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 94

THAT TUESDAY AFTERNOON WAS MARKED by another Twinford Junior High swimming-related event. It seemed someone (probably Dillon Flannagon) had thought it would be amusing to dress a mannequin in the school mascot costume (a squirrel suit) and place it in the pool. The janitor got quite a shock when he saw a giant squirrel in the Twinford Junior High strip floating face-down in the water.

On a board drifting next to this unusual scene, the culprit (surely Dillon Flannagon, it really looked like his handwriting) had written in huge letters, ‘another Twinford Bay casualty’. To make matters worse, the blue paint (believed to be toxic) that the giant sign was written in was dissolving into the pool water – this made it a health and safety concern and therefore the pool would have to be drained.

Principal Levine had not seen the funny side. Whoever it was, was really for it. When Ruby passed Dillon in the corridor, she whispered, ‘Run Flannagon, run.’

After class, Ruby and Clancy fetched their bikes and wheeled them out of the gates and along the sidewalk. Clancy didn’t have the energy to cycle – he was too depressed.

‘Oh brother! What am I going to do now? There’s no way I’m getting in that bay, no way.’

‘I’ll look out for you Clance,’ said Ruby.

‘Oh yeah?’ said Clancy. ‘There are gonna be like a hundred kids all swimming out there in the bay. No way you can keep an eye on me the whole time.’

Ruby looked at him hard. ‘You can do this Clance. It’s just mind over matter is all.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ grumbled Clancy. ‘The water doesn’t bother you – nothing bothers you.’

This wasn’t true of course – it was just that Ruby had spent a whole lot more time thinking about this stuff. She had a notebook full of rules and one of them was RULE 12: ADJUST YOUR THINKING AND YOUR CHANCES IMPROVE. She had learned this from Mrs Digby, a wise old buzzard if ever there was one.

‘All I’m saying Clance is your chances are better if you go into it in the right frame of mind.’

‘Don’t you get it Rube? My chances are a whole lot better if I never get in that ocean in the first place. My chances of having a heart attack are greatly reduced if I don’t even get my feet wet.’

Ruby gave him a reassuring pat on the back. ‘Your chances of suffering a lifetime of grief from Coach Newhart increase by about a thousand per cent if you don’t.’

‘I know,’ sighed Clancy mournfully.

‘Come on, let’s go get a fruit shake,’ said Ruby, pulling him towards the Cherry Cup. ‘On me.’

When they got to the Cherry Cup, they took the high stools at the bar and Ruby reached for the long drinks menu. Clancy was swivelling his seat distractedly and muttering to himself.

‘Hey there you guys, what can I get you?’ called Cherry.

‘I’ll take a Strawberry–Pineapple-Fiesta and I reckon Clance could do with a tranquilliser.’

Cherry looked hard at Clancy. ‘You all right pal?’ he enquired kindly. ‘You look kinda strung out.’

Cherry was a man in his late fifties – greying hair and the sort of face that made people want to confide in him.

Clancy spilled the beans about the swimathon while Cherry blended fruit.

Meanwhile, Ruby thought about Spectrum. She was thinking about the briefing. Is there a connection? Is there something in the deep blue ocean causing disruption to sealife? Possibly. Could it be caused by the moon, the tides, an earthquake on the other side of the world even? Possibly.

But the shipping confusion? That has to be man-made. The question is, is it man-made by accident or man-made by design? If it isn’t an accident, then one can only conclude it has to be sinister.

She was jolted from her musings by Clancy.

‘So have you been into Spectrum yet?’

‘Could you keep your voice down buster? I’m not supposed to talk about this stuff,’ hissed Ruby.

Clancy looked around. ‘No one’s listening,’ he said, pointing at Cherry’s busy establishment. Everyone was chatting or engrossed in their magazines or menus.

‘That’s what you think,’ said Ruby. ‘How do you know that woman over there, the one with the little curly kid, isn’t keeping track of everything we say?’

‘I can tell,’ said Clancy. ‘I mean look at her, all she’s interested in is her baby.’

‘That’s how much you know,’ said Ruby. ‘I happen to be aware that she is a sector seven agent and that old curly top is just a cover.’

Clancy’s eyes grew to saucer size. ‘No way?’ he said. ‘Really?’

‘No, not really Clance, but don’t just assume that someone’s not listening just because they look like they’re not listening.’

It was one of her rules and an important one.

RULE 9: THERE IS ALWAYS A CHANCE THAT SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE IS WATCHING YOU.

Or, in this case, listening.

Ruby had ignored the rule a few weeks ago and had ended up tied to a chair by an evil Count and almost buried in a ton of sand, all because someone had been listening in while she yacked away on the telephone to Clancy. She had every right to be cautious, even though the woman in question was actually Mrs Frast from her mother’s bridge club. However, the worry of being overheard only made up part of her reason for keeping it zipped; the truth was that what Ruby really wanted to do was sit in her room and give the briefing some clear thought, puzzle it out.

‘Look Clance, don’t take this the wrong way, but I just need to sit and churn a few things over, you understand, don’t ya?’

‘I guess,’ said Clancy.

They finished their drinks and Ruby cycled on home.

She walked into the house and up the stairs to the kitchen. She was pretty hungry and something smelled good. Mrs Digby was nowhere to be seen. But on the bright side, there were some home-made pizza slices, just cooked, on the table and a note which said, Dig in why don’t you.

There was a PS. It said, Mrs Lemon called again, she wants you to sit for that fat baby of hers. I told her you had an infectious skin condition and it didn’t look like it would clear up for a week or two.

Ruby smiled. ‘Nice going Mrs Digby.’ She loaded her plate with pizza and poured some banana milk into a glass, then, holding an apple in her teeth, she manoeuvred her way up to her room. She closed the door firmly behind her, retrieved her yellow notebook and set about making lists, and then used the elements from the list to make a spider-map. She always found it useful to see problems visually.

First she drew a picture of a diver; he was at the top of the page. Then she wrote three headings across the paper.

One said:

CONFUSED SHIPPING.

Spidering out from that heading she wrote every single incidence of confused shipping she had learned of in LB’s briefing.

The next heading said:

UNUSUAL MARINE ACTIVITY.

There were a lot of these too.

The last heading read:

SEA SOUNDS.

Spiralling out from this were all the names of the people who had heard the strange whispering in the ocean.

And then a question:

ARE ALL THESE HAPPENINGS CONNECTED?

Ruby sat staring at her own question for some minutes before catching sight of the time. She quickly reached across and switched on the portable TV set that sat on her bedroom floor. The title music to Crazy Cops blared out and the face of Detective Despo filled the screen. She sank down in her beanbag and let her mind concentrate on the life and death matters of a fictional cop.

The great advantage for Detective Despo was that he had a team of TV writers who made sure his cases were all tied up neatly by the end of each sixty-minute episode. Right at that moment Ruby envied him; she couldn’t help wishing that she had a writer on-board to make sure her latest case came out right in the end, but regrettably for her, she didn’t live in a fictional world.

Mrs Sylvester was up on deck,

as indeed were all the other passengers,

though she was a good deal more

hysterical than most and was

screaming…

‘Pirates! Pirates! They’ll rob us blind, cut our throats and leave us for dead! They’ve already thrown that poor dog overboard.’

On hearing this, Mr Sylvester fainted.

This all provided an excellent distraction, one that Sabina Redfort made good use of. She very quickly and very quietly made her way to the wheelhouse, snatched up the ship-to-shore radio and sent out a mayday call to the coastguard.

‘Mayday, mayday, this is the Golden Albatross, are you receiving me? Over.’

She got no reply, but she wasn’t going to give up – someone was bound to pick up the distress signal sooner or later.

‘Mayday, mayday, this is the Golden Albatross, are you receiving me? We are in deep over-our-head trouble. Over.’

Still no reply. This was very odd. The coastguard were meant to answer immediately. Sabina’s voice rose louder.

‘Mayday, mayday, I repeat, are you receiving me? Over.’

‘Yes,’ said a voice – unfortunately not a voice from the radio, but rather a deep voice from just behind her. ‘It’s certainly over for you lady!’

Sabina spun around and there, standing a few feet away, was a smartly dressed young man who looked like he would be more comfortable in an office than on the deck of a pirate boat; he did not look one bit like the murderous type. However, the man at his side did. He was smiling, revealing a mouth full of gold teeth, some chipped, some missing. He was a small man, but he seemed to easily occupy the cabin with a monstrous malevolence.

In his hand was a very shiny and very sharp-looking knife.

‘I was just… trying to cancel a… dental appointment,’ stammered Sabina, not at all sure what she was saying – but she was staring at the man, and dental hygiene was the first thing that had come to mind.

The man sniggered cruelly. ‘No need for teeth where you’re going.’

Sabina didn’t like the glint in his eye – he was obviously a man who enjoyed throwing dogs into the ocean, no doubt women too. He grabbed her arm and pushed and dragged her back to the deck.

‘Watch it, would you Captain Hook; you’re wrenching my arm out of its socket.’

‘No need for arms where you’re going,’ laughed the pirate. Then he spied the gem on her finger. ‘Now give me your ring!’

Sabina shook her head. ‘But this is a family heirloom, it belonged to several of my great-grandmothers, and if you think…’

‘You hand it over,’ growled the pirate, ‘or I’ll kill everyone on-board.’

‘But… it won’t come off my finger,’ protested Sabina.

‘No need for fingers where you are going!’ he said, flashing the knife.

Goodness, thought Sabina, there’s not going to be much of me left.

‘Let me cut it off, save you the struggle.’ He laughed again.

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said Sabina, clenching her fists. The pirate lunged towards her and Sabina lashed out, clocking him on the jaw; Sabina Redfort packed quite a punch and the ring, which was diamond, gashed a scarlet ribbon across the pirate’s cheek.

‘Oh my, that was an accident,’ said Sabina a little nervously. ‘I was about to say, if you want this ring, you had better get me a little soap and water.’

The pirate didn’t look like he was about to oblige, but then he grinned.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Here’s the water; good luck finding the soap.’

And with that he picked her up and threw her overboard.

Brant Redfort, horrified, bellowed, ‘Honey, don’t think of drowning, I’m coming to save you!’

And he swan-dived from the bow of the boat and disappeared beneath the waves. The pirates, sensing they had in some way failed to create an atmosphere of blind terror, began shooting into the water. They continued to shoot for some minutes, wanting to be sure that these two have-a-go heroes would never resurface.

‘We won’t be worth much to you if we’re all dead!’ screamed Mrs Sylvester. ‘Hostages have to be alive, remember.’

‘Who said anything about hostages?’ snarled the pirate.

This had the desired effect and all the remaining passengers trembled and awaited their fate.