16: Co-pilot

Saturday morning was bright and sunny. All the playing fields and grass around CHERUB campus had turned white with frost and when George looked out of his bedroom window in the morning, standing close to the radiator and enjoying the warmth, the handful of Cherubs who were out and about were shivering and breathing out clouds of condensation.

"Wakey wakey," Rex yelled, banging on George's bedroom door and trying to get in, but George had remembered to put the bolt across.

"Alright, alright," George said, dashing to open the door before Rex smashed it open.

"You ready?" Rex asked. He was already dressed in trackie bottoms and a black hoodie, sunglasses shoved into his hair.

"You look like a right idiot," George grinned. "What catalogue did you get this out of?"

Rex just reached out and messed up George's hair. "Top banter," he said, sarcastically. "You're not even dressed."

"Top observation," George replied. "I need to jump in the shower first, I only just woke up."

Rex rolled his eyes. "Hurry up, then," he said, pushing past George into the room and sitting himself down in George's desk chair, kicking his legs and spinning around.

Rose had asked them to dress warmly but that they didn't need to bring anything else, which suggested it probably wasn't an overnight trip. As they went down to breakfast, Rex was still convinced they were flying out to the summer hostel and back in the same day, but nobody else believed him. The rest of the Cherubs on campus had lessons on Saturday morning and the six of them, out of uniform, got quite a few jealous looks from others eating their breakfast at the same time.

"This is so cool," Beatrice said, sipping a glass of squash. "I'm getting out of double Art this morning, too."

George could feel himself getting excited as the other Cherubs all went off to their lessons, leaving just the six of them waiting in the cafeteria until Rose arrived. She was wearing a tight-fitting t-shirt tucked into jeans, leather boots and a short jacket, and her red hair was down, instead of in her usual bun. Rex's eyebrows shot up when he got a look at her, and Jemima poked him hard in the ribs, making him gasp.

"Put your eyeballs back in their sockets," she hissed.

"Ladies, gents," Rose announced as she got close. "Is everyone ready to go?"

There was a chorus of agreement.

"Minibus is waiting outside, but let me be crystal clear," Rose said, giving each of them the evil eye. "If someone so much as dares to misbehave while I'm driving, we're coming straight back. Understand?"

"Yes, miss," George said for all of them, but Beatrice gave him the kind of grin that suggested she had other plans.

George was expecting a long drive somewhere, so he was surprised when Rose turned off the main road before they got anywhere near the motorway. They followed country roads for half an hour before Letty had a brainwave.

"Miss, isn't this the way to the RAF airbase?" she asked from the middle seat at the back.

"I knew it!" Rex said, triumphantly. "We are going to the hostel."

"Quiet down," Rose yelled back at them, but when she turned off and followed a red sign that pointed to the airbase it was hard to deny.

"We can't be going to the hostel," Jemima repeated for the hundredth time, but Rex refused to believe her. George and Letty intervened before they got into a row, whilst Bianca and Beatrice sat in two seats next to each other, engaged in some kind of secretive discussion that they wouldn't let anyone else join in.

"Out," Rose said simply when they arrived, pointing to the door at the side of the minibus. Rex got up and slid it open, jumping out into the frosty air and banging his hands together.

"Too cold," he said as the others joined him, looking around to see what was next. Rose had parked alongside the building that joined on to the control tower, and George looked round to see a bloke in dark blue military uniform walking towards them, accompanied by a woman in a dark green flying suit.

"If anyone asks, you all go to a fancy private school in London," Rose hissed at them. "Or better still, tell them to mind their own business."

"Good morning!" the man said, holding out his hand and shaking Rose's, then going along and shaking hands with all the Cherubs. "I'm Squadron Leader Charles Kingston, the base commander here. Which of you is George?"

George held up his hand.

"George, meet Flying Officer Polly Weston," Kingston said, turning to the female pilot. "Weston, this is George."

"Nice to meet you all," Polly said, smiling and waving. "George, you come with me, please."

George was a little confused, but he followed Polly without complaining. They walked around the side of the control building and went in through a side door, passing by a small reception area and going through a set of double doors into a changing area.

Polly stopped and sized him up. "You're still a touch on the short side for a men's flying suit but I reckon you'll be alright if we just give you the smallest one."

George grinned. "We're flying?" he asked.

Polly nodded as she pulled a flying suit out of a locker and handed it to him. "Get yourself into this," she said. "I'm a friend of Flora Johnson's, we were on active service together way, way back."

"So this is what she meant by calling in a favour," George said, sitting down on a bench and shoving his feet into the suit.

"We've got permission to take a Hawk up today and we'll do a mixture of aerobatics and combat manoeuvres, plus you can probably have a go at taking the controls if you like," Polly told him as she zipped him into the suit and handed him a helmet. "Do you get air sick?"

"Not normally," George told her.

"Well I can practically guarantee you will this time, so I'll give you a couple of tablets and a sick bag," she said. "Don't worry, though, hopefully you'll have a fun time."

The other Cherubs weren't missing out; as George and Polly walked across tarmac to reach the black-painted Hawk jet, George spotted the others crowding around the main door of a Puma helicopter. Letty spotted him and gave him a big wave and he waved back.

"Up we go," Polly said, giving him a hand hoisting himself up into the cockpit. "You sit up front."

George had been in a variety of aeroplanes before, including jumping out of one on a training exercise, but he'd never been at the controls of a jet before and as Polly strapped him in, he couldn't resist hovering a finger over a trigger.

"Have you ever shot anyone down in one of these?" he asked.

"I did a tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, but flying Tornadoes," Polly told him. "This is just a training aircraft, but it's still pretty nippy when it needs to be."

She proved her point after they'd taxiied onto the runway, giving it the full beans for takeoff and blasting George into his seat. He watched the scenery rushing past as she pulled upwards, pushing him down into his seat until suddenly all he could see was blue sky. A minute later, she levelled out.

"Feeling okay?" Polly asked him through the intercom.

"Yeah," George said, looking around at the ground thousands of feet below. "That was incredible."

Polly circled and they watched the helicopter taking off, skimming close to the ground before gaining height, and Polly waited for it to reach position before exchanging a radio message with the chopper pilot.

"Okay, we're good to go," she said to George. "You ready?"

George nodded, then said 'Yes' through the intercom instead so she could actually hear him.

Polly didn't give him any warning; she rolled the jet over immediately, leaving George dangling and looking up at the ground, then swooped down, building speed in a dive then banking into a fast turn. George was totally unprepared for how fast the jet could go and each corner seemed to take no time at all. Polly gained speed and they blew past the airfield in a second, then she started gaining height.

"Still feeling OK?" she asked.

"Just about," George said. He felt slightly dizzy and his stomach had no idea what was going on.

Polly turned sharply and put the jet into a loop, watching the ground rotate above them, then she pulled upwards again until the ground receded beneath them.

"This bit's my favourite," she said, but before George could reply she pushed the jet into a dive, gaining speed. The ground went from a blur far beneath them to terrifyingly close and George instinctively grabbed hold of the straps holding him into his seat before Polly pulled out of the dive smoothly.

"Just topped one thousand kilometres per hour there," she told him, still sounding dead calm. "A bit faster than you can go in a car."

"Just a bit," George said, grinning nervously.

"We've got to be careful not to break the sound barrier around here or we get complaints. On active service I took a couple of Tornadoes over two and a half thousand kilometers per hour, but that was seriously scary even for me," she told him as she pulled into a wide turn.

"Alright, do you fancy a go?" she asked, holding the jet in a steady cruise. "I'll set your controls to live mode and talk you through some basic manoeuvres."

"Awesome," George said, watching buttons light up on his control panel. "Which one fires a heat-seeking missile?"

"Boys and their toys," Polly laughed.

They'd been in the air just over an hour when Polly touched the jet back down on the runway as smoothly as possible. The last fifteen minutes, after George had done his flying, were combat interception manoeuvres and Polly had shown him the jet's automatic missile system, flying rock steady so the system could lock onto the control building for a simulated ground strike. As they pulled up and Polly unlocked the cockpit, George realised he'd been sweating under his flight suit and his legs were a bit wobbly as they climbed down.

"Thank you so much," George said to her when he'd regained his balance and they were walking back to get changed.

"My pleasure," Polly told him. "You were pretty good at flying her; you could make a decent pilot when you're finished with school."

George laughed. "I'm not sure I can handle two thousand kph, but give me one of these bad boys and I'll tune the engine up for you."

Polly looked at him. "A mechanic, huh? Flora mentioned you were into cars."

George nodded. "Back on camp-uh, at school, I love getting in the workshop and under a car or something."

"Usually the ground crew boys maintain our jets but I'll see if I can let you take one home," she teased.

The other Cherubs were waiting in an empty training classroom on the base, talking excitedly about the helicopter ride.

"George!" Rex said when George stepped in, changed back out of the flying suit. "You should've seen it, Beatrice was egging the pilot on and he went straight after a herd of cows. They were stampeding and we were hanging out of the door, it was amazing."

"Sounds like typical Beatrice," George grinned, and Rose fed coins into a vending machine to get drinks for everyone.

"Alright, break for a drink and then back on the bus," Rose told them, handing out cans of Pepsi and Seven Up. "We've got more to come, yet."

George couldn't believe there was even more, but after another hour in the minibus and a stop for lunch at a roadside KFC drive-thru, which Letty complained about due to the lack of vegetarian options until Rose threatened to make her eat everyone else's coleslaw, they finally pulled off the road onto a minor track which went into a forest. Everyone looked out of the windows to see where they were going, but there weren't any signs until Rose pulled up in a small car park. George broke into a massive grin when he spotted a handful of rally cars parked up outside the prefabricated building.

"You should know the drill by now," Rose said when they were all out and a middle-aged bloke with a beer gut dragged himself out from behind a desk. "Behave, and no crashing."

"I'm Rose, we spoke on the phone," Rose said to the bloke when he approached.

"I'm Phil, hi," Phil said, eyeing Rose up even though he was at least twenty years older than her. "These are the six for the rally track?"

"That's right," Rose said, then pointed at George. "This is the one to watch out for, he's like lightning behind the wheel."

"You done much off-roading before?" Phil asked George.

George shrugged. "A few times, but more just to get the feel of controlling it. Nothing fast."

"We're going to do an hour in the classroom so you can learn the course and how to be a good co-driver, then you'll get three hours on the track," Phil explained. "It's been wet lately so it'll be a right muddy mess, so don't go crazy or you'll get stuck and I'll have to come and tow you out."

George and Rex exchanged grins.