CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,44
nodded. ‘I heard it’s not all it’s cracked up to be though. Last year they were in the middle of some big corporate merger and they had Katie Price ferrying documents around between buildings until about one in the morning.’
‘That’s true,’ Kerry said. ‘And they told her to make sure she was in at seven-thirty the next morning. But I’d still rather have experience working for a merchant bank on my CV than two weeks of serving fried chicken and coming home smelling like Jumbo Rooster fries.’
‘Guess you can’t win ’em all,’ James said, as the bus pulled up and a woman with a double buggy and three chocolate-smeared kids struggled on board and started looking for her purse.
‘They always do that,’ Kerry moaned. ‘Why can’t these morons get their fare money out while they’re waiting?’
*
The leisure park was on the outskirts of a market town fifteen kilometres from campus. There was a bowling alley, a twelve-screen cinema and a skating rink that had burned down in the nineties and never got rebuilt. The sprawling lot had spaces for six hundred cars and Deluxe Chicken was one of half a dozen stand-alone restaurants in a roadside strip that included all of the big names in fast food as well as a car wash, a fruit-machine arcade and a pub that served pints in plastic cups so that nobody got glassed in the punch-ups that erupted on Friday and Saturday nights.
One of the doors at the front of Deluxe Chicken was boarded up. James gave it an almighty tug, but it didn’t shift. Kerry banged on the front window to catch the attention of a young woman mopping the floor inside. James guessed she was about twenty. Beneath her daggy Deluxe Chicken shirt she had a black miniskirt and shapely legs leading down to ankle socks and battered pink Reeboks.
‘We don’t serve breakfast at this branch,’ the woman shouted, as she tapped on the face of her watch.
Kerry shook her head and yelled: ‘Work experience.’
‘What?’ the woman said, cupping a hand around her ear as she moved closer to the glass.
‘Work experience,’ Kerry repeated.
The girl smiled and pointed towards the counter inside. ‘Go around the back, and ask for Gabriel.’
‘Thanks,’ Kerry said, giving a thumbs-up.
The alleyway between Deluxe and the pizza place next door was covered in shattered beer bottles and they had to straddle a giant puddle of dried-out sick.
‘Nice neighbourhood,’ James smiled, but he recoiled when he saw that Kerry was giving him the evil eye. ‘What?’
‘You know,’ Kerry said sourly.
‘Obviously,’ James said. ‘That’s why I asked.’
‘Oh you’re so innocent. I saw you eyeballing that girl’s legs.’
James tutted. ‘Give over, Kerry.’
‘Not on my watch,’ Kerry said, as she wagged her finger. ‘If you so much as wink at her, Dana’s gonna know all about it.’
‘You’re paranoid,’ James said. ‘I’m not a sex fiend, you know.’
They reached the open back door of the restaurant. The tiled floor was covered in shoe prints and an unhealthy grinding noise was coming out the back of a walk-in freezer.
‘Hello,’ Kerry said loudly, putting on her polite voice. ‘Anyone in here?’
A wiry mixed-race man looked at them as they came into the dilapidated kitchen. They both saw Gabriel, Manager written on his name tag.
‘Afternoon,’ Gabriel said sarcastically as he glanced at his watch. ‘Nice of you to stop by, but weren’t you due here at ten? That’s more than half an hour ago.’
James got the urge to pop him one, but Kerry was determined to play the good girl.
‘There’s only one bus an hour and it was running late,’ she explained.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could get the earlier bus tomorrow,’ Gabriel said snidely. ‘Your training takes place on top of all my other responsibilities.’
James shook his head. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you take it out of our wages … Oh wait, it’s work experience, so we’re not getting any.’
Kerry jabbed him in the ribs and whispered, ‘Don’t start.’
‘This is a place of food preparation,’ Gabriel announced pompously. ‘The golden rule is hygiene, hygiene, hygiene. If chicken isn’t cooked and prepared according to the Deluxe Chicken guidelines, the result could be a nasty dose of salmonella for our customers, plus bad publicity and a hefty fine for the company. I want you to grab a shirt and hat, then scrub up your hands. There’s a workbook I want you to go through and once you’ve completed the questionnaire you’ll get the first star on your name badge. That star is transferable to