the existence of CHERUB was up with taking drugs and underage sex on the list of things that could get you expelled from CHERUB.
‘Can you take us?’ James repeated, deliberately ignoring his sister.
‘I know every corridor and secret passageway inside this joint,’ Rat said. ‘But if I get caught messing around in Susie Regan’s office, she’ll have me paddled and locked in a sweatbox for a month. So you’d better have a pretty good reason.’
‘We’re not going back to the school,’ James said. ‘We’re escaping, there’s a car picking us up. You can come along if you help us.’
‘Are you serious?’ Rat gasped, breaking into a massive smile. But his tone quickly turned circumspect. ‘But … I mean, why do we need to go into Susie’s office first?’
‘We don’t exactly have a lot of time on our hands,’ James said, as he desperately tried thinking up a plausible lie to explain their actions to Rat. ‘If you start walking, I’ll start talking.’
*
Barry cut out the back door, across the dried-out lawn and began taking huge strides through the overgrown scrubland behind the neighbours’ gardens. Dana had to take a little leap every four or five steps to keep up.
‘Keep your eyes open,’ Barry said. ‘I’ve seen a few snakes back here since we moved in.’
Dana could have done without that particular piece of information. A big man with a loaded pistol was enough to worry about, without poisonous reptiles getting thrown in.
‘Are you