Pep Squad (7 page)

With ten minutes to go, Master Qing split the class in two and sent them to opposite sides of the gym.

‘Line up along each wall,' said Master Qing. ‘Now, the person at the head of each line, come into the centre, bow, then try to fell your opponent.'

The first two sparrers were Svetlana and Matt.

As Matt sauntered towards Svetlana he shook his head, saying, ‘I can't fight a girl, sir.'

Svetlana used his temporary distraction to step up to Matt's side and he was soon flat on his back.

‘That's right,' she said, smirking. ‘You
can't
fight a girl.' She turned to go.

‘Stay there,' said Master Qing. ‘This is a knockout competition. What is your name?'

‘Svetlana Hanikova.'

‘And your name?' asked Master Qing, turning to Ben who was next in line.

‘Ben Sykes,' Ben gulped.

‘Good luck, Ben Sykes,' said Master Qing with a vague smile on his face.

Ben was better prepared than Matt and kept eye contact with Svetlana as he approached her. They started circling each other. As soon as he was close enough Ben seized the opportunity to shoot his leg behind Svetlana's, but she turned quickly and managed to kick his leg out from under him instead, toppling him over.

And so it went. Svetlana exhausted all the cadets on one side of the hall, and then did the same with those originally queued up behind her. Only Emily managed to engage Svetlana in a lock for a few moments, right knees entwined, hopping around the mat like two boxing kangaroos, before she ended up on her back like the rest of the class.

‘Wow, Svetlana,' said Emily when the bell went. ‘You must be pretty happy.'

‘Not really,' said Svetlana, holding up her left hand to show Emily four perfectly manicured fingernails and one with a jagged tear. ‘I break nail.'

The refectory was a very different place at lunchtime. While it had buzzed all over with excitement and expectation during breakfast, the lunching cadets, particularly those wearing yellow uniforms, were completely subdued.

‘I'm surprised Lieutenant Parry wasn't standing at the door with a big jug of Memory Wipe,' said Emily.

‘How on earth are we supposed to learn so much stuff in one year? It's not just a double load, it's a triple load of a double load,' said Ben, massaging his temples.

‘I don't know about you, but my legs are killing me,' said Jess, feeling her thighs seize up as she bent to sit in her chair. ‘I need to stretch, but I don't have the energy.'

‘At least this is an improvement on breakfast,' said Matt, shovelling in forkful after forkful of his huge helping of spaghetti marinara. ‘I was beginning to think I'd never see decent food again.'

Once the cadets had finished eating, they sat back in their chairs without speaking to each other. They were too exhausted and overwhelmed. The tolling of the bell in the abbey tower marking the start of afternoon classes sounded ominous.

‘What have we got?' asked Matt.

Ben looked at his timetable.

‘Drama,' he groaned. ‘That was always my worst subject.'

‘Yeah, the only time you ever got an A minus,' grumbled Matt.

They joined the other transition years waiting in the auditorium, scattered along the first row of seats.

A pair of high heels clicked across the stage.

‘What are you doing down there?' chided Signora Enigmistica. ‘Drama takes place on the stage, not in the stalls. Come.'

The cadets climbed up on the stage and gathered around Signora Enigmistica.

‘Welcome to Drama. As with the majority of subjects at Theruse Abbey, we will be starting off studying material for the Leaving Certificate syllabus for Drama. But by far the most important aspect of the class is to teach you acting skills so that you can blend in flawlessly on any undercover mission anywhere in the world.

‘Today we will be starting with one of my favourite Shakespeare plays,
Hamlet
. What I like most about this play is its title. The plot of
Hamlet
is not one of Shakespeare's originals but is based on much older stories from other cultures. In fact, the word Hamlet is a very basic anagram of the name of the Danish Prince Amleth, from Saxo Grammaticus's version of the story.'

There was a snort from among the students. Jess turned to see that it was the moody-looking dark-haired boy. It was the first time she had been close to him. He had a sneer on his face and an attitude to match.

‘Do you have something to add, Ivan?' asked Signora Enigmistica.

‘I was just thinking that, for someone as revered as Shakespeare, neither the play nor the attempt at disguising the title is particularly creative,' said Ivan.

‘Unlike when we use anagrams as codes in the field, Shakespeare probably didn't care if his prince's code name could be easily deciphered. On that note, do you have any suggestions on how to ensure that the anagrams we use can only be deciphered correctly by those we want to, Ivan?' asked Signora Enigmistica.

‘Oh, I don't know. Build some sort of texting device that works as an anagram translator with private key encryption?' he suggested.

Signora Enigmistica smiled.

‘Very good. That's exactly the type of device we use in the field, although such devices weren't available four hundred and fifty years ago when Shakespeare was alive. Now,' she continued, turning to the rest of the class, ‘let's test your knowledge of
Hamlet
. Who can give me a quote? Jess?'

‘To be, or not to be,' said Jess.

‘Naturally,' said Signora Enigmistica. ‘Anything slightly less mainstream?'

‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,' said Ben.

‘To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,' said Emily, in a perfect mimic of Mel Gibson's voice.

Signora Enigmistica was duly impressed.

‘Excellent, Emily. I had to double-check that Mel Gibson wasn't hiding behind you. Can anyone else do that?'

‘They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom,' said Ivan, sounding exactly like Emily had but with a Scottish accent.

‘Very good,' said Signora Enigmistica. ‘Can you do a female voice?'

‘You're a human being, you live once and life is wonderful, so eat the damn red velvet cupcake,' said Ivan in a husky female voice with an American accent.

Signora Enigmistica looked at him.

‘Emma Stone,' said Ivan.

Signora Enigmistica looked around the class as the other transition years nodded their heads.

‘Something for me to google later,' she said. ‘Right. Back to our Danish prince …'

After classes had finished for the day, Jess and Emily were holed up in their dorm ploughing through homework. As well as having to learn to recite Hamlet's famous soliloquy, they had a worksheet to complete for Chinese, an essay to write for History and a map to draw for Geography.

Jess leant back in her chair and stretched and yawned widely. Then, as her eyes took in the clock, she straightened up quickly.

‘Hey, Em, it's half past six. We'll be late for dinner.'

‘What's the rush? I'm sure they won't let anyone else touch our green veg and fish oil,' said Emily distractedly.

Jess's stomach let out a loud growl. Both girls giggled.

‘OK, OK, I'm coming!' said Emily.

As they got to the refectory, they saw Ben and Matt coming from the direction of the gym. They were both very sweaty.

‘What, this morning wasn't enough for you two he-men?' Emily commented.

‘I was spotting Arnold Schwarzenegger here in the gym,' said Matt.

‘Why?' asked Jess.

‘Let's just say that Krivlyakaev guy gave me extra incentive to bulk up,' said Ben.

‘Who's Krivlyakaev?' asked Jess.

Matt and Ben looked at each other uneasily.

‘Mr Private Key Encryption from Drama,' said Ben finally. ‘Look, I don't want to talk about it. Can we just drop it?' he said, stalking off towards the servery.

‘What happened?' Emily asked Matt.

‘Krivlyakaev threatened him,' said Matt quietly.

‘What?'

‘Why?'

‘When?' said Emily and Jess together.

‘After Drama,' said Matt. ‘Ben thought it'd be cool to chat about encryption keys or something. Krivlyakaev pretended to be interested and offered to shake Ben's hand, but instead he bent Ben's arm behind his back and called him a limp cabbage.'

‘A limp cabbage?' Emily laughed.

‘It must be a huge insult where he comes from. You could tell from his tone,' said Matt.

‘Then what happened?' asked Jess.

‘Krivlyakaev said something I didn't quite catch – Ben was moaning pretty loudly – but it went along the lines of if Ben didn't stay away from him, next time he'd break his arm. Unsurprisingly, as soon as classes were over Ben said he wanted to hit the gym.'

‘Good for him,' Emily declared approvingly.

‘I wonder what Krivlyakaev's problem is?' said Jess crossly, furious that the Russian had threatened her new friend for no apparent reason.

Matt shrugged. ‘Who knows?'

They got their food allocations and sat down with Ben at what was quickly becoming their regular table. Ben was tucking into a massive plate of roast beef and vegetables, with a double helping of black forest gâteau. The others' meals varied only in size. Matt had a very thin slice of cake, Jess had a regular serving and Emily didn't get any dessert at all.

‘Well this is unfair,' she said, looking at the others' desserts enviously.

Jess dug straight into her cake.

‘It's really not that good,' she said, licking the cream off her fork. ‘It's very chocolatey, and the cream's quite sweet, and the cherries – well, why would you put fruit in a chocolate cake?'

‘Let me judge for myself,' said Emily, reaching towards Jess's plate with her fork.

‘No,' said Jess, whipping her plate away. ‘They're going to analyse my poo later, remember, and if a single chocolate shaving's missing they'll know.'

‘Just a bit,' begged Emily.

‘No. And it's for your own good,' said Jess, quickly spooning cake into her mouth. ‘You're in the military now and you have to learn self-discipline. Not eating cake is good for your moral fibre.'

‘Not letting me share some will be extremely bad for your moral fibre,' threatened Emily.

But it was too late. Jess had already finished her slice.

Emily turned her attention to Matt's dessert.

‘Not on your life, lady,' said Matt, putting his fork up protectively.

Emily looked over Matt's shoulder and said, ‘Who's that guy talking to Svetlana?'

Matt turned around and Emily helped herself to a large chunk of cake.

‘Where is she?' said Matt, looking around for Svetlana.

‘Jus over dare,' said Emily, her mouth full, while she helped herself to another forkful.

Matt gave up looking and turned around to find his dessert bowl empty, except for a few crumbs.

‘Sucker!' said Emily gleefully. ‘And I agree with Jess. It wasn't very good.'

Matt glared at Emily for a moment, then turned to Ben. ‘Bro,' he wheedled.

‘Nuh-uh!' said Ben. ‘If this is what I need to help me stand up to creeps like Krivlyakaev, then you couldn't possibly deprive me of it and live with yourself, could you?'

Matt gave up and dropped his fork on his empty plate.

‘You're too easily manipulated, Matt,' said Emily. ‘You just gave in to emotional blackmail, and you lost out on your rightful piece of cake because of your crush on the Russian ice queen.'

‘I'd like to thank you all for teaching me a valuable lesson today,' said Matt, eyeing the others carefully. ‘Next time, when we're on real a mission and it's eat cake or save my friends, you know what my decision will be.'

As the week wore on, the punishing physical activity and heavy subject load began to take their toll on Jess. When the 6:15 wake-up call went off on Friday morning, it was the most unwelcome noise she had ever heard. Her entire body ached and her brain was spinning from all the lessons and homework assignments. As a result she was feeling less than happy.

‘Uurgh,' groaned Jess.

‘What did I say about chit-chat?' grouched Emily, hurling a pillow at Jess, which smacked her right in the head.

Despite the pain she felt in every muscle, Jess leapt out of bed and ripped Emily's duvet off her.

‘Oi! Give that back,' yelled Emily.

‘Go get it,' said Jess, throwing the duvet out into the corridor.

Emily stormed through the door and Jess slammed it behind her and locked it.

‘Hey,' yelled Emily, rattling the handle. ‘Let me back in!'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, does that count as
chit-chat
?' said Jess, pulling off her pyjamas and changing into her combat fatigues.

‘Jess, you let me in right now or I'll–'

‘You'll what? Be late for class? Because I'm not opening this door until you apologise.'

‘Apologise? For what?' yelled Emily.

By this time a few bleary-eyed cadets were poking their heads out into the corridor to see what all the noise was about.

‘Oh, I don't know,' Jess yelled back, lacing her boots. ‘Throwing pillows at me. Not letting me
breathe
too loud in the morning in case it disturbs you. What else would you like me to add to the list?'

‘Come on, Jess. People are staring,' pleaded Emily quietly.

‘Apology first,' said Jess, tying her hair in a ponytail.

‘Fine. I'm sorry,' said Emily. ‘Can I come in now?'

‘Not until you promise to change your attitude,' said Jess.

‘Change my … what are you? My mother?'

‘Worse. I'm your roommate. I have to put up with you twenty-four/seven, and if I can't even let out a groan in the morning, then … um … that's your problem and you have to deal with it. Young lady,' Jess added, with a giggle.

Emily sighed. ‘OK. I'm sorry. I'll work on my attitude,' she grumbled.

Jess unlocked the door and Emily barged in. ‘But only with you,' she hissed. ‘If anyone else tries to talk to me in the morning, they're dog meat.'

Not wanting to push her luck, a smug Jess kept quiet on the way to Fitness Training.

‘How's it going?' asked Lieutenant Parry, standing at the door of the gym with a welcoming smile for the tired cadets. ‘Any takers for Memory Wipe yet?' His expression changed when he saw Jess and Emily arrive. ‘I understand there was a bit of a commotion in the dorms this morning. All sorted now?'

‘Just peachy,' said Jess, putting her arm around Emily's shoulders and smiling broadly.

‘Great,' said Lieutenant Parry.

With tired, overworked muscles, the morning's training session seemed even harder than the previous ones, and no one had any energy left to talk during breakfast. Even Ben was finding it hard to get excited about their next class, a special Espionage 101 lesson in the electronics lab, run by Herr Klug.

Herr Klug, on the other hand, was very excited, bouncing on his toes as he waited for the exhausted cadets to take their seats.

‘Good morning, cadets. I have a real treat for you today,' he said. ‘We will be testing a revolutionary new bug from P.E.P. Squad research labs: the ROACH 2000.'

Out of the corner of her eye, Jess saw something scurry across her desk. Ugh! A cockroach. She slammed her electronics textbook down on it and immediately a high-pitched wail erupted from the speakers on Herr Klug's desk.

Herr Klug winced as he muted the volume, then turned to the class and smiled. ‘Ah. Miss Leclair. It would seem you have located the missing one.'

Jess looked under her textbook. Instead of the guts of a smeared cockroach, a tiny pile of broken electronic circuitry lay on the desk. She shrugged apologetically and handed the remains to Herr Klug, who looked like a child whose toy had broken on Christmas morning.

‘ROACH is short for Remote Optical Audio Channelling. Two thousand is the number of the prototype – this is the two-thousandth version the lab has made. And from the relative ease with which Miss Leclair spotted it and destroyed it, we will have to start work on model 2001,' continued Herr Klug, shaking his head. ‘Never mind. This morning we will be testing the ROACHes. They are remote controlled. Please take one ROACH wristband between two.'

Half of the cadets went up to Herr Klug's desk, where he had a box of what looked like watches. Emily brought one back to the desk she was sharing with Jess. It had a digital display and underneath the display was a tiny joystick.

‘You can release the ROACHes by flipping open the display,' said Herr Klug, demonstrating. ‘Press the joystick in to activate them.'

Emily flipped the display open to reveal the little ROACH inside. She lifted it out and placed it on the desk in front of her. When she pressed the joystick it started twitching. The image of the world as seen by the ROACH popped up on the display.

‘Cool!' said Emily.

Jess shuddered. Although she knew the ROACH was just a tiny electrical gadget, the gleam of its wings and the way its antennae twitched made it seem like a real bug.

Emily moved the joystick to the left and the ROACH went left; she moved it to the right and the ROACH scurried back in the other direction. She moved the joystick in circles and the ROACH chased its tail.

‘This is neat!' said Emily.

‘What happens when it gets to the edge of the desk?' asked Jess, sitting well back from the desk and looking at the ROACH with revulsion.

Emily moved the joystick back to the right, and the ROACH walked right off the edge of the desk before tumbling to the floor. It landed on its back, its six little mechanical legs wiggling helplessly in the air.

‘They can walk up and down surfaces up to forty-five degrees, but any steeper and they tend to take a tumble,' laughed Herr Klug.

Telling herself that it was not a real cockroach, Jess picked up the ROACH and set it on its feet. Then it was off again.

‘The signal should have a range of several hundred metres, depending on the density and ferromagnetic properties of the surfaces between you and the ROACH,' said Herr Klug. ‘The ROACH transmits optical and audio signals back to the wristband. The optical output comes up on the display, and there is a wireless earpiece for the audio.'

‘So it's a real bug,' said Svetlana.

‘No, it's a robotic listening device with optical capability
disguised
as an insect,' said Herr Klug. ‘Your assignment is to test the signal strength of the ROACH, taking note of the distance from you to the ROACH and the type and thickness of material between you and the ROACH.'

‘Hey, Jess,' said Emily, ‘can you pick ours up again and hold it on the other side of Matt's head?'

Again, Jess fought back her impulse to stamp on it and picked up the ROACH, holding it on the opposite side of Matt's head to where Emily was standing.

‘Signal's extremely clear,' said Emily, tapping the earpiece in her own ear. ‘It's like there's absolutely nothing between the ROACH and the receiver,' she added cheekily.

‘Ha, ha,' said Matt, clearly unimpressed.

Meanwhile Ben was busy building a fort out of textbooks to see how the thick books affected the ROACH's signal.

‘Please be as adventurous as possible,' said Herr Klug from the front of the classroom. ‘The more research you do, the better your grade, and the more help you'll be giving our research labs.'

When the class was over, Emily picked up the tiny ROACH and popped it back inside the control unit.

‘This is a great gizmo. I'm going to test it on Monday morning in English. See if the signal can reach all the way from the classroom to my bed. But for now,' she said, glancing at her timetable, ‘it's time to get in touch with our artistic sides.'

Jess was surprised to see that the Art teacher was Miss Kwan, their Chinese teacher.

‘I can see by the looks on your faces that you weren't expecting me,' said Miss Kwan. ‘But I can assure you that we won't be holding any of the Art classes in Chinese until next term.'

The whole class drew in their breath nervously.

‘I'm
joking
,' said Miss Kwan and the cadets all relaxed. ‘Instruction in Chinese begins in summer term.'

Ignoring the horrified looks on the cadets' faces she continued. ‘This term we will be learning many of the techniques you will need for your contribution to the school musical. Anyone who wasn't too overwhelmed by the course descriptions at assembly will remember that transition-year cadets are responsible for props, costumes and make-up. Our first learning unit is cosmetics.'

All the boys groaned.

‘It might interest you to know that the top prosthetic make-up artists in the world are all male,' said Miss Kwan, making the boys sit up with interest. ‘Although that isn't a viable career option for any of you, of course, because you're all going to be spies when you graduate.

‘Today we'll start with faces. In the field we tend to use prosthetic masks if we want to disguise an operative or, in rarer cases, have the operative impersonate an asset or a target. So most often, the masks will look entirely human. Your task will be to create one of these masks for yourself. But as Art class is a chance for you to indulge your artistic expression, feel free to add some sort of disfigurement to your mask or even make it look like an animal or alien – the only limit to what you can do is your imagination.

‘For this exercise you'll be working in pairs. Could the cadets on this side of the room please stand up, take a latex head cap and a jar of Vaseline from the front desk, then introduce yourself to someone on the other side of the room who you haven't worked with before.'

‘Wow, having to make new friends,' muttered Emily as their side of the class stood up. Unsurprisingly, Matt paired himself with Svetlana (who looked less than happy about it) while Ben steered well clear of Krivlyakaev, opting for Lauren. Jess introduced herself to a tall boy named Aidan.

‘You will, of course, be making each other's masks,' said Miss Kwan once the class had settled. ‘For this we use a method called lifecasting. To start with, place the latex cap over your partner's hair and cover any facial hair, including eyebrows, with Vaseline.'

‘Do you want to be the moulder or the mouldee?' Aidan asked.

‘Mouldee doesn't sound too appealing,' said Jess. ‘Not that I think you'd do a bad job,' she added hurriedly. ‘It just makes me think of mildew.'

‘Right,' said Aidan. ‘I guess I'll be the first mouldee then.'

Jess pulled the latex cap over Aidan's hair, making sure it covered the edge of his hairline. Then she carefully coated Aidan's eyebrows and his attempt at sideburns with Vaseline.

‘Has everyone finished step one?' asked Miss Kwan, walking around the class handing out strip bandages and bowls of something slimy. ‘Now we begin on what is called a hard mother mould. The first step is to cover your partner's face with alginate. When it sets, the alginate will become the base of your mask. Even when set it's very flexible, so we'll build up a hard shell with quick-set bandages. Spread them evenly over your partner's face, working outwards from the nose.'

Jess grabbed a handful of alginate and slapped it on Aidan's face.

‘That's freezing,' complained Aidan, trying to shake it off.

‘That's not helping,' said Jess, rolling the next goopy handful between her palms to try to warm it up a little.

Once she'd covered Aidan's face with alginate, she smoothed strip after strip of quick-set bandage over it, building it up until it was quite chunky. Pretty soon half the class looked like the invisible man.

‘When you've finished, leave the cast on your partner's face for about ten minutes to harden, then you can swap,' said Miss Kwan.

Jess applied the final strip of plaster then went to see how her friends were doing. Ben's plaster mould was so perfectly smooth that it looked like he'd covered Lauren's face in white foundation cream. She couldn't recognise who Emily was working with, but Matt looked like he was in seventh heaven, having Svetlana as a literally captive audience.

‘Isaat en inutes et?' came a muffled cry from Jess's desk.

‘Oops!' she said. ‘Sorry, Aidan, let's see how this worked.'

Jess peeled the mask off Aidan's face.

‘That feels better,' he said, rubbing his cheeks. He glanced at the lumpy mask. ‘Handsome fellow.'

‘It's amazing how that doesn't come across when you're not covered in plaster,' said Jess dryly.

‘That's it. Grotesquely disfigured space alien for you!' said Aidan.

‘Those of you who have finished can put your moulds on the drying racks by the window, then take a skull cap for your partner,' said Miss Kwan.

Aidan smiled gleefully as he brought back the materials to make Jess's mask. ‘Your turn to go mouldy, gross alien girl,' he said.

Aidan had Jess in stitches describing how he was going to decorate the mask, while he spread the bandages over her face. ‘Over here I'll do a big collection of boils, where leaking reactor fluid from your spaceship's nuclear engine broiled your skin,' he said as he smoothed the bandages over her cheeks, ‘and these will be the bases for the tentacles sprouting out of your forehead here, here and here – stop laughing! You're cracking the alginate – and I'll build the nose up to look like a cross between a manatee and a toucan – hold still. How am I supposed to work with such amateurs? And as for your chin …'

Jess was a little disappointed when Aidan finally took the mask off and there was nothing but a plain, white plaster face.