Lauren Child - Catch Your Death

In English Es and Ts appear a great deal more often than most other letters and Zs and Qs are in comparison pretty rare. Ruby surmised this was a substitution cipher, therefore whatever symbol was taking the place of E would come up most often, followed by T, then O, then A. The clumps of Xs she figured were just there to confuse so she ignored them.

She began substituting the most common letters, and soon saw familiar groups, like E, H and T and U, Y and O. She paused for a moment; the substitution gave her the right letters, but no recognisable words:

UYOLWI LEBDPR DPEOYB OILHET RCEPNI KOUNWN NARTRN IEXXXX.

NOEHTO ERHTDS IEFOEH TTAMIO NUNOUY LIWLEE SANCRA HXXXXX.

KMAEYU ROYAWO TEHTNC RAHUES NENNAD LRTSUE ARHOSE ORFMEH TARRCO LXXXXX.

ISWMEH TRHOSE SOASCR EHTVRE IRNADE ETHTRT IOTASP OTXXXX.*

KMEAUY ORYAWO TEHTON SEDCVR EIRNAD SCROST IXXXXX.

LWKADN WOEASM TRIULN TUYORE ANBDEY OEHTAE AWLRTL FXXXXX.

NFDIAD IDHNEN ACEONA DPLADD ETIIUL NTUYOR CAEHEH TNOLWD OADGEE DXXXXX.

OTNCEI NUNOOF TOOTSB AEMCAP.

OCCKLN IXXXXX; IOMNIS SELCDT MOPEXX.

ARWGIN NXXXXX: FIUYOE ARPTSD TEOIUR GLTNSEH TRHOSE UYOLWI LVHAEA FDEILN IUYORI OMNISS.

* EHTRHO SELWIL EBRTRD EENUOT EHTNCR AHYBTE AROHNN ATEGXX.

Then she looked again. The clue now was the repeating strings, like ‘NCRAH’, which had to mean ‘RANCH’, and ‘RHOSE’, which had to be ‘HORSE’.

Conclusion:

What she had in front of her was an anagram.

Ruby smiled as she decoded the mission instructions in less than one easy minute.

You will be blindfolded and dropped by helicopter in unknown terrain.

On the other side of the mountain you will see a ranch.

Make your way to the ranch unseen and rustle a horse from the corral.

Swim the horse across the river and tether it to a post.*

Make your way to the second river and cross it.

Walk downstream until you are beyond the waterfall.

Find a hidden canoe and paddle it until you reach the woodland edge.

Continue on foot to base camp.

Clock in; mission completed.

Warning: if you are spotted rustling the horse, you will have failed in your mission.

* The horse will be returned to the ranch by another agent.

Ruby was the first to decode her message and as a result had gained time credit before she had even begun. Once everyone was ready to go, one hour and forty-five minutes later (Trainee Lowe sucked at codes), she lined up with the others and was handed her rucksack.

‘Check your kit,’ shouted the agent as a general instruction to the group, ‘and make sure you take care of it. One: it’s all you got and two: it contains some pretty costly Spectrum equipment.’

The rucksack contained:

Socks, one pair

Thermals

Gloves

Scarf

Waterproof overtrousers and coat

Penknife

Small cooking can

Energy bars x five

One canteen of water

Binoculars

Basic map

Home–made compass

A micro–parachute

Once she had checked through her kit and was all set, Ruby walked over to Sam Colt.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember everything you taught me. I got it all here in my head.’

Colt looked at her, his eyes full of concern.

‘In your head is no good,’ he said. ‘Your gut is where you got a keep it.’

THE PLANE HAD BEEN FLYING FOR SOME TIME NOW and what with the blindfold, the noise of the engine and the overpowering smell of plane fuel, Ruby felt she had lost all sense of time and place. She had no idea how many other agents were in the plane with her, or at what point they had parachuted out. She just waited until it was her turn. She felt a hand press on her shoulder.

‘You’re up Redfort,’ said a voice she didn’t recognise. She got to her feet, a little wobbly from sitting so long and the plane’s angle. With the help of the anonymous hand, she shuffled from the row of benches until she reached the place where the doors must be.

‘You ready?’

She nodded.

‘Sure you’re sure?’ said another voice she immediately recognised – it came from the cockpit.

Hitch’s voice.

As far as secret agents went, Hitch was considered the best. He was Ruby’s immediate boss, though some would doubt it to listen to her. If there was one thing that Hitch might want to change about Ruby Redfort, it was her mouth, or rather her inability to keep it shut when it might be a good idea to keep it shut. ‘Kid, we have a rule here at Spectrum, rule number one in fact. Did anyone ever fill you in on it?’

When faced with this bothersome question, Ruby would widen her eyes and say, ‘I’m not sure. Does it have something to do with not talking with your mouth full? Or is it no strappy sandals in the workplace?’

Hitch would mutter, ‘Why me? ’ and remind himself that she wouldn’t always be thirteen and a total pain in the butt.

But, despite the banter and the occasional run-in, they got on very well and Ruby knew rule number one better than anyone.

SPECTRUM RULE 1: KEEP IT ZIPPED.

‘Hitch?’ she called from the back of the plane. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Someone’s got to fly this thing,’ he replied. ‘You OK kid?’ ‘Sure,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m looking forward to a little alone time.’ ‘Something goes wrong out there – you know I’ll find you.’

The merest hint of anxiety in his voice.

‘What could possibly go wrong?’ said Ruby. She felt the huge force of the wind as the doors were wrenched open.

‘Any last wishes?’ said the guy in charge of the jump.

‘You got a pair of earmuffs I could borrow?’ she replied.

He removed the blindfold from her eyes and she looked down into the moonlit dark.

‘Ah, stop whining Redfort and get outta here.’

And so she did.

As she tumbled through the night sky, thoughts unravelled and joined and twisted themselves together, and all the time she fell and fell until, with a jerk, her parachute shot open and now she was drifting jellyfish-like through the dark.

She strained to make out any part of the landscape. Then, all in a rush, she touched earth, a textbook landing. She detached herself from her micro-chute, folded it and neatly repacked it into the rucksack. It weighed very little.

She knew exactly what to do next.

SURVIVAL RULE 10:

STOP. In other words:

S tand still. Take stock. Orientate. Plan.

S TAND STILL.

Ruby had no idea where she was – it could be Canada,

Alaska or perhaps just some other state. That was the point of the exercise: drop you somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, where you knew neither terrain nor climate, and see if you survived. What Ruby was sure of was that she was not in Twinford any more. Far too cold. Twinford had been experiencing a heatwave, the hottest summer for fifty years, and the heat just seemed to keep on building.

This brief plunge in temperature should have come as a relief – might have been just what she was looking for if only she had been better prepared for it. Spectrum had dropped her with next to no information about where she was landing, but then that was the idea; could she get out of here alive? She instinctively gripped the small survival pack issued to her and walked to a small clump of trees out of the wind.

T AKE STOCK.

The night’s icy fingers grabbed and prodded and made her bones ache. The first thing she did was to unpack her kit and put on everything that might keep her warm and dry. So far so good.