CHERUB: The Fall - Robert Muchamore Page 0,52

minutes after his alarm. And every so often he’d drift back to sleep …

‘AAARGHHH!’ James gasped, when he looked up and saw that it was twenty to nine.

He vaulted out of bed and scrambled into a clean uniform before taking the lift down to the dining-hall. He was delighted to see Bruce, Kyle, Shak, Gabrielle and particularly Kerry sitting at their usual table, finishing up their breakfasts.

‘I need to copy your geography, Kerry,’ James said.

Kerry calmly sipped her grapefruit juice. ‘Good morning to you too, James.’

‘Seriously,’ James said, glaring at his watch. ‘You know what a hard ass Mr Norwood is.’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Kyle said gravely.

James looked confused. ‘Heard what?’

‘Mr Norwood was in a car accident last night. He’s dead.’

‘Oh my god,’ James gasped. ‘That’s terrible.’

But he was actually relieved about the homework, until he saw Kyle breaking into a smile.

‘Had you for a minute,’ Kyle grinned.

James scowled at Kerry as all his mates started laughing. ‘So can I please copy your homework?’

‘There,’ Kerry said, as she ripped the question sheet out of her backpack and slammed it on the table. ‘Would you like a pen and paper too?’

James felt around inside his trouser pockets. ‘Um, I would actually, yeah.’

Kerry shook her head as she produced the pen and paper. ‘And don’t copy it word for word, it’s too obvious.’

‘Cheers,’ James said. ‘I’d better run and get some breakfast before they pull the shutters down.’

The good thing about being late for breakfast was that there wasn’t a queue. The bad thing was that all the decent food had gone. After considering a sweaty-looking egg and bacon croissant, James settled on a mug of coffee and some fruit, which he’d be able to eat with one hand while he copied the homework.

He sat at an empty table so that he could concentrate. Unfortunately, he’d only done seven out of fifteen questions when the pips went for first lesson.

‘I need my work back,’ Kerry said, looming over James as more than a hundred cherubs filed out of the dining-room.

‘Just give me a minute.’

Kerry tutted. ‘We’ll be late. You’ve had the whole week to do it.’

‘You go,’ James spluttered, as he realised that his answer to question nine was more or less illegible. ‘Tell Norwood that I’m upstairs speaking to Meryl or something.’

‘OK. But it’s gonna look obvious if I haven’t got my homework and then you turn up with both sets.’

‘I only need five minutes and he always collects homework at the end.’

Kerry tutted again. ‘See you in there.’

Within another couple of minutes, there were less than a dozen kids left in the dining-room. James was scribbling his answer to the final question and eating the last mouthful of his banana when a shadow loomed over his page.

‘I’ll just be a sec,’ James said, without looking up from his page. He assumed it was one of the dinner ladies wanting to clear the table.

But a gruff boy’s voice came at him. ‘All right, nark.’

James looked up and saw a grey-shirt kid about a year younger than himself. His name was Stuart Russell and they were in a couple of lessons together, but the only thing James knew about Stuart was that he’d snogged Gabrielle at a Christmas party.

‘You what?’ James asked.

‘I called you a nark,’ Stuart said. ‘Helping the training instructors.’

James shook his head. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘Kevin Sumner’s my cousin. He told me what you did last night.’

James stood up warily. Stuart was smaller than him, but his confident air made James suspect that Stuart knew some moves.

‘Look,’ James said, raising his hands, ‘he’s a nice little dude and we’re trying to help him. Gotta be cruel to be kind, you know?’

Stuart raised a finger. ‘Well make sure he doesn’t get hurt, because I’ll hurt you if he does.’

‘You gonna hurt Bruce Norris, too?’ James asked.

Stuart suddenly looked a lot less sure of himself. He turned to face a friend of his who was sitting on a table a few metres away. ‘I thought you said it was Bruce Clark.’

The kid at the table shrugged. ‘Kevin just said the name Bruce …’

James couldn’t help smiling: Bruce Clark was a shy eleven-year-old who wouldn’t harm a fly. Bruce Norris was a campus Karate champion who would probably enjoy harming the fly and then go after its brothers and sisters for the hell of it.

‘Cat got your tongue, Stewey?’ James grinned. ‘Shall I pass your threat on to Bruce Norris?’

‘It’s still bogus,’ Stuart said, as he stepped back. ‘You screwed up and got two