CHERUB: People's Republic Read Online Free Page A

crashed through a metal gate and walked fifty metres up an alleyway towards a main road. It was twenty past six, but the four lanes were already busy with trucks and bicycles. She thought about going into a café for breakfast, but Miss Xu might send someone after her so she kept moving.
    Without thinking, Ning had walked the short route to her school and found herself at the front gates of Dandong Lower School Number Eighteen. A caretaker and a young teacher were on stepladders raising a sign painted by little kids: LS18 Welcomes All for Joyous Parents’ Day .
    The thought of parents sent a shudder down Ning’s back. Her stepfather would go bananas when he found out what she’d done.

4. STANDARD
    As China woke up, the sun was going down on the opposite side of the world. Ryan studied his toes as he walked away from the ocean, his soles coated with soft white sand. He’d been living in Santa Cruz, California, three and a half weeks but his new home still made him feel like he’d moved into a TV commercial.
    The eight sculpted concrete homes stood back from the sea on sandy dunes. Each had panoramic windows, giving views of the ocean, and a rooftop terrace fronted by a glass-bottomed swimming pool which allowed you to sit in your vast living room and watch swimmers overhead.
    The home owners shared several acres of private beach and a harbour. An electric fence kept the rabble out and the guard on the front gate had a shotgun, just in case.
    Squeals came up from the ocean, as the retired basketball star who lived in house six splashed his toddler son in the waves. Ryan was heading in the other direction, towards a couple of twelve-year-olds squatting over a timber deck.
    Ryan’s target, Ethan Aramov, was a stick boy. Even on a warm autumn night, he kept covered in jeans and a baggy hoodie. He had messy shoulder-length hair and he always squinted, even though he wore contacts.
    Yannis was Ethan’s best friend and constant companion. Morbidly obese, with an oily Mediterranean complexion. He got teased at school, but Ryan felt no pity because he was utterly obnoxious.
    ‘Hey, guys,’ Ryan said, as he strolled up, acting like bumping into them was a big surprise. ‘How’s the ’bot coming along?’
    Ethan and Yannis were uber geeks. Their only school activity was chess club. They spent entire weekends playing online games, and when that wasn’t nerdy enough, they built robots. Or more accurately, Ethan, who was smart, built robots, while Yannis sat about scratching himself and eating cheese puffs.
    ‘Our robot is top secret,’ Yannis said.
    The tone was we’re better than you , but the fact that Yannis was twelve and using a line you’d expect from a pouting six-year-old made it pathetic.
    The robot was based on a radio-controlled car. Ethan had adapted it with optical sensors and a small handheld computer so that it could drive itself at high speed across the beach, tracking a course mapped out by cones, while swerving around puddles and unexpected obstacles like a kid running into its path. You could buy a four-hundred-dollar robot vacuum cleaner that did the same stuff, but it was impressive for a twelve-year-old.
    Ryan sidestepped Yannis and approached Ethan, who was on one knee, cleaning the robot car’s steering with a toothbrush.
    ‘Must get pretty clogged up with all the sand,’ Ryan said.
    ‘D-uh, it’s sand, retard,’ Yannis said.
    Ethan was shy. He’d usually let Yannis talk for him, but seemed keen to tell someone other than Yannis about his robot.
    ‘I based it on a cheap fifty-dollar RC car,’ Ethan said ruefully. ‘Should have got a proper Taimya kit, with a waterproofed shell.’
    Ryan had now spent three weeks trying to become Ethan’s friend and this was the longest conversation they’d had.
    ‘Would it be a lot of work to switch to a different car now?’ Ryan asked.
    Yannis hauled his fat arse up and wedged himself in front of Ryan before Ethan could answer.
    ‘Let’s carry the