Lauren Child - Catch Your Death

The division Ruby worked for, Spectrum 8, was run by LB, a woman who took no nonsense and no prisoners. She was not someone who tolerated mistakes or stupidity, and mistakes as far as LB was concerned were stupidity. For this reason it was credit to Ruby that, even though she had made more than one or two errors in her short Spectrum life, she was still an agent who had lived to tell the tale (had there been someone she was authorised to tell it to).

It wasn’t easy, but Ruby Redfort wasn’t going to complain about it – all she had ever wanted was to work for a secret agency, not just as a code breaker, but as a field agent, out there facing danger and experiencing adventure. She had a lot of tests to take before this dream would become a reality and she was determined not to blow it.

So, every day, Ruby left school, dropping by her home before heading to a secret location where she would get picked up by a Spectrum agency helicopter and dropped at the mountain camp. Every evening the helicopter would take her home again.

That night, after she had got home and changed back into her regular clothes, jeans and T-shirt (this one bearing the words trust me, I’m a doctor), Ruby went downstairs to the kitchen to grab some dinner.

Her mother frowned a little when she caught sight of the T-shirt, but decided to let it go. ‘Your hair looks nice honey,’ she said.

‘How was school?’ asked her father.

Ruby shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, schooly.’

‘Did the Evening Bark arrive yet?’ asked Brant.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t notice,’ said Ruby.

‘I’ll go see,’ he said. Brant Redfort went to the front step to pick up the evening newspaper, the Twinford Hound (the Redforts always referred to it as the Evening Bark because it tended to be full of loud and sensational news).

Brant walked into the kitchen, reading the paper, his brow a little furrowed.

‘Bad news?’ asked Sabina.

‘Warning of forest fires,’ sighed Brant. ‘The mountains and canyons are tinder dry and unless we get some rain the chances of the forests going up in flames are high.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Sabina, ‘I don’t like the sound of that, not one little bit.’

Brant’s face brightened. ‘Hey honey, you’re going to like the sound of this.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Sabina, sitting up in her chair as if she needed to really concentrate.

‘Melrose Dorff are having a launch.’

‘Oh fabulous!’ exclaimed Sabina. ‘What are they launching?’

‘The Lost Perfume of Marie Antoinette 1770,’ said Brant. ‘It’s French.’

‘Oh, French, I like the sound of that!’

‘Didn’t I tell you that you would? Not that a whole gallon of perfume could smell better than you do,’ he said, sniffing Sabina’s neck.

‘Oh brother!’ muttered Ruby.

Brant continued reading: “Madame Swann, perfumer to the rich and tasteful, famous for her discerning nose, has brought her recreation of Queen Marie Antoinette’s exclusive perfume from Paris to the West Coast. Let Them Smell Roses, the Lost Perfume of Marie Antoinette 1770, will be launched at a fabulous soirée where attendees will also be able to view some of the ill-fated Queen’s most precious jewellery. An exciting announcement will be made on the night – it will be strictly an invitation-only event.”

Sabina looked forlorn and then puzzled. ‘But why haven’t we been invited?’ she said. ‘I mean we usually are.’

This was an understatement: the Redforts always were.

‘Don’t worry sweetheart. I’m sure there’ll be a logical explanation. Maybe they haven’t mailed the invitations yet.’

‘I hope you’re right Brant. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get invited to this particular launch party.’

Ruby rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

After she had wolfed down her supper, she went back up to her room. She was keen to do more reading before she turned in for the night. She had been studying hard for the past weeks – reading everything she could, absorbing it, digesting it and living by it.

What she didn’t know was that it was precisely this rigid adherence to the facts she had learned and the rules she had made that was going to lead to her downfall.

ON DAY SEVEN SAM COLT BEGAN BY TALKING ABOUT BASIC SURVIVAL SKILLS.

He hunkered down and motioned for them to gather round.

‘Anyone want to tell me the two most important things needed in order to survive out in the wild. . . other than water?’

They had spent the first week mastering the skill of locating water, how to ensure the water was safe and how to make water when there was none.

‘Fire and shelter,’ said Ruby.

‘Correct again Redfort. Fire is your friend, except when it gets out of control. You have a responsibility never to let your fire get away from you. Forest fires you can’t always prevent, but you can ensure your campfire doesn’t cause one.’

Ruby didn’t need reminding about this warning.

It was:

Basic Skills

2. FIRE

SURVIVAL RULE5:

Only build a fire in a place where you can keep it contained.

‘Once you’ve found the right place to build your fire,’ Colt went on, ‘and once you’ve secured the surrounding area, tinder is what you’ll be needing next. Basically, you wanna find stuff that burns real easy and real quick. Tree bark, dried grass, paper – even cotton from your clothing if you’re desperate – all make good tinder. Or you could crush up pine cones or birds’ nests. Next on the list is kindling, then slow-burning fuel, meaning logs. Once you have all your materials lined up ready, all you gotta do is set fire to ’em. . . easier said than done.’

He smiled and walked towards the door. ‘Since making fire is just about the most important skill you need, you better get practising.’

The trainees all followed Sam Colt outside and spent the rest of that day trying to make a spark. As Colt had warned, it was ‘easier said than done’. All in all, it took about a week to master fire.

Day fourteen, after school, and Ruby was sitting in the kitchen of Green-wood House, the Redforts’ stylish, modern Twinford home, making herself a little snack. The toaster pinged and up popped her two slices of toast: both were the bearers of unhappy news. Unlike most people’s toasters, Ruby Redfort’s doubled as a fax machine and was capable of delivering important messages from Spectrum when you had just sat down to eat a delicious snack.

Ruby picked up the toast. The message was grilled into one side.

The first piece said:

‘Foraging: one hour from now.’

The other said:

‘Don’t spoil your appetite.’

Ruby had been waiting for this day to arrive with a particular sort of dread. Having done some reading up on foraging, she couldn’t say it really appealed to her. She looked at the clock: she still had forty minutes before she needed to head off, still time to ask Mrs Digby’s expert advice on the subject.

Mrs Digby had been with the Redfort family since before Ruby was born and with Ruby’s mother’s family forever or thereabouts.

‘I know all there is to know about mushrooms and toadstools, which ones will kill you and which won’t,’ Mrs Digby said.

‘You know a whole lot about the wild Mrs Digby, that’s for darn sure.’

‘The Digbys have always lived off the land and have always had it hard. We had it hard when we sailed over with the Mayflower and we’ve had it hard ever since, years and years of hardship and years of living off the free stuff that nature provided, no matter how disgusting, which it’s not unreasonable to say since it certainly can be at times.’