CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,31

nobody had bothered to hose it out after a bag burst.

Whatever it smelled like, it was a ride, and Lauren dropped the handbrake and pressed the accelerator. The cart jerked forward about five centimetres before the motor gave out. She drifted to a halt less than a metre from her starting point.

‘Knob,’ Lauren steamed, as she hammered the steering wheel. The cart might have broken down, but more likely it had been sabotaged by the white shirts. This meant that even if she found another cart, it would probably be in the same condition.

Being right next to the gardeners’ shed, Lauren considered grabbing one of the ride-on mowers inside, but their top speed was less than eight kilometres an hour and while ramming a golf cart with a quad bike would be considered a serious breach of the rules, there was no reason why someone couldn’t run up alongside and knock her off a slow-moving lawnmower.

Lauren was exposed for as long as she sat in the buggy and there was a chance she’d been spotted on a video camera, so she dived back into the undergrowth and crawled fifty metres, ending up in one of the landing nets beneath the height obstacle.

‘Use your training,’ she whispered to herself, as she racked her brains. ‘Think, think, think.’

She didn’t fancy her chances over open ground against a team of quad bikes. On the other hand, by following the ditches and crossing the training compound she’d emerged on the opposite side of campus, far from the other black shirts, and this gave her an outside chance of making it. Plus, this side of campus was more built up than the area around the lake.

Lauren considered each stage of her route. She’d have to run two hundred metres across open ground and the first place she’d be able to shelter was around the back of the vehicle workshop.

A smile broke over Lauren’s muddy face as she thought about the evening before and James’ hundred-kilometre-an-hour racing buggy.

*

The white shirts took their time rescuing James from the net and McEwen didn’t bother letting it down gently.

‘You extra-soft-toilet-tissue-using, worm-like bag of gloop,’ McEwen screamed, as he gave James an almighty kick up the arse.

‘Hey, there are rules,’ James yelled. ‘You can’t kick me.’

‘Do I look like someone who gives a shit?’ McEwen grinned, pointing his rifle at James’ nuts. ‘Get moving.’

The delay in letting James down meant that Dana actually returned to the starting point in the far corner of campus before him. James gave her a kiss before throwing over her boot.

‘What’s the situation?’ James asked, as he looked around and saw several other black shirts preparing to set off for a second run. The instructors, Kazakov and Pike, were monitoring communications from the warmth of their hut.

‘It’s grimmer than a shit sandwich,’ Dana reported. ‘At least half of us have been captured once already, it sounds like several others are pinned down under fire from the red shirts and I’ve not heard from anyone who’s made it more than a few hundred metres on to the open ground. There’s at least ten quad bikes out there and the red shirts are lined up on the edge of the woods acting as scouts and snipers. A group of six black shirts set off a few minutes ago, but I knew you were due back so I told them I’d wait.’

‘Do you think a bigger group might get somewhere?’ James asked. ‘We could wait for more people.’

Dana raised an uncertain eyebrow. ‘I guess if they all rushed out at once, most of them would get picked up, but one or two might get away. But it’s going to get harder as the night goes on. I mean, once people start escaping there are going to be more white shirts after fewer targets.’

‘See your point,’ James nodded.

‘The only good news is that a few of the red shirts have had their equipment taken and two more were in an accident with a quad bike, so this time there should be fewer guns pointing at us.’

‘What about Lauren?’ James asked. ‘Any sign of her?’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Dana said, as she looked at her watch. ‘It’s slow going through those ditches though. I expect she’s only just reached open ground.’

‘There’s no point trying to run out in the open with no equipment,’ James said, frustrated. ‘Ambushing and nabbing equipment is the only way for us to go.’

Dana nodded. ‘Lure in one of the quad bikes and knock the rider