Free Brigands M. C. by Robert Muchamore Page A

but Constable Fairport spent all his time studying his sergeant’s exam textbooks and looked like steam would vent from his ears if anyone made noise.
    Now that he’d stirred, Dante found his ear was itching. The pillow felt lumpy and he had to move because the position that had been fine twenty seconds earlier now seemed completely impossible. He pressed the button on the clock again: 00:19. He’d been in bed since nine and reckoned he’d slept for less than an hour.
    Dante’s brain ran in circles. Pressing the clock made him think about his mum again, and he fondly remembered the way she always yelled at him with a half smile on her face and threatened to whack him, even though she never did apart from two or three times when he’d done something totally crazy. Like the time he’d got up in the night and filled Jordan’s school bag with mud.
    *
     
    Dante woke with a start, as if someone had poured ice down his back. In the dream he’d been locked in the cellar of the South Devon Brigands clubhouse and the men upstairs in the bar were about to set one of the guard dogs on him.
    He touched the clock – 01:07 – and couldn’t believe that he’d only slept for another hour. As his hand moved under the covers it dragged through a wet patch. He smelled the pee as he lifted the covers.
    ‘Stupid idiot!’ he cursed to himself, before gritting his teeth and punching his mattress.
    Dante had never wet the bed when his parents were alive, or even at the Graves’ house afterwards. But ever since Doods and the bomb threat he’d woken up wet every second or third night. Sometimes even twice.
    The first few times he’d been so upset that his crying woke everyone up, but even though Ross said it wasn’t his fault after all he’d been through, Dante was embarrassed and didn’t want lots of people waking up and making a fuss every time it happened. To ease the problem Ross had bought a mound of cheap duvets and sheets, along with a plastic mattress protector and loads of pyjamas.
    Dante quickly stripped off his sheets and carried them along the hallway to the bathroom. He locked the door and put everything in the basket before standing over the toilet. He peed a little bit and stood over the bowl for ages trying to make absolutely sure that there was nothing else there. When he finished he threw his pyjama bottoms on top of the sheets and wiped himself off with a warm flannel.
    Once he was done he pumped some spray disinfectant into the laundry bin and put the lid on tight so that the sheets didn’t stink out the bathroom. As he headed out he realised that he’d forgotten to grab clean pyjama bottoms. He’d have to run back to his room half nude, but it was only a few steps so he didn’t think it would be a problem.
    But as Dante rushed into his room he bumped into Ross’ daughter Tina. She was nineteen, quite short, with a curvy figure under her nightshirt and stripy socks over small feet. Dante realised that she’d wiped his rubber sheet, put a fresh cotton sheet on top of it and brought one of the spare duvets out of the cupboard in the hallway.
    Dante gasped, stretching his pyjama top down over his penis and bum.
    ‘Don’t be daft,’ Tina laughed and threw him a pair of blue bottoms.
    They didn’t match the top half and Dante didn’t like this because it made it obvious to everyone that he’d had an accident, but he was too embarrassed to complain and he stepped back out into the hallway to pull them on.
    ‘I didn’t wake you up did I?’ Dante asked, stepping back into the bedroom as Tina smoothed out the fresh duvet.
    ‘Nah,’ she smiled. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
    ‘I’m really sorry,’ Dante said nervously. ‘I could have done the sheets. You didn’t have to get up.’
    ‘Come here,’ Tina said, as she sat on Dante’s clean bed. ‘You look sad, give us a cuddle.’
    Dante smiled as Tina wrapped her arms around his back and squished him. Tears welled up as he sniffed her deodorant. The