CHERUB: Maximum Security Read Online Free PDF

out to you? They were only seven at the time, but they had more brains than all the other kids in that dump combined.’

    *
     

    There were three gymnasiums on CHERUB campus. Fitness training was taught in the oldest of them, which was still known as the Boys’ Gym, from the days when physical education was a single-sex affair. James had a soft spot for this dilapidated building, with its mahogany wall clock permanently stuck at a quarter to five, dim light bulbs suspended from long wires and shrunken floorboards that creaked underfoot. His favourite feature was the hand-painted sign hanging over the entrance:

    Any boy bringing in mud or dirt on
his plimsolls will be thrashed .
P.T. Bivott (Sports Master)

    Today’s teacher was Meryl Spencer, a retired Olympic sprinter, who could think of a couple of kids she wouldn’t have minded thrashing if corporal punishment at CHERUB hadn’t been banned more than twenty years earlier.
    The gym had been laid out with forty stations. Some were as simple as a foam mat with a laminated card on it saying Push Ups . Others were more complex: traffic cones set out for shuttle runs, a chest-press machine, a chin-up bar.
    The thirty kids in the class picked a station to start at. They worked it for two minutes, after which Meryl would blast her whistle and the kids would run to the next. The whole circuit took eighty minutes and the only relief from exhaustion came at the two rest stops along the way. Anyone who looked slack found Meryl or her assistant yelling in their face, calling them soft and threatening them with a good boot up the backside .
    Eight boys piled into the showers when the session ended. James towelled off and put on clean jeans, then flexed his chest muscles and biceps in front of the steamed-up mirror.
    He’d sprouted eight centimetres in the last three months and packed on muscle since starting regular strength training.
    Bruce flicked James’ back with his towel. ‘You little poser,’ Bruce grinned. ‘Stop poncing about.’
    James turned away and grinned as he rolled deodorant under his arms. ‘You’re just jealous because I’m looking so beefy these days,’ he said. ‘It’s hardly surprising that half the girls on campus are chasing after me.’
    ‘You reckon, do you?’ Bruce huffed.
    Kyle spotted a golden opportunity for one of his trademark wind-ups. ‘I think you’re right, actually,’ he said, stepping forward and putting his hand on James’ bum. ‘I think you’re hot stuff.’
    James leapt half a metre in the air and screamed. ‘Cut that gay shit out, Kyle.’
    After a great deal of persuasion from Kerry and a few others, James had eventually decided that there was nothing wrong with his friend Kyle being gay. Sometimes it still gave him the creeps though. He spun around and furiously shoved Kyle away, his face burning with rage as Bruce and the other boys started laughing. James realised the only way to save face was to outdo Kyle at his own game. He quickly balled up all the saliva he could muster, grabbed Kyle around the back of the neck and planted a massive soggy kiss on his cheek. Kyle recoiled in horror, with a glistening trail of James’ spit rolling down his face.
    ‘You filthy little …’ Kyle shouted, as he scoured his wet face on his towel.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ James asked sweetly. ‘Come on, baby. Won’t you give us a snog?’
    Bruce and the others were killing themselves laughing, as Kyle bundled up his clothes and scrambled to the opposite end of the changing room.

    *
     

    Sunday lunch was an occasion on campus. It was the only meal of the week when the individual tables in the dining-room were pushed together. Table cloths were laid and places set with the good cutlery. The traditional Sunday roast with all the trimmings was James’ favourite meal of the week, but the atmosphere at his table was miserable, because everyone except Bruce was being briefed for their recruitment missions later that afternoon. Even