CHERUB: People's Republic (12 page)

The music block was on the eastern side of the school site and Ryan found himself leading a charge of two dozen seventh- and eight-grade boys through the paved gap between the old and new school buildings. He’d hoped to make it to the front of the new building and pick up Sal and Guillermo as they exited, but by the time Ryan arrived the crowd coming out of the new building was merging with a smaller group exiting the old.

On a normal day bodies filtered quickly, with most kids going left towards yellow buses in the east parking lot, while a smaller number went the other way to walk home or be collected by parents. But today there were enough kids searching for the big fight to jam up the whole concourse in front of the school.

Ryan felt hopeless as his run became a slow shuffle with bodies packed around. None of the teachers knew why the crowd wasn’t clearing, but a couple were soon waving arms and ordering kids to keep moving and clear off the main path.

Then some random kid shouted from a first-floor window. ‘It’s on out back.’

About a quarter of the school knew about the fight. Groups, including the lads that came through behind Ryan, started shuffling back the way they’d come, while others with no idea what the shout meant got in their way.

Ryan pushed bravely between two big eighth graders, skipped over a low chain fence and broke into a sprint across the lawn alongside the old building, which was marked out of bounds.

‘Hey you,
boy
, come here!’ a teacher shouted. ‘And you lot!’

Ryan set the trend and twenty sixth- and seventh-grade boys risked detention to follow him. He burst into a side entrance of the old building and skimmed the dress of a startled Spanish teacher.

Ryan’s best guess was that Sal and Guillermo had sneaked out early and ambushed their targets as they left fifth period.

Thirty rubber soles squealed and skidded on the floor behind, but Ryan didn’t know the school well. He overshot, missing the short corridor that emerged into the concrete play area on the opposite side of the building. By the time he’d spun around the chasing pack had swept past and he was tangled up with a bunch of sixth graders who’d joined in with no idea what they were running after.

‘Out my way,’ Ryan shouted, splatting a little kid against the wall as he burst through a set of swinging double doors and back out into the sunshine.

The group who’d overtaken Ryan were thirty metres ahead and about to merge with kids who’d been able to take a shorter route around the front of the old building. Off to the left, three eighth-grade girls and a teacher stood by Yannis, who sat on the concrete making a high-pitched wail.

He’d run twenty-five metres before being caught by Sal and Guillermo. Ryan only got a glimpse, but it seemed he’d suffered nothing worse than a few kicks and punches before the teacher waded in.

CHERUB training had made Ryan fast and fit and as the boys ahead flagged he ran flat out to catch them up. There were kids glued to the windows up on the first floor behind, but Ryan couldn’t tell what they were seeing until he’d bounded up sixteen steps at the far side of the play area.

As he neared the top step, the vista opened out into green space, marked out with a baseball diamond. It had a couple of small stands and a fancy electronic scoreboard sponsored by the local GMC truck dealer.

The main event was taking place beyond the far side of the field, more than two hundred metres away. With the sun in his face, Ryan could only see Ethan’s skinny-legged silhouette, with Sal close behind. It was like a scene from a wildlife film, with Sal playing the lion and Ethan the poor baby gazelle about to get its throat ripped out.

The chasing pack was about eight strong, though it was impossible to tell if they’d be participants or spectators when Sal caught his prey. Guillermo was even further back, his chubby frame barely capable of a jog.

Ryan had closed to within seventy metres when Sal made his lunge. Ethan fell hard, ploughing into the grass and lucky not to injure his neck as he did a complete head over heels. Sal got a knee across Ethan’s waist, but Ethan knocked Sal off and scrambled back to his feet.

‘He’s been stabbed,’ one of the kids running behind Sal shouted.

By this time, Ryan was less than twenty metres from the action and watched as Sal ripped out the compass stuck in his arm.

‘You’re dead, faggot,’ Sal shouted, as he started running again.

Ethan had opened a twenty-metre gap and Sal was now amidst the chasing pack. Ryan was less than five paces behind, and after going flat out over six hundred metres he was still full of running when other boys were slowing.

After stressing all day, it finally felt like Amy’s plan might pay off.

Ethan had no idea that one of his pursuers had both caused his problems and intended to defend him. He ran in terror, clutching a stitch down his side and heading for a wire mesh access gate used by school groundskeepers. The only problem was, he had no idea if it was locked.

A couple more kids had dropped out of the pack. As Ethan stumbled breathlessly into the gate, Sal led the chasing pack, with Ryan and three other kids a few paces behind. Ethan’s hands trembled as he reached down and grabbed the metal drop-peg that locked the gate in place.

The hinges squealed as the gate opened enough for Ethan’s slim body to slide through. As the peg clanked back into its slot, Sal reached the gate and the pack concertinaed behind him. Ryan didn’t know the school’s layout well and got his bearings as the boys around him caught their breath.

They were in the far north-east corner of the school grounds, with a busy four-lane highway less than fifty metres away. Ethan stood in a curved single-lane driveway which Ryan recognised from when Amy had driven into the school with him a few hours earlier.

Sal reached down to lift up the peg, but there was a gap in the fencing so that you could reach it from outside and Ethan used his remaining strength to launch a vicious back kick, catching Sal’s fingers and making him howl in pain.

Ryan was impressed: for a kid blessed with neither speed nor strength, Ethan had done a decent job fending off one of the hardest kids in his year. But he was also concerned: if Ethan ran another hundred metres, he’d be in front of the admin building amidst kids, parents and teachers. Sal would be lucky to get a few punches in before an adult intervened, which meant Ryan had no chance to save him.

Stopping had made Ethan’s stitch worse and the sweat dripping from his hair blurred his vision. As Ethan turned to run along the curving path, Ryan saw a Volkswagen SUV coming up behind. The mom at the wheel had two little kids in the back and was yelling at one of them.

The sign said ten miles an hour, but the mom was going nearer thirty when the front wing clipped Ethan’s shoulder. Ryan gasped as Ethan pirouetted. His head snapped backwards. There was a gut-churning thud and for a second it looked like Ethan would bounce up on to the bonnet, but the car was tall and Ethan got swallowed between the front wheels.

The driver hit the brake, causing squeals and rubber smoke, but she was going too fast to stop before a rear wheel rolled over Ethan’s torso. As the braking SUV juddered and threw sparks off the wire fence, the driving force of the rear wheel sent Ethan spinning backwards.

The big VW buckled a concrete post as it finally stopped. There had been more than forty kids chasing across the field. Every one witnessed the accident and there was a collective gasp from kids with rubber fumes in their nostrils.

Ryan felt horror, followed by guilt because this was all his doing. But he’d also learned first aid on campus, so he pushed Sal out of the way and rushed through the gate. Ethan was flat out on the tarmac, convulsing violently with one arm in bits. Ryan crouched down and realised that Ethan was choking as a couple more kids came zombielike through the gate.

Ryan took charge, pointing up the road and shouting. ‘Block the road before any more cars come round this corner. Someone call an ambulance.’

Shaking and breathless, Ryan leaned in close. Ethan fought for breath, but gagged every time he tried. Ryan prised Ethan’s jaw open and saw that he’d swallowed his tongue. He plunged two fingers and a thumb into Ethan’s mouth, but his tongue was harder to grip than the one inside the resuscitation dummy on CHERUB campus.

Once Ethan’s tongue had flopped forward, Ryan realised it had triggered a gag reflex. He scooped out as much puke as he could, before laying palms on Ethan’s chest and thrusting down hard. Vomit spattered Ryan’s face, but Ethan’s airway was clear and he drew a long breath into his lungs.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ the driver said, as she raced up beside Ryan on stupid heels with make-up streaked by tears. ‘I just didn’t expect to see anyone there. Is he OK? What can I do?’

14. TV

Ning watched her stepdad’s picture on the local TV news, as a nasal-voiced government official gave a speech about the successful destruction of a powerful smuggling syndicate. Chinese TV let high-ranking officials ramble on and this dude used his moment of glory to thank detectives, local officials, bureaucrats in Beijing and even North Korean border guards.

The screen cut to a grinning police spokesman with camera flashes lighting up his face. He mentioned the capture of several suspects overnight and confidently predicted the apprehension of more before day’s end.

‘
These running dogs will be caught and punished!
’ he announced triumphantly.

There was no mention of the two cops Ingrid had shot at Fu Chaoxiang’s house. Ning was sure they’d have been discovered by now, but this truth would mess up a news story crafted to impress senior party officials in Beijing.

The newsreader was moon faced and pretty, and Ning felt an urge to hurl dung at her fuchsia pink blazer as she bantered with her co-presenter about how she felt better knowing that the Slave Master was behind bars. Then moon face took a long breath and broke into a smile.

‘
On a brighter theme, our next story is about a Dandong fifth-year pupil, who has raised over one hundred thousand yuan to pay medical bills for a friend with a rare form of cancer
.’

It was a rolling news channel. Ning couldn’t bear to watch the little bald girl in hospital and the young hero being handed flowers for a third time in an hour. She flipped channels, while Ingrid yelped in the bathroom because the shower seemed to freeze or scald, with no setting between.

It was barely noon, but Ning’s morning felt a thousand years old when the telephone between the beds rang.

‘Be ready to leave at one-thirty,’ the man said.

*

Ryan hadn’t cried since his mum died two years earlier, but he was close to it as he sat on his bed with the blinds down and the light off. He’d felt guilt before, but only for minor stuff like breaking his little brother’s favourite toy and throwing it up on the garage roof. This was turbo-charged guilt that weighed on every breath.

The crash dominated his thoughts. The thump. The way the rear of the big VW rose up when the back wheel went over Ethan’s body. The heat and smell as Ethan’s tongue slipped between his fingers. Ryan tried to work out what he could have done differently, but his mind wouldn’t focus.

He didn’t want to see anyone, but Ted Brasker came in anyway. Ted was a big lump from Texas. He was touching sixty, but looked fit, with cropped grey hair and a heavy build. Before being assigned to the Transnational Facilitator Unit his forty-year career had included the Marine Corps, Navy SEALs, diplomatic protection squads and finally the FBI.

‘I’m putting laundry on,’ Ted said quietly, as he looked at Ryan on the bed with his knees tucked up to his chest. ‘This lot’s kinda stinking the room up.’

Ryan had showered when he’d got home from school, but the clothes on his floor had done Phys Ed, then been splattered with Ethan’s puke and blood. Rather than touch them, Ted grabbed a damp bath towel and balled the clothes up inside.

‘Thanks,’ Ryan said softly.

‘You’ve not eaten,’ Ted said. ‘Amy made meatballs. Or there’s a stack of menus down there if you want a delivery.’

‘Not hungry,’ Ryan said, choking back a sob.

‘Mind if I sit down?’ Ted asked. Though it wasn’t a question, because he was sitting on Ryan’s bed with the ball of dirty laundry in his lap before the sentence finished. ‘I know where you’re at.’

Ryan paid no attention, hoping Ted would take the hint and go away.

‘I was training special forces back in the eighties,’ Ted began. ‘Trainees had to swim on the surface of a pool for thirty minutes with full military pack. We’d stand on the edge, acting like total bastards: calling trainees names and describing all the dirty things we’d do to their girlfriends if they drowned. Swimming with that much on your back is brutal, so even the toughest are fighting all the way.

‘Now if they go under or start hyperventilating you’ve got to fish ’em out. But this one guy was always complaining. I figured he was whining and let him suffer longer than I should have. The board of enquiry blamed it on the way the exercise had been designed and the procedure was changed afterwards, but that kid
still
drowned on my watch. It was near thirty years ago, but I can still close my eyes and see him dead on the poolside like it happened just now.’