10: Probation
Even though it wasn't yet six in the morning, Natalie's mum was waiting outside the apartment, looking furious. Her lips were thin and she had deep wrinkles around the corners of her eyes which made her look old.
"Come with me," she said to Natalie, in barely more than a whisper. She looked at George angrily, but didn't say anything, bundling Natalie into a taxi. George had expected Natalie to make more of a fuss, but she went with her mum compliantly, and George trudged up the steps to their apartment, pausing on the top step to watch the taxi drive away.
"Nice night?" Ewart asked cheerfully, dressed in a dressing gown with a mug of coffee in his hand as George pushed off his shoes and let out a giant yawn.
"Absolutely exhausted," George replied. "All these late nights are killing me."
"Well, chop chop, you've got school in a few hours," Ewart said. George stared at him, eyes boggling.
"I literally haven't slept in nearly twenty-four hours, you can't seriously expect me to-" he started, but Ewart laughed.
"Ha ha, very funny," George said, annoyed. He wasn't in the mood for jokes as he sloped off to his room.
George slept until lunchtime, but still felt out of it as he lazed around the apartment all afternoon. He wanted to have a nap but knew if he slept too much he'd be up late again, so he forced himself to stay awake, alternating between doing an hour of campus schoolwork and an hour of gaming. The schoolwork was far from his best efforts, but he was pleased he'd actually done most of it by the time Jemima got back from school.
"Can't stay long, I'm going over to Will's in a bit," Jemima told him, eating biscuits straight from the packet. "While you were away yesterday evening me and Ewart were working on a plan to try and get into Will's dad's secure emails."
George nodded. He had some vague memories of discussions about this. "The one you couldn't crack?" he asked.
"That's right," Jemima said. "It automatically changes every hour so keylogger software doesn't do it, and breaking the algorithm would need hundreds of hours with a supercomputer."
"What's the big plan, then?" George asked, rubbing one eye sleepily.
"I've noticed that Will's dad tends to use the computer at about seven p.m.," Jemima told him. "The bugging software I installed will send me a notification when he logs into the secure email, then I'll set up a diversion. My hope is he'll leave the computer unattended and I can sneak on and have a snoop."
"Superb," George nodded. "Did we ever hear back about that office we broke into?"
Jemima sighed. "If you were ever here and not running off with Natalie every five minutes, you'd know. Everything came back clean – tons of stuff about bribing government officials, though, so we've passed that over to the Japanese police. But nothing for us."
"Boring," George concluded. "Alright, so if we can't crack Will's dad's email, we're probably done with this mission, right?"
"Or if we crack it and he's clean, yeah," Jemima confirmed. "Ewart's making a big stink about other possible leads but they're all just speculative."
"Maybe he's shacked up with some random woman from the Embassy and doesn't want to go back to Zara," George grinned.
Jemima rolled her eyes. "Don't be a knob," she said. "Anyway, I've got to run or Will will wonder where I've been."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise you had a hot date," George said, putting on a posh voice, and Jemima glared at him.
"Some of us didn't spend all morning in bed and all afternoon in front of the TV," she hit back. "I've been working on the mission while you've been sitting around here."
"I was out all night," George countered, but he'd annoyed Jemima and she stormed off, slamming her bedroom door.
When Ewart got back, George was dozing in front of the TV.
"Well I hope you had a nice, restful day," Ewart said, slapping some paperwork down on the kitchen counter. "I see you've used your time usefully and cooked something for dinner," he went on, sarcastically.
"I've actually done some schoolwork," George said, trying to wake himself up. "And I'm still knackered. I reckon I'll get an early night."
He'd misjudged Ewart's mood completely and next thing he knew Ewart had hooked his hand into his collar and yanked him up onto his feet.
"You may think this is an extended holiday but some of us are working," Ewart snarled, giving George a shove.
"Hey, what's with the attitude?" George shouted back, rubbing his neck where Ewart had grabbed him.
"I had to deal with Natalie's mother who is on the verge of a breakdown over her daughter's behaviour which she thinks you're egging on," Ewart listed, "Not to mention a call from the school asking where you were, on top of a full day's work and working on the mission. You, on the other hand, seem glued to the TV and I haven't had a single shred of evidence you're pulling your weight in weeks."
George brandished his arm in the cast. "If you hadn't noticed, some nutter broke my arm when I was trying to escape with all the evidence you wanted," he argued. "Not to mention hanging around with Natalie, which was the entire goal of the mission for me."
"Well now Natalie and her mum are barely speaking, so that's really going well," Ewart laughed, and George wished he could punch him in his smug mouth.
"That's hardly my fault, is it?" George raged. "And anyway, Jemima just spends her entire time shagging her boyfriend and hasn't come up with anything for the mission either."
"Shut your filthy mouth, George," Ewart spat. "Jemima has been working with me on the mission and is actually following up her leads. You don't see her in front of the TV for hours."
"This is a complete stitch-up," George said bitterly, shaking his head. "You can stick the mission, I've had enough." He turned forcefully on his heel and marched off to his room, shutting the door hard behind him. He half-expected Ewart to storm in after him, but instead he could hear Ewart chuntering to himself and clattering pots and pans around in the kitchen. George got into bed, turned off the light and lay on his back, stewing, cursing Ewart and Jemima and the whole mission until he tired himself out and managed to fall asleep.
His sleep cycle was completely messed up and, after several hours of drifting in and out of weird dreams about trains which went in circles, George eventually found himself awake and his phone told him it was half five in the morning. He hadn't eaten any dinner the previous night so he was ravenous, and he didn't want to wake the others up by getting straight in the shower, so he sat at the kitchen counter in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, eating breakfast cereal and catching up on texts from his mates on campus.
UR LOVERGIRL NATALIE WAS ASKING AFTER U
He texted Letty. It was still the evening in the UK so after a few minutes he got a reply.
HA HA HAVE FUN BEING SINGLE
He rolled his eyes and half-wondered whether Letty and Rex were hanging out, since that seemed like a comment Rex would make.
Ewart got up at half six and eyed George warily as he walked into the kitchen.
"Sorry about yesterday," George said, quickly. "I was tired and shouldn't have got angry."
"Apology accepted," Ewart said. "I'm pleased to see you've got the maturity to see where you've gone wrong."
George didn't say anything and went back to his phone, but underneath he was fuming. Ewart had started the row yesterday and wasn't even going to apologise for it. But he knew that Ewart could hand out punishments back on campus and it was never a good idea to cross the chairwoman's husband, so he bit his tongue and headed for the shower.
He also apologised to Jemima and, since he was up early enough, caught the train to school with her.
"Don't worry about it," Jemima said, smiling. "I've always known that you're an idiot."
"Ewart really annoyed me, though," George whined to her, keeping his voice down. "Accusing me of not doing anything for the mission."
Jemima's brow creased. "That's not really fair, you've searched Natalie's house and that office operation was pretty dodgy."
"Exactly," George said. "He's just annoyed because the mission isn't going the way he wants it to."
"There's a rumour on campus that Ewart once screwed over Instructor Pike," Jemima added. "I don't know how, though."
"He's definitely the worst mission controller," George moaned. "I can't wait to go home."
Natalie was back at school that morning, and even though George and Charlie did their best to seem cheerful around her, she seemed listless and depressed all day, barely speaking. She never ate very much for lunch, but George noticed that she didn't even try to have anything except a few sips of water, and she hadn't done her makeup to anywhere near her usual standard.
Having missed days of school and with everything else going on, George wasn't surprised that when they were handed the results of their mid-term exams, his grades were uniformly terrible. He'd missed two exams altogether, so he'd failed those outright, and the rest were either further fail grades or very poor passes. Natalie was in a similar position, but even his attempts to commiserate with her didn't get any traction. He ended up with a meeting with his academic advisor, a boring-looking American bloke called Mr. Pearson, after school.
"George, I've had to speak to your guardian about these grades," he said, trying to sound severe, but his trousers were too short and George struggled not to stare at his expanses of hairy ankle. "Your step-sister is excelling here but your attitude isn't good enough."
"Sorry," George said dully, trying to engage. "There's been a lot going on."
Mr Pearson glanced at his broken arm. "I understand that you've been off school for a few days and haven't been at your best," he conceded, "But Japanese university entrance exams are very exacting and they won't accept this kind of excuse. We try to prepare you for the highest standards…"
Mr Pearson waffled on about elite universities and the number of doctors the school had produced, but George switched off. He'd be back on campus in no time and his school results here would mean nothing anyway, but he felt slightly guilty about Natalie. Maybe he should have tried to keep her from throwing such a wild party on New Year's Eve.
"… And after consultation we have decided to put you on academic probation," Mr Pearson finished. George realised he was supposed to respond and did his best to look disappointed.
"It's just a warning that, if you don't improve, academically, we'll have to give your place to the school to someone else," Mr Pearson explained. "In the meantime, you won't be able to participate in any extra-curricular activities. Hopefully this is what you need to sort yourself out and improve."
George couldn't have cared less and didn't take part in any extra-curricular activities anyway, but he looked dutifully upset as Mr Pearson showed him out, promising to refer him to the school guidance counsellor for a further discussion about coping strategies if he was finding his workload too much. Natalie was waiting in the corridor outside for her turn to get the same lecture and George gave her a sympathetic smile.
"I'll wait for you," he said, as Mr Pearson called her in.
"Thanks," she said, smiling a little pathetically. George felt guilty again as she went in and Mr Pearson closed the door: whilst he could go back to campus and forget all about it, this was Natalie's real life and he felt like she didn't seem to be getting much luck lately.