Lauren Child - Catch Your Death

‘Quite the mystery,’ said Ruby.

Clancy smiled. ‘Isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Maybe you should alert Spectrum.’

‘Who’s Spectrum?’ said a voice.

They both jumped – Spectrum was not a word to be breathed in public and was not a word that Clancy was supposed to know, let alone utter.

Ruby looked up and saw the eager face of Elliot Finch.

‘TV show,’ she said.

‘Never heard of it,’ said Elliot.

Ruby shrugged.

‘But then you guys watch a lotta TV,’ said Elliot. He slid into the diner booth. ‘Where’ve you been anyway?’

‘Oh, here and there,’ replied Ruby.

Elliot eyed her. ‘You don’t look so good, kinda scrawny – what’ve you been eating?’

Ruby shrugged. ‘Just grubs and maggots, but I’m done with that diet.’

Elliot looked at her, unsure if she was joking.

‘You want a donut?’ said Ruby.

Elliot looked at his watch. ‘Sure, I could eat.’ He studied the menu. ‘You seen Mouse? I’m meant to be meeting her here; we were gonna play table tennis in Harker Park.’

Harker Square, or Harker Park as kids and locals often referred to it, was the smart square in the centre of town. It had clipped hedges and ornamental apple trees as well as huge dappled plane trees, rose beds and several fountains – some traditional, some very modern and surprising (surprising in that they suddenly spouted water high into the air when people walked by – a lot of people had complained).

The square was surrounded by smart shops and office buildings, all built in the art deco style. Harker Square was popular: it was pretty, sunny with plenty of benches and shaded areas, and had just acquired a permanent outdoor table tennis table and Elliot was making the most of it. Mouse was a pretty good table tennis player, championship good actually, and Elliot was getting her to teach him some moves.

When Mouse eventually showed, she had come with news.

‘Strangest thing – I got to Harker Park, but the ping-pong table is sort of gone, at least half of it’s gone, I mean totally wrecked; looks like something actually took a bite out of it.’

‘I bet it was that Flannagon kid,’ said Elliot. ‘I saw him and those boys he hangs out with hitting a baseball around the back alley behind the department store. I’ll bet they wrecked the table tennis table and then went to find something else to destroy. They broke a window with their baseball too. That Flannagon kid is some hitter.’

‘You saw them do that?’ said Ruby.

‘As good as,’ said Elliot. ‘I heard the sound of a ball hitting a bat and then I heard the sound of glass breaking, so it had to be them, right? I mean it’s always them.’

‘You got a be careful accusing people without being a hundred per cent sure,’ said Mouse. ‘People end up in the big house every day, locked up for crimes they never even committed.’

Mouse’s grandfather was a campaigner – he worked hard to protect ‘John Q. Public’s’ civil rights and so Mouse had grown up with strong feelings about fairness and justice. She didn’t much like Dillon Flannagon, but that didn’t mean he was guilty of every act of vandalism in Twinford County, though he did seem to be responsible for most of them.

In any case, it didn’t much matter if it was Dillon Flannagon or not: no one was going to be playing table tennis in Harker Park any time soon.

Elliot shrugged. ‘So what now?’

‘Beats me,’ said Mouse.

‘I’ll think I’ll order another waffle,’ said Ruby.

‘You have to be kidding,’ said Clancy.

But she wasn’t.

The department store’s stylish restaurant was busy and buzzing with fashionable Twinfordites

A young woman sat alone at a table, not concentrating on the menu she was supposed to be reading, but instead looking around her and glancing at the clock.

She took a small bottle from her purse and dabbed perfume onto her wrists; the smell of Turkish delight enveloped her and seemed to calm her. Her sharp blue eyes relaxed a little when she saw the young man zigzagging through the crowded room. He was casually dressed, unlike the other diners.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said.

‘I’m only two minutes late Lorelei,’ said the man, checking his watch.

‘Two minutes is two minutes,’ she asserted.

Lorelei von Leyden was elegantly dressed in grey. Her spiked shoes tapped on the floor under the restaurant table: she was nervous.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘I thought everything was going to plan.’

‘I got a message,’ she replied. ‘I think. . . I think she knows.’

‘How could she know?’ he asked. ‘She can’t know; you’re just paranoid.’

‘You don’t know her like I do Eduardo. I know she knows, she always knows, she knows everything.’

The man tried to catch the waiter’s attention. ‘So what are you suggesting we do?’ he said.

‘Bring the plan forward; we need to get on with it – contact you know who, get him to deliver.’

She made to leave.

‘You not eating?’ said the man.

‘I have to get back to the day job,’ she said. ‘Besides,’ she sniffed the air, ‘I don’t think the food here smells so appetising.’

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.