huge wound in his chest.
Then the screen went blank and the lights went out. Electrical appliances shut down as James found himself plunged into complete darkness.
Sometimes a power surge caused a fuse to blow and the caretaker would restore power within a few minutes, but James walked to the window and saw that the streetlamps and all the lights in the surrounding apartment blocks were off too. This meant there was a full-scale power cut, and once the electricity went down, it never came back on before morning.
All he could do was sit in the dark and try to stay warm.
4. STRETCHER
After helping Lauren to lay Mr Large out in the recovery position, Rat dived into his tent and woke his training partner, Andy Lagan. Lauren woke Bethany, who in turn woke up a bunch of other kids including her ten-year-old brother, Jake. Within minutes of collapsing, Mr Large was illuminated by the torches of twenty-six partially dressed cherubs.
‘He’s drifting in and out of consciousness,’ Lauren explained anxiously, as she crouched over Mr Large. ‘If his heart’s weak and he’s not getting enough oxygen, he could end up brain-damaged.’
‘Has anyone started making a stretcher?’ Bethany asked.
‘How?’ a boy asked sleepily.
‘Use your initiative,’ Lauren tutted. ‘Tent fabric, tent poles, branches, whatever. You’re supposed to be trained CHERUB agents. I’m asking you to rustle up a stretcher, not build a time machine.’
Jake interrupted. ‘We all hate his guts; do we even want to save him?’
‘Don’t be a tit all your life,’ Bethany said, flicking her brother’s ear. ‘He may be a scumbag, but we’re not gonna stand here and watch a man die.’
‘Shouldn’t we be giving him the kiss of life?’ Rat asked.
Lauren shook her head. ‘His breathing is OK and his heart is beating. I think he’s just gone into shock.’
‘Maybe he’s had a stroke,’ a boy said.
‘Maybe, maybe, maybe,’ Lauren yelled, irritated by the gawpers surrounding her as she stood up and backed away from the patient. ‘We only know basic first aid and all we have is like, bandages and stuff. We need to get him to a hospital and fast.’
‘Where’s Arif and the truck?’ Jake asked.
‘He just left to drive to the supermarket,’ Rat said. ‘I tell you what, how about we send messengers off in different directions? There’s gotta be a farmhouse or something around here.’
‘Good idea,’ Lauren nodded. ‘Sort it out and someone else can take Large’s phone up to the top of the hill. You might get a signal from there.’
Rat picked Andy and three other fast runners and sent them off in different directions. A fifth was told to run up the adjacent hill.
‘Are you completely sure it isn’t one of his tricks?’ Jake asked suspiciously. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’
Bethany tutted. ‘Look at the state of him, moron. You can’t fake all that sweat.’
‘What if he took a special pill that made him go queasy, or something?’
‘Jake, you’re not helping,’ Bethany shouted. ‘And you’re starting to wind me up, so why don’t you get out of my face before I deck you?’
‘Try it,’ Jake sneered. ‘I might be little, but I’m harder than you.’
‘Oh you reckon?’ Bethany sneered back, giving her brother an almighty shove.
The crowd moved aside as Jake lashed out at his sister. His boot connected with her thigh but his fist swished past her nose, missing by millimetres. Bethany grabbed her brother’s flying arm and twisted it up behind his back. She took the elastic waistband of his tracksuit bottoms with her other hand, hitched him off the ground and slammed him down on his belly. Whilst Jake was still winded, Bethany straddled him and sat across his back.
‘Yeah Jake, you’re so hard,’ she yelled jubilantly.
Lauren was furious. She couldn’t believe that her best mate was having a pointless fight with her brother in the middle of a major crisis.
‘Leave it out,’ she screamed. ‘We all need to think straight. A few minutes could save his life.’
‘Coming through,’ a couple of girls shouted.
The pair had made a stretcher by breaking two wooden stakes from a nearby fence and running them through a couple of sleeping bags.
Jake was humiliated and tried to hide it as Bethany let him up. Meanwhile, the girls laid the stretcher on the grass beside Mr Large.
‘He’s really heavy; we’d best roll him on,’ Rat said.
Not only was Large extremely tall, he also carried a great mound of fat around his midriff.
It took five kids to roll him on to the sleeping-bag fabric. Once he was