Pep Squad (5 page)

‘Yes,' chuckled Lieutenant Parry. He turned to the seated teachers. ‘Thank you for your time this morning.' The teachers stood up and filed offstage, leaving only Parry and the transition-year students in the hall.

‘Now,' said Lieutenant Parry, ‘before I ask for a show of hands for Memory Wipe after that information overload, let me tell you about what I consider to be the most important subjects here at Theruse Abbey. We start each morning with a Physical Education programme. In addition to cardio fitness, muscle training and endurance, we also teach you self-defence and combat techniques from a range of martial arts and military disciplines. Saturdays are devoted to my personal favourite, Fieldwork Fundamentals, where you learn to master all sorts of extreme sports such as rock climbing, abseiling, skiing, scuba diving, white-water rafting – you name it, you'll learn it.'

The mood in the auditorium lifted.

‘Almost without exception, every transition-year cadet's favourite subject is Espionage 101. In Espionage you will develop your spy toolkit. You will learn about gadgets and gizmos with Herr Klug, advanced martial arts with Master Qing, code making and code breaking with Signora Enigmistica … It's a really fun subject. And lastly, the most important part of transition year, as at every other school in Ireland, is work experience.'

An excited whisper buzzed around the auditorium.

‘Before you get too excited, it won't be quite as glamorous as Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible
, but we will send you on a real mission, although not one that is truly dangerous, and you will be involved in the planning, gadget briefing, execution and debriefing phases.'

‘You mean we have to kill someone?' asked a slim blonde-haired girl with a thick Russian accent.

‘What? No,' said Lieutenant Parry. ‘By
execution
I mean proceeding with the operation.'

Jess heard a grunt from a few rows behind her. She turned to see a moody-looking boy with unruly dark hair. He had even broader shoulders than Matt, and his face had the same ultra-fit look as the teachers'.

‘Your week-long work-experience operations will be staggered throughout summer term, depending on the skills and fitness levels required. These are compulsory and you must pass to continue here at Theruse,' continued Lieutenant Parry. ‘Are there any questions?'

‘What do we do on Sundays?' asked a freckle-faced girl with brown curly hair and a South African accent.

‘I don't want to bring the mood down,' said Lieutenant Parry, ‘but most cadets at Theruse spend Sundays catching up on homework or doing instrument practice. Anything else? No takers for Memory Wipe?'

The cadets looked around but all remained quiet.

‘Right then. Make your way to the west wing, where you'll find your dorms. Rooms are twin share and your name will be on the door. Your uniforms are in your rooms. Get changed and quickly familiarise yourself with the floor plan on the back of your dorm doors. Master Qing expects you in the transition-year homeroom for your aptitude test in half an hour.'

Jess, Matt and Ben joined the flow of transition-year students towards the west wing. The cadets' names were written on the dormitory doors. Jess's was on the very first door at the top of the stairs, along with the name Emily Harris.

‘This is me,' she said to the boys. ‘I guess I'll see you at the aptitude test.'

‘Unless we decide to swallow some Memory Wipe first,' said Ben gloomily.

‘Come on, man. You'll have a college degree by the time you graduate high school,' rallied Matt. ‘Plus I need your help with all the study and I really want to stay – the girls here are totally hot. Present company excluded,' he added, winking at Jess.

Jess narrowed her eyes, but Ben leant over and whispered, ‘He thinks he's giving you a compliment,' steering Matt away before he could say anything else stupid.

Jess opened the door and checked out her dorm. There were two beds against adjacent walls, two cupboards with inbuilt drawers, two bookshelves, two desks and an en suite bathroom. Her suitcase had been placed on the end of the bed near the window. She was just undoing the zip when the door burst open. The freckle-faced South African girl who'd asked about what to do on Sundays stood in the doorway.

‘Hi. I'm Emily, and you must be,' she said, glancing at the door, ‘Jessica.'

‘I prefer Jess.'

‘Jess it is then,' said Emily, flopping down on the other bed. ‘Can you believe all that?'

‘I'm in shock,' said Jess.

‘I don't care what anyone says, I'm trying out for Dorothy.'

‘Excuse me?'

‘The lead part in the musical. They should give the role to the most talented person, regardless of what year they're in,' said Emily, deadpan.

Jess just stared at her.

‘I'm
joking
,' laughed Emily, rolling onto her side. ‘I can't even sing! The look on your face! Can you believe the amount of stuff we have to learn?'

‘It's a bit more than I thought I was signing up for,' admitted Jess.

‘It wouldn't be too bad apart from the languages. Five – no, six – foreign languages in three years, including Irish. My old school taught Afrikaans and German. Fat lot of good that does me. How about you?'

‘We learnt Japanese,' said Jess. ‘But my mum's Egyptian and my dad's French, so I've got a head start on French and Arabic at least.'

‘Chinese and Russian should be a piece of cake for you then,' said Emily, sitting up. ‘Right, what do our real uniforms look like?'

Jess and Emily yanked open a cupboard door each.

‘Oh, no.'

‘You're kidding me.'

‘Yellow
so
isn't my colour.'

‘Do you think this means we're in Gryffindor?' giggled Emily as the girls put on their yellow combat fatigues.

‘I think Gryffindor's more of a goldy colour with red. Hufflepuff's yellow,' said Jess.

‘Hufflepuff it is then,' said Emily.

‘These boots feel weird,' said Jess, pulling on a pair of chunky boots that were surprisingly light.

‘They're made of a lightweight nanofibre spun from the web of the Amazonian Bokyich spider and are impervious to water, bullets and mosquito stings,' said Emily.

‘Really?' said Jess. ‘How do you know that?'

‘I'm making it up,' laughed Emily, pulling her boots on. ‘Did you know they've taken gullible out of the dictionary?'

‘Why?' asked Jess. Emily raised her eyebrows as Jess continued, ‘What word do they use for gullible now?'

‘I think they've just stuck a photo of you in there,' said Emily, giving Jess a pitying look.

Jess thought for a moment and realised two things: one, that her roommate had just made a joke at her expense and, two, that she didn't really like her new roommate.

There was a knock at the door.

‘You ready?' Emily asked.

Jess nodded as she tied her laces.

‘Yes?' said Emily, opening the door only halfway.

‘Hi, I'm Matt,' said Matt, extending his hand to Emily, who looked at it like it was covered in Bokyich spiders. ‘I was looking for Jess.'

‘Hey there,' said Jess, hurrying to the door before Emily offended one of her new friends. ‘Time to go?'

‘Aptitude test starts in five,' said Ben, poking his head around the door. ‘I'm Ben, by the way,' he said, raising a hand towards Emily before Matt shot him a warning look and he lowered it again.

‘OK, Ben-by-the-way. Lead the way,' said Emily.

Jess glanced at the floor plan on the back of the door as she exited her dorm. Instead of turning left to take the most direct way to the transition-year homeroom, Ben turned right and led them a roundabout way through a series of corridors and stairwells.

‘Are you sure you're going the right way?' asked Matt.

‘If you'd even bothered to look at the map you might be qualified to criticise,' snapped Ben as they passed a staircase.

‘Down here,' said Jess, noticing a group of yellow-clad cadets waiting outside a door at the bottom of the stairs. Just as they joined the back of the group the classroom door opened. Master Qing stood in the doorway.

‘Come in and choose a seat. Any seat will do.'

Jess was disappointed to see that the room was like most of the classrooms at her old school. She'd been expecting all sorts of unconventional gadgets, but there was nothing other than a whiteboard at the front, a teacher's table and rows of student desks.

Master Qing stood at the front, idly folding origami throwing stars while the cadets filed in and took their seats.

‘As you know, you have been offered a place at Theruse Abbey because you are all outstanding,' said Master Qing once they were settled. ‘This afternoon's test is to measure exactly how outstanding. The test is designed for you not to finish. Also there are heavy penalties for answering questions incorrectly, so do not guess and do not rush.

‘The test will measure your level of knowledge in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Irish, Russian and Spanish, as well as your numerical and verbal ability. The answers are multiple choice. Are there any questions before you begin?'

Nobody made a sound.

‘Then good luck.'

Master Qing tapped the top of his desk, and twenty-four screens slid up out of the cadets' desks while touch keyboards materialised on the desktops.

Excited murmurs went around the classroom, apart from the moody-looking boy from assembly who, Jess noticed, looked distinctly unimpressed.

On the computer's prompting, Jess typed in her name.

Instantly a garbled collection of characters, some of which resembled Greek characters she'd learnt in maths classes at school, appeared on the screen. She put up her hand.

Before she'd even fully stretched her arm up, Master Qing had appeared silently beside her.

‘Yes, Ms Leclair?' he said, making Jess jump slightly.

‘I think there's something wrong with my computer. The display's all garbled.'

Master Qing looked at her screen. ‘That is only garbled if you don't know how to read Russian,' he said. ‘It is obvious you do not, so move to the next question.'

With her cheeks burning, Jess pressed ‘Enter' and the next question appeared on her screen. Thankfully this one was in English.

Sharon has a brother. Last year she was four times as old as her brother. Next year she'll be twice as old as him. How old are Sharon and her brother now?

Easy
, thought Jess, typing 5 and 2.

The next question was a picture of a left-facing dog made up of matches. The instructions were in Spanish, but Jess could guess from her knowledge of French that the task was to make the dog face the other direction by moving only two matches. She completed the task easily and moved onto the next question, which was on Arabic grammar.

Jess continued making her way through the aptitude test methodically, leaving out only the occasional question in Spanish and all of the ones in Russian and Chinese. Then her computer froze.

‘Machine is frozen,' complained the blonde-haired Russian girl who'd been confused about Lieutenant Parry's use of the word
execution
in the auditorium.

‘That is because the two hours are up,' said Master Qing.

‘Two hours?' exclaimed Ben.

‘It goes quickly, doesn't it?' said Master Qing. ‘We will compile the test results and you will be issued with your individual timetables during dinner, which will be served in the refectory in fifteen minutes. I presume you remember the way from memorising the maps in your dorms.'

‘Fantastic. I'm starving,' said Emily as her stomach made a growling sound. ‘Let's go.'

‘I'll catch up with you,' said Matt.

‘You're not hungry?' asked Jess.

‘He's got an appetite for something else,' said Ben, nodding towards the Russian girl.

Emily smiled. ‘Good luck,
bru
,' she said, before turning to Ben and Jess. ‘Now, which way is dinner?'

‘This way,' said Ben. ‘The refectory's on the ground floor.'

The closer they got to the refectory, the more cadets they saw in red and green fatigues and the more intimidated Jess felt. There was a certain worldliness about the more experienced cadets, and Jess felt even more nervous than she had during the teachers' introductions at the welcome assembly.

The refectory was a long, high-ceilinged room. The teachers' table sat beneath a large stained-glass window with the Theruse Abbey crest. There was a servery along one side of the room and the rest of the space was filled with tables and chairs.

Some cadets were already eating. Others were pushing trays along the serving bench, choosing dishes from the bains-marie.

‘Wow! Pizza!' said Ben, reaching for the plate with the biggest slice and putting that on his tray.

‘What's so exciting about pizza?' asked Emily, taking a bowl of minestrone.

‘I thought they'd have us on some special diet, like green vegetables drizzled with fish oil.'

‘Sounds tasty,' said Jess, taking a portion of lasagne and a bowl of green salad.

A tray slammed down on the bench beside her. It was Matt and he was alone.

‘What's wrong, bro?' asked Ben, struggling to keep a straight face as he grabbed a slab of tiramisu from the dessert chiller. ‘You didn't strike out, did you?'

‘It's early days,' sighed Matt. ‘I would have been in with a chance if this other dude hadn't been chatting her up in Russian. She'll come round,' he said hopefully, taking a bowl of ice-cream.

‘Sure she will. Just like that girl at the ice-cream parlour,' laughed Ben, pointing at Matt's dessert choice.

Jess nearly dropped her tray on the way to their table as Ben told her and Emily about some of Matt's failed conquests.

‘And there was this one girl,' Ben said, shaking so hard with laughter as he was sitting down that his bread roll and cutlery threatened to fall off his tray, ‘waiting at a deserted taxi rank, late at night, in the rain. Matt didn't even get through his opening line before she pulled out the pepper spray–'

‘Sounds like you boys have a few things to learn about cultivating potential assets,' said a deep voice behind them.

The cadets looked up to see Lieutenant Parry thumbing through some papers with an amused expression on his face.

‘Well, at least I try,' muttered Matt, shooting Ben a filthy look.

Lieutenant Parry handed the papers out to the cadets.

‘These are your timetables. There are no electives for first years, so the only variation is in your language-class assignment.' He turned to go, then spun back around and said in a loud whisper, ‘And Jess, just so you know, you topped the aptitude test. Told you I know a good candidate when I see one.'

Jess blushed and pretended to study her timetable avidly as the others looked at her.

She also felt she was being watched from another direction. She glanced up and saw Principal Metsen and Señor Carreras at the teachers' table. Although not looking at her, the principal was facing her direction and she got a decidedly creepy feeling from him.

‘I bags you as my study buddy,' said Emily, elbowing Jess.

Jess made a mental note to check for bruising later.

‘Cool! We start off with Espionage 101 tomorrow,' said Matt. ‘I can't wait.'

‘Espionage isn't first thing tomorrow,' corrected Lieutenant Parry.

‘Yes it is, at nine o'clock,' said Matt, pointing to his timetable.

Lieutenant Parry tapped the top of Matt's timetable. ‘Fitness Training is first thing in the morning, before classes start. And in case you were wondering, it's not optional.'

‘Six-thirty start,' whistled Matt.

‘Is that a problem?' asked Lieutenant Parry.

‘No. I'm up for it,' mumbled Matt.

‘Good to hear it,' said Lieutenant Parry. ‘The rest of you?'

‘Bring it on,' said Emily.

As Lieutenant Parry went off to distribute more timetables, Jess, Emily and the twins examined their own.

‘This course load looks pretty heavy,' said Matt.

‘Look at it this way,' said Emily. ‘More class time with your Russian soon-to-be girlfriend.'

‘Hmph,' said Matt, shoving a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth and slurping up the dangling noodles.

‘Yeah, that's the way to win her over,' said Emily, winking at Jess. ‘Anyway,' she continued, ‘how did you guys find out about Theruse Abbey?'

‘GameCon,' said Matt.

‘Although the initial screening was through Facebook,' added Ben.

‘You didn't tell me that bit,' said Jess.

‘A guy friended me and set me a hacking challenge,' said Ben.

‘So someone unknown to you sends you a hacking challenge via social media, and you just do it, no questions asked?' said Emily.