Читать книгу Catch Your Death - Lauren Child - Страница 23

IT WAS LATE THAT SAME AFTERNOON and Clancy was walking beside Ruby, pushing her bike for her along Amster towards home. Her foot was really aching and she was finding it uncomfortable to put pressure on it. The heat had eased off a bit and reached a pleasant temperature, and they were talking about the upcoming vacation and how they were going to spend it.

‘My dad wants me to go on that camp out at Little Bear with the Wichitinos,’ said Clancy.

Ruby nearly spat her bubblegum. ‘You are kidding man? No way can you go!’

‘Of course not,’ said Clancy, a little offended that she might think he would willingly or even unwillingly attend Wichitino Camp. ‘They’d have to hold me at gunpoint.’

‘Jeez!’ said Ruby. ‘I’d never live it down.’

‘What’s it got to do with you?’ said Clancy. ‘It’s me who’d be on dork camp rubbing sticks together.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ruby, ‘and think how I’d feel as your friend, knowing you were toasting marshmallows and singing “Kumbaya” with a lot of bozos in short pants.’

‘I’m sure they do more than toast marshmallows,’ said Clancy.

‘So now you’re defending the Wichitinos?’ said Ruby. ‘You don’t think it’s totally dorky after all?’

‘It’s total dorkdom,’ said Clancy, ‘that goes without saying. I’m just suggesting that there must be more to it than heating up marshmallows.’

‘Let’s drop it,’ said Ruby. ‘Neither one of us is going on dork camp, period.’

They continued in semi-silence until they reached the fork in the road and Clancy peeled off up Rose and Ruby got on her bike and freewheeled down Lime. When she reached the bottom, she saw Hitch waiting for her. He was standing by the car, drinking in the sun’s last rays.

‘Hey, that’s a coincidence!’ called Ruby, skidding to a halt by the kerb.

‘Not really,’ said Hitch, pointing to the keyring clipped to a whole bunch of other keyrings that dangled from her satchel. She hadn’t even noticed.

She was puzzled for a second and then it dawned on her.

‘A mini locator?’

He winked. ‘No flies on you kid.’

‘You saying I can keep it?’ asked Ruby.

‘A replacement for the one you lost at the museum that time. You’re lucky LB didn’t take it out of your pay packet.’

Ruby hadn’t exactly lost the original one; it had been sacrificed while assisting her escape, and the time Hitch referred to was an incident when Ruby very nearly lost more than a keyring.

The mini locator was a gadget dressed up as a kid’s word puzzle with little sliding letter tiles that, once arranged correctly, spelled HELP. Once formed, this word HELP would set off a flashing light on the ‘buddy’ locator, which in this case was Hitch’s watch. Then he would know not only that Ruby was in trouble, but also where she was. It had limited range, but when it worked it worked very effectively. It looked simple, and in a way was simple, but no one, not even the evil genius known to Spectrum as the Count, had spotted it.

‘So you think LB has forgiven me for losing the great Bradley Baker’s mini locator?’ said Ruby, her tone sarcastic.

‘She’ll forgive you when you prove yourself to be half as good an agent as he was,’ said Hitch. He seemed to enjoy winding her up on this subject. Bradley Baker was a Spectrum legend and although he had died in an accident many years ago his reputation for brilliance and bravery dogged Ruby every day of her Spectrum life.

‘So why are you here?’ she asked.

‘To take you in to HQ,’ he replied.

Ruby knew she was going to have to face the music sooner or later, but she had hoped for later. Not today, she thought. But all she said was, ‘So where is it this time? The way in, I mean?’

This could seem like a strange question given that Ruby Redfort had been into Spectrum headquarters on many occasions and had spent hours and hours there working on cracking complex codes, but the unusual thing about Spectrum was that it never stayed in one place for long, or at least the way in never stayed anywhere for long. The first time Ruby had entered was via a manhole; last time it had been through a door in the boiler room of the municipal swimming pool.

Hitch pulled up in one of the bays by the iron railings that surrounded Twinford’s Central City Park. He switched off the engine and opened the car door. ‘Here,’ he said.

Ruby slowly got out. ‘Where is here?’

Hitch pointed to the path. ‘You see where it bends and disappears?’

Ruby nodded.

‘To the right of it, over by that huge tree, can you see those boulders?’

Ruby nodded again. There were some large rocks which had been used to landscape the park, to make it look more natural, sort of New York Central Park style.

‘Behind them you’ll find the toddler playground,’ said Hitch. ‘You’ll work it out from there.’

Ruby looked at him, her mouth open.

‘Man! You are surely kidding?’

Hitch shook his head.

‘I’m thirteen – that playground is for babies; how’s it gonna look if I start swinging around on the jungle gym?’

‘That might look unusual for a kid of your age. But I’m not sure what that would have to do with finding the door into Spectrum.’

‘So where is it by the way, the door?’

‘You’ll work it out kid, that’s what we pay you for.’

‘I’ll bet it’s inside the caterpillar pipes, isn’t it? You guys really get your kicks making me do these dorkish things, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think you should take it personally kid. Just think of it as another test – how well can you act?’

‘Swell,’ said Ruby. ‘And I guess you’ll be taking a different route? No monkey bars for you.’

‘See you on the other side kid,’ said Hitch. He winked at her and walked across the road.