Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,23

worth it.’

Fay growled, but seemed to take Ning’s point.

‘You’re lucky,’ Fay shouted, firing a ball of spit in Chloe’s face as she backed up.

‘Let’s get back to our cell,’ Ning said.

As the pair stepped back into the corridor, four huge, black-clad figures charged in up at the end by the laundry room. Izzy tried saying something to one of the men, but only got splattered against the wall before getting an almighty shove.

‘Lockdown, back in your cells!’ the men shouted.

Several girls screamed as the helmeted men shoved them back towards their cells. A girl who fell found a size-twelve boot planted in her stomach before she was picked up and shoved backwards while a man screamed, ‘What did I tell you?’ right in her face.

Fay and Ning scrambled back to their cell ahead of the onslaught. Ning was worried about what was happening to the other girls, but Fay just lay back on her bed, studying her blood-smeared fist.

‘This is what life’s all about,’ she roared. And then she started laughing.

13. ASSEMBLY

Ryan could smell James cooking bacon in the kitchen, but the aroma made him queasy and he wished he didn’t have to get up for his third day at St Thomas’ school.

‘I’m making your breakfast,’ James said, when he burst in a couple of minutes later. ‘You might at least have the decency to get up and eat it.’

Ryan emerged from under his duvet. He wasn’t exactly tearful, but James could tell he was upset.

‘What’s the matter?’

James seemed like a decent bloke, but Ryan wasn’t sure he was the kind of person you could really talk to, so he just said, ‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s clearly something,’ James said, as he sat on the end of Ryan’s bed. ‘If you don’t want to talk to me, I can set up a call with one of the counsellors on campus.’

‘No,’ Ryan gasped, worried that a call back to campus would get put on to his mission record. ‘It’s just . . .’

James smiled as Ryan tailed off. ‘Bloody hell, Ryan, I don’t bite.’

‘It’s just . . . I’m so shit at making friends with people.’

James frowned. ‘You’re a black shirt, so you must have done something right.’

‘I got my black shirt from one big mission,’ Ryan said. ‘And at the start of that I had to make friends with this guy Ethan. I got it so wrong that I almost got the poor kid killed. Now I’m on this mission and I’m still useless.’

James thought for a couple of seconds. ‘We’re trying to find a major source of high purity cocaine. Nobody is expecting instant results.’

‘You don’t get it,’ Ryan moaned. ‘Agents like Ning waltz in and make friends with people really easily, but I always fail.’

‘I was always pretty good at that stuff,’ James admitted. ‘It’s mostly about being relaxed, not trying too hard and having a bit of luck.’

Ryan put his hands over his head. ‘But I’m so crap. I tried talking to this kid called Abdi who’s in my form and he blanks me. I’ve tried speaking to a few other kids on our target list and none of them want anything to do with me.’

‘If you’re anxious you probably come across as trying too hard,’ James said. ‘But I might be able to set something up that’ll help.’

‘Like what?’

‘Is there a place where the kids you’re targeting spend time?’

‘The Hangout,’ Ryan said.

James shook his head. ‘I mean near the school, during lunch break, or at the end of the day.’

Ryan nodded. ‘There’s a little swing park. Quite a few of the target kids hang there at lunchtime.’

‘OK,’ James said, as he stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have a think. You keep your phone switched on this morning because I’ll probably need to talk to you.’

*

Fay got another three days in segregation for beating up Chloe, but emerged looking cheerful because her sentence wouldn’t outlast the week.

‘Ningy!’ Fay said exuberantly, when she got back to her cell. ‘Ningy, Ning, Ningo, bingo!’

Ning raised one eyebrow and smiled wryly. ‘You can cut that out.’

The two girls hugged like old friends and made high-pitched squeee noises.

‘We’ve got our release papers for Saturday,’ Ning said. ‘I put yours up by the window.’

Fay smiled as she reached for an envelope. Her expression changed dramatically when she’d read a couple of sentences.

‘They’re sending me to foster-parents in Elstree,’ she yelled. ‘Where’s bloody Elstree?’

‘Way north I think,’ Ning said. ‘Like, past Barnet, or something.’

‘What gives them the right to send me to Elstree? Surely they’re supposed