2: Crossword

… The two agents are anticipated to travel to Japan posing as children of the Mission Controller, who in turn will be posing as the CEO of a fictitious British technology firm seeking funding and support from the Japanese tech sector. A meeting will be set up between the Mission Controller and staff at the British Embassy in Tokyo to discuss ways to facilitate this support, and it is expected that sensitive documents brought to the meeting will be interesting enough to be copied and stolen. Whilst the meeting is taking place, the two CHERUB agents will attempt to be deliberately disruptive and difficult, and if the opportunity arises, break into an office and copy documents, leaving a trail of destruction behind them to cover their tracks…

- Extract from Mission Briefing for Letticia Katz and Kimberley Reynolds

Four months later, Birmingham Airport, UK

The period between Christmas and New Year was always slack for business travel and the airport wasn't especially busy in the middle of the afternoon.

"A decaf Americano, no milk, and two mango iced smoothies," Letty Katz ordered, standing at the counter of the coffee shop, looking up at the board as she said it.

"And two of the caramel blondies," Kimberley Reynolds added, pointing at them in the glass case. As the barista ducked out of sight to get the smoothie ingredients, Kimberley giggled.

"What's so funny?" Letty asked, pulling a twenty-pound note out of her shorts.

"I can't get used to your English accent," Kimberley said, trying to pull herself together.

Letty smiled. "If you get the giggles every time I open my mouth for the next few days you'll mess everything up," she warned, but Kimberley straightened up and mimed zipping her mouth closed.

"Last time I'll laugh, I promise," she said as the barista returned, using tongs to extract the two blondies from behind the counter and put them into a paper bag.

"One decaf Americano, no milk," Letty announced, handing the coffee cup to their mission controller, Jules Richardson. He put down his newspaper and smiled at her.

"Fantastic, thanks," he said, resting the coffee on top of the newspaper on the chair next to him and holding his hand out expectantly.

"What?" Letty asked, acting innocent as she sucked down the first inch of her smoothie.

"You very well know what, give me my change," Jules said, tapping a finger on his palm. "I'm not a cash machine."

Kimberley giggled again as Letty dug the coins out of her shorts pocket and handed them over. Jules glanced at them before dropping them into his own pocket. "Those smoothies aren't cheap," he observed.

"We got blondies too," Kimberley explained, shaking the paper packet at him.

Jules shook his head. "If I hear a single word out of either of you about waistlines or dieting, I'll remind you of this."

"Food in airports doesn't count," Letty said. "You burn all the calories walking to and from the gates."

Kimberley nodded, her mouth full of smoothie.

"Anyway, we've still got twenty minutes until the gate opens, so that should be long enough for me to finish my crossword if you leave me to it," Jules said, picking up the newspaper again and sipping his coffee.

"If you finish it now you won't have anything to do on the plane," Letty reminded him.

"Don't worry about that," Jules said, tapping his carry-on bag with his foot. "I've got a book of crosswords in Latin that I'm only halfway through."

"No need to show off, big-brain," Kimberley smirked, but he was already absorbed again and didn't rise to it.

Sixteen hours later, as their plane began its descent into Tokyo, Letty and Kimberley stared out of the window at the lights of the city reflected in the bay while Jules slept in the row in front. They'd flown business-class and enjoyed the reclining seats and decent meals, but after a stopover in Germany and the time difference, both Cherubs were tired and ready for nice hotel beds with proper blankets.

"Wakey wakey," Kimberley said, tapping Jules on the shoulder. He lifted up his eye mask and looked back at her. "We're landing soon."

Jules sat up straighter and smoothed down his shirtsleeves. "Thanks Kimberley. I've slept far too much, I'm going to be up all night."

Letty stuck her head over the seat. "How come you look like you just sat down? My hair's a disaster," she said, feeling the frizz with her fingers.

Jules shrugged. "I just think you should always look your best. Helps your self-esteem. Anyway, I took off my tie and jacket, didn't I?" He looked over his shoulder at Letty in her shorts and baggy hoodie and Kimberley in top to bottom trackies. "I see neither of you made the effort."

"I want to travel comfortably," Kimberley protested. "And anyway, you're the hotshot CEO. We're just your snotty kids."

The steward came around and asked them to fasten their seatbelts, looking disapprovingly at Letty leaning over the seat in front.

They got snarled up in a queue to get through immigration, but after they got their landing cards stuck in their passports (Letty and Kimberley had fun looking through Jules's fake passport with all the stamps from pretend trips he was supposed to have taken), they grabbed their bags and as they wheeled them into the arrival hall. Letty was the first to spot George waving at them. He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers that looked like school uniform and he'd shaved his hair down to a number two again, which made him look older. Letty had to remind herself he wasn't even fifteen yet.

"Good flight?" Ewart Asker asked, shaking Jules's hand as George, Jemima, Letty and Kimberley exchanged hugs.

"All went smoothly," Jules replied. "Immigration took ages."

Ewart smiled. "I've got a diplomatic passport so when I got here, I left these two to queue and got myself a coffee."

"That English accent is so weird," George said to Letty as they followed Ewart towards the taxi rank. "You sound just like Rex and Kimberley."

"You mean posh?" Letty grinned. "Well, I am supposed to be Kimberley's sister."

Kimberley glared at her. "I prefer to think of it as speaking properly, unlike George's chavvy drooling."

"I've been putting up with George's chav speak for weeks," Jemima laughed. "He even speaks Japanese with a chav accent."

"Hey, I've only been learning for a few months," George pointed out.

"We got a couple of weeks of crash courses at home but to be honest I'm not sure I remember any of it," Kimberley said, anxiously. "It's so complicated with all the squiggles."

"Coming from the girl who speaks fluent Spanish, Russian and German," Letty smiled. "But since even the girl-genius couldn't learn it in two weeks, I had no hope."

"George won't hit the books and learn it properly so he just speaks this horrendous mixture of slang and bad grammar," Jemima said, watching as Ewart waved down the seven-seater taxi they'd booked. "Annoyingly, all the Japanese think it's cute and love him."

"I thought they loved my good looks and charm?" George grinned.

By the time they'd reached the hotel it was already getting late, so Letty was brushing her hair and just wondering about putting her pyjamas on when Jules knocked on the door of their room.

"Fancy popping out to get something to eat?" he asked, jacket and tie back on.

"I was thinking maybe we'd just grab room service and get an early night," Letty told him. "Kimberley's in the shower, anyway."

"Oh come on," Jules said, shaking his head. "Japanese food culture is fantastic. We'll find a little place round the corner from here and you can have something ten times better than room service, and still be in bed in an hour."

"That does sound good…" Letty considered.

Jules gave her a thumbs up. "I'll meet the two of you in the lobby in ten minutes. The front desk probably have some recommendations."

Once they were safely sitting at a table at the back of a busy restaurant a two-minute walk from the hotel and everyone had ordered noodles with vegetables, Jules ran over the plan for the next day again.

"We're expected at the Embassy at ten so we'll set off from here no later than nine fifteen," he said, expertly using chopsticks to swirl his noodles into a ball and then putting them into his mouth.

Kimberley was struggling with her chopsticks. "Is there anything you're not good at?" she asked, watching a lump of cabbage slip out of her grasp for the third time.

"When I was at school I was useless at music," Jules admitted. "I still get the baroque and romantic movements mixed up."

Kimberley and Letty exchanged looks.

"Don't look at me," Letty said to Kimberley. "You're a mega genius too. I'm the stupid one sitting at this table."

"All Cherubs are above average intelligence," Jules reminded her. "It's a requirement to be accepted for basic training, really."

"I find it hard to believe that George's intelligence is above average," Kimberley grinned.

"Maybe he's the exception," Jules laughed. "Anyway, let's run over your roles when we're at the Embassy one more time."

"I've got the high-speed document scanner," Letty said. "I'll have it down the back of my pants to get past the metal detector."

"Ewart says the detector probably isn't sophisticated enough to pick up the scanner anyway," Jules reminded her. "Don't act suspicious and if they do find it, pretend it's an illicit phone for texting your boyfriend."

"Or girlfriend," Letty reminded him in turn.

"Or girlfriend, your choice," Jules nodded. "Kimberley?"

"I've got the extendable plastic baton that I'll put up my sleeve and I'll wear my Timberlands," she said.

"Perfect," Jules said, pushing the last few noodles into his mouth. "The meeting shouldn't be longer than an hour and a half but I'll try and drag it out as much as I can. I know you're tired but either before bed, or in the morning, I want both of you to go over the information George and Jemima sent over to us about what kind of documents you're looking for and what names might be important."

Letty rolled her eyes. "There's eight pages and half of it's in Japanese," she moaned.

"Don't worry about memorising it all, but if you've looked at it with fresh eyes, you might just remember something at the crucial moment," Jules said. "This isn't a holiday, ladies."

"What about leaving?" Kimberley asked. "Are we still planning to wait for you?"

Jules nodded. "If you've given me the twenty-minute head start like we agreed, then even if they kick us out early it won't really matter. I'll meet you in the park on the other side of the road if we get separated, but if they want to get the police involved, just come straight back to the hotel and sit tight. The Japanese authorities won't want a fuss so it will probably all blow over."

"What do we do with all of this leftover soup?" Letty asked, looking at the hot broth in her bowl. "You can't eat it with chopsticks."

Jules grinned. "Watch and learn," he said, picking his bowl up with both hands and drinking directly from it, tipping his head back until it was all gone. Then he stuck the bowl back down on the table and smacked his lips.

"Noisy eating is a sign that the food is good over here," he told the girls as they looked disgusted at him wiping a dribble of soup off his chin.

Letty tried sipping at her soup. "At least it tastes nice," she conceded. "This is way better than the Japanese stuff you get back in the UK."

"I'm full already," Kimberley announced, putting her chopsticks down.

"More for me," Jules said, scooping her bowl over onto his side of the table and attacking it with his chopsticks. "I don't know why, but I'm ravenous after all that airline food."