CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,20
her leg. ‘I swear to god, your feet are always freezing.’
‘So you’re wearing my boxers now?’ James noted. ‘I wondered where they’d all disappeared to.’
‘I’ve started to like them,’ Dana said. ‘They don’t ride up your crack like knickers.’
‘Maybe I should give your underwear a go,’ James grinned.
Dana laughed. Ignoring her balled-up socks, she slid bare feet into her boots. She was only going to her room upstairs, so she let the laces dangle.
‘I think those little pink numbers with the frilly green edges would suit me.’
‘Definitely,’ Dana nodded. ‘Might take some explaining when you’re getting changed in front of the lads though.’
James put on a soppy voice as Dana headed for the door. ‘Please stay.’
‘Not while you’re still a child,’ Dana teased. ‘I can’t be corrupting your innocence.’
‘Come on,’ James grovelled. ‘I’m sixteen in less than a month and everyone on campus thinks we’re already at it anyway.’
‘But we’re not,’ Dana said firmly as she headed for the door. ‘And I told you I’ll make it worth the wait.’
James had lost his virginity on his last mission and Dana had lost hers to an older guy on campus before she started going out with James, but they’d agreed that they weren’t going to risk what remained of their CHERUB careers by starting up a sexual relationship until they were both sixteen. Or more accurately, Dana had decided and James had been in no position to argue because at the time he’d been skating on thin ice after cheating on her.
James grinned. ‘When it’s my birthday, I’m gonna be knocking on your door at one second past midnight with a big string of drool hanging out the corner of my mouth.’
‘You’re such a romantic,’ Dana smiled, as she leaned over James and gave him a goodnight kiss.
*
It was a mild concussion and the hospital was short of beds, so Fahim was discharged at 11:15. His father pushed him through the hospital corridors in a wheelchair, but he managed to walk the few steps from the chair to the car and made his own way upstairs to his bedroom when he got home.
Despite heavy eyes and a pounding head, Fahim couldn’t sleep. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and listening to the distant drone of his father’s voice in the hallway downstairs. Hassam regularly worked beyond midnight, placing calls to employees and business acquaintances in Pakistan and Indonesia. Fahim had never nailed down exactly what his father did and whenever he enquired, Hassam always gave the same answer: I have fingers in many different pies.
Until he was almost ten, Fahim misunderstood the phrase and came to imagine that his father owned a factory that made frozen cakes. He was constantly disappointed that he never got to taste samples.
‘Try to sleep,’ Yasmin said, startling her son.
Fahim always heard footsteps on the wooden floor of his room, but his mum had made it to his bedside without him noticing. The after-effects of the concussion left him able to see and hear, but his brain felt sluggish and seemed to focus tightly on one thought or sound, to the exclusion of everything else.
‘Earlier …’ Fahim began, as he looked at his mother. His throat ached from the suction tube that had been forced down his neck after he’d been sick for a second time.
‘We’ll talk about schooling when you’re better,’ Yasmin said softly. ‘Now you have to rest.’
‘This morning,’ Fahim insisted. ‘I heard Dad hit you. Why were you talking about that aeroplane? What’s it got to do with you?’
‘It’s complex …’ Yasmin stuttered uncomfortably. ‘Modern lifestyles are difficult … Your father had a traditional upbringing and I’m afraid I don’t make a traditional wife. You know he has a good heart. He loves us and provides everything we need.’
Fahim despised it when his mum made it sound like it was her own fault that she got knocked around, but that wasn’t his main concern.
‘The aeroplane,’ he repeated. ‘You changed the subject.’
There was a pause, during which Fahim tried to read his mother’s face. Was she thinking up a lie, trying to protect him, or just struggling to find the right words?
‘The plane that crashed was refitted by a company that belongs to your grandfather,’ Yasmin explained. ‘Your father arranges transport for some of their supplies.’
Fahim wasn’t entirely satisfied with the explanation. ‘But you sounded so worried.’
‘I remembered that we’d done some business with Anglo-Irish Airlines, that’s all. Your father was right – it’s his business and I totally overreacted.’