10: Settled
The house they'd leased for the mission was huge; George's new bedroom was bigger than his room back on campus, and it had a giant bathtub in the en-suite with about fifty different settings.
"Nice house," George grinned as he walked into the kitchen fresh from a shower, getting a thrill from sliding across the polished kitchen tiles in socks.
"Wait until you see the pool," Alice replied, flipping some bacon out of the frying pan and onto a plate. "You can eat as much as you want, I bought loads."
George grabbed a plate of bacon and eggs and took it over to the sofa, which was in front of a giant wall TV. It took a couple of moments to work out what was on each channel, but he found some cartoons and shovelled bacon into his mouth while Alice made a second batch for Katie.
"Get that Brian," Alice said when the doorbell rang. "I can't leave this."
Annoyed, George put his plate down and headed for the door, vaguely wondering why Katie had to take so long in the shower. He opened the door to two older teenagers who did their best to look polite.
"Hi mate, are your parents in?" one asked, giving George a friendly smile.
"Aunt Alice, there are some people to see you," George shouted. He heard her complain a lot about not having time, but she appeared a few moments later, giving the two teenagers a suspicious look.
"Can I help you two?"
This time the other teenager spoke. "Ah, yeah. We've got a good deal for you. There are a lot of robbers around here who'll take advantage of you, especially just after you moved in. So we're here to tell you we'll make sure nobody targets you."
"And what's the catch?" Alice asked, not sounding very pleased.
"You just pay us fifty dollars now and we give you protection for as long as you live here, guaranteed," the teenager said. "We only take cash."
Alice's eyes narrowed. "You two can think again. You obviously don't know who I am, but if you did, you'd be apologising pretty quick."
"Your loss, sheila," the boy said, turning and jogging back down the path. "We'll be back again when you've had all your stuff stolen."
"Can't wait," Alice shouted, slamming the door.
George laughed. "Wow, I didn't realise you had a nasty side," he said, heading back towards his breakfast.
Alice wasn't in the mood for jokes. "You can get ASIS on the phone before you go back to your breakfast and tell them what happened. I'm gonna phone up some of my clients and see if they can't give whoever those kids were a good beating."
George groaned and slid his phone out of his shorts just as Katie strolled down the stairs, her hair still wet from the shower.
"Your breakfast is probably burnt by now, Chelsea," Alice apologised. "You might be able to save some of it."
"It's okay, I'll eat Brian's," she replied, ignoring George's complaints. "He can make more later."
The cloud burnt off and by lunchtime it was hot and sunny by George's standards, so he spent his time cleaning out the pool and, despite vowing never to swim again after the gruelling fitness training he'd endured, found himself lazily completing a few lengths as the ASIS operatives arrived. Alice swapped with him as he got out since she wasn't allowed to listen in.
"Hi George, take a seat," one of the ASIS operatives said to him as he walked through to the living room, towelling his hair after changing. "I'm Dawn and my partner here is Linda."
George had envisioned a couple of tall men with sunglasses and smart suits, so he was surprised to see a pair of petite women with cardboard cups of coffee. Linda looked much older and had a nest of untidy grey hair.
"Good to meet ya," Linda said, shaking George's hand. "How are you finding Melbourne so far?"
George shrugged. "Haven't looked round much, since we've only been here for about six hours."
"I'd recommend spending a day doing some sightseeing," the older woman said, smiling. "There's a zoo and stuff."
"How's Pete doing? Haven't seem him for months," Dawn asked.
"Pretty good," George replied. "Seems busy."
"Pete's always busy," Dawn added. "Anyway, we've brought you a couple of bits and pieces you might need. George, we've got you some information about your new school and which classes you'll be in, and Katie, we've found some promising-looking leads for you to follow which should help you integrate into Melbourne's gangs."
Katie scanned the briefing. "Did you bring my college stuff too?"
Linda nodded. "It's not that uncommon for Australian youngsters to go to university overseas, so don't worry. As for athletics, there's a track about fifteen minutes away from here, but it's all grass. We've spoken to them and they're happy for you to practice there, but the best facilities are at Melbourne University, which is close to where George is going to school. We've arranged for a coach there, but you'll have to pretend to be a student."
Katie smiled. "Thanks. Sorry to be a nuisance like this."
"Not at all. What's the point of having all the power of ASIS if you don't use it?" Dawn grinned. "Anyway, the two of you can ask us questions or whatever you like, our phone numbers are on the briefings and there's an emergency number in case you need us in a hurry, but you might still be better off calling us directly."
"When does school start?" George asked, dreading the thought of early starts and an uncomfortable school uniform.
"Next Monday," Linda said. "I understand you'll be going into the final term of the first year there, so it shouldn't be too hard to make friends."
"Your big sister will come over and kick anyone who bullies you," Katie said sweetly, ruffling his hair.
"As if I'd need you," George replied, slapping her arm away. "I can look after myself, thanks."
Linda chuckled at them. "Anyway, according to what you said on the phone, you had a visit from one of Melbourne's street gangs this morning."
George nodded. "I can give you descriptions if you want."
Dawn shook her head. "Thugs are easy to find, but they're really the police's problem. Our main interest is finding out who calls the shots. Practically all of the street gangs answer to someone higher up, so it really helps our intelligence if we know who."
"Alice is organised crime royalty in Melbourne, so I expect that once that fact has filtered down, you'll be left alone, but it might take a couple of days, so take extra care," Linda added.
"Worth getting involved with them?" Katie asked.
"Maybe, but you're unlikely to get much interesting information out of them. Could make a good starting point."
The brochure advertising Melbourne Academy was full of well-behaved kids looking ridiculous and kept using words like 'excellence' and 'prestigious', so George knew he probably wasn't going to fit in. The worst part was actually the forty-five minute journey there, which needed him to get two trains. School started at half past eight, meaning he'd need to be up at seven.
"Unlucky," Katie grinned when he went to complain. "I'll make sure to lie in and not disturb you, since I don't have to get up."
"I'm already looking forward to the holidays," George said, trying to work out how many weeks away it was. "You can tell that all the kids at school are gonna be totally boring."
"Should make it easier for you to get on with Riley, though," Katie told him. "School always sucks, but you're lucky because you get to misbehave. Anyway, I'll go with you the first morning so you don't get lost, and since it's close to the university I'll just do some training. A London boy like you shouldn't have any trouble with the trains, though."
Katie spent her time reading or swimming and Alice went back to work, which meant that George was bored for the rest of the week before school started. He even agreed to go on a fitness run with Katie around the local area, but she was way faster than him and had to keep waiting, so he gave up after the first time, preferring to mope around indoors.
"Go and make some friends with the local kids," Katie finally said, fed up of him hanging around and whining. "They're about to go back to school so I bet there are some of them with not much to do either."
Annoyed, George took her advice and went for a walk, working out the fastest route to the railway station. There wasn't much to do in the area and he missed living in London, where there were shops on every corner, but he struck gold when he found a run-down park with a group of kids about his age and older hanging around. He spotted one of the lads who'd been to their door that morning, but as George approached he got up and cycled away.
Most groups of teenagers would instantly reject anyone who just walked up to them, so CHERUB basic training included a number of tactics to integrate yourself without forcing it. The easiest was to focus on the youngest members of the group, who were more likely to be friendly, so George strolled over and introduced himself to a couple of kids who looked like they were roughly the same age as him.
"Just moved in," he explained, ignoring the older kids staring at him.
"You're a pom?" one guy asked, chomping his way through a packet of gummy sweets.
George nodded. "Used to live in London," he said, stealing a sweet and getting some laughs.
"That's cool," one kid replied. "You play cricket?"
"Nah, mostly football."
"Aussie rules?"
"No, the real kind."
A few kids laughed. "You mean soccer. That's a girls' game."
George shrugged. "At least it's not as boring as cricket."
As the others started slagging him off, George felt better. He'd broken the ice, which was the difficult part. They moved up to let him have a seat on a bench and started telling him about the best places to go after school, or funny things that had happened during the holidays, but mostly they complained about school. Most of them went to a local school which sounded like a riot, and when George explained that he was going to Melbourne Academy, they didn't sound too impressed.
"Enjoy years of boredom," one kid grinned. "Everyone there does exactly what the teachers say."
This didn't make George feel any better, but he shrugged it off. "If I don't like it I'll just get myself booted out. Anyway, who was that guy who left when I got here?"
"Oh, that guy?" a skinny kid replied. "I don't know his name. He usually hangs around with older kids who are in a gang."
"You should avoid the gangs. They're crazy, especially the bikies," someone else said.
Everyone laughed. The skinny guy agreed."Bikies are totally insane."
Everyone drifted home once it started to get dark and George didn't feel like he'd made much progress, especially since he wouldn't be seeing any of them at school. Even back on campus he was used to kickabouts after lessons, and the idea of sitting in his room watching TV instead wasn't very appealing. The only consolation was that Alice noticed his bad mood and took him and Katie out for a day sightseeing in Melbourne, sparing no expense. George got three new PlayStation games, including two eighteen-rated ones he'd been after for ages, and they went to every attraction they had time for, including the zoo and dinner at a seafood restaurant overlooking the bay.
"School won't be so bad," Alice tried to reassure him once he'd finished eating a double chocolate sundae. "I know it's boring, but maybe you'll make friends."
"Doubt it," George replied, licking his spoon clean.
Katie tutted at him. "It's not like you get any choice, so you might as well stop complaining."
"All you ever do is sleep until the afternoon and exercise, so you've got it easy," George said, rolling his eyes.
"I don't exactly see you doing much more," Katie replied, her eyes narrowing, but before George could say anything to land himself in more trouble, Alice intervened.
"Okay, Brian, Chelsea, that's enough," she said, slapping her hand on the table between them before dropping her voice. "I don't have to look after you two, so if you start yelling at each other, I'm gonna tell you both to stick it and I'll go back to living on my own."
George and Katie both knew this wasn't exactly true, but they took the point and went back to being quiet.