CHERUB: People's Republic by Muchamore Robert

Author:Muchamore, Robert [Muchamore, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781444913866
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2012-08-29T12:00:00+00:00

26. DEAD

The houses had been built to withstand a California earthquake, but no engineer had ever modelled the effect that a huge explosion would have on several tonnes of water in the glass swimming pools. Gillian Kitsell’s corpse had been flung up more than thirty metres and now lay in the middle of the beach, while the retired basketball player had been decapitated by a flying slab of fifteen-centimetre-thick pool glass.

It was like a giant sick version of a bug splattered on a car’s windscreen and Ryan probably would have spewed if his mind hadn’t been focused on Amy.

‘Hello?’ Ryan shouted, as his feet ran through sand warmed by the blast.

Ethan’s house had been utterly wrecked. All that remained were shreds of reinforced concrete attached to a twisted steel frame. The heat coming out of the basement had turned sand to glass, which now steamed from the water that had landed on top of it.

‘Ryan,’ Amy shouted, as she appeared from the far end of house one.

He broke into a huge smile, but Amy was waving her arms urgently.

‘There might be a secondary,’ she shouted. ‘Get back.’

Ryan swung away from the house as he bolted past and then ran into Amy’s outstretched arms. The two homes at this end had no obvious damage, though the terrace on top of house two was home to smouldering chunks of Yannis and BMW.

‘I thought you were dead for sure,’ Ryan said, as he pulled Amy into a hug.

Ted stood alongside. Several cop cars were parked on the lawn out front with a fire truck close behind.

‘Luckily I went straight for the basement,’ Ted explained. ‘Saw a dozen sticks of mining explosive near the bottom of the staircase and told Amy to run for it.’

‘Another thirty seconds and we’d have been toast,’ Amy added.

‘That basketball player is dead,’ Ryan said. ‘He was pretty famous, wasn’t he?’

Ted nodded. ‘Famous enough that you’ll have every news outfit in California camped out here for the next two days. I’d better head off those cops and tell them it’s a Federal matter before they mess with our crime scene. You two stay in the house. Keep doors shut, blinds down and don’t speak to anyone.’

Ryan walked back to house eight with Amy and ran up to his room.

‘Ethan, mate?’ he shouted.

Ryan’s heart skipped as he saw the room was empty. He thought Ethan might have disappeared, but then he saw that the bathroom door was shut.

‘Are you OK, mate?’ Ryan asked, as he tapped on the door. ‘Can I come in?’

The door wasn’t locked and Ryan found Ethan sitting on the toilet lid sobbing helplessly.

‘My mom is all I had,’ Ethan said. ‘I loved her so much.’

Ryan stood close and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘My grandma’s gonna want me to live with her,’ Ethan said. ‘I don’t know anyone out there. I can only speak a little bit of Russian and my mom always said she’d never go back because it’s really horrible.

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