Lauren Child - Hang in There Bozo - The Ruby Redfort Emergency Survival Guide for Some Tricky Predicaments

RIGHT OFF THE BAT you need to know about some useful things to have on your person when things turn bad. OK, so you won’t necessarily carry all these things with you all the time – certainly not if you happen to be a school kid – but if you know you’re headed to the wilderness or the back of beyond then here are some survival equipment suggestions.

SURVIVAL TOOLS

It can be super handy to have a mini flashlight with you: I usually keep one clipped to my keyring or my belt loop. Useful not only for illumination, it also can be used for signalling and SOS messages.

Take a PENCIL (pencils are better than pens because they don’t run out of ink or freeze up in sub-zero conditions).

A SMALL NOTEBOOK is good – you never know when you might need to note something down or leave a message for someone else. No pencil? You can make charcoal from burnt wood. Or perhaps you need to leave a message on a slightly bigger scale – depending on the terrain, you might find chalk, flints, sticks or other materials.

UNSUITABLE STICKS:

A) TOO SMALL B) TOO VEGETARIAN C) JUST DON'T, BOZO

Fire is your friend in a survival situation so keep your MATCHES safe: don’t waste them and don’t get ’em wet. A good tip is to keep them in a watertight container at all times.

For obvious reasons a PENKNIFE can be very handy in the wild. Use it for gutting fish, cutting up food, string, bandages, whittling wood, and countless other things.

You can use SAFETY PINS to remove splinters, replace a missing button or broken zipper, as a fishing hook, to pin a note to a tree, to secure the opening to a makeshift shelter… and I’m sure you’ll find a whole bunch of other things to use ’em for.

STRING: what can I say? String is just one of those things that can be super useful. It’s light and easy to carry so why not keep it in your backpack for any emergency? You’ll think of a use for it.

MAGNIFYING GLASS. I’m not gonna dwell on this since I’m sure you all know (but just in case some of you have been living on Mars) you can use a magnifying glass to start a fire. Hold it over some tinder (dry grass and leaves) and let the sun shine through. It will heat up and after a short while make flames. Once you’ve done that, you can use it to look at tiny things.

REMINDER: In case you’re being a duh brain: this method of fire lighting only works if the sun is out.

Take a COMPASS that glows in the dark – but make sure you know how to read it or it’ll be worse than useless bozo.

Take NEEDLES AND THREAD for fixing clothes, or making an improvised compass if you’ve forgotten yours. 1Take a few, and make sure one of them has a very big eye for use with thick threads, or for if you have taken some sinew from a deer to use as thread. You never know, it might happen.

CANDLES are useful for light when you have made shelter. Choose tallow candles, as these are made from fat and can also be eaten in an emergency.

If you can then take a little bit of SALT with you; it won’t take up much space and salt is an essential nutrient and often very hard to find in the wild.

A large POLYTHENE SURVIVAL BAG about two metres by half a metre can be a life-saver. In an emergency you can get inside to preserve heat – but LEAVE YOUR HEAD OUT so you can breathe, bozo. Or, in less of an emergency, you can use it to get water from trees, 2or cut it to make a sheet shelter. 3

SPECTRUM GADGETS

OK, SO I SHOULD CONFESS HERE that I sometimes get a little helping hand from my spy agency, Spectrum. They supply me with gadgets that have a little more oomph than the regular hardware, if you know what I’m saying.

Here are some examples of handy life-savers that have gotten me out of more than one or two scrapes.

THE BREATHING BUCKLE

To be used underwater. Slip buckle off belt, place between teeth and breathe comfortably for twenty-seven minutes, two seconds. Warning! No reserve air canister.

This gadget may be unexciting to look at, but it sure is a life-saver. Take my recent run-in with a giant strangling cephalopod: I would have been deep down ocean-bound, soon to be sleeping with the fishes, if it hadn’t been for this little baby.

Ruby raised her gaze one last time. Say goodbye to your world, she told herself, and as she did so, she saw a little silver fish swimming down to escort her away to the underworld. It twinkled in the gloom and she looked at it as it moved closer and closer and became not a fish but a buckle.

The Spectrum breathing buckle... She snatched it in her hand and placed it between her teeth. Oxygen filled her lungs.

Air, she thought…

LIMPET LIGHTS

Also known as Hansel and Gretel find-your-way-home glows. Underwater phosphorescent lights for making a trail. Guaranteed not to move. Duration five hours.

These work well in an ocean and are especially useful in rough water since they are tough little suckers and won’t budge for anything… well, not unless you have the special deactivation removal device. They are disguised to look like some strange kind of sea mollusc so, unless you are familiar with limpet lights, you won’t realise they are actually alien to the seabed.

Ruby had been gone far too long and Clancy was beginning to flap.

‘Darn it Rube, I knew this would happen, I knew it.’ He spat these words into the night air as he reluctantly pulled on the wetsuit.

‘When I find you, if I find you, I’m gonna explain just how much I hate you, I’m gonna really spell it out in really big letters.’

Clancy Crew had no more respect for any creature on the planet than he did for Ruby Redfort, but right at that exact minute he wasn’t lying: he did hate her. He slipped into the black water, all the time praying that the two sea monsters currently at each other’s throats (or was it gills?) wouldn’t turn their attention on him.

Clancy ducked under the ocean’s surface and headed for the islands. Beyond this general direction, it occurred to him that he had no way of knowing what route Ruby had taken or where she had ended up.

Drowned probably, he thought. Not only am I swimming off on a wild goose chase, but I am gonna have to be grossed out by your dead body.

He was furious.

But as he swam his attention was caught by small twinkling lights ahead of him: tiny phosphorescent creatures. It was strange how they were scattered at intervals, almost in a line.

He followed their trail; where would it lead him?

Of course! he thought. To Ruby!

So limpet lights are pretty smart, but for my money I think ground glows are smarter still.

GROUND GLOWS

To be used when trekking at night in uncertain terrain. Help the trekker retrace his/her steps, or a specified ally to follow the same route. Made up of two parts: pebble-like glow light and discreet shoe fix activator. Instructions: attach activator to footwear and drop pebble glows as you walk. Pebbles will only light when in range of the activator. Multiple activators can be issued.

WARNING: AFTER HEAVY RAINFALL THEY CAN BE ERRATIC AND UNRELIABLE.

These are clever little illuminators because they have the advantage of only being useful to the user. They are very discreet and very handy if you want an agent to follow your trail at a later time without tipping off an enemy tracker. They have aided the rescue of more than a few Spectrum agents over the years.

GETAWAY SHOES

Depress green button on base of left shoe to convert to ‘roller shoes’.