CHERUB: Guardian Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

starting boarding school might be stressful, Ethan didn’t see how it could be any worse than living next to a runway and going to a school where classmates rocked up with horse manure on their boots.
    He was reading about an ethos of charity and lifelong friendship in one of the brochures when someone knocked on the door. He feared Andre wanting to play stupid Wii games or practise his English, but Natalka’s voice came through the door.
    ‘Hey,’ Ethan said, grinning harder than he should have. ‘I thought you were busy.’
    Natalka shrugged as she came in, accompanied by the whiff of cigarettes. ‘Got kinda bored, so I thought why not find some skinny kid and blow his mind with two hours of wild sex? ’
    ‘You’re too late,’ Ethan laughed as he opened up a cabinet on the wall and pulled out the stack of pirate DVDs he’d bought at Dordoi Bazaar two days earlier. ‘I just had a couple of gorgeous blondes over and I’m all tapped out.’
    ‘Got any cigarettes?’ Natalka asked, as she picked one of the school brochures off Ethan’s bed.
    ‘You can get ciggies from the vending machine in the lobby,’ Ethan said.
    ‘You can get ciggies from the vending machine in the lobby, if you have money to pay for them ,’ Natalka answered, as she opened up a fold-out brochure. ‘These kids all look disturbingly well behaved. They must put tranquillisers in their water supply.’
    ‘It’s just a brochure,’ Ethan said defensively.
    ‘So what made Irena change her mind?’
    Ethan shrugged. ‘Maybe she just got sick of me whining. All I know is, I’m gonna get myself out of this bunghole as fast as I can.’
    *
    The trainees’ boots twisted in gravel as their bodies strained. The cast-iron cannon barrel made a grating sound as it moved from a position against a crumbling brick wall. It must have been in the spot for years, because the roots of weeds and moss had grown around it.
    ‘Step backwards,’ Ning gasped, all the tendons in her arms on show as she held up the fat end of the barrel, with Daniel in the middle and Leon at the muzzle.
    While the three trainees were pleased to have pulled the cannon free, the same couldn’t be said for a large house spider who’d been living inside it. It crept out of the muzzle and one long black leg tickled the back of Leon’s hand.
    ‘AAARGH Jesus!’
    As Leon sprang backwards, the weight of the cannon became too much for Daniel and Ning. The cast-iron tube tilted, then hit the gravel path with a clang, grazing fingers and narrowly missing toes.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Ning screamed, glowering at Leon.
    ‘Why’d you let go?’ Daniel added furiously.
    ‘It was massive,’ Leon said, as he pointed at the ground. ‘Bloody tarantula or something. I thought it was gonna bite me.’
    Daniel and Ning both inspected the spider, which had decided that the best survival policy was to crawl into a tuft of grass and stay still.
    ‘It’s a house spider,’ Ning said.
    ‘You’re such a dick face!’ Daniel said, as he launched his boot at his twin’s arse. ‘That almost broke my toes.’
    The kick wasn’t hard, but there was a nice fleshy slap as boot connected with buttock.
    ‘I can’t help being scared of spiders,’ Leon shouted bitterly. ‘And next time you kick me, I’ll kick back harder.’
    Ning pressed the grass tuft under the tip of her boot, and twisted to kill the spider.
    ‘Now you don’t have to worry about it,’ she said. ‘Get back in place. This’ll be hard enough without you two acting like prats.’

6. ANGEL
    There were two things that kept Ethan sane. Natalka was one, Ryan Brasker was the other. Ethan had first met Ryan in California a couple of months before his mum was murdered, a short period during which Ryan had twice saved his life.
    The first time, Ethan had been knocked down by a car and swallowed his tongue. Ryan cleared his airway, saving him from suffocation. Weeks later when assassins killed his mother, Ryan helped Ethan escape