CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,7

engines had become the distant drone of one. The crowd went quiet and the rival crew members traded nervous glances, wondering who’d broken down.

James felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He slid it open and heard his girlfriend’s voice.

‘Is the flaming golf cart on the road towards the main building anything to do with you?’ Dana asked, clearly amused by the idea that James’ pride and joy was going up in smoke.

‘Flaming?’ James gasped. ‘Can you see the driver? Is he OK? Can you tell if it’s Stuart or Rat?’

James was worried by the news of flames. He’d reattached a faulty fuel line before Rat set off. If he hadn’t done it properly it could easily break off and cause a fire when leaking fuel touched the hot engine casing.

Lauren got pushed aside as the two teams of nervous boys gathered around the phone at James’ ear.

‘It’s some way from where I’m standing,’ Dana said. ‘The driver looks OK and a couple of the staff are running up there with fire extinguishers.’

James was desperate to know whether it was his cart. ‘Can’t you run up there to get a proper look?’

‘I’m upstairs in my room,’ Dana explained. ‘I’d have to put some trousers on and wait for the lift. Mind you there is one thing. The first buggy that went by had a roof and this one looks like it doesn’t.’

James broke into a huge smile. ‘A buggy with a roof went by before this one?’

As soon as James said this, Andy and Jake started to grin.

‘Definitely,’ Dana said.

‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’ James groaned. ‘My cart has a roof; Shak’s team cut theirs off.’

Shak didn’t stick around to hear James and his team-mates gloat. He raced off to check on his stricken buggy, with his two younger assistants behind him.

‘You’ve got to feel sorry for Shak’s team though, haven’t you?’ James said, before breaking into laughter and giving Jake a high five. ‘Not!’

By the time James’ team had finished hugging each other and jumping up and down, Rat was driving up the hill to complete his circuit of campus. He’d seen the fiery demise of his rival and drove cautiously, not bothering to take any risks.

But while James and his crew were ecstatic, the crowd was clearly underwhelmed as it drifted away. They’d spent over an hour waiting around. There’d been no proper race and they would have got a better view of the fire if they’d stayed in their rooms in the main building.

‘Boring,’ Lauren complained, as they headed for home.

Bethany shrugged. ‘Remember a few years back when Arif built that powerboat? The rudder jammed and it went around in circles until it sunk?’

Lauren nodded. ‘Now that was worth getting off your arse to watch.’

4. DADDY

For a minute it seemed like things had gone back to normal on the jet. People were shocked, a few reached into the aisle or around their feet to recover mobile phones. Up near the galley between economy and business class, an Asian doctor crouched over the steward who’d hit the ceiling and cricked her neck.

But as air rushed noisily past the fuselage, the passengers were unsettled by intermittent shudders ripping through the airframe. The pilots couldn’t devote their time to staring out the side of the aircraft, so the stewards passed through the plane asking passengers in the window seats to look outside for anything unusual. Angus watched as his grandmother touched a stewardess, who stopped walking and turned back.

‘Is there going to be another announcement soon?’ she asked.

The stewardess was as frightened as everyone else, but did her best to hold it in. ‘The pilots are trying to work out what caused the bang and made the aircraft roll. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re sure what’s going on.’

At the opposite end of the strip of four seats, Angus scoured the carpet trying to see where his Gameboy had ended up, while the need to pee grew worse. Karen had reached into the seats on either side and held Megan and Angus’ hands.

She clutched them a little tighter as another groan ripped through the aircraft. The lightweight cabin fittings flexed to such a degree that several overhead lockers popped open and luggage thumped dangerously into the aisle.

An American at a window seat jumped up and shouted to the stewardess, ‘Ma’am, I think something just broke away.’

‘Did you see what it looked like?’ the stewardess asked urgently as she dashed down the aisle towards him.