Free CHERUB: Shadow Wave by Robert Muchamore

back towards the hotel.
    ‘Quad bike’s out front,’ he told Kyle. ‘Get on it. Collect the vegetables and fish. Then I want your arse back here helping me sort out the canoes and equipment.’

10. PARADISE
    Kyle drove the quad bike three kilometres, towing a trailer across soft sand, but occasionally having to cut on to a single track road where the tide was in. The first sign of the village was Aizat’s motor boat, which had been dragged across the sand and now rested keel-up beside the largest hut.
    There were eleven huts in total, each mounted on stilts to protect from flooding. Young boys played football in the sand, their ball only half inflated and fishing nets hanging off bamboo canes for goalposts. Nearer to the huts two old women sat under a tarpaulin watching a quiz show on a tiny Sony TV.
    ‘Excuse me,’ Kyle said.
    ‘No English,’ one woman explained, before shouting, ‘Aizat!’
    Aizat came out the side of a hut. He’d taken off his shirt to reveal a muscular chest and his hands were blackened with engine oil. Kyle took one look and decided that he wouldn’t have minded a roll on the beach with him.
    ‘Are you in charge of everything around here?’ Kyle asked, smiling as Aizat jumped down into the sand.
    ‘Pretty much,’ Aizat agreed. ‘You got old-timers and kids, but almost all of our parents live and work away from the village. In factories on the mainland, or the hotels. That leaves me and a couple of old men to fish, farm and generally run the show.’
    ‘I don’t know what I’m here to collect,’ Kyle explained.
    ‘I’ve packed it all up,’ Aizat said. ‘Vegetables, cooked rice and dried fish. You look thirsty, want a shot of my grandma’s beer?’
    Kyle knew Mr Large wanted him back quickly to start preparing the equipment for the two-day trek, but he liked the idea of spending time with Aizat.
    ‘Quick one can’t do any harm,’ Kyle said. ‘Even if it is a bit early in the day.’
    As Kyle hopped up on to the balcony around Aizat’s house, the higher vantage point gave him a view of some metal scaffolding less than a hundred metres beyond the village.
    ‘Building something pretty big up there,’ Kyle noted.
    ‘Another hotel, almost finished,’ Aizat spat. ‘Five stars, air condition, three restaurant, two pool. I learn good English, so if I’m lucky they’ll give me a job washing pots or cleaning toilets when it opens. In the meantime, the builders drink our wells dry and throw waste into the sea, killing our fish.’
    ‘Sounds rough,’ Kyle said, as he stepped inside. ‘Can’t you complain or something?’
    Aizat’s answer was a contemptuous tut.
    The hut was shady and surprisingly cool. Aizat’s eight-year-old sister Wati was curled up on a big cushion listening to her Walkman. All around were photos and piles of junk, while one of the outboard motors from Aizat’s boat was spread across the floor in a dozen oily pieces. Pride of place went to a football shirt pinned to the back wall.
    ‘Arsenal fan,’ Kyle noted.
    ‘The greatest,’ Aizat nodded. ‘Premiership champions, unbeaten in thirty-eight games. Do you follow football?’
    ‘Not much,’ Kyle said, shaking his head. ‘But my mate James is a mental Arsenal fan. I expect you’d get right along with him.’
    ‘Here we go,’ Aizat grinned, as he grabbed a green wine bottle off the shelf, pulled a cork and poured out two beakers of a thick, cream-coloured liquid.
    Kyle grabbed the beaker - which had Garfield and Odie printed on the side - and gave an exploratory sniff. ‘Is this beer?’
    ‘I just call it that,’ Aizat said, and took a long swig.
    Kyle took the liquid into his mouth and swallowed a small mouthful. The sensation that rose up his throat was like the time a wasp stung his neck, mingling with the hottest chilli he’d ever tasted.
    ‘Holy mother!’ Kyle gasped, his voice reduced to a croak. ‘That’s fire water.’
    Aizat’s sister took off her headphones and howled with