Chapter Nine

Max woke up. He felt extremely groggy. For a second, he wondered where Lauren was - she would normally have woken him up for school by now. And then he properly recognised the room as his new bedroom at CHERUB, and his heart sank.

It was real. All along, Max had been hoping that the past two days had been some part of an awful nightmare – but apparently, there was no such luck.

Slowly, the door handle began to turn. Frightened, Max lay back and pretended to have just woken up. A man walked in. He was stocky, with blonde hair and a set jaw. For some reason, he seemed familiar.

And then Max realised. This man looked exactly like a grown-up version of Jamie. He even looked a little like Max, although he had always looked more like his father. This must be his uncle.

"Hello?" whispered the man. He had a faint cockney accent.

"Max," he said. "I'm James – your uncle." Max sat up, and rubbed his eyes to clear the dust.

"Hi," he said nervously. As he got a closer look at James, he realised that the man looked absolutely shattered. His eyes were red and puffy, with deep grey rings circling them. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days – and rightly so. If this man was James, then he had just lost his last living relative from childhood.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am to finally meet you," he said softly, gazing at every feature on Max's face.

"Lauren…. Lauren always said she'd name one of her boys Max," said James. Max looked surprised.

"She chose my name first?" he asked. James nodded.

"Oh yeah," he said. "She was thrilled she had two boys, but she said you looked like the little boy she'd always dreamed of having. That's why you're Max. She said she couldn't have bared having a son that looked too much like me called Max." Max smiled. Somehow, this news made him feel like he was of equal importance to Jamie.

"So… how come we could never meet you?" asked Max. James sighed.

"Well, I used to visit a lot when you were little," he said.

"Especially when your dad passed away. But as you got older, you all started asking more and more questions about where I lived and what I did. We decided it was safer for all of us if you didn't know. But I've always kept up to date on you guys." Max nodded. This seemed like a reasonable excuse.

James paused. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but couldn't quite find the right words to express what he wanted.

"Now listen, Max," he said slowly. "The reason I'm here is because we're worried about you." Max looked at James and James was taken aback by how steely the little boy's stare was.

"Are you not worried about Megan as well?" he asked in a cold voice. James shook his head.

"No. Megan has a great deal of grief – that's normal. But you…. Max, we know that you often felt overshadowed by Jamie. We're just worried that you're not dealing with you grief in the normal way. After you collapsed last night –" James broke off.

"Well, you can't just bottle up all your feelings like that," he said. "Trust me. I know where you get it from, because Lauren was just the same." James ran his hand through his hair sadly.

"After our mum died," he said slowly, "she had to be sedated, because she was hyperventilating so much she would have passed out. Like you did last night." Max nodded.

"So how do I stop that?" he asked. James looked thoughtful.

"Well, Lauren always channelled her energy into doing something productive that stopped her… well, that stopped her thinking about what had happened too much. I mean, you've got to embrace your feelings to be able to get over them, but don't let them overwhelm you." Max nodded.

"I think I understand," he said. "But what am I supposed to 'channel my energy' into?"

"Well," began James, "How about basic training? And taking care of Megan?" Max nodded.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." James smiled, and grasped Max's shoulder.

"Lauren would be proud of you," he sad sadly. "Just keep going, Maxie. It'll be alright."