Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath

by Lauren Child

  The discussion had gone on well into the early hours, and it was almost time for Ruby to be up and ready for school. The two of them sat at the table and, over eggs and toast and maple syrup, discussed the Spectrum briefing.

  “So what thoughts are jangling in that teenage mind of yours, kid?” asked Hitch, pouring coffee, his fifth cup this morning.

  Ruby sucked hard on the curly straw that stuck out of her peach-and-cranberry juice blend. When the glass was emptied and the straw had begun to make an ill-mannered gurgling sound, she looked up.

  “Huh? You say something?”

  “You clean your ears out lately, kid? I was saying, do you believe Trilby’s death was accidental?”

  “Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t,” said Ruby. “The question is, do I think the marine activity and the confused shipping are connected to his death?”

  “That’s the question?” said Hitch.

  “Yes. I think it could be a mistake to assume that they are, but on the other hand, one thing could be triggering the other. What if there is one thing going on, which is man-made, and another that is a consequence of the man-made?”

  “So . . . connected but not intentionally?” said Hitch.

  “Yeah, let’s say someone is interfering with the shipping radar and signals somehow, perhaps with a low-frequency signal, a sound to block sound. The idea being to disrupt the shipping, I guess, but I don’t know why. Anyway, this in turn is making the sea life crazy, which results in Trilby getting killed. The seagulls coming inland en masse, dolphins swimming into the harbor — all because of sound.”

  Hitch nodded. “It’s certainly a theory. I have no idea if it’s a good one, but it’s a theory.”

  “It could mean that Trilby’s death, though accidental, was actually the consequence of something bigger,” said Ruby. “Something sinister. So I guess what I am suggesting is, yes, in a way his death could be an accident, nothing sinister. But in a way it perhaps wasn’t and is.”

  Hitch raised an eyebrow. “I’m barely following.”

  Ruby looked at him like he was a few blocks short of a load.

  “Maybe you need another cup of coffee or three,” she said.

  “Maybe.” He took another slurp. “And the whispering?”

  “I don’t know.” She was thinking, trying to tunnel down to some lost thought, but whatever it was, was lurking deep in the furthest depths of her mind, and she could not reach it. So she just said, “Could be entirely imagined, of course.”

  “Yes,” said Hitch. “One person says they’ve heard something — then a whole lot more people imagine that they’ve heard the same thing.”

  “Yeah, happens all the time,” said Ruby, nodding. “People are very suggestible.”

  “It’s true,” said Hitch. “I mean, if I start mentioning the words jelly and donut, do you find yourself kind of yearning for one?”

  Ruby gave him a look. “You got one?”

  He shook his head. “So what do you think — did those people hear the whispering or not?” asked Hitch. “That little Redfort brain must be thinking something. You have any kind of gut feeling on this?”

  Ruby looked at him straight in the eye. “My brain is telling me I should be asleep, but my stomach is telling me that I sure could do with a jelly donut and a glass of banana milk.”

  “Well, let’s make it happen, kid.”

  In fact, he had been barking for quite some time, but everyone aboard had chosen to ignore him, it being 5:46 a.m.

  “Probably seagulls,” murmured Mr. Gruemeister, pulling the blankets over his head. “That dog will bark at any little thing.”

  “I’ve tried my darnedest to train him,” sighed Mrs. Gruemeister. “Only bark at intruders. That’s what I taught him, but he doesn’t listen.”

  In cabin 4A, Brant Redfort sat up in bed, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. He switched on the radio, but to his great disappointment the only station he could get any reception for was one playing the most awful music. In fact, he wondered if it was music at all.

  “What is that dreadful noise?” moaned Sabina. “Sounds like violins having the most vivid of disagreements.”

  Brant switched it off in disgust. He had been looking for a pleasant sound to block out the barking dog, but it wasn’t going to happen.

  “I can’t take much more of this yapping,” he said. “How about an early breakfast up on deck, honey?”

  “Good idea, Brant. That bow-wow is beginning to give me the most dreadful headache. Honestly, you’d think they would have raised him better. Can you imagine if Ruby yelped like that?”

  “Well, no, honey. But then, she isn’t a dog.”

  “But you know what I mean, Brant.”

  “Sure I do, honey; Ruby is a far better daughter than Pookie would ever be.”

  At that moment there was a large thud on deck, followed by more thuds, a yelp, and a heavy splash. The barking stopped. Sabina and Brant looked at each other for a split second before struggling into clothes and hurrying toward the noise.

  That’s when the screaming began.

  POOR CLANCY. If only he had known what was in store for him that day, he doubtless wouldn’t have made it out of bed. Morning class was interrupted by an in-person announcement from Coach Newhart.

  It seemed that the whole of the ninth-grade swim team had come down with mollusk poisoning at last night’s clambake — except for Denning Minkle, who was allergic to seafood. The doctor had advised that no one take part in the swimathon for fear of weak limbs and consequent drowning.

  Coach Newhart wasn’t to be defeated by this alarming news. Coach Newhart was rarely defeated by anything. To Coach Newhart, this was a challenge, and a coach’s job was about nothing if not challenges. So what if grade nine was all getting up close and personal with their latrines — he still had grade eight, and they looked to be fighting fit; a bit weedy perhaps, but no one was throwing up.

  “So can I count on all o’ yous for the Twinford swimathon?” bellowed Coach Newhart. “I am determined that this year we will beat Branwell Junior High.”

  Clancy tried to make himself very small and very invisible, but it didn’t work.

  “Crew! I’m including you in this. I want you out in that bay, front and center, swimming as if your life depended on it.”

  Clancy had a premonition that it probably would. The idea of getting in that ocean scared the living daylights out of him — but then at this precise moment, so did Coach Newhart. Coach Newhart was not a man one said no to. No siree.

  “So, Crew, you gonna be there?”

  Clancy nodded. But that wasn’t good enough for Coach Newhart.

  “I can’t hear you, sonny.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” shouted Clancy, like he was on a parade ground.

  “That’s more like it,” said the coach, nodding. Then he turned to Ruby. “And you, Redfort. I won’t be accepting a note from the governor this time. Everyone swims. And that includes you.”

  “OK,” said Ruby, shrugging. She really didn’t mind — she was a good swimmer. In fact, so was Clancy; it was a curse for him that despite appearances he was actually very athletic and surprisingly fast in water. For someone who hated water as much as he did, this was a real problem.

  Once Coach Newhart had finally stopped barking, Twinford’s very own chief lifeguard, the implausibly named Slicker Dawn, gave a little briefing about bay safety. Slicker delivered all information at top volume, probably because he had spent much of his time shouting instructions at swimmers; he liked to repeat things too, so what should have been a five-minute briefing took a good half hour.

  “Anyway,” concluded the lifeguard, “Twinford Bay is one of the safest in the county. I repeat, one of the safest in the county. So long as you stay between the flags, you will not get sucked out to sea by the riptides and you will not get dragged down by the undertow.”

  “Oh, boy,” muttered Clancy. “I don’t stand a chance.”

  “Just to reassure you,” shouted Slicker Dawn
, “we haven’t had one Mayday call or rescue in three weeks, not one! That’s a record right there.”

  To Clancy this just made it all the more likely that there would be one soon. According to probability, a rescue was surely due.

  The announcement over, Clancy tried to go back to concentrating on class, but however much he tried to engage with the subject at hand, he found that right now the life cycle of the Peruvian tree frog didn’t really have too much to do with the life prospects of a shrimpy boy from Twinford City.

  When the bell rang, he slowly pushed his chair away from the desk, picked up his bag, and walked out into the corridor. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t see his longtime enemy lumbering toward him.

  “Crew, you look like you’re about to pee your pants,” sneered Bugwart, blocking his path.

  “No, I’m about to throw up, actually. So if you don’t want to get puked on, I’d get outta the way.” As soon as he had uttered these words, he realized that he was indeed about to throw up. Looking at him, Vapona could also see that this was in fact more than likely and immediately stepped to one side as Clancy made a dash for the restroom.

  When Clancy finally made it to music class, everyone else was already in their places. Ruby, who was on xylophone, was sitting on the other side of the room from Clancy, who was to be on kettledrum. She could see his face, all scrunched up with anxiety, and it was pretty obvious what he was thinking about.

  Ruby tapped out a message in Morse code*:

  Clancy looked up. He knew right away what she was saying, and his reply was this:

  So Ruby tapped out another that went:

  And in return got this back from Clancy:

  Boy, was he the most stubborn kid she had ever met.

  Mrs. Courtenay-Clack rapped her conductor’s baton crossly on the side of her music stand.

  “When you are quite ready, Ruby, Clancy — we are all waiting.”

  Ruby looked around the room. It was true: everyone was waiting for her to lead into this rather modern piece by Fenton Schreiber.

  She picked up her stick and banged out what were meant to be the first few notes of Elastic Movement in G, but was in fact another message for Clancy.

  He smiled.

  *CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT RUBY AND CLANCY SAID!

  The teacher rapped her baton again.

  “Ms. Redfort, will you please get with the program!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Courtenay-Clack,” said Ruby, pretending to leaf through her music score. “I think I skipped a page.”

  THAT TUESDAY AFTERNOON WAS MARKED by another Twinford Junior High swimming-related event. It seemed someone (probably Dillon Flannagon) had thought it would be amusing to dress a mannequin in the school mascot costume (a squirrel suit) and place it in the pool. The janitor got quite a shock when he saw a giant squirrel in the Twinford Junior High pool floating facedown in the water.

  On a board drifting next to this unusual scene, the culprit (surely Dillon Flannagon, it really looked like his handwriting) had written in huge letters, ANOTHER TWINFORD BAY CASUALTY. To make matters worse, the blue paint (believed to be toxic) that the giant sign was written in was dissolving into the pool water. This made it a health and safety concern, and therefore the pool would have to be drained.

  Principal Levine had not seen the funny side. Whoever it was, was really in for it. When Ruby passed Dillon in the corridor, she whispered, “Run, Flannagon. Run.”

  After class, Ruby and Clancy fetched their bikes and wheeled them out of the gates and along the sidewalk. Clancy didn’t have the energy to pedal; he was too depressed.

  “Oh, brother! What am I going to do about the swim meet? There’s no way I’m getting in that bay. No way.”

  “I’ll look out for you, Clance,” said Ruby.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Clancy. “There are gonna be like a hundred kids all swimming out there in the bay. No way you can keep an eye on me the whole time.”

  Ruby looked at him hard. “You can do this, Clance. It’s just mind over matter is all.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” grumbled Clancy. “The water doesn’t bother you — nothing bothers you.”

  This wasn’t true of course. It was just that Ruby had spent a whole lot more time thinking about this stuff. She had a notebook full of rules, and one of them was RULE 12: ADJUST YOUR THINKING AND YOUR CHANCES IMPROVE. She had learned this from Mrs. Digby, a wise old buzzard if ever there was one.

  “All I’m saying, Clance, is your chances are better if you go into it in the right frame of mind.”

  “Don’t you get it, Rube? My chances are a whole lot better if I never get in that ocean in the first place. My chances of having a heart attack are greatly reduced if I don’t even get my feet wet.”

  Ruby gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “Your chances of suffering a lifetime of grief from Coach Newhart increase by about a thousand percent if you don’t.”

  “I know,” sighed Clancy mournfully.

  “Come on, let’s go get a fruit shake,” said Ruby, pulling him toward the Cherry Cup. “On me.”

  When they got to the Cherry Cup, they took the high stools at the counter and Ruby reached for the drink menu. Clancy was swiveling his seat distractedly and muttering to himself.

  “Hey there, you guys, what can I get you?” called Cherry.

  “I’ll take a Strawberry–Pineapple-Fiesta, and I reckon Clance could do with a tranquilizer.”

  Cherry looked hard at Clancy. “You all right, pal?” he inquired kindly. “You look kinda strung out.”

  Cherry was a man in his late fifties — graying hair and the sort of face that made people want to confide in him.

  Clancy spilled the beans about the swimathon while Cherry blended fruit.

  Meanwhile, Ruby thought about Spectrum. She was thinking about the briefing. Is there a connection? Is there something in the deep blue ocean causing disruption to sea life? Possibly. Could it be caused by the moon, the tides, an earthquake on the other side of the world even? Possibly.

  But the shipping confusion? That has to be man-made. The question is, is it man-made by accident or man-made by design? If it isn’t an accident, then one can only conclude it has to be sinister.

  She was jolted from her musings by Clancy.

  “So have you been into Spectrum yet?”

  “Could you keep your voice down, buster? I’m not supposed to talk about this stuff,” hissed Ruby.

  Clancy looked around. “No one’s listening,” he said, pointing at Cherry’s busy establishment. Everyone was chatting or engrossed in their magazines or menus.

  “That’s what you think,” said Ruby. “How do you know that woman over there, the one with the little curly kid, isn’t keeping track of everything we say?”

  “I can tell,” said Clancy. “I mean, look at her — all she’s interested in is her baby.”

  “That’s how much you know,” said Ruby. “I happen to be aware that she is a sector seven agent and that old curly top is just a cover.”

  Clancy’s eyes grew to saucer size. “No way?” he said. “Really?”

  “No, not really, Clance, but don’t just assume that someone’s not listening just because they look like they’re not listening.”

  It was one of her rules, and an important one.

  RULE 9: THERE IS ALWAYS A CHANCE THAT SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE IS WATCHING YOU.

  Or, in this case, listening to you.

  Ruby had ignored the rule a few weeks ago and had ended up tied to a chair by an evil count and almost buried in a ton of sand, all because someone had been listening in while she yacked away on the telephone to Clancy. She had every right to be cautious, even though the woman in question was actually Mrs. Frast from her mother’s bridge club. However, the worry of being overheard only made up part of her reason for keeping it zipped; the truth was that what Ruby really wanted to do was sit in her room and give the briefing some clear thought, puzzle it out.

  “Look, Clance, don’t
take this the wrong way, but I just need to sit and churn a few things over. You understand, don’t ya?”

  “I guess,” said Clancy.

  They finished their drinks, and Ruby rode on home.

  She walked into the house and up the stairs to the kitchen. She was pretty hungry, and something smelled good. Mrs. Digby was nowhere to be seen. But on the bright side, there were some homemade pizza slices, just cooked, on the table, and a note that said, Dig in, why don’t you?

  There was a PS. It said, Mrs. Lemon called again. She wants you to sit for that fat baby of hers. I told her you had an infectious skin condition and it didn’t look like it would clear up for a week or two.

  Ruby smiled. “Nice going, Mrs. Digby.” She loaded her plate with pizza and poured some banana milk into a glass, then, holding an apple in her teeth, she maneuvered her way up to her room. She closed the door firmly behind her, retrieved her yellow notebook, and set about making lists, and then used the elements from the list to make a spider map. She always found it useful to see problems visually.

  First she drew a picture of a diver; he was at the top of the page. Then she wrote three headings:

  Spidering out from that heading she wrote every single incidence of confused shipping she had heard of.

  The next heading said:

  There were a lot of these too.

  The last heading read:

  Branching out from this were all the names of the people who had heard the strange whispering in the ocean.

  And then a question:

  Ruby sat staring at her own question for some minutes before catching sight of the time. She quickly reached across and switched on the portable TV that sat on her bedroom floor. The title music to Crazy Cops blared out, and the face of Detective Despo filled the screen. She sank down in her beanbag and let her mind concentrate on the life-and-death matters of a fictional cop.

  The great advantage for Detective Despo was that he had a team of TV writers who made sure his cases were all tied up neatly by the end of each sixty-minute episode. Right at that moment Ruby envied him; she couldn’t help wishing that she had a writer on board to make sure her latest case came out right in the end, but regrettably for her, she didn’t live in a fictional world.