Читать книгу The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection: Look into My Eyes; Take Your Last Breath; Catch Your Death; Feel the Fear; Pick Your Poison; Blink and You Die - Lauren Child - Страница 112

SOMETHING CRASHED INTO THE WATER and white bubbles fizzed up to the surface. And just like that, the menacing grey shapes were gone.

Ruby was suspended in the deep blue ocean. She turned to check her back and there behind her was Hitch. He was not in dive gear – there had not been time for that. He was treading water, a knife in his hand. He looked around for Kekoa and then made a gesture, pointing up, and Ruby followed him to the surface.

They clambered onto the small boat, both spluttering seawater, Ruby dizzy to be alive.

‘Wh… what did you do?’ she stammered from where she had collapsed on the deck.

‘All I did was jump in the water,’ said Hitch. ‘Ruby, what happened to Kekoa?’

‘I came to get you,’ wheezed Ruby. ‘She’s trapped!’

‘What do you mean trapped?’

‘Inside the wreck – something fell on her. She looks in bad shape.’

Hitch turned the radar dial on his Spectrum watch, tuning into Kekoa’s signal – it wasn’t there.

‘Darn it,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to give me a pretty accurate description of Kekoa’s location kid.’

Kekoa had taught Ruby well and she described the place where they had entered the wreck and the direction they had swum through it. Finding Kekoa would be easy – getting her out would be the tricky part.

Hitch grabbed a rope and toolpack. He was already reaching for goggles and air tank as Ruby described the cut to Kekoa’s head and the leg wound, the fallen beam. Three minutes later and Ruby was alone. She looked out to sea, staring across to the Sibling Islands. She thought about the lost sisters, and as she thought of them, she saw that tiny glint of light flash once more on the smaller of the two rocks. Just for a second and then it was gone. She stood stock-still and unblinking, waiting for it to reappear, but it didn’t.

An agonising nineteen minutes and five seconds passed before Hitch reappeared and deposited an injured Kekoa on the warm wood of the deck. She looked pale and the blood continued to seep from her calf.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Hitch reassured her. But Ruby could see that it was. She grabbed the first-aid kit and handed it over. Hitch bound the leg wound as well as he could and then examined the cut to the head.

‘Gotta stitch this,’ he said.

Kekoa nodded and didn’t flinch once throughout the whole painful procedure.

‘Kid, get the boat started. We need to make it to shore quick and there’s no chance of radioing for assistance out here – all signals are blocked.’

Ruby got the engine started and began very slowly to steer the boat in the direction of Little Bay beach. She had to move at a snail’s pace because Hitch needed the boat steady.

As he worked, Hitch talked to Kekoa. ‘Those were some sharks down there, you shoulda seen them. They were more than curious.’

‘What was so special about them?’ she replied weakly.

‘There were a lot of them and they were interested, not afraid.’

‘Perhaps someone’s been feeding them,’ muttered Kekoa.

‘I thought the exact same thing,’ said Ruby. ‘They were expecting something.’

‘If they were being fed, it would mean they’re attracted to divers rather than suspicious of them,’ said Kekoa, her voice barely audible now.

‘Making them act like a security team…’ said Hitch.

Kekoa almost nodded. ‘It would have that effect.’

‘So why did the sharks react badly to you?’ said Ruby. ‘Why swim away when you appear?’

‘I don’t think it had a whole lot to do with me,’ said Hitch. ‘Something spooked them – I glimpsed a movement in the water, but I couldn’t make out what it was.’

‘You did? ’Cause you see, I heard something,’ said Ruby. ‘At least I think I did.’

‘What kind of something?’ asked Hitch.

‘Something that sounded familiar,’ said Ruby. ‘Something I think I once heard before.’

‘Like what?’ said Hitch.

‘Like a whispering,’ she replied.

‘The same thing those other people heard?’

‘I guess – maybe.’

‘But you didn’t see anything?’

‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘Just sharks.’

When Hitch was done with his first aid, he took over steering from Ruby.

‘Well, we better get out of here,’ he said. ‘While we still can.’ He gunned the throttle and the boat sliced through the water at great speed. Once they made it to shore, Hitch radioed for Zuko.

‘Agent down,’ he said. ‘We need her ’coptered out as soon as.’ He gave Zuko their location and seventeen minutes later Kekoa was carried on-board and they watched the chopper buzz away, disappearing into a tiny fly-sized dot.

‘So you found nothing down there?’ asked Hitch. ‘No treasure, no sign of treasure?’

‘I did find something,’ said Ruby.

‘What?’ said Hitch.

‘I… I dropped it.’

‘Dropped what?’ he asked.

‘A yellow gem,’ she said.

‘A gem? You’re sure about that?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘I’m sure.’

‘But you’re sure it was a gem, not just a piece of glass, a shiny stone, something that caught the light?’

‘You don’t believe me?’ she asked.

‘Yes kid, I believe you.’

But it sounded like he wasn’t sure, though maybe it didn’t matter one way or the other since it didn’t change a thing. Apart from that one tiny stone, the gems weren’t there and there was nothing to prove they ever had been. Maybe the pirates never were looking for treasure. Maybe Ruby had just got caught up in Martha Lily Fairbank’s imaginative world, a world that time had long since forgotten.

‘So what are you going to tell LB?’ said Ruby. ‘She’s not gonna be too thrilled about Kekoa winding up in the hospital.’

‘I guess I’ll just have to tell it to her straight,’ sighed Hitch. ‘When it comes to LB, there’s no other way.’