CHERUB: The Syndicate

2: Quiet

August 2011

George pushed off the side of the pool again and tried to swim as far as possible before surfacing. He messed up one of his kicks and got out of sequence, forcing him to surface and gasp a breath, trying to get him rhythm back.

"Knight, if I see your head above the surface one more time on this length you'll be cleaning the changing rooms for a month!" the swimming instructor, a bulky black-shirt who everyone called French, bawled as George started his strokes again. It was an empty threat; it would need a miracle for George to stay underwater for almost an entire length when his muscles were already killing him from two hours of intense swimming practice. He dived under again and resolved to keep going until the last possible second so he could avoid a gruelling hour scraping the tiles in the changing rooms.

When he did finally take another breath, French had moved onto another victim, so George was off the hook. It was the last of ten timed lengths of the campus swimming pool and anyone who finished outside the time limit ran a lap for every second they were behind. George was already exhausted and was convinced he was outside the limit, but every second counted, so he pushed through the pain and concentrated on his strokes until his fingers finally bumped into the edge, stopping the electronic timer. He took a few gasping breaths and trod water until he had the strength to haul himself out.

"Passable," French said as George pushed his sodden hair back and looked over at the timing board. He'd squeaked by with less than two seconds to go, but he didn't care. No laps was no laps, so he just gave French a cocky smile as he strolled towards the boys' changing rooms, looking forward to a soak in the bath back in his room and then an evening of PlayStation and no homework.

"Looks like you just made it," George's friend Ralph said, handing George a towel. Both lads were stocky and had good endurance, but Ralph had hit his first growth spurt of puberty and was already four inches taller than George, which meant that he'd finished almost thirty seconds faster.

"Barely," George replied, wiping his face. "French is a total nutcase, my muscles are gonna be wrecked tomorrow morning."

Ralph just laughed. "Looks like someone needs an intensive fitness course rather than all-night Gran Turismo."

George didn't bother to reply, dropping his towel on the bench and heading for the showers to wash off the chlorine while Ralph chuckled and followed him a few seconds later.

The summer holidays is always a busy period for CHERUB missions, since it's much easier to get invited round to a target's house when their kids are bored with four weeks still go to until September. The downside for the Cherubs left on campus is that it's a quiet period, and when this coincided with the gap between two basic training sessions, the instructors were finding new and imaginative ways to torture the agents they'd been left with. This year it was a two-week intensive swimming course to build fitness, and George's recent spell of maximum chocolate puddings and minimum exercise left him struggling. To make things worse, his best friend Rex was away on an exciting-sounding mission and had missed all of it.

When they made their way out of the swimming complex, Letty was waiting for them. An excellent swimmer who'd finished miles ahead of almost everyone else, she lived opposite George in the main building and took every opportunity to make fun of him, and this was no exception.

"News just in; George Knight confirmed world's worst swimmer," she said, holding her hand in front of her mouth like a microphone. "One thousand laps await him for being a fat slob."

George shook his head. "Two seconds to spare."

Letty looked disappointed. "Ah well, there's always next time."