Lauren Child - Catch Your Death

‘Where’ve you been buster? I’ve been hanging around up here for about a day.’ Ruby wasn’t bothered by the waiting , the truth was she really didn’t mind waiting , but she was irked that Clancy was late for her . Clancy Crew was rarely late for anyone.

‘Ah, sorry Rube,’ called Clancy, ‘I got distracted.’

‘Well, you missed some action that’s for sure. Mrs Beesman caused a collision when she let go of her shopping cart and it spun off into the street. This cheesy-looking guy in a big white Cadillac hit a fire hydrant and he got all hot and bothered and threatened to sue her and then Marla came out of the Double Donut and started hitting him on the head with a pancake flipper. Sheriff Bridges had to come and break it up. He had the siren on and everything.’

‘I’m sorry to miss it,’ said Clancy, with genuine disappointment.

‘Yeah, well, Marla really let that guy have it. Said he deserved it for picking on a defenceless old woman.’

‘I have quibbles about the “defenceless” part, but otherwise I’m with Marla,’ said Clancy. ‘Mrs Beesman might be a little strange, but I doubt she let go her cart on purpose; it’s like her prized possession.’

‘Yeah, she’s not bothering anyone, and ever since we cleaned out her yard that time I’ve kinda had a soft spot for Mrs Beesman, you know what I mean?’

‘No,’ said Clancy, who didn’t know why anyone would have a soft spot for Mrs Beesman; personally, she scared the life out of him, not that he would wish her any harm, but he wanted to avoid her at all costs.

Mrs Beesman was reputed to have at least seventy-four cats which all lived in her small wonky house on the corner of Cedarwood Drive. She spent her days pushing a shopping cart full of cat food and listening to her transistor radio as she trundled to and from the SmartMart. She never spoke to another human soul. Mrs Beesman rarely seemed to purchase anything other than pet snacks and it was thought she too probably existed on a diet of cat food.

‘Turns out she let go of her shopping cart because this mugger guy was trying to steal her cat, you know that big grey one she takes everywhere? I didn’t see that part, just the aftermath.’

‘Why would anyone try to steal that cat? It’s only got one ear and I’m not sure it isn’t a bit short of legs,’ said Clancy.

‘Who knows what motivates the criminal mind?’ said Ruby.

‘Well, we can be pretty sure it wasn’t motivated by the desire to win best in show at Twinford Cat Club,’ said Clancy.

‘So,’ asked Ruby, ‘what was the big distraction?’

‘Ah, nothin’,’ said Clancy, ‘I’m too depressed to talk about it. Fill me in on your training?’

‘I got lost,’ replied Ruby.

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ said Clancy.

‘No, I was meant to be lost; the training was getting myself unlost.’ She sighed.

‘So did you?’

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘I guess you are. So you passed, that was good, huh?’

‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘It wasn’t and I didn’t. There was a time factor and I didn’t make it.’

‘Oh, that’s a drag,’ said Clancy, looking at her. ‘They gonna kick you out or what?’

‘Your sensitivity is appreciated,’ said Ruby.

‘I’m just asking.’

It was a question Ruby didn’t particularly want to answer. ‘Well, it wasn’t good. I was way too slow.’ She let out a heavy sigh.

‘So?’ said Clancy, shrugging. ‘You can fix that easy enough, just speed up.’

‘It isn’t that easy,’ said Ruby. ‘I seemed to royally suck.’

‘You can’t have flunked it all. So you got lost. I bet you were super good at everything else.’

‘I sort of flunked on the whole foraging thing too,’ said Ruby.

‘Food foraging?’ asked Clancy.

‘What other kind is there?’ said Ruby.

‘Fuel?’ suggested Clancy.

‘No, fuel there was plenty of,’ she replied. ‘I’m just not so good at rootling around for things that look disgusting and then eating them.’

‘I’m with you there,’ said Clancy.

Neither of them said anything for a minute or two.

Clancy was thinking about this new side to Ruby, Ruby the flunker. It sort of made him feel better somehow, her not being good at something. He didn’t want to feel good about something that made her feel bad, but it was a creeping satisfaction that he wasn’t in charge of.

‘So what you gonna do Rube?’

‘I’m gonna order a big plate of French toast and forget about it.’

Clancy smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.’

‘Let’s go to the Donut, get the skinny on what happened with Marla and the cops.’

THEY CLIMBED BACK DOWN THE TREE and were sitting at the diner bar counter two minutes later. The place was full of talk; everyone was discussing Marla’s heroic defence of the cat lady. No one had pressed charges and the cops were a lot more interested in the driver’s untaxed Cadillac than they were in the damage a shopping cart and a fire hydrant might have done to it.

Ruby ate fast, barely saying a word.

‘You skip breakfast or something?’ asked Clancy.

‘Nah, I had breakfast,’ she replied, ‘just can’t stop feeling hungry I guess.’

‘Maybe you got worms,’ suggested Clancy.

‘I doubt it,’ said Ruby. ‘I didn’t eat anything that could give me worms.’

‘There are other ways to get worms,’ said Clancy.

‘I don’t wanna think about those other ways, thanks buster.’

‘I was only saying,’ he muttered.

Silence again and then he asked, ‘So I’m guessing you did some fun stuff too. I mean you must have, right?’

‘If you count parachuting from a great height, rustling a horse from a ranch and riding it bareback across a river and then making your way in pitch-black to a valley, finding a ditch and sleeping in it, then yes, I guess it was exciting.’

Clancy’s eyes widened. ‘I do count that as exciting, well, all but the part about your sleeping arrangements.’

‘Yeah, I coulda done without the ditch myself, to tell you the truth, and the getting lost part wasn’t so cool either, nor were the rapids and the having my foot stitched without anaesthetic.’

‘I didn’t know you could ride bareback,’ said Clancy.

‘Neither did I – it wasn’t planned exactly – it was sorta necessary.’

‘So what kinda things are they testing you on?’ he asked.

‘Survival more than anything, dealing with everyday wilderness conditions, extreme wilderness conditions and some incidental challenges, like forest fires, getting caught in rapids, attack by wild animals – any in-the-wilds emergency I guess.’

Clancy liked the sound of this; as a casual observer, he liked drama even if he didn’t exactly like to be in the middle of it himself. The forest fire challenge was only rivalled by the fear of attack by wild animals. Both sounded to Clancy like things to be avoided.

‘So what have I missed?’ asked Ruby. ‘I mean something must have happened these last three days.’

‘Our neighbour Mrs Gilbert’s spaniel, Gilbert, went missing.’

‘Mrs Gilbert’s spaniel is called Gilbert?’ said Ruby.

‘Yes, Gilbert Gilbert is what she calls him,’ said Clancy.

Ruby pondered this information with an expression of puzzled pity.

‘He was on his leash,’ continued Clancy, ‘tied to the fence, you know, so he could run round the backyard, but not actually get out of the yard – anyhow, he did.’

‘Did what?’ said Ruby.

‘Get out the yard, and the weird thing is he musta slipped outta his collar somehow ’cause Mrs Gilbert found it down the street, but there was no sign of Gilbert Gilbert.’