The room was an L shape, with the girls' beds at one end and the boys' around the corner at the other. It was basic compared to their individual rooms back at campus: ceiling fans, tile floor, wicker chairs and a tiny TV. It hardly mattered because the kids were always busy and only used the rooms to wash and crash out.

Kerry and Gabrielle had been back a couple of hours. The TV was showing an episode of The Simpsons in Spanish, which both girls could understand. They kept quiet, not even commenting on the stench of sweat.

'Well?' James said.

Kerry gave an innocent smile. 'Well, what?'

'I know you're gonna start on us,' James said, sitting on his bed and pulling off his trainers. 'So go on, get it over with. Rub our noses in it.'

'We'd never do that,' Gabrielle said. 'We're nice girls.'

'My a.r.s.e,' Bruce said.

Kerry sat up on her bed. She was pink and shrivelled, like she'd just finished a long bath. James dumped his filthy polo shirt on the floor.

'You better take that stuff down to the laundry when you've had your showers,' Kerry said. 'It'll stink the whole room out.'

'If you don't like my stink,' Bruce said, kicking off his trainers, 'you take it down there.'

He balled up his crusty sock and lobbed it on to Kerry's duvet. She flicked it away with the end of a biro.

'So, how come it took you so long to get back here?' Kerry asked, trying not to grin.

As soon as she said that, Gabrielle started cracking up.

'What are you laughing for?' James asked. 'It's fourteen kilometres between here and the villa. I'd like to see you two do it any quicker.'

'They're so thick,' Gabrielle howled. 'I can't believe it.'

'What?' James asked. 'What's thick?'

'Didn't you bother checking out the house?' Kerry grinned.

'We couldn't hang around,' Bruce explained. 'We had to be back here by midnight.'

'There was money all over the kitchen cabinet,' Kerry said.

'What good could that do us?' Bruce asked.

'And there was a working telephone,' Kerry continued. 'And a telephone directory.'

James was getting impatient. 'So what?'

'This isn't Outer Mongolia,' Gabrielle said, making a telephone receiver out of her hand and putting it to her ear. 'Why didn't you pick up the phone and call a taxi?'

'Eh?' James gasped, turning around and giving Bruce a blank stare.

'Taxi,' Kerry snorted, hardly able to get the words out over her giggles. 'T A X I, they're like a normal car, with a man to drive you and a little orange lamp on the roof.'

'Oh...' James said bitterly, looking at Bruce. 'Why didn't we get a cab?'

'Don't have a go at me,' Bruce said. 'You never thought of it either.'

Gabrielle was rolled up in a ball, laughing so hard the frame of her bed was shaking.

'You two d.i.c.kheads walked fourteen kilometres when you could have called a taxi and been home in an hour,' Kerry said, pedalling her feet in the air with delight.

James' socks were b.l.o.o.d.y where they'd chafed on the long walk. His back and shoulders hurt from carrying the pack, his elbow was agony and his leg still stank of dog mess, even though he'd washed it. One day, he would be able to laugh about this, but right now he was ready to explode.

'This is bull,' James screamed, hurling his trainers against the wall.

He kicked out at his wardrobe, but he was tired and lost his balance. He ended up in a heap on the floor, making the girls laugh even harder. Bruce looked just as mad, but he concentrated his energy into ripping off his clothes and heading towards the shower.

'Give us two minutes before you go in there,' Kerry said, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. 'I want to go to bed in a minute. Can I quickly brush my teeth?'

Bruce tutted. 'Go on then, but don't take all night.'

Kerry padded barefoot into the bathroom and squeezed out a ball of toothpaste. Bruce and James waited by the open doorway in their boxers while she brushed. Kerry tried to control her laughing, but she couldn't resist having another dig.

'Fourteen kilometres,' she shrieked, spluttering white toothpaste foam all over the bathroom mirror.

Bruce couldn't take any more abuse.

'Let's see how you like being laughed at,' he shouted.

As Kerry bent over the tap to rinse her mouth, Bruce dunked her head. He only meant to nudge her so she got water over her face, but he did it too hard. Kerry's front tooth hit the tap and she sprung up furiously.

'You idiot,' Kerry stormed, nervously feeling inside her mouth. 'I think you've chipped my tooth.'

Bruce realised he'd overdone it, but he wasn't about to go apologising to someone who'd spent the last ten minutes taking the mickey out of him.

'Good,' he snapped. 'Serves you right.'

Kerry grabbed a gla.s.s off the sink and threw it at Bruce's head. He ducked and the gla.s.s shattered against the wall.

'Cool it,' James said. 'This isn't worth fighting over.'

'Do you think I'm gonna grow a new tooth?' Kerry screamed.

She stepped forward and gave Bruce an almighty shove. Bruce adopted a fighting stance.

'You want a piece of me?' he shouted.

Kerry looked ferocious as she wiped her lips on to the sleeve of her nightshirt.

'If you want to get your a.r.s.e kicked by a girl for the second time today,' she snarled, 'that's fine by me.'

James wedged himself between Kerry and Bruce. He was taller and stockier than the two kids he was trying to keep apart.

'Get out the way, James,' Bruce said.

'I'm going for Bruce whether you like it or not,' Kerry said, drilling James with her eyes. 'If you're in my way, you'll get damaged.'

James could beat either Kerry or Bruce for strength, say in an arm-wrestle, but fighting was more about skill. Kerry and Bruce had done combat training at CHERUB for five years, whereas James had come to CHERUB less than a year earlier. He'd be out of his depth in a stand-up fight against either of them.

'You're not fighting,' James said unconvincingly, hoping Kerry was bluffing. 'I'm staying right here.'

Kerry stepped forward, swept James' ankle away and jammed two fingers into his ribs. It was an elementary technique for knocking someone over without seriously hurting them. James crawled towards his bed as violence exploded over his head.

Kerry was off balance after knocking James out of the way. Bruce used this to his advantage, putting Kerry out of action with one blow. Kerry staggered forward, gasping for breath as the end music for The Simpsons came on the TV.

Bruce thought the fight was as good as won. He moved to put Kerry in a headlock, but she'd played Bruce for a sucker. She quickly regained her balance, spun out of the way, hooked a foot around Bruce's ankles and swept his legs away.

James clambered on to his mattress; half horrified, half curious to see who would win. There was no way for him or Gabrielle to get help: the fight was blocking the doorway.

Within seconds of hitting the floor, years of self-defence training collapsed to the level of two drunks grappling on a pavement. Bruce had a clump of Kerry's hair wound around his wrist and Kerry was dragging her nails down Bruce's cheek. They thrashed about, cursing one another and eventually rolling into the TV table. The first couple of knocks rocked the TV close to the edge. The third made the TV topple, face first, into the floor. The gla.s.s screen cracked and orange sparks spewed across the floor. Some of them hit Bruce and Kerry's bare legs, then the lights went out and the ceiling fans went silent.

James looked out of the window. All the lights outside had gone too. The exploding TV had fused the electricity for the whole hostel. The fight kept going, but all James could discern were shadows and grunts.

Now Bruce and Kerry were over by the TV, James had an opportunity to get help. He sprang off his bed and grabbed the door handle. Gabrielle thought the same thing at the same moment and they nearly collided in the dark.

The corridor was tinged with green emergency escape lighting. Kids had their heads sticking out of their rooms, all asking each other why the electricity had gone off. James could hear Arif, a seventeen-year-old kid who was over six feet tall. He was exactly what was needed to break up the fight.

'Help us,' James shouted. 'Bruce and Kerry are killing each other.'

That exact moment, someone reset the fuse and the lights came back on. Arif ran towards James' room, along with twenty other kids who wanted to get a look at the action. Arif was first into the room, followed by James and Gabrielle.

Bruce was nowhere. Kerry was in the middle of the floor. Her face was twisted with pain and she had her hands wrapped over her knee.

'Oh G.o.d,' she sobbed. 'Help me.'

Kerry had shattered her kneecap in training a couple of years earlier. It had been repaired with t.i.tanium pins, but it was still weak. Arif scooped her off the floor and sprinted downstairs to the first aid room.

'Where the h.e.l.l is Bruce?' Gabrielle asked angrily.

James shooed the onlookers out and slammed the door. He leaned into the bathroom.

'G.o.d knows. He's not in there.'

Then he heard a sob under Bruce's duvet. Bruce was a skinny thing, so when he pulled the covers up over his head it was easy to a.s.sume he wasn't there at all.

'Bruce?' James asked.

'I didn't mean to hurt her knee,' Bruce sobbed. 'I'm sorry.'

'If you start a fight, people get hurt,' Gabrielle said severely. 'That's how it works.'

James had more sympathy. He sat on the edge of Bruce's bed.

'Leave me alone, James. I'm not coming out.'

'Bruce, come downstairs with me,' James said. 'Everyone loses their temper sometimes. I'm sure the staff will understand and speaking from personal experience it's always best if you get your own side of the story in first.'

'No,' Bruce sobbed. 'Go away.'

Meryl Spencer, a retired Olympic sprinter who was James' handler, burst into the room. She'd been in bed and was wearing a nightshirt and unlaced trainers.

'What's happened here?' Meryl shouted.

'They got in a fight,' James explained. 'Bruce is under his duvet and won't come out.'

Meryl smiled. 'Won't he now?'

She leaned over the bed.

'Bruce,' she shouted. 'You're gonna have to face the music for hurting Kerry. Stop acting like a baby and get out of there.'

'Go away,' Bruce said, tightening the duvet around his head. 'You can't make me come out.'

'You've got three seconds,' Meryl shouted. 'Or I'm gonna seriously lose my temper.'

Bruce didn't move a muscle.

'One,' Meryl said. 'Two ... Three.'

On three, Meryl grabbed the tubular frame of Bruce's bed and tipped it on to its side. Bruce thumped on to the floor and Meryl whipped the duvet off him.

'Stand up,' she shouted. 'You're eleven years of age, not five.'

Bruce jumped to his feet. His face was a teary mess. Meryl grabbed his shoulder and shoved him up against the wall.

'I want all three of you in my office. You're in serious trouble. This kind of behaviour is not acceptable.'

'Me and Gabrielle didn't do anything,' James pleaded. 'We tried to break it up.'

'We'll discuss it in my office,' Meryl said. She took a breath and realised that James and Bruce still stank.

'You two have ten minutes to shower, put clean clothes on and get downstairs. And if anyone starts up this hiding under the duvet nonsense again, I'll have them running laps until they puke, every day for the rest of their miserable lives.'

4. GRa.s.s.

'What did you do this time?' Lauren asked. 'When did you get back to campus? How come they sent you home early?'

James was half asleep in bed and he wasn't in the mood for his nine-year-old sister. Lauren had knocked on his bedroom door three times. When James ignored her, she picked the lock. The most irritating thing about living at CHERUB was that every kid knew how to pick locks. James was planning to buy a bolt next time he went into town. There's no way to pick a bolt.

'Come on,' Lauren said, sitting herself on the swivel chair at James' desk. 'Spill the beans. Everyone saw the ambulance take Kerry to the medical unit.'

Lauren was James' only family since their mum had died the year before. James loved his sister, but he still spent a lot of his life wishing she'd go some place and stick her head in a bucket. She could be a total pain.