CHERUB: Knight

25: Debriefing

"So," Zara started, looking at George and drumming her fingers on the desk, "You're back in here."

George was sat in the same chair he'd sat the previous day, his most sorry expression on his face. His clothes had been summarily thrown away when the staff at the hospital got a whiff of them, so he had been allowed to change out of hospital-issue clothes and into a fresh uniform before being called into the chairwoman's office.

"I've read the mission report," she continued, pointing to a manila folder. "Please tell me how a routine security check turned into assaulting a police officer, setting off a fire alarm with an automatic response from the fire brigade and, best of all, four stitches in your right leg."

George shrugged. "I tried to get away from the police like it said in the briefing."

"If you'd read the briefing properly, you'd see that there's nothing there about escaping from custody. Once the police got hold of you, you were expected to turn yourself in. That would have been a lot more painless," Zara said, pointing to the strapping on his leg. "Thankfully I think everyone involved just thought you were a bit of a tearaway and probably won't think too hard about it."

"Do I get punished?" George asked. Normally he wouldn't have been so straightforward and would probably have sweated in the chair until Zara made up her mind, but he'd been up early that morning and after three hours in hospital followed by a boring car journey all the way back to campus, he wanted to do nothing except grab something to eat and then fall asleep in his room.

"Yes, you get punished," Zara replied sharply. "I thought that a lecture about responsibility would have done the trick, but you literally ignored everything I said and went on to set a historic low point in the long history of CHERUB security checks.

"For a start, I don't think it likely that you'll be considered for another mission until the autumn. You can spend the time on campus undertaking extra espionage training until you can remember that this is a secret organisation and not a get out of jail free card for when you don't fancy sitting in a police car.

"You'll be allowed to go to the summer hostel as normal so long as you can behave yourself on campus, but from now until then you'll help out every evening at the Junior Block. Two of our carers are going on maternity leave and perhaps looking after some of our youngest will teach you the responsibility you so sorely need.

"Finally, I've scheduled you extra fitness training sessions every Sunday from now on." Zara grinned. "Maybe afterwards you'll actually be able to outrun people chasing you."

"How am I supposed to get away from adults?" George complained, not looking forwards to losing his evenings and Sundays.

"Maybe next time you should think before running, then," Zara said, pointing towards the door.

George got up slowly to avoid putting weight on his injured leg. There was no major damage apart from the cut, so he could hobble around without crutches.

"One last thing," Zara said, unable to keep a note of laughter out of her voice.

George stopped and turned to look at her.

"What exactly was in that bin you fell into?"

"It was a cat food factory," George said, shaking his head. "It was my bloody bad luck that they leave some of the particularly disgusting by-products in those skips to rot before it's taken away. I spent half an hour in the shower at the hospital scrubbing and I still reeked of it."

Zara didn't actually laugh but she seemed pretty close to it.

The punishment was really harsh, George thought as he made his way towards the dining hall. He'd hurt himself and fallen in the world's most disgusting bin, but Zara still had to pile it on. No evenings or Sundays until the summer hostel meant he'd have to work twice as hard to get all of his homework in on time and not fall behind and get more punishments.