CHERUB: The Meltdown

March 2013

The sun was shining on one of those spring days where it already feels like summer. Ralph Powell, wearing a red polo shirt with a hole in the side, was lying on the bare mattress of his bed, under an open window, eyes closed and feeling a breeze coming into the tiny bedroom he'd been occupying for most of the past six weeks.

His peace and tranquillity was shattered by Ed Noble, his partner on the mission, who booted the bedroom door open and stuck his untidy head around it.

"Rise and shine," he yelled in an obnoxious voice. "Jules wants everything in the back of the car by twelve."

Ralph's eyes snapped open and he glared at Ed. "As you can see, genius boy," he replied, looking around the room, "All of my stuff is packed."

Ed shrugged. "Just telling you what Jules told me," he said, before disappearing again. Ralph heard him lifting up a heavy box of some kind and then thundering down the stairs.

Ralph and Ed had been on a mission in Ashford, Kent, gathering evidence about a drug-running group operating out of London. It had been a huge success and they'd been up until late the night before as the police moved in and made their arrests. With nothing else for them to do, they were spending Saturday morning packing the house up and they'd be back on campus by the afternoon.

Heaving himself up into a sitting position, Ralph grabbed the only thing left in the room - his phone. It was plugged in and charging, so he pulled the charger out and unlocked it with his thumbprint. The background was a selfie of him and Ed, who he considered his best friend even if Ed could be extremely annoying at times, at a bowling alley near campus. The phone had a hidden setting which would switch SIM cards, which, after checking he didn't have any messages from his friends on campus, he activated.

This time, the background switched to a selfie of him with his arm around his girlfriend, Melanie. They were at a house party, she was wearing a leather jacket he thought was incredibly cool, her hair brushed back into a ponytail. She was pretty, had great taste in music, completely understood him, and as of twelve o'clock today, he was going to drive back to campus and never see her again. He felt a pang in his chest as he looked at the picture again, before opening a messaging app and reading her last few messages to him. They'd made plans to meet up on Sunday at her place, since her mum was a nurse and would be out until late. She had two younger brothers who were annoying, but manageable, and Ralph grinned when he thought about what he might have got up to with her in her room.

But, now, that was never going to happen. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, mentally trying to compose an excuse about why he was about to disappear from her life, but nothing came to mind. He wondered if it was kinder to just disappear and leave her guessing. Another wave of chest pangs hit him as he realised how much he was going to miss her, but this was interrupted by Ed's heavy feet clattering back up the stairs.

Ralph switched back to his campus SIM and stuffed the phone into the pocket of his jeans, standing up off the bed just as Ed entered again.

"Why are you wearing that shirt?" Ed asked, pointing to the hole. "I don't want to see your flab."

Ralph rolled his eyes. "Got nothing else clean. I didn't want to do any washing if we're about to go back to campus and get everything done at the laundry."

Pausing for a moment, this clearly hadn't occurred to Ed. "You're right, I can just stuff all of my dirty stuff into a bag," he said, breaking into a grin. "Lifesaver."

As Ed disappeared, Ralph reached for his phone again, but decided against it. No need to make himself feel worse.

By eleven forty-five, the entire house had been stripped and Ed had enthusiastically searched every room, cupboard and shelf to make sure nothing had been left. Jules, their mission controller, had a reputation for being a bit of a posh boy, but he'd been ace on this mission, turning a blind eye to Ralph's time with Melanie and showing himself surprisingly good at FIFA on the Xbox.

"All happy?" Jules asked as Ed stepped out of the front door for the final time.

"Looks good, boss," Ed said, giving a double thumbs-up.

"Alright, if one of you doesn't mind running down to the letting agents on the high street and putting the key through their door," Jules said, locking the front door and dropping the key into an envelope, "We can go in fifteen."

Their house was a modest, extended three-bed terrace in the middle of the town, which had unfortunately meant Ralph getting stuck with the tiny attic bedroom. Being close to the shops and to school had been fun at first, but Ashford was a quiet commuter town for London and most of the time it was full of oldies going to the bingo. Ed grabbed the envelope and set off up the road to the high street, leaving Ralph and Jules to jump into the car, a battered diesel BMW.

"I'm gonna shoot up to the supermarket to put some petrol in," Jules explained, pulling on his seatbelt and turning the key. "Then we'll swing back for Ed."

"Nice one," Ralph said, but his heart wasn't completely in it. He fiddled with a loose bit of the battered leather upholstery as Jules turned out of their road, sliding in behind a bin lorry and looking for an opportunity to overtake.

"What's happening with Melanie?" Jules asked directly as soon as he was on the open road, cruising along just below the speed limit. "I assume that's why you look miserable."

Ralph smiled. "Yeah, I suppose. I haven't said anything to her, yet."

"Time's running out. I've got to hand in the SIM cards from this mission when we get back to campus," Jules explained, running a hand through his hair to keep it out of his face. He glanced over at Ralph. "You fell hard for her, huh?"

Ralph shrugged. "I guess. We got on really well together, way better than I have with any of the girls back on campus." There was a tone of sadness in his voice and, as Jules pulled into the petrol forecourt, he paused before jumping out to get the pump.

"Listen, you may not want advice from an old dinosaur like me, but if I were you, I'd send her a text," he said, looking at Ralph again. "Just stick to the cover story, say how much you liked hanging out with her, and tell her you'll try and get back in touch after the move. And, for what it's worth, I'd take out the SIM card after sending it. You probably don't want to see her reply."

He didn't wait for an answer before getting out, and Ralph slid his phone out of his jeans again. He swapped SIMs and wrote out a quick text. When Jules had filled up and got back into the card, he blinked to keep back tears.

"I just said, we're moving unexpectedly, I'll try and text when we arrive but my phone is almost dead, and that I had a great time with her," Ralph read out, making a big effort to keep emotion out of his voice.

"Send it, my man," Jules said, pulling away again. "Get it out of your system before Ed ruins it."

Ralph laughed and hit 'send', before spending a final few seconds looking at the photo of her. Then he swapped back to his campus SIM and used an attachment on his multitool to eject the mission SIM.

"Done! She's out of my life," Ralph said, dropping the tiny card into Jules's outstretched hand.

"I know it's tough, but it'll get easier," Jules said softly, making a turning off the roundabout which led back to their street. "You'll meet other girls, I guarantee it. Ed, on the other hand, might always be too immature to get a girlfriend."

Ralph cracked up. "If I have to endure him burping in my face one more time, I'm definitely going to kill him."

Jules was a classical music fan, but he obliged the boys by putting on a mix of heavy metal and drum 'n bass on his phone for the drive back. Six weeks wasn't an especially long mission by CHERUB standards, but it wasn't until Ralph caught sight of some familiar landmarks on the drive back to campus that he realised how much he'd missed being away.

It was just after three when Jules pulled up in the campus car park, cutting off the music abruptly.

"Good work, guys, really strong performance on this one," he said, looking over his shoulder at Ed in the back. "I'll put some time in the diary for a mission debrief but to be honest, you know how these things go, it'll get postponed and eventually cancelled as usual. If you want to chat, you know where my office is."

"You coming with?" Ralph asked Jules as they climbed out of the car, pointing with his thumb to the main entrance.

"I've got to sign the car back in and do some paperwork," Jules explained, jingling the car keys before waving and going in the opposite direction. Ralph and Ed, now pulling their luggage along with them, went straight towards the main accommodation block to drop off their stuff.

"Man, is it good to be home!" Ed declared as they stepped out of the lift onto the seventh floor. He gave a huge theatrical sniff, but to Ralph, the corridors always smelled like carpet cleaner.

"Catch you in a bit?" Ralph asked as he arrived at the door to his room.

"Text me," Ed said, desperately trying to find his door key from amongst his various belongings. Ralph left him to it and went into his own room, savouring how big it felt compared to his tiny room back in Ashford. Just thinking about the mission made him think about Melanie and he felt his stomach churn, but it was too late now. She was in the past. He needed to focus on changing into some clean clothes.

He'd barely started unpacking when someone knocked on the door. He scrambled over a half-empty sports bag, kicking it out of the way so he could open the door.

"Oh, hi Letty," he said quickly, before it sank in that he hadn't seen her for months. "I didn't realise you were back from your mission!"

"Got back this morning," she said, her American accent more pronounced. "I've been sleeping off some of the jet lag but I actually slept okay on the flight." She smiled. "I hear you and Ed just got back, too." Her eyes rested on the hole in his shirt, which had got bigger since this morning.

"Much less glamorous than California," Ralph grinned. "More like six weeks of living with Ed's farts."

Letty made a face. "Gross. Anyway, since we all just got back, and it's Saturday, I thought we could have a get-together in my room later? I've got so much gossip to catch up on."

Ralph nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that sounds awesome. Who else is around?"

"Um, there's you and Ed, me and Jemima, Rex and Harry. Beatrice is away on a mission and George is nowhere to be found."

"He's on a mission," Ralph explained. "Left in about January."

"Oh, I thought he'd be finished with that by now. Anyway, come round any time after dinner."

"Okay, see you then," Ralph said, watching her turn and walk up to Ed's next-door room. He closed the door, shaking his head slightly as how crazy it was that she'd got back on the same day.

Saturday dinner was always a raucous affair on campus, and Ralph sat down with his chicken salad at their usual table fondly. Jemima had monopolised Letty's time and attention, the two of them sat huddled close together at one end, while Ralph got Harry to catch him up on what had been going on in their absence.

"Been boring without you, mate," Harry said, stabbing his chicken. "I'm well overdue a mission, and I've spent most of my time third-wheeling with Rex and Jemima."

Ralph laughed. "Are they still going? I thought it'd be over by now."

Harry shrugged. "Apparently the fire is still burning. Mostly seems to be snogging, though."

"Jealous?" Rex said, leaning over to them with a smirk.

Ed shook his head and swallowed a lump of chicken practically whole so he could empty his mouth and talk first. "You should've seen Ralph getting hot and heavy with this girl he met on our mission," he said, before giving Ralph a triumphant look.

Any mention of Melanie made Ralph feel crappy, but the atmosphere in the cafeteria was high and he brushed it off.

"Did you snog her?" Harry asked in a low voice, pausing eating.

"Well, yeah, dude, we're thirteen," Ralph replied. Harry grinned and slapped him on the back.

Ralph didn't feel like talking about this any more, so he changed the subject. "I assume you've been doing a lot more than that with Jemima, right?" he teased Rex.

Rex rose to the challenge immediately. "Yeah, obviously," he said, but there was something in his voice that made it sound like empty boasting. "Loads of stuff."

"Cleaning her room for her doesn't count," Harry said, his mouth full.

"That was one time," Rex said hotly, glowering at Harry. "And anyway, I don't see any of you virgins with girlfriends. Except you, Ralph, you're cool."

When Rex was in the right mood, he could be one of the best guys on campus to hang out with, but the rest of the time he was a complete dick. Ralph didn't really relish being complimented by him, so he just ignored it.

"Speaking of girls," Ed said, leaning in close and dropping his voice. "Have you guys seen Letty since she got back from her mission?"

Rex's eyes went wide. "Hell yeah, man, she looks amazing."

"The tan really suits her," Ralph said, but Ed gave him a look.

"More importantly," Ed said, cutting across him, "her boobs must be at least two cup sizes bigger."

Ralph could feel himself blushing. He wasn't the most confident guy and this kind of talk made him nervous.

"She's sitting right there, guys," Harry said, but Rex ignored him.

"Three, definitely, trust me," Rex said. "They're huge now."

"You guys are disgusting," Harry announced, nudging Ralph. "Listen, there's a remote control car tournament thing coming up next month, we kept a spot open on the team for you if you want in?"

Ralph relaxed, and was grateful to Harry for changing the subject. "Yeah, sounds great, I'm definitely in."

Although Letty had said to go round any time after dinner, Ralph wanted to get all his stuff unpacked and catch up on his emails and everything first, which would leave the whole of Sunday free. He didn't finish until after eight, but when he texted Ed to see if he was already there, Ed replied to say he was just in the shower and needed five more minutes. Ralph watched a YouTube video on his phone for a bit until he heard Ed knock on his door.

Everyone else was already there, and Letty greeted both of them with hugs. There wasn't much sitting space with six of them, and Jemima and Rex had pretty much taken over the bed, so they both grabbed bean bags from a pile and dropped down onto the floor.

"Drinks?" Letty asked, pointing to her mini fridge.

"Coke," Ed said quickly.

"Sprite," Ralph said, and she fished out two cans.

The atmosphere was quite chill, and Letty had put on some music on her laptop, so Ralph felt at home. It was always cool to be out on a mission, but relaxed nights on campus were impossible to beat.

"Can I have some more water?" Harry asked, and Letty took his empty bottle to swap for another one.

When she was looking in the fridge, Ed poked Ralph in the ribs, hard.

"What?" Ralph hissed, staring at him.

"Look," Ed said, motioning with his head towards Letty. When Ralph looked, she was coming back over with Harry's water.

"What?" he asked again, exasperated.

Ed leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Her shirt's too small and you can see her knickers when she bends over like that."

Despite himself, Ralph couldn't help but laugh at Ed. Uniforms weren't required after lunchtime on Saturdays, but Letty was wearing CHERUB-issue combat trousers and a navy shirt. He guessed it was probably because, having just got back from a long mission, her old clothes didn't fit very well and the CHERUB uniform was just easiest. He had to admit, though, that the navy shirt she'd picked was slightly on the small side, which meant it fit tightly around her chest. Ed could barely keep his eyes off her, and when the chance arose, he shuffled his bean bag around to sit next to her.

The combination of weekend freedom and unlimited fizzy drinks meant that by ten, they were having a karaoke tournament which the girls took seriously but the boys tried to sabotage by screeching in the background while they were singing, and deliberately getting the words wrong when it was their turn. Letty didn't seem to mind and just looked happy to be back.

When she'd just finished her turn, Letty came to sit next to Ralph for five minutes.

"Why is Ed acting so weird?" she asked, after yet another one of Ed's attempts to hit on her.

"He's been girl-deprived for six weeks, he's just crazy," Ralph told her. "Ignore him, he'll be back to normal tomorrow."

Letty giggled. "He's definitely crazy. He just tried making a sex joke, but I don't think he knew what the punchline meant."

Ralph watched Jemima trying to belt out a ballad while Harry gripped her foot in a lock and tried to tickle it. Ed was staring at Letty and Rex was sulking on the bed because any time Jemima spent singing was time he couldn't be feeling her up.

"Do you miss your girlfriend?" Letty asked unexpectedly. "From the mission. Jemima told me."

Ralph could never believe how fast campus gossip spread. "Yeah, a bit. I don't think I'll get over her straight away."

Letty nodded sympathetically. "I didn't have a boyfriend or anything, but I made a few really good friendships on my mission and I can't believe I'll never see them or talk to them again. Feels so weird."

"Nice to talk to someone else who gets it," Ralph said, thinking about his phone and wondering if he should have waited for Melanie to reply to his message before taking out the SIM. "She was just… really cool."

Letty patted his arm. "You can always talk to me if you need to," she said, but their attention was distracted when Jemima suddenly fell on top of Harry, who'd tried tickling her knees instead and she'd overbalanced.

Before anyone could react, Rex piled in and dragged Harry off in a headlock.

"Hey, that hurt!" Harry said, pushing Rex away and rubbing his neck. "What was the point of that?"

"You were annoying Jemima," Rex said snidely, his face pink.

"He wasn't," Jemima responded. "Why do you think you get to say how I feel?"

Rex opened his mouth, but obviously thought better of it.

"And now you've ruined Letty's party," Jemima added, poking Rex in the shoulder.

"It's not ruined," Letty said, but nobody was listening.

"Maybe it wouldn't be ruined if you hadn't spent all night singing," Rex replied, his tone nasty. "It's not even good."

"Just because you wanted to spend all evening with your hand up my shirt doesn't mean I can't have fun," Jemima yelled back at him, poking him again.

"That's got nothing to do with it," Rex said, turning angry.

"That's got everything to do with it," Jemima responded, balling her hands into fists.

Rex tutted at her, turning away and rolling her eyes, and Jemima boiled over. She aimed a kick at his back and sent him sprawling onto the bed. He jumped up, spinning and swinging a roundhouse at her, but she saw it coming and moved back. Unfortunately, she tripped over the discarded microphone and fell into the TV, knocking it off its stand so it was hanging at an angle.

"Hey!" Letty shouted, jumping up. "Don't break my stuff!"

Jemima charged at Rex, swinging a punch at his face, which Rex blocked before grabbing her hair and using her momentum to throw her onto the bed. She bounced awkwardly off one side of the mattress and hit the floor, where she dived at Rex's legs. He was too slow to kick out at her and she clamped his ankles together, making him tip over backwards and send drinks and bowls of crisps flying.

"Stop it!" Letty screamed at them, as half a can of orange Tango soaked into her carpet. Ralph caught Ed's eye and the two of them dived in, Ralph wrapping his arms around Jemima and dragging her backwards while Ed pinned Rex to the floor and kept him from going after her.

"Come on, let's go, big man," Ed said, as Ralph passed a now-sobbing Jemima over to Letty for comfort. "Let's take him back to his room."

"Thanks for the party," Ralph said, as he grabbed Rex's arm and twisted it into a hold, making it easy to move him out towards the door.

Rex was alternating between trying to catch his breath and shouting at Jemima, while she went between hysterical sobs and shouting back at him, so Ralph was relieved to get out of the room. Rex's room was almost directly opposite Letty's, but before they'd even got there, Jemima rocketed out of Letty's room, screaming, and started throwing a barrage of punches at Rex's head. Her attack caught Ralph by surprise and Rex managed to twist out of his grip, plus one of her wild swings hit him on the ear and it really hurt. Rex started punching back, one of his kicks knocking her to the floor, but she dragged him down and soon they were rolling around. Rex howled in pain when Jemina dug her fingernails into his cheek and clawed him, drawing blood.

Other doors on the corridor started opening at the commotion, and a couple of black shirt girls moved as if to break it up before they saw how vicious it had got. Ralph and Ed just stood there helplessly, watching them, and Ralph felt a pang of pity as he heard Letty crying in her room as she and Harry tried to clear up the mess.

"What in God's heaven is going on here?" a voice shouted from the far end of the corridor, and Ralph turned to see Mr Tufts, one of the computing teachers, barreling down the corridor towards them. He'd been a champion rower at university and he was almost as massive as the training instructors, so it was a close-run thing to get out of his way before he clattered someone. He wrapped a massive arm around Jemima's chest, dragging her away, while grabbing a handful of Rex's shirt and throwing him in the opposite direction.

"You two get rid of him," Tufts barked, pointing at Rex, whose shirt had several large rips in it. Ralph initially thought he'd meant him and Ed, but the two black shirt girls appeared from behind him and effortlessly dodged Rex's attacks and grabbed him.

"This is his room," Ralph said, pushing open the unlocked door. They bundled him in and slammed the door, holding it shut tight as he raged at them from the other side.

Tufts had dragged Jemima back into Letty's room and shut the door, and judging from the voices coming from the other side, he was giving her a piece of his mind. Ralph looked at Ed and grinned.

Once he was done with Jemima, he pushed past the black shirts and forced his way into Rex's room, shutting the door again and giving Rex a good telling off. For a second, Ralph feared Rex might be so enraged that he would attack Tufts, but he wasn't that stupid, thankfully. After a few more minutes, Tufts emerged, smoothing down his white staff shirt.

"You, and you," he said, pointing at Ralph and Ed. "Chairwoman's office, eight am tomorrow. She's not gonna be happy."

Another thing Ralph had missed was campus breakfasts. On the mission, although Jules was a passable cook, they'd usually been busy in the mornings and cereal had to suffice. This morning, though, Ralph sat down to a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs and beans, and as he wolfed it down, he considered the fact that being a Cherub did have its perks.

Zara had been calmer than he'd expected, and she'd only wanted to talk to him, Harry, Letty and Ed to find out what happened. The three boys had waited for Rex when he emerged from her office to find out what his punishment had been, expecting the worst. It turned out to be twice-weekly anger management sessions with the counselor, three hundred laps and recycling centre duty every Saturday evening for four weeks. Three hundred laps was brutal, but Rex tried to shrug it off like it was nothing. He'd gone straight back to his bedroom and not appeared for breakfast, though, so Ralph guessed he was secretly more upset than he let on. Plus, the massive scratches all over his face would take quite a while to heal.

He'd just got on to forkfuls of bacon when Ed arrived, his tray similarly piled high with hash browns and fried eggs, and Harry wasn't far behind.

"Letty says she's in Jemima's room and they're and not coming down for breakfast," Harry said, squirting a colossal pool of tomato ketchup onto his plate.

"That much'll make you sick," Ed said, pointing to the ketchup ocean.

"Mind your own," Harry said, submerging a chunk of egg in it.

Someone tapped Ralph on the back, and he turned around, finding it was an unfamiliar-looking grey shirt boy with a gang of friends.

"Hey, are you the guy who had a fight with his girlfriend last night?" the boy asked.

"No, it was my friend," Ralph said. There was some frenzied whispering from the group, but before they could say anything else, some black shirts leant over from the next table.

"Buzz off, junior," one of them said, shooing the grey shirts. "Listen, tell your friend that breakup was epic. Haven't had one as good as that in years," he grinned. "I could hear everything from the eighth floor, that Tufts can really give it some volume."

"How many laps did they get?" a girl asked Ralph.

"Rex got three hundred, I don't know about Jemima," he answered, truthfully, not used to all this attention.

The whole table of black shirts reacted, whistling and wincing. "That's serious. Zara must be steaming to be dragged in on a Sunday," the first guy said, shaking his head and laughing. "The seventh floor is crazy."

Secretly, Ralph was slightly relieved to be left alone to eat his breakfast, but he spent the rest of the day reliving the incident over and over whenever anybody asked. Ed especially loved re-telling it, and Ralph had the strange experience of being taken to one side by one of the carers from the red shirt block and asked all about it so she could tell the others.

"You're a legend, it's official," Ed announced when he and Ralph visited Rex that afternoon.

"Don't feel like a legend," Rex said, gingerly touching the red welts on his arms and the scratches on his face.

"Dude, everyone is talking about it, and I mean everyone. I must've told fifty people," Ed said excitedly. "Best Saturday night ever."

Rex shook his head. "I guess it's over with Jemima. She won't even speak to me."

Ralph felt some of his pain, but Ed ignored it.

"No, duh. That was a massive breakup, there's no coming back from an actual brawl." He grinned.

Rex shrugged. "Sucks. I thought I was getting somewhere with her. Oh well."

"Anyway, it's football on the main pitches in twenty minutes, you've got to come," Ed said, sitting on the edge of Rex's bed. "Unless you're injured."

"I'm not injured," Rex said, "But, I don't know."

"C'mon, you'll feel better. You can't spend all day in here," Ralph said in a friendly tone, slapping his shoulder.

"Ow, bruise there," Rex said, causing Ralph and Ed to laugh. "Alright, I'll get my kit."

"Awesome. I can't believe that really happened," Ed said, happily, as they left.

Ralph grinned, too. He felt bad for Jemima and Letty, and a little bit of Rex, even though he was being a knob. Even so, he'd missed all the drama of being back on campus. It was good to be home.