11: Riley
Melbourne Academy had a navy blue uniform with a pale blue tie, which was better than some George had seen so he didn't feel like a complete prat when he got the train to school. He'd been afraid that Katie would still be angry at him and not go with him in the morning like she'd said, but she'd been up early for a swim and spent her time fiddling with her new mobile phone while the train trundled towards the city centre.
"Good luck bro," she said when they got to his stop, giving him a quick hug. "Let me know how it goes after school."
"Bye Chelsea," George said, waving to her as he jumped off before pulling his backpack onto his shoulders and following a pair of older boys wearing the same uniform. The school was just going into its final term of the academic year, so everyone would already know each other, making George's job harder. He only needed to become friends with Riley, though, and ASIS had done everything possible to make that happen. Most importantly, he'd been placed in the same form tutor as his target, which meant he caught his first glimpse as the teacher introduced him.
"This is Brian Ashworth, who has just moved here from England. Please make him feel welcome," she said, pointing to an empty seat he could sit in. George recognised Riley from the mission briefing and was pleased to notice the empty seat was right next to him. He looked slightly older than he had in the photo George had seen, and when he sat down Riley barely even acknowledged his presence.
Riley obviously expected George to be just another goody-goody with rich parents, and George found it hard to make an opportunity to impress him. He got lost on his way to the first lesson and arrived late, which meant he had to sit on the opposite side of the classroom from Riley, so he didn't get his chance until the second period, which was geography.
"Brian Ashworth?" the teacher asked, walking over to George's desk. "Ah, I've got a textbook here for you."
"Thanks," George said, doing his best not to sound too polite.
The teacher noticed his attitude and chuckled. "Ah, we've got a pom in the class… well, why don't I introduce you to Australia by asking you to clean the board for me?"
Most of the class laughed and George was embarrassed, but worst was the slight snort of derision that Riley made when he got up and walked to the front. Riley would never respect him if he let the teachers bully him, so when he saw the teacher's mobile lying on the desk, he grabbed it and broke into a grin.
"Oi," he shouted, pushing open the window as the teacher stared at him, eyes boggling.
"Put that down right now!" the teacher roared, lunging across the classroom to grab George, but combat training made it easy for George to duck the grab and casually flick the phone out of the window. It spun a satisfactory distance before disappearing out of sight and plummeting three storeys, smashing on a set of stairs beneath the window.
The teacher was practically foaming at the mouth as he dragged George out of the classroom. The class was deadly silent, except for Riley who was giving George a double thumbs-up.
The punishment for destroying a teacher's phone within three hours of arriving was a stern talk with the school's principal about values and respecting other people's property, a detention after school and a letter addressed to Alice asking for money to cover the cost of the phone. As George left the office for the morning break, he deposited the letter in the nearest bin.
"You are one cool guy," Riley said as soon as he spotted George heading for his next classroom. "Did you get in trouble?"
"Nothing I can't handle," George shrugged. "This school is full of swots anyway."
Riley shook his head quickly. "Not me. The rest of them are all like that, but I've been trying to get myself thrown out for the longest time."
George smiled. "Seems like you're the only one; in my school back in London, by this time in the morning there'd probably be a couple of stabbings." He was exaggerating, but Riley swallowed every word, his expression like that of someone who'd met their favourite film star.
"You have no idea how long I've waited for someone else who doesn't care about the rules," Riley said. "I've been going mad in this place. I'm Riley, by the way."
"Nice to meet you Riley, I'm Brian," George replied. "I've got a detention after school, so if you feel like keeping me company I'd be cool with that."
Riley grinned. "I'll do my best."
George didn't really care about the detention, which he'd planned to skip anyway, but he wanted to see if Riley was actually going to make trouble, or whether he was just a lonely kid who was all talk. All of the well-behaved kids ignored the two of them and sat as far away as possible, as if you'd get into trouble just for being nearby, but it meant that their new friendship felt even stronger.
"What should I do?" Riley whispered, halfway through a history class that George wasn't listening to.
"I don't know, I'm not your mum," George replied, shrugging.
Riley decided to throw bits of paper at a girl sitting in front, which George thought was hilarious because she had huge braces and her lips struggled to cover them up, which made her look like an ugly kind of fish.
"Stop it," she lisped, turning around in her seat. George pretended to wipe her spit off his face, which made Riley laugh.
"Riley, stop that," the teacher said firmly, noticing what was going on.
George expected him to settle down, but Riley just responded by tearing a page out of the textbook and shoving it down the back of his underwear.
"You'd better put that straight in the bin, boy," the teacher barked, pointing his finger at Riley.
Riley shook his head. "This one's for you," he smirked.
"You haven't got the balls," the teacher said, puffing up his chest and striding over.
"Oh really?" Riley responded, undoing the button on the front of his trousers. The teacher finally lost his cool when Riley's trousers hit the floor and George broke into uncontrollable laughter. The teacher flipped a table and went bright red from shouting, ordering both Riley and George out of the classroom. Riley added to the mayhem by waddling there with his trousers round his ankles, tripping halfway and avoiding falling by grabbing some kid's jacket, which tore spectacularly.
"Don't even consider coming back," the teacher raged, slamming the door in their faces. George hadn't got over his fit of giggles and had to lean on the wall for support as Riley smugly did his trousers back up.
"I thought you might have been all mouth, but you're the real deal," George finally said, getting his breath back as they made their way to the principal's office.
"You know what, screw school. Fancy going home?" Riley said, pushing open a fire door as they passed.
"Why not?" George asked with a smile, following Riley's lead out of the door.
There were only so many places they could go, since the two of them were wearing their school uniform, and they ended up getting lunch from a takeaway and hanging out in the park in central Melbourne. George was feeling pleased with himself; he'd made friends with Riley and managed to get an afternoon off school on the first day. The only thing that took the shine off was a phone call from Alice.
"I've just been talking to the school and they say you haven't gone to your afternoon lessons."
She didn't sound very upset, so George played it cool in front of Riley. "Yeah, I didn't feel like it so I bunked off."
"Is that okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's no problem. I'll be back later on."
Riley was in awe again as George ended the call. "Your mum doesn't care?"
George shook his head. "She's my aunt, actually, and no, she's pretty relaxed."
There were a few mothers with pushchairs giving them suspicious looks, so they started walking towards the station.
"We can go back to my place if you want," Riley suggested.
"Would it be okay with your parents?" George asked.
Riley shrugged. "My dad couldn't care less, but my mum might go a bit nutty. Don't worry, I'll work it out."
As they arrived at Riley's house, George marvelled at how well ASIS had planned the mission. He seemed to be perfectly suited to being Riley's friend, right down to the fact that he recognised Riley's house from the surveillance photographs and felt like he'd been there before.
Riley went to find his mum and showed George into his bedroom, which was huge. It was hard to focus on the mission, like good places to put bugs, when there were two giant televisions and a working pinball machine to distract him.
"I'll just get my dad to talk to her," Riley said when he got back, carrying two cans of Coke. "She always moans that I'm not doing any work, but my dad never did any at school and he turned out fine."
"Better than fine by the looks of things," George replied, cracking open his can. "You're loaded."
Riley laughed. "True. Having two swimming pools is pretty sweet."
"What does your dad do?" George asked, trying to sound nonchalant as Riley booted up his PC so they could play games.
Riley shrugged. "Don't really know. It's definitely something dodgy, he never goes anywhere without his bodyguard, but I don't really understand all the stuff he talks about."
George nodded, grabbing a controller. "My aunt's the same, she does some money stuff and I never have a clue."
Riley had a long drink of his can. "Parents are boring," he concluded, scrolling through a list of games. "Which one do you want to play?"
Without knowing Riley better, George decided not to push it in case Riley got suspicious. He had plenty of time to get information as it was, so after picking a game he slouched on a bean bag and thought about how good he had it compared to his friends back on campus who didn't get to spend all afternoon playing computer games instead of going to lessons.
When Riley's dad got back, George deliberately made an excuse and went to the toilet, planning to bump into him and get his first look at his target. Zach Kurjak looked like a fairly normal middle-aged man, starting to bald and struggling to fit his trousers around his waistline. George was expecting an icy reception, so he was surprised when Zach gave him a friendly handshake and a high-five.
"I hear you're keeping my Riley in trouble," Zach grinned, kicking off his polished brown shoes. "Good on you mate. I'm fed up of my wife trying to make him behave."
"You're the one who can go into school and explain what's been going on, then," Riley's mum, who George knew from the briefing was called Maria, replied, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. George avoided her stare and ducked into the toilet, blocking out the sounds of Riley's parents bickering.
"Listen, I'll get one of the boys to run you home in the car. Faster than the train," Zach suggested when George stepped back out, wiping his hands on his trousers.
"No problem," George replied, suspecting that Zach wanted to find out what his background was before he was let back into the house. ASIS's set-up was rock solid though, so he had nothing to worry about.
Zach grinned. "How're you liking Australia? You've got a pretty strong British accent."
George nodded. "It's pretty good. Less rain than I'm used to."
"Have you been spotted any drop bears yet?" Zach said, being serious for a moment.
"Eh?" George asked, confused.
"Drop bears. They're a kind of vicious marsupial that drop out of trees and attack people."
George shook his head. "Not seen any. I am pretty concerned about spiders, though."
Zach looked grave. "Make sure you keep an eye on trees. Drop bears are everywhere in Melbourne and they can really injure you. They're more likely to attack people who speak in British accents, too."
"Really?" George asked, wondering why this wasn't in his mission briefing. "They sound really dangerous. Don't the authorities do something about them?"
Zach broke into a wide smile and George realised he'd been had.
"You really fell for it," Zach grinned, patting him on the shoulder. "Normally people realise when you mention the accent."
"I should've," George said, shaking his head. "It's so obvious now I think about it."
"Don't feel bad," Zach said. "I know a few poms who believe every word and go everywhere using a fake Australian accent to protect themselves."
Once he'd said goodbye to Riley, George found himself climbing into a bulletproof Bentley, which was a new experience. The driver sounded friendly, but gently asked questions about George's family that anyone who wasn't a trained CHERUB agent might not have recognised as information-gathering. George deflected them as best he could, while giving away enough information that Riley's family would think he wasn't a threat.
It was getting dark by the time he got in, and he found Alice and Katie sitting on the sofa watching some kind of lifestyle programme on the television.
"Good day?" Katie asked, blowing on her toenails to help the nail polish to dry.
George shrugged. "I'm Riley's new best friend and we spent the afternoon playing on his computer instead of going to double English, so I think I've done pretty well."
Katie grinned. "Nice one. You should probably type up a briefing for ASIS before you go to bed."
The idea of doing some work didn't make George too excited, so he just shrugged and grabbed a packet of crisps from the cupboard. "Maybe later. I was thinking about going for a swim, spending all afternoon sat around has made me feel fat."
"I'll join you," Alice said, stretching as she climbed off the sofa. "No sense in sitting around any longer."
George had already completed two lengths by the time Alice climbed in, and he did a slow breaststroke so she could catch up.
"Did you meet Zach?" Alice asked, kicking her legs lazily.
George nodded. "He seemed nice. Not exactly parent of the year, though."
Alice laughed. "I've only met him a couple of times, but we do business over the phone quite a bit. Did he like you?"
"Seemed to. He'll probably like me more once he finds out that I'm your nephew."
"Just be careful. He sticks to the money stuff, but he's got plenty of friends who wouldn't think twice about beating up a kid," Alice said, flipping onto her back.
"I can handle it," George said defensively.
"I'm sure you can," Alice smirked, kicking her legs and pulling away, leaving George to catch up.