CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,55

Fahim, Fahim, Fahim as they started jogging towards him. ‘What difference are you gonna make against that lot?’

But there was no more time to argue. Alom grabbed Fahim by his collar and yanked him up so he was on tiptoes.

‘You’re coming for a walk,’ he said as he looked around. ‘Too many teachers around here.’

Two other lads pushed Jake away. ‘Piss off, white boy.’

Fahim sprawled out as the Skittle-stained bully punched him hard in the back.

‘Like it down there in the dirt, fats?’ Alom grinned, as he kicked Fahim in his chubby thigh. ‘Since you don’t like eating Skittles, I’m gonna take you to the park and find a nice juicy dog turd for your dinner.’

‘Leave him the hell alone,’ Jake shouted, as he hit one of the Year Nines in the guts with an explosive upward punch.

The Year Nine was a beefy dude twice Jake’s size, but he hadn’t been expecting it and he made an agonised groan as he hit the pavement.

Jake panicked as the other lad tried to get an arm around his neck. He was a third dan Karate black belt and expert in the most effective techniques from several other fighting disciplines; but no amount of skill can compensate for being little and he’d started a row with six guys who weighed twice as much as him.

‘You’re an idiot, Jake,’ Fahim said. ‘This is my problem.’

The most important thing when fighting much heavier opponents is to make sure they don’t pin you. Jake couldn’t afford to let anyone get close. He stepped backwards before launching a roundhouse kick, slamming his second opponent in the stomach.

As two Year Nines lay on the ground, Jake continued backing off as three more stepped over their bodies and rushed him. In the movies, the baddies always have the decency to wait in line and get beaten up one at a time, but that never happens in real life.

As Alom punched Fahim in the stomach, Jake faced off three well-built Asian youths. He looked backwards over his shoulder and realised that screaming his head off and legging it back inside the school was the safest option, but if he did that Fahim would be left at Alom’s mercy.

‘Come on then, wankers,’ Jake said, as he ducked into a fighting stance.

‘It’s the Karate kid,’ one of the Year Nines jeered.

But he stopped smiling as Jake lunged and punched him in the mouth. His jaw crunched, but Jake had made a fatal error by going for the boy in the middle. As the youth moaned in pain, the lads on either side got their arms around Jake.

He wriggled for all he was worth, but the lad he’d punched in the guts was back on his feet and Jake knew he was doomed when they got his ankles and scooped him off the ground. After a moment of indecision the three lads carried Jake kicking and swearing towards the kerb, where they bent him over a metal bollard and started landing heavy punches.

‘Leave my little brother alone,’ Lauren shouted breathlessly, as she ran across the street.

Being a girl worked to her advantage. She was the same age as the three lads pounding Jake, but the boys were bigger and they didn’t think she’d do anything except yell at them to stop. This was a serious mistake.

When kids learn Karate at the local community centre, they’re taught techniques that are playground friendly. Cherubs routinely go into dangerous situations and are taught to mercilessly target the weakest areas of the body.

Facing three opponents, Lauren wanted to take down two in one go. She moved expertly, swinging a palm in from either side, slamming two heads together. Both lads collapsed in a daze.

Jake was winded after taking more than a dozen hard punches, but his instincts had been honed by hundreds of hours’ combat training and he grabbed the bollard tightly before launching a two-footed back kick. His black Nikes hit the third boy so hard that he flew across the width of the pavement and into the breezeblock wall surrounding the school. Furious after the beating, Jake knocked him cold with a kick to the temple.

‘Feeling big now?’ he shouted, before breaking into a coughing fit.

Meanwhile, Lauren had gone after the last man standing. Alom still had hold of Fahim, but his brain couldn’t handle what his eyes were telling him.

‘Let Fahim go or I’ll break your neck,’ she ordered.

Alom looked at his mates: two in a daze after getting their heads knocked together, one