25: Reward
After catching up with everyone on campus, George got an early night and woke up at five, so he used the time to catch up on some PlayStation games he'd missed while he was away. Rose looked in after breakfast to let him know that he had a mission debriefing in the chairwoman's office at eleven, a prospect that filled him with equal measures of excitement and dread. After a successful five-month mission working without close supervision, he was confident of getting a navy shirt, but trips to the chairwoman's office were usually accompanied by some kind of criticism, and after spending so long away he was miles behind on his schoolwork and was expecting to be hit with huge pile of catch-up assignments. He didn't start lessons until the following Monday, giving him time to get over his jet lag and acclimatise to being back in the UK, which was much colder and wetter than he was used to.
One upside to a long absence was that his CHERUB uniform was all clean, so once he was dressed he looked smart in an ironed grey t-shirt and combat trousers, although he'd grown a couple of inches and the t-shirt was getting dangerously short, so he made a mental note to ask Rose to get him some of the next size up.
He was glad he didn't need to leave the building to get to Zara's office, since it looked frosty outside and he'd been feeling the cold more keenly after missing the entire winter. He'd left plenty of time to get there, since there'd been nothing to do in his room except to look up six months' worth of football results, which meant that he was waiting at the receptionist's desk with five minutes to spare before the meeting.
"Go straight in," she told him. "Her half past appointment just left, so I'm sure she won't mind."
George remembered to knock on the door before he barged in, getting flashbacks of the last time he forgot to knock, but Zara told him to come in and, when he stepped in, she was sitting behind the desk wearing all of her clothes, much to his relief.
"Hi George, take a seat," Zara said, snapping shut a plastic folder she'd been reading and putting it into her out-tray. "You're looking tanned."
"Thanks," he replied, smiling and sinking into the comfortable chair opposite the desk.
"Mint?" she asked, pushing a tupperware with mint imperials in it towards him. "I'm trying it out as a new tactic to make you kids like me more."
George felt that he couldn't refuse and sat there rolling the mint around his mouth while Zara pulled up the mission file on her computer screen.
"So," she began, "as you've probably guessed, Pete Graham is still in Australia and can't do your debriefing himself, so I'm stepping in.
"From the looks of the reports we've had on campus from him and from your ASIS controllers, this seems to have been a highly successful mission, don't you think?"
"Yes, miss," George replied politely.
"I'll say it now so it's out of the way; I think you did a fantastic job and my colleagues at ASIS think the same. I could sit here all day telling you what you did right, but in my experience, Cherubs have big enough egos as it is. So instead I'll focus on the problems."
Zara's expression wasn't particularly stern, but George still felt a sinking feeling.
"The main thing is that, in a few of Katie's reports, she says that you lost motivation for continuing the mission aims and were reluctant to carry out direct orders. Is this true?"
George shrugged. There was no point lying. "Yeah, sometimes. It was normally because I couldn't see how I was doing the mission any good, I think."
Zara nodded. "Often you just have to trust the judgement of your superiors. It must have been difficult to focus over the course of such a long mission early in your career, but if you don't stick at it, your efforts are normally wasted."
"Yeah, I understand. Katie said basically the same thing," George said, glad it hadn't been worse.
"That brings me to the next point. What was working with Katie like?" Zara asked, her tone changing from businesslike to curious.
George smiled. "She's great. I don't know why anyone has a problem with her. She's probably got a bit of a short temper at times but she was usually nothing but nice to me."
"The boy she shot on the exercise is still undertaking physiotherapy. How do you feel about that?"
It was an awkward question, but George felt more loyal to Katie after living with her for so long. "She obviously shouldn't have done it, but it was probably just the red mist or something. If she'd wanted to hurt me, she had plenty of chances but never did."
Zara nodded. "She must have told you that her CHERUB career is almost over, but I have to write references in case she applies for future intelligence work. I'll take your views into account, since I think, of anyone, you've worked most closely with her and ASIS have nothing but good things to say about her. I think the phrase was 'most valuable intelligence asset in the past decade'."
George was suitably impressed. "So I suppose she'd get a black shirt if she hadn't already got one?"
"I would think so. ASIS have recommended her for the Australian Bravery Medal, which, if awarded, would be the joint third-highest honour awarded to an agent on active service since CHERUB was founded," Zara said, a hint of pride entering her voice.
"She deserves it," George agreed. "The mission was mostly her."
Zara smiled. "Well, your role was important as well, so don't put yourself down. ASIS commended your performance and I'm sure that once you're caught up with your work, you'll be in high demand for future missions. However, I'm sorry to say that I won't be awarding you a navy shirt for this mission; it requires outstanding performance and while you obviously exceeded yourself, I'd prefer to see you take more of a solo role before I an award it."
Disappointed, George tried not to let it show. "Well just get me onto the first available mission," he grinned.
"I have every confidence that it won't be long," Zara said. "Now, the final matter is about some two thousand Australian dollars that you earned from illicit activities whilst on the mission."
George felt sheepish as Zara withdrew a bundle of notes from her desk and placed them in front of him. "I spoke to Pete about them," he explained.
"I gather he did most of the asking," Zara said, raising an eyebrow. "I suspect that you may have been planning to keep this for yourself had he not noticed, but I can't prove anything so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Have you thought about what to do with it?"
George shook his head. "If it helps, I didn't really spend any of it, maybe twenty dollars on food or something."
"We'll dock that from your CHERUB allowance and add it to the total. Normally agents like to donate it to charity or similar, have you thought about this?"
He'd always hoped that he might eventually be reunited with the money, so he hadn't given it any serious thought. "I suppose giving it to charity would be fine."
"Katie is donating her wages to a charity that improves sporting facilities for disabled youngsters across Australia, so we could add it to hers?" Zara suggested.
"Sounds good to me," George said, nodding.
"Well then, that's everything," Zara said, sweeping the cash back into her desk. "I expect your handler will have plenty of schoolwork waiting for you starting next week, so I won't keep you."
George stood up and headed for the door, wishing he'd earned his navy shirt. Everyone had been half-expecting it and it didn't take much for people to start taking the mickey out of him.
To George's surprise it wasn't his shirt colour that people made fun of; Letty was actually quite nice to him about it, and nobody else had got theirs yet except for Ralph, who was nice enough not to rub it in. Instead Jemima and Letty teased him mercilessly about his new deeper voice and the fact that he'd got a zit developing on his forehead. Rex joined in the teasing, but he'd got a spray of spots on his chin and went red whenever anyone mentioned them.
"Don't worry about it," Michael said, overhearing the conversation as he carried a tray laden with extra helpings of food back to his table. "You'll get plenty more before you're done. Anyway, congrats on the mission, sounds like it went well."
"Thanks," George smiled. "How's it going with Lucy?"
Michael shook his head. "Nightmare. One minute she's all over me, the next minute she's spreading rumours that I've got herpes. Don't ever get involved with women, they're all crazy."
George laughed. "At least she's creative."
"Not so funny when you get an appointment made for you at the campus clinic," Michael said, but he cracked a grin.
"Have you seen Katie around?" George asked. "I'm not in any of her classes or anything so she's hard to track down."
"She's been having meetings about what she wants to do after CHERUB, I think," Michael replied. "People are still giving her the cold shoulder after that training exercise so she eats in her room, so you're best off trying her there."
"Cheers," George said, getting up to take his dinner tray to the bins. "I'll go and see if she's there now."
Katie lived on the sixth floor, which used to be the preserve of older CHERUB agents, but now that most of them were leaving, she was one of the last of the older crowd left amongst lots of agents who were George's age and younger. He knocked on the door and waited, hoping he wasn't disturbing her.
"Hi George," she said, smiling. "Come in. I'm just watching TV."
The room looked the same as when George had been in there last, but he noticed some more girly touches, such as a shelf covered in various creams and a giant teddy bear sitting next to the bed.
"Oh, well done on the award," George said, spotting an official letter from the Australian Government sitting on her desk. "Zara told me about it earlier."
Katie shrugged. "It's only an nomination, some kind of committee has to vote on it before I actually get anything. It's flattering, but I don't exactly think I deserve it."
George took a seat on her bed. "I think you do."
"You're sweet. Anyway, what can I help you with?" she asked, muting the TV.
"Just wanted to see how you're doing, since I never see you around at dinner," George said. "Michael says that people are still not being nice."
"I deserve it," Katie replied in a harsh tone. "I'm not going to complain. Anyway, I've been busy meeting with my handler and sorting out what I'm doing once I'm eighteen."
"What are you doing?" George asked.
"You know I have an older brother? Well he's getting a few months off work and we're going to go travelling, mostly around Asia and Europe. I haven't seen him for nearly a year so it'll be nice to spend some time together," Katie said fondly. "After that, I'm hoping to get an athletic scholarship to a college in the States."
"Sounds like you've got it all planned out," George replied, "but I thought you were supposed to have the scholarship already?"
Katie nodded. "I applied for some when we were in Australia, but they need you to set a fast time in a competitive race within the last year, which I couldn't do when I was out there. Did you hear about the CHERUB Olympics yet?"
George shook his head. "I think I can guess, though."
"Well, CHERUB used to have a kind of sports day each year, going way back. There are still records kept somewhere of all the best times. Since I need a competitive time, Zara's agreed to hold an Olympics day so I can run a sprint, and so everyone else can get involved too."
"That sounds awesome," George grinned. "I wouldn't mind getting in on it."
"It's at the end of March, just before I leave," Katie explained. "I'm getting back into proper training until then."
"Hope it goes well," George said. "You'll make it easily, though."
"The times they want are pretty competitive," Katie said, "but you get world-class coaching when you're there. The US has some of the world's best short-distance sprinters."
"I'll look forward to seeing you in action," George laughed. "Or, more likely, watching you falling over."
Katie lunged for him but he was ready and sidestepped it, but he gloated for a second too long and she pinned him to the wall.
"You're going to get the beating of your life for that," she said in mock anger, glaring at him as she twisted his arm behind his back. "Prepare for some pain, Georgie boy."