Читать книгу Blink and You Die - Lauren Child - Страница 28

DESPITE HIS RESISTANCE, Clancy Crew did join Ruby on her mission to find mushrooms. It took her no more than ten minutes of persuading before he reluctantly agreed. It took a lot longer than that to reach Little Mountain Side, but the journey was not the tedious experience Clancy had expected. As the bus wound up high into the Sequoia Mountains, the scenery became more and more spectacular, the great red trees rising from the rock. As the woodland thinned, they were confronted by staggering views to the south and west and far away in the distance one could just about see the ocean.

When at last the bus pulled up in Little Mountain Side there was no missing the perfect prettiness of the town either, perched high up there on the south side of the mountain, the sun slanting through the trees. As they stepped off the bus, Ruby and Clancy breathed in the mountain air; it was pretty good.

‘Sure doesn’t smell like Twinford,’ said Clancy.

‘You can almost taste the trees,’ said Ruby.

By the side of the road was a sign that read:

FRIENDLIEST TOWN IN THE NORTH- WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND ‘FREE OF SERIOUS CRIME’ SINCE 1951.

‘That’s reassuring,’ said Ruby.

It didn’t take long to find Daily Supplies.

The man behind the counter looked somehow familiar, but Ruby couldn’t place him. She decided that he probably just had one of those faces, even-featured, nice looking, a friendly kind of appearance (at least what she could see of it under the beard), older than her dad and perhaps a tad taller.

He waved at them as they walked in, but continued chatting to a customer at the counter and ringing up groceries.

Ruby and Clancy checked out the shelves while they waited. They were stocked with a lot of interesting and unusual things. However, they had no luck finding the maitake mushrooms.

The customer finally paid and exited the shop, and Clancy and Ruby walked up to the counter.

She looked at the storekeeper and then figured it out.

‘Oh, I got it.’

‘Got what?’ asked the storekeeper.

‘Where I saw you before,’ said Ruby.

‘You’ve seen me before?’

‘Yeah, in the bookstore.’

‘In Mountain Books?’ he asked, pointing in the direction of the bookstore across the street.

‘Ray Penny’s bookstore,’ said Ruby, ‘in Twinford – you were reading a book on rare fungi. I mean you must have read the entire book while you were there.’

‘It was a cold day and I was waiting for my truck to be fixed,’ he said.

‘You often in Twinford?’ asked Ruby.

‘Rarely.’

‘You ever been to Penny’s before?’

‘Never,’ said the guy. ‘At least, not that I recall.’ He paused. ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ he said. He looked at Clancy. ‘She always this curious, your friend here?’

‘Curious is a nice word for what she is,’ said Clancy.

The guy smiled at that.

The bell above the door jangled and a burly man strode in, a shock-haired baby on his back.

‘Hey, Mo,’ said the man. ‘How’s the old leg doing?’

‘Limping a bit in this cold weather. You know how it is.’

‘You got those Brazilian beans in yet?’

The storekeeper reached behind him and took a package from one of the shelves and stood it on the counter top. ‘Anything else for you Sven?’

The man took out a newspaper. ‘Seven down,’ he said. ‘Mix cantaloupe citrus.’

The storekeeper frowned. ‘How many letters?’

‘Five.’

‘I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Thanks,’ said the guy.

‘Anything besides the beans?’

The man shook his head. ‘Just the coffee, that’ll do it.’

‘How are you there, Spike?’ The storekeeper directed this question at the baby and it gurgled and looked very pleased.

‘See you around, Mo,’ said the man as he turned to leave.

‘See you Sven, see you Spike, don’t be strangers.’

When they reached the door the storekeeper shouted, ‘Lemon! Anagram of melon, from cantaloupe.’

‘Of course! Can’t think how I missed it,’ called Sven.

The storekeeper turned to Ruby. ‘He’s a cryptic crossword nut,’ he explained. ‘So what can I help you with?’ he asked.

‘That’s your name?’ asked Ruby. ‘Mo?’

‘It’s what everyone calls me.’ He looked at her. ‘So what do they call you?’

‘Ruby,’ said Ruby.

The storekeeper shrugged. ‘I had you down for something more edgy,’ he said.

‘What, like Spike?’ suggested Ruby.

He shrugged again. ‘You could carry a name like Spike,’ he said.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said Ruby.

‘That’s how I meant it,’ said Mo.

‘So this is my pal Clancy.’

Mo nodded. ‘Good to meet you, Clancy – what can I do you two for?’

‘Hen of the woods,’ said Ruby.

‘You’ve left it a bit late in the season,’ said the storekeeper.

‘I have?’ asked Ruby. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Pretty sure,’ said the guy. ‘It’s one of the few things I know something about.’

‘You seem OK at crosswords,’ said Clancy.

He smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s the other thing …’ he said. ‘So the maitake season is from late August to late November and I usually order in from my mushroom lady out in Minnesota.’

Ruby looked disappointed enough for the guy to reach for a pen and paper.

‘I’ll make a note and see what I can do, you might get lucky. It’s been a pretty weird season, weather-wise,’ he said, turning to the calendar hanging on the wall. ‘She won’t be around until next week; can you hang on a day or two?’

‘I guess,’ said Ruby, ‘but it’s a long way to come for a bunch of fungi. I don’t spose you’re going to be visiting Twinford this week?’

‘Not if I can help it,’ said Mo. ‘It’s noisy and full of people.’

‘That’s what I like about it.’

‘Each to their own,’ said Mo. ‘A nice quiet life is what suits me.’

Clancy was beginning to think it might also suit him. He liked it up here with the trees and the condors and the lack of serious crime since 1951.

Ruby sighed. ‘I’ll do my best to make it back, but could you maybe call me when you’re certain you got them?’

‘Sure,’ said Mo, ‘give me your digits.’

Ruby scribbled down her number and the guy pinned it up on the pinboard behind him.

‘Is there anything to see in this town?’ asked Clancy.

‘More than you’d think,’ said Mo.

‘My friend here is keen on UFOs and little green men from Mars,’ said Ruby. ‘Anything like that around?’

‘Call in at the Little Green Diner. They do a mean Space Burger, ask for a side of Mars fries and tell Silas that Mo sent you and he’ll give you a deal.’

As they were going out the door they heard the phone ring; Mo picked up. ‘How many letters?’ he said.

Ruby could see that for Clancy stepping into the Little Green Diner was pretty special. It had been wallpapered in space pictures: Apollo 13, the space craft which made the ill-fated third manned trip to the surface of moon, took up most of one wall and a possible UFO sighting filled another.

Ruby and Clancy walked up to the counter.

‘Mo said to say he sent us,’ said Ruby.

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ said Silas. ‘So I guess you’ll be getting a deal.’

‘Have you ever seen a UFO Rube?’ asked Clancy, not waiting for an answer. ‘I think I saw one once, took a photograph too, but my sister Lulu says it was actually a Frisbee and to be honest there’s no telling.’

‘I think you’d know,’ said a small, thin guy sitting at the counter. ‘When I saw my first UFO, I was in no doubt about what I’d just been witness to.’

‘Well, hang on a tiny minute, Walter,’ said the enormous man who sat on the stool next to him. ‘The thing is, no one exactly knows what they are looking for, so it’s easy to get it wrong.’

‘I’m not disagreeing with you there, Duke, but when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen one, and I’ve seen two.’

‘It’s true,’ said Duke, ‘he’s seen a couple.’

Clancy was all ears. ‘So what did it look like?’ he asked.

‘How you’d expect,’ said Walter. ‘A craft unusual in appearance, moving pretty fast across the night sky, bright lights, no markings.’

‘How do you know it had no markings if it was dark and moving at speed?’ asked Silas, who had doubtless quizzed Walter about this many times before.

‘I know what I saw,’ said Walter, crossing his arms.

‘Why do you think Little Mountain Side attracted so many UFOs?’ asked Ruby.

‘Because of the space base,’ said Walter.

‘Space base?’ asked Clancy. ‘There was an actual space base here?’

‘No,’ said Silas.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Walter, ignoring him. ‘It was some kinda space operation? In the Sequoia Mountains.’

‘It was an energy plant,’ said Silas.

‘Oh yeah, so how do you explain all the comings and goings, all the activity?’ said Walter.

‘There were more than a thousand people working there, what do you expect?’ said Silas.

‘I’m not talking about any power plant,’ said Walter, ‘I’m talking about something covert here, you know –’ he leant in close – ‘to welcome the aliens.’

‘Really?’ said Clancy.

‘That’s what they say,’ said Duke.

‘Who says?’ asked Ruby.

‘No one,’ said Silas. ‘This is Walt talking garbage, as usual.’

‘He’s not a believer,’ said Duke, pointing his thumb at Silas, ‘that’s his trouble.’

‘Likes to cash in on it though,’ said Walter, holding up a flying saucer serviette.

It was actually all good-natured banter, and clearly had been said a thousand times before.

‘So if there was a space base somewhere here on this mountainside, then why doesn’t anyone talk about it?’ asked Clancy.

‘It was all very much on the downlow, if you know what I’m saying,’ said Duke. ‘Not for civilians to know about.’

Silas shook his head. ‘You guys and your conspiracy theories. It’s a bunch of hogwash. Sven’s father worked at the plant for a whole number of years and he never once mentioned little green men from Mars.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he,’ said Walter.

Duke nodded his head. ‘That’s right, Walt. Sven’s dad would have signed some official secrecy document, everyone who worked there would have.’

Walter nodded gravely and Silas chuckled to himself.

‘I promise you this: if a Martian ever walks into this diner, I’ll shake him by the tentacle and give him a side order of fries on the house.’