during the night.
Kerry smiled a little. ‘No hard feelings?’
James smiled back and gave her a quick kiss. ‘Nah, course not.’
‘Have you heard about Kyle?’ Kerry asked.
‘No, what?’
‘Took a hit in the neck. They had to take him to the hospital.’
‘These simulated rounds are bad-assed,’ James said, shaking his head. ‘Look at my back.’
‘Matches mine,’ Kerry said, lifting up her vest to reveal a giant red welt next to her belly button.
‘You’ve got a couple of bad ones down your legs, as well,’ James noted.
‘So,’ Lauren interrupted, looking at Kerry. ‘How many eggs has your team got left?’
Kerry’s tone turned serious. She was always competitive and there was the unpleasant prospect of a ten-kilometre punishment run hanging over their heads.
‘All my team are back,’ she said dejectedly. ‘We’ve only got five eggs between us.’
Lauren snapped her head towards James and grinned. ‘I’ve got two, Bethany’s got four and Dana and Jake aren’t even back yet.’
Kerry allowed herself to smile. ‘I wouldn’t hold out much hope on that score; me and Gabrielle caught up with them.’
James couldn’t help smiling. ‘Who cares?’ he grinned. ‘We’ve still got more eggs than you, Kerry. You’d better hope either Kyle’s team or Team B have less than five eggs.’
‘Some of Kyle’s team are over there,’ Lauren pointed. ‘Kyle’s out, but they’ve got at least eight eggs.’
Kerry looked seriously troubled. ‘I can run ten kilometres easy, but how am I gonna get my little red-shirt through it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ James said solemnly.
Kerry didn’t seem to believe him. ‘I bet you are,’ she tutted, as she swivelled on her bare feet and headed anxiously towards Gabrielle for an emergency conference.
‘You can’t blame me,’ James shouted after her; though he knew she would because he’d broken her eggs.
Lauren looked up at James. ‘I wouldn’t worry, you know how moody she gets.’
‘Yeah,’ James nodded, breaking into a relieved grin that he made sure Kerry couldn’t see. ‘I probably won’t be getting my tongue in her mouth for a few days, but at least we’ve avoided the ten-K run.’
Lauren backed away with a look of disgust. ‘Eww, what an image: your horrible gobby tongue.’
A few more kids had arrived at the water table, including Dana and Jake, but it was the arrival of Team B that caught everyone’s attention. Whereas the other teams arrived in dribs and paint-splattered drabs, the Bs were all together. Their protective suits were unmarked and they held their helmets under their arms as if they were a NASA crew about to board the space shuttle.
‘We were fighting all night long,’ James gasped. ‘They’re not even sweaty.’
Lauren racked her brains. ‘I can’t actually remember seeing any of that lot. They must have hidden out, while the rest of us massacred each other.’
‘God they all look so smug,’ James said. ‘I bet they haven’t lost a single egg.’
*
And they almost hadn’t. The instructors, Mr Large and his assistants Pike and Greaves, arrived in three open-backed Land Rovers, blasting their horns and sending a shower of kids diving across the paved square. Large divided the teams up and began carefully inspecting every egg for the minutest sign of a crack.
Though Kyle himself wasn’t there, Team A scored eight. Mr Large actually broke into a smile after he’d finished inspecting Team B.
‘One slight crack means twenty-nine out of thirty eggs. It’s not often you brats impress me, but that is impressive.’
Team B was led by a fifteen-year-old girl called Clara Ward. She was in a couple of James’ science classes and he couldn’t stand her because she was well behaved, always handed her homework in on time and always got brilliant marks.
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Clara said, as she made James hate her even more by smiling at Mr Large and saluting him.
James made a gagging noise, then whispered in Lauren’s ear, ‘What a crawler. Cherubs don’t salute.’
‘I know,’ Lauren whispered back. ‘What does she think this is, the army?’
‘So how did you do it?’ Mr Large asked.
Clara smiled. ‘Sir, I rode up here on my bike a couple of days ago and checked out the compound. I found two easy-to-defend buildings on the northeast side, next to the lake. They’re only accessible via a narrow alleyway. We ran there as soon as the mission started and fortified our positions by moving some of the cars parked outside. The only resistance we encountered was one brief exchange of fire with a couple of members from Team D.’
‘Good work,’ Mr Large said crisply as he moved on to Team C and