Pep Squad (16 page)

‘I can't believe my three best friends win these huge prizes without telling me,' grumbled Emily.

‘We didn't know, Em,' said Jess as she stripped off her school uniform. ‘It was as much a surprise to us as it was to you.'

‘Oh, sorry. Well what really sucks is that it was Krivan up there with you three. It should've been me,' said Emily, helping Jess into the monkey suit.

‘It probably would have been if you hadn't wrecked your knee duneboarding,' said Jess, sitting in front of a mirror surrounded by light bulbs. ‘The physical component was really tough this term. Plus, Krivan probably gets a lot of home tutoring,' she added as Emily continued to frown.

‘Hmmm,' said Emily, dotting dark-brown foundation cream around the edge of Jess's face. ‘Anyway, I suppose since Krivan came second, if I'd beaten him then Ben would have missed out. He's such a nerd – I couldn't do that to the poor guy.'

‘So wrecking your knee was really a magnanimous move,' said Jess as Emily attached the prosthetic monkey face to her head.

Emily stood back.

‘They did such a good job on that mask,' she said. ‘If you weren't still talking to me I'd think a real monkey was sitting in that chair. Have a banana.'

‘Don't mind if I do,' said Jess, her voice quite muffled through the mask, suddenly realising she was ravenous while peeling the banana. She opened her mouth to take a bite, but the fruit crashed into the mask instead. ‘Hey, I can't eat in this thing.'

‘I know,' said Emily, smiling wickedly and wiping banana mush off Jess's prosthetic mouth.

‘The performance is about to start. Places please, everybody,' said Ms Pimsleur.

‘Too late to take it off,' said Emily grabbing the banana from Jess and taking a bite out of it herself. ‘Break a leg. On second thoughts, don't. It really hurts.'

Jess watched most of the performance from the wings, safely out of sight of the audience. The staging was truly spectacular, and when it was her turn on-stage she had a hard time believing she wasn't flying through the air with a horde of genuine winged monkeys, doing the Wicked Witch of the West's evil bidding. But she was glad to take the prosthetic mask off after the final curtain call. It had made her face sweaty and itchy.

The dressing room was completely mad. There were clothes and costumes and excited cadets all over the place. Jess quickly got dressed in her casual clothes, then went to fetch her bag and meet her parents in the foyer, which was just as chaotic, full of cadets, teachers and parents.

‘Darling, you were amazing,' said Mrs Leclair, rushing over to give her a big hug. ‘At least, I think you were amazing. It was kind of hard to tell which monkey you were with all those amazing masks and costumes.'

‘Thanks,' said Jess.

‘Let's get out of here,' said Dr Leclair. ‘I have to catch a flight to Kiev for a conference.'

‘What's the conference?' asked Jess quickly.

‘I've joined Dentistes Sans Frontières,' said Dr Leclair as they walked to the car. ‘Kind of like doctors without borders but bringing dentistry to less privileged countries.'

‘Sounds worthwhile,' said Jess.

‘It's important to do something valuable with your life,' Mrs Leclair said. ‘Have you given any thought to what you'd like to do when you finish school? With results like yours the sky's the limit.'

Jess wasn't surprised that her mum was able to keep up a monologue most of the way back to Dublin about the wealth of career possibilities that potentially awaited her. She only interrupted when she noticed her father getting irritated.

‘Actually, after today I'm thinking of applying to Cirque du Soleil,' said Jess, catching her father's eye in the rear-view mirror and winking.

‘
What
?' said Mrs Leclair.

‘On one of their touring shows. Sure, it's probably not as vital as healthy teeth, but I'd be able to bring joy to people who watch the show. Plus, I'd be able to do a college degree by correspondence.'

Her words had the desired effect and her mother sat in stunned silence for the rest of the journey home.

Jess wasn't one to make the same mistake twice. During the holidays she eased up a little on her fitness routine but didn't overindulge on the food. She wanted to be in top shape when she got back to school. With work experience and exams still to come, she had a feeling that summer term wasn't going to be easy.

Surprisingly both her parents had work commitments when it was time for her to go back to school, so she caught the train to Tralee. Lieutenant Parry picked her up at the station. Emily was also in the minibus, having arrived at Cork Airport a couple of hours earlier.

‘What sort of contraband have you two brought this time?' asked Lieutenant Parry.

‘Huh?' said Emily innocently.

‘I know there are sweets in your bag. I can smell 'em,' said Lieutenant Parry.

‘How could you possibly? I haven't even opened a packet yet!' said Emily.

‘And you have just failed your first RTI class,' laughed Lieutenant Parry.

‘What?' said Emily.

‘Resistance to Interrogation. In sophister year we teach techniques to resist interrogation if you are captured by the enemy. You fell at the first hurdle.'

‘So you couldn't really smell the sweets?' asked Emily.

‘No,' said Lieutenant Parry, still laughing. ‘But now that I know they're there, I want my share.'

‘That's hardly fair,' said Emily.

‘Don't forget I witnessed what happened to the boys' stash at the start of last term. It's entirely fair,' said Lieutenant Parry.

‘I've been travelling for almost twenty hours. I'm sleep deprived,' protested Emily.

‘Sleep deprivation is a common interrogation technique that you'll have to learn to overcome,' said Lieutenant Parry.

‘
Hayibo
!' muttered Emily.

Lieutenant Parry glanced at Jess in the rear-view mirror but she just shrugged.

‘So what sort of cool stuff will we be learning in Fieldwork Fundamentals this term?' asked Jess.

‘What would you like to learn?' replied Lieutenant Parry. He turned to Emily. ‘See how I resisted Jess's attempt at interrogation by just deflecting the question?'

Emily muttered something even less comprehensible and sulked for the rest of the drive.

Lieutenant Parry dropped the girls at the foyer of the abbey.

‘I'm going to leave the unpacking until later,' said Emily, dumping her bag at the end of her bed. ‘Let's go see if the boys are here yet so we can restock our supplies.'

Jess was about to knock on Ben and Matt's door when Emily grabbed her wrist. She took a hairgrip out of Jess's hair and undid the lock. Then she held three fingers up, then two, then one …

‘Gotcha!' yelled Emily and Jess as they burst through the door.

Matt was lying on his bed with his hands behind his head.

‘What took you so long?' he asked lazily.

‘Where are the sweets?' demanded Emily.

‘Where's Ben?' asked Jess.

‘Where do you think? Off to find Herr Klug to show him all the improvements he made to the ROACH over the holidays. He was pretty obsessed with it.'

‘What was I obsessed with?' asked Ben coming into the room.

‘The ROACH,' said Matt, rolling his eyes.

Ben's eyes literally sparkled.

‘I just spoke to Herr Klug and he said my suggestions all look pretty good, so he's going to show the guys at P.E.P. Labs first thing.'

‘I don't suppose one of your suggestions was to make it a more attractive-looking bug?' said Jess. ‘What's wrong with your common garden-variety ladybird?'

‘Two things. One is that the necessary electronics won't fit inside something as small as a ladybird. Yet. And two, cockroaches are found all over the world, while ladybirds are only found in a few regions and only in summer. So the ROACH is far more inconspicuous.'

‘But far more likely to get squashed by someone who hates cockroaches,' argued Jess.

‘I proposed a much tougher exterior for the new model and found a way to make the components liquefy on squishing so it looks like cockroach guts,' said Ben proudly. ‘Thanks to you. I never would have thought of that if you hadn't flattened it in class.'

‘I like to think of myself as a muse,' laughed Jess.

‘Get any more Krivan goss over the holidays?' asked Matt.

‘Actually,' said Jess, ‘did any of you notice that only his dad was at Presentation Day? My mum asked him where his wife was, and he said she'd died about a year ago.'

‘Do you think Krivan's mum was in P.E.P. Squad too?' asked Emily.

‘You're friends with him, why don't you just ask him?' said Ben.

‘Hey,' said Emily. ‘I'm not friends with him. I'm just trying to work out what makes him tick.
Know your enemy
,' she said, tapping the side of her nose.

‘Whatever,' muttered Ben.

‘If his mum was in P.E.P. Squad, and she got killed on a mission, that could explain some of Krivan's attitude. Now if only we knew someone who could hack into P.E.P. Squad's computers and look it up for us …' said Emily, shifting her stare to Ben.

‘No can do,' he said, looking extremely glum. ‘Lieutenant Parry said that if I ever made just one keystroke suggesting I might be trying to hack the system, Matt and I would be out of here with a Memory Wipe chaser.'

‘You never told
me
that,' said Matt.

‘Never saw the need,' said Ben.

‘I'd say on a need-to-know basis, that's something I needed to know,' said Matt, sounding annoyed. ‘What other secrets have you been keeping from me?'

‘Hey – I think everyone should just focus on the problem at hand,' said Jess.

Everyone looked at her inquiringly.

‘Where are the sweets?' she said, diving for Matt's desk drawer, which was so full of goodies it was almost jammed shut.

‘I can't believe you put them in the same place,' groaned Ben.

‘I thought it was the last place they'd look!' said Matt.

‘Know your enemy,' laughed Emily wickedly, taking handfuls from the drawer.

The combined stash of sweets and lack of
The Wizard of Oz
rehearsals on Sunday afternoons gave Jess a lot more energy and time to get on top of her studies. She and Aidan met up every Saturday for their Arabic/Chinese language tutorials, and Jess was now regularly making it through Chinese classes without the whole class laughing at her mispronunciation.

With a little over a month until exams, the transition years gathered in the abbey foyer on Saturday morning for their final Fieldwork Fundamentals class.

‘Do you think we're going somewhere today?' asked Ben.

‘Don't get your hopes up,' said Emily. ‘We're probably doing suicide runs all the way to the gate and back.'

The sophister cadets were also with them, with knowing looks on their faces.

‘Whatever they've got planned for us today, the sophisters are in on it,' said Emily. ‘Look at them!'

Jess tried to catch Orla and Evan's eyes but they studiously refused to look at her.

‘They're ignoring me on purpose,' said Jess. ‘Whatever it is, I can tell it's going to be bad.'

Just then a bus pulled up – not the normal Theruse Abbey minibus but a regular coach.

‘We're all going to the same place by the looks of it,' said Ben.

They piled onto the bus. Jess and Emily purposely sat in front of two sophister girls who were known to be gossip queens, but no amount of eavesdropping helped them figure out what the coming class was about.

‘Oh, no,' said Emily as the bus turned a corner.

‘What?' said Jess.

‘I've just worked it out. Matt's gonna hate this,' said Emily.

‘Why?' asked Jess, listening in to the sophisters' conversation about whether cotton or synthetic underwear was better when travelling with limited laundering facilities.

‘We're heading for the airfield where Signora Enigmistica takes me flying, so I'm guessing we're doing …'

‘Skydiving!' said Niamh, the sophister-year girl sitting behind Emily, checking her watch. ‘Who said eighteen minutes? Oh, that's right. I did. Pay up.'

All the sophisters started digging in their pockets and passing money around.

‘What's going on?' asked Jess.

‘We had a tote on how long it'd take one of you to figure out what we're doing. I've made a killing!' said Niamh.

‘Skydiving? As in jumping out of a plane?' said Matt, turning pale.

‘We've also got a tote running on how many of you will chicken out,' said Niamh, winking.

‘But why are you guys here?' asked Jess.

‘Even at this school they're not going to let you just jump out of a plane with nothing but a parachute. You're doing tandem jumps. With us!'

The bus pulled up outside a hangar.

Lieutenant Parry got out of the driver's seat and spoke to the cadets.

‘I can see by the looks on some of your faces that the cat's out of the bag. You are indeed doing tandem skydiving today. It sounds scarier than it actually is, and with the amount you transition years have done this year, it'll be a piece of cake.

‘We've paired each transition cadet with a specific sophister cadet based on size and weight. The sophisters will be your tandem master. Every year some pairs ask if they can change. Every year we say no. So please listen carefully for your partner's name, then go and get your gear from the hangar.

‘Jess Leclair and Orla Ryan.'

Jess and Orla stood up and walked off the bus.

‘I'm so glad I got you,' said Orla to Jess's surprise. ‘You've had so much experience on those theatre wires that this should be a cinch.'

‘There's a slight difference between being on belay a couple of metres above a stage and just leaping into thin air hundreds of metres up,' said Jess. ‘Not that I don't trust you. You've probably done this hundreds of times.'

‘Not quite that many,' admitted Orla. ‘We practised with dummies last week, just to get used to the weight, but this will be the first time I've taken a live human on a tandem jump. Oops! I wasn't supposed to tell you that until after the jump,' said Orla, clapping her hand over her mouth.

‘Just as long as whoever Matt's got can keep it a secret,' said Jess, wondering how her acrophobic friend was coping with the idea of jumping out of a plane.

Jess looked around the changing room and noticed that Matt, who was looking decidedly green, was paired with Evan.

‘Evan's solid,' said Orla.

Once everyone had their gear on, Lieutenant Parry made them do a few drills, lying belly down on the ground with arms and legs spreadeagled.

‘Most importantly, transition years, keep your feet up when you're landing,' said Lieutenant Parry. ‘Now, there's a lot of you so we'll have two plane loads. If anyone's feeling particularly nervous, now's the time to tell me.'

Matt and Lauren put up their hands.

‘Anyone else?' said Lieutenant Parry.

If anyone else was feeling nervous they were either too embarrassed to admit it or too petrified to move.

‘You two, first plane with everyone to my left,' said Lieutenant Parry, sticking his arm out in front of him to divide the room in two. Jess and Orla were also in the first plane load, along with Ben and Emily and their partners.

‘There are two lights in the back of the plane: a red light and a green light. It's pretty simple. When the red light is on, it's not safe to jump. When the green light goes on, the pair I choose jumps. Any questions?'

The transition-year cadets were silent.

‘Any questions from the sophisters?'

No one said a word.

‘Alrighty then. Don't just stand there, get moving.'

The first group of cadets walked over to the plane that was waiting outside the hangar with its propellers spinning. Ms Pimsleur was in the cockpit.

‘Do all the teachers know how to fly a plane?' Emily asked her partner, Niamh.

‘
We
all know how to fly a plane,' said Niamh. ‘Apparently it's a useful skill for field agents to have.'

‘Can't wait!' said Emily.

They sat down on the row of seats that went along the walls of the cargo hold.

‘Better belt up,' said Orla. ‘The take-off is more dangerous than the skydiving.'

Jess fastened her seat belt, feeling relaxed by Orla's confidence.

Once everyone was on board and the cargo door was closed, the plane taxied slowly to the runway. The frequency of the propellers increased and the plane rolled down the runway, gaining speed and then taking off.

‘It feels different going sideways, doesn't it?' said Jess.

Opposite her, Matt was turning a horrid shade of green.

‘Will you be OK?' Jess shouted over the noise of the plane's engines.

‘He'll do great,' said Evan, smiling reassuringly at Jess.