14: Kart
George's first two weeks back on campus were some of the worst weeks he could remember as a Cherub. He was up every day at seven, working by nine a.m. and he wouldn't be done until nine in the evening. The last hour or two of the day was his chance to look at all the illegal notes other people had given him, brush up his essays and copy their answers, and once that was all done he was burnt out and sometimes fell asleep without even getting undressed. Six relentless days like this led up to Sunday, which he partly spent catching up on sleep, partly looking over his borrowed notes, and partly trying to catch up with his friends about everything that had happened while he'd been busy with his work.
"They're looking for people to go on a training exercise that the SAS are setting up," Letty told him over a relaxed Sunday lunch. "There's a sign-up sheet in the library."
"Rose already told me I wasn't eligible," George said sadly, spearing some broccoli with his fork. "Sounds like a fun one, though."
"More like two days getting cold and muddy in a tent," Letty said. "But, apparently there's a big barbecue thing afterwards which does sound pretty cool."
George sighed. "Well, after today it's just seventy-eight days until I have my exams and then freedom."
"What's worse, this or Basic Training?" Beatrice asked him, smirking.
"Basic was worse," George shrugged. "But at least then you didn't know what you were missing out on."
"Hey, you spent Basic with me," Letty smiled, nudging him. "Can't have been that bad."
"Two thousand words on the Tudors," Rex announced as he arrived with a tray of food, handing George three neatly stapled pieces of paper.
"Keep it down," George said, folding the essay and putting it into the pocket of his combat trousers with his good hand. "Someone could overhear."
"Sorry," Rex said, digging into his Yorkshire pudding. "Just remember I've done you this favour."
George was still suspicious about why everyone was helping him. He hoped it might just be because they didn't like seeing him suffer, but that didn't sound plausible. On the other hand, no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't think of a single reason why everyone would help him out like this for nothing in return.
"Any plans for this afternoon?" Letty asked him, mopping up the last of her gravy with half a roast potato.
"More work," George said. "Need to look over this essay of Rex's, and I've got Russian first thing tomorrow so I need to do a cheat sheet from Beatrice's notes."
"Sucks," Rex said. "I think there's supposed to be a decent kickabout being set up. Seventh floor versus sixth."
"Don't tempt me," George sighed. "Just seventy-eight more days and I'll be done."
As helpful as everyone was being, nobody actually wanted to spend their Sunday afternoon sitting indoors watching him revise, so George trudged back up to his room on his own and, after fishing a can of orange Tango out of his fridge, got cracking with his work. He'd only been going twenty minutes when someone knocked on his door. He found that he was actually glad of the distraction and hoped that Rex or Letty had relented and decided to hang out for the afternoon, but when he opened it was Bianca again.
"Thought you might need a study buddy," she said, holding out some folders. "I'm behind on my maths."
"Welcome to the palace of revision," George said, stepping back to let her in. "Seems like we're the only two on the whole of campus."
"Hopefully these will help," Bianca said, pulling out a Mars bar and a Snickers from her pocket. "Which one do you want?"
George grinned. "Mars," he said, and she shook her head.
"Wrong answer," she said, handing him the Snickers. "Mind if I use the bed?"
"Be my guest," George said, heading back over to the desk. "You can put the TV on if you want, some music or something."
While he munched Snickers and got back into the Tudors, Bianca put on MTV Hits and spread out her maths books over his bed, sitting cross-legged with her back to the wall. They worked in silence for an hour, until George finished with History and moved on to Russian.
"Fancy a break?" George asked, spinning around in his chair.
"Thought you'd never ask," Bianca grinned, slapping her thick maths textbook shut. "If I see another quadratic equation my brain is going to explode."
"I need to go through Beatrice's Russian notes but there's millions of pages and the little squiggles make my brain hurt," George said. "It's so annoying that they're making me take Russian when I am pretty good at French and could probably pass it without revising."
"I suppose if they only made you take easy subjects you'd never learn anything," Bianca shrugged. "At least you've got her notes to look at."
"I can't work out why everyone is being so nice," George said, idly. "Rex especially."
Bianca looked at him for a second, like she was trying to decide whether to tell him a secret. "Okay, you can't tell anyone that I told you, but there's a rumour going around that Zara feels sorry for you because apparently you've had two rubbish missions and your birthday was crappy," she told him. "This is only a rumour, but you're supposed to be getting some kind of mega birthday party soon and everyone wants to be invited."
George stared at her. "I mean, that would explain why everyone is acting weird," he said, thinking it over. "But it's a wild rumour. My missions haven't been that bad."
Bianca shrugged. "I didn't make the rumour up, it's just what I've heard. And anyway, the rumour is that you only get to invite two or three people to go with you, so everyone is competing to be your best friend."
A week later, George had visited the medical centre to have his cast removed and Dr. Kessel had given him a program of hand and wrist exercises to do to regain strength.
"But to be honest, this might be the first time you've ever heard this, but playing computer games is actually good for you," he said, smiling wryly. "It keeps your fingers and wrists moving."
"If only I had time," George said, flexing his wrist and smiling back. "I've got way too much schoolwork to spend any time playing games."
George was still as snowed under with work as ever and he was no closer to hearing anything concrete about a party, so he put it down to the campus rumour mill making up ridiculous lies as usual. The only thing that had really improved about his time was that he'd agreed to go up to Bianca's room to study the next Sunday afternoon as well, since they were both still behind on work and it was better than sitting by himself all day. As he knocked on her door, a carrier bag with all his notes in one hand and chocolate bars in the other, it occurred to him that he'd never been in her room before.
"Hi George, come in," Bianca said when she opened up.
"Mars or Snickers?" he asked, holding out the Mars to her.
"Wrong answer," she giggled, reaching under his outstretched arm and tugging the Snickers out of his grasp.
"I thought last time you wanted the Mars bar?" George asked, confused, as he went inside.
"I'm allowed to change my mind," Bianca said, shrugging.
Her room was more or less what George had expected; she had a pink bedspread and a dressing table covered in makeup and girly toiletries, but otherwise it was a similar layout to his, with a window overlooking campus, a big TV on the wall with a YouTube playlist going and a desk with her laptop on it. She didn't have many posters up, but she had a big Australian flag hanging over her bed and on the wall by the desk was a map of Australia, full of drawing-pins and surrounded by snapshots.
"Nice room," George said, depositing his carrier bag on the floor. "Very Aussie."
Bianca smiled. "I want to go backpacking around Australia when I leave CHERUB," she explained, pointing to the map. "Spend an entire year there, at least."
"Cool," George said, looking at the map. "I was on a mission in Melbourne a few years ago, but the only other part I went to was Sydney, really."
"My parents were from Sydney," Bianca said, sitting down in her desk chair. "Your turn to have the bed."
George eyed the pink duvet cover. "Alright," he said, climbing onto it. "What are you working on?"
"Chemistry," Bianca said, showing him a revision guide. "Are you still on your Russian?"
"Sadly," George said, wiping a fake tear from his eye.
They actually got a solid couple of hours of work in and George eventually looked up from Beatrice's notes with a yawn.
"I don't suppose you've got an Xbox?" he grinned. "I could do with a few hours of blowing stuff up to take my mind off schoolwork."
Bianca rolled her eyes. "No Xbox, but I've got an old version of Mario Kart if you want to take a break," she said. "It'll take me a few minutes to dig it out and plug it in."
"Go for it," George said, smiling. "I'm warning you, though, I'm pretty good, especially now I'm back to full strength with both hands."
Bianca just nodded and dug around in the bottom of her wardrobe before extracting a battered-looking Wii and plugging it in, getting the wires sorted and handing George a controller.
"Best of three?" George asked. "Give you a chance to get your hand in."
"Why not?" Bianca said. "I might need you to remind me of the controls, too."
Halfway through the first race, George realised he'd been had. Bianca had the perfect touch, hitting every corner beautifully, knowing the exact line she needed and dodging whatever problems she hit with ease. George struggled to keep up, and by the final lap, she was cruising.
"I thought you were out of practice?" George asked as Bianca loaded up the second race.
"I never said that," Bianca smirked, pushing her hair out of her face and looking at him. "I said you might need to remind me of the controls, but it turns out I remember them just fine."
Bianca thrashed him in all three races, and she even stopped on the finish line of the final race and waited for him to get closer, before tapping the throttle button to win at the last moment.
"Diabolical," George said, dropping his controller in frustration. "It's not even a proper racing game."
"Oh, I'm useless at real racing games," Bianca admitted. "On my mission in Australia I played Mario Kart practically every day with my foster family. I watched a few tips videos online, too."
"Can't believe you kept that quiet just so you could humiliate me," George said, lying on his back on the bed. "Unbelievable."
"I bet that Russian revision is looking pretty attractive right now," Bianca laughed.
"You suck," George said in response. "This is the last time we're gonna hang out."
Bianca smiled. "Anyway," she said, getting back to the desk. "If I get through this last bit of Chemistry, all I'll have left is some French and then I think I might finally be up to date on all my homework."
"I can help you with French," George said, sitting up. "My grammar is terrible but I'm still pretty fluent. Way better than Russian."
"Why doesn't it surprise me that your grammar is terrible?" Bianca said, giggling. "Sounds like you haven't exactly been studying your French textbooks."
"Nobody cares about grammar in real life anyway," George said, reluctantly picking up his Russian notes.