Читать книгу The Ruby Redfort Collection: 4-6: Feed the Fear; Pick Your Poison; Blink and You Die - Lauren Child - Страница 48

RUBY BEGAN WENDING HER WAY BACK TO CEDARWOOD DRIVE. At first she let the board take her at the speed it wanted to go, and then she considered how she might rack up some extra goody points if she made it home super-early – her mom wanted to yack on about Ada Borland. Sabina wanted to plan what Ruby would wear for the portrait and explain what Ruby should say when she met Ada and impress on Ruby how polite she should be and how lucky Ruby was to have such a great artist give her this unique opportunity and blah, blah, blah.

Ruby manoeuvred herself into the centre of the traffic and fixed on a suitable car to grab onto. The driver was a little reckless and he ran more than a couple of red lights but that suited Ruby fine. Besides, she could use the thrill.

Clancy felt dizzy. His mouth was dry and his heart pumping fast; he had to stop for a minute.

Take it easy Clance.

He needed a soda or something. Just to give him the energy to get home.

The driver of the car Ruby was hanging from the back of hit his brakes without warning, and she was sent careering into oncoming traffic. Her attempt to make a turn on Midtown Avenue failed completely, there was just no way through, and so she went sailing on down the Fountain Park Slopes, gathering speed as she travelled.

Yikes.

She flew through a red light and caused a minor collision, swerved her way through a gaggle of elderly theatre-goers as they ventured over the pedestrian crossing, and would have made it all in one piece had it not been for the police car making a left. At this point she was separated from her transport, sailed over the cop car, her skateboard freewheeling under, and girl and board were destined never to reunite.

Ruby landed in a sprawling heap on the tarmac of Fountain Park Slopes and the skateboard continued on its journey.

Remarkably, apart from the severely grazed arm, an eye that was swelling by the second, and a horrible-looking knee poking through jeans that were ripped to shreds, Ruby Redfort was actually in good shape, as in: not dead.

The cops stood over her like she was an alien who had fallen from her spaceship.

‘Hi officer,’ said Ruby.

‘Why is this kid not dead?’ said one of the officers to the other.

‘Beats me,’ said his partner. ‘Must have a guardian angel watching over her.’

‘Something like that,’ said Ruby, looking down at her still-breathing self. Boy am I lucky, she thought.

Clancy hadn’t spotted the kids outside the minimart. He’d been too distracted by his breathing trouble and subsequent struggle to open the can. The soda felt good as he gulped it down, cold and sugary and fizzy. He was OK, it was all OK, really it was. He bent down to unlock his bike and when he stood up they were surrounding him.

‘Nice wheels,’ said the gorilla, ‘though I think they would suit you better if they was yellow, you know, chicken-coloured.’ He laughed and his gorilla friends laughed too, even though it was a pretty pathetic joke in Clancy’s opinion.

Clancy looked at all four of them, their big leering faces, their ugly smiles, their dumb comments. Why was he frightened of these losers? And suddenly he found courage, even all alone as he was in the little side alley of Marty’s minimart. Suddenly he felt fearless.

After she was checked over by a doctor at the ER, Ruby was escorted by the two cops – Officer Nadal and Officer Polpo – back to Cedarwood Drive.

Sabina Redfort practically fainted when she saw the two cops standing there outside the front door, and her expression only slightly relaxed when Ruby stepped out from behind them. The thing was her darling daughter’s face did not resemble the face she had kissed goodbye to that same morning. This face looked horrible; it was a funny colour and puffy in all the wrong places.

‘Oh my good gosh, whatever happened to you?’

‘Skitching, ma’am,’ said Polpo.

‘It’s an illegal activity,’ said Nadal.

‘I’m sorry?’ Sabina looked puzzled. ‘Knitting is illegal?’

‘Skitching,’ repeated Nadal, with more emphasis. ‘It’s an activity that involves hanging onto a moving vehicle while skateboarding, roller skating or cycling.’

‘What?’ said Sabina.

‘I’m sorry to inform you, ma’am, that your daughter was involved in this illegal method of transportation.’

‘Who says it’s illegal?’ said Ruby. ‘Discouraged, sure, but illegal. . . I don’t think so.’

Sabina glared at her. ‘Don’t push your luck, pancake! You are already well and truly in the doghouse, you have a portrait booked for tomorrow for jeepers’ sake, and I can’t cancel Ada Borland – no one cancels Ada Borland – the woman’s a genius.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’ said Officer Nadal, who had no idea what was going on.

‘Might I be of help, officers?’ asked Hitch, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. ‘Mrs Redfort, why don’t you take Ruby up to her room, she needs to lie down, get Mrs Digby to fix her some soup, while I chat this over with the officers.’

Ruby missed what happened next, but ten minutes later Hitch was in the kitchen brewing up herb tea for her mother, while simultaneously on the line to a highly regarded masseuse, and at the same time listening to Sabina who was saying, ‘What’s the kid trying to do, kill herself? Have I failed as a mother? Have we not been there for her? Is this a cry for help? And someone please tell me. . . what are we going to do about her portrait? Have you seen that bruise? Have you seen the lip? Geez, the kid could double for the ugliest member of the Addams Family.’

Clancy heard their footsteps fading off into the distance, their whoops of laughter as they turned the corner. He reached a hand to his forehead and felt the warm sticky blood oozing from the cut on his eyebrow. He tried to stand, his ribs aching from where they had punched him. His arm felt dead. His hair felt funny, smelled funny; that of course was due to the spray paint – how was he going to explain this to his mom? She was unlikely to understand why his hair was now canary yellow and if he told her the truth she would no doubt call the police, the school and Bailey Roach’s mom, and Clancy really didn’t want that.

He found his bike, the front mudguard now bent out of shape and its beautiful Windrush blue marred by the yellow sweep of the aerosol can.

He picked up the bike and very slowly wheeled it home. He needed to clean the paint off before it set hard.

Ruby must not see this.