Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath

by Lauren Child

  “So I’m guessing Spectrum might issue me with some new spy gadgets — you know, dive-related ones.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Clancy pulled something out of his pocket. “I found this on the beach. You musta dropped it.” It was the rescue watch.

  “Thanks, Clance! I didn’t even realize I’d lost it. It’s the clasp — the darned thing keeps coming loose. Hey, but that little problem with the retractable grab cable should be all hunky-dory, now so I can rappel out of anywhere.”

  “Wish you’d grabbed me out of the ocean an hour ago,” muttered Clancy.

  “Nah, you didn’t need me — you swam your way out of that just fine.”

  “It was the button,” said Clancy.

  “Well, you’re the one who did the swimming,” said Ruby.

  “It was the button,” repeated Clancy.

  They were both silent for about twenty seconds, and then Clancy said, “So that was pretty nice of LB to let you keep it. The watch I mean.”

  “Yeah,” said Ruby. “The ‘great’ Bradley Baker’s rescue watch, who would have thunk it.” She said this with more than the smallest hint of sarcasm.

  “You said it’s pretty special to her?”

  “Seems so,” said Ruby. “BB and LB were kinda close.”

  “So is it true that they were sweethearts?” asked Clancy.

  “Sweethearts!” Ruby spluttered. “No one says sweethearts, Clance — not unless they’re at least ancient, like two hundred.”

  Clancy looked indignant. “Mouse used the word sweetheart just yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll bet she used it in a cool way, you know, being ironic or something.”

  “You saying I’m not cool?” said Clancy.

  “Clance, I’m not saying that — I just meant you were using the word sweetheart in an old lady type of way.”

  “I’m using it in its technical form,” argued Clancy. “It’s technically correct.”

  “Yeah, if you’re listening to Chime Radio or something. . . . Speaking of which, did you happen to tune in lately?” said Ruby.

  Clancy looked at her like she had lost at least one or two brain cells. “What? Are you crazy? Do I look like I’m a senior citizen?”

  “It happens to play some great numbers,” said Ruby. “For anyone with an eclectic taste in music — I rate it.”

  “Yeah, I agree actually, but not in the afternoon. The afternoon show is super lame — cheesy beyond cheese puffs.”

  “OK, I’ll give you that, but I wasn’t asking if you had listened, I asked you if you had happened to tune in; they’re two different things.”

  “How’d ya mean?” asked Clancy.

  “OK, so a few days running this weird thing has been happening where Chime broadcasts tunes that aren’t tunes.”

  “What? I don’t get it,” said Clancy, scrunching his face up like he had just eaten a bad snail or something.

  This always got on Ruby’s nerves: trying to explain something when someone was looking at you like this was off-putting. “Quit making the face, would ya?” said Ruby.

  “Sorry,” said Clancy. “I don’t do it on purpose; it’s just how my face goes.”

  Ruby continued. “I mean the music is untuneful, as in very un-Chime-like, sorta avant-garde — like music, but super modern,” she said.

  “Has anybody been complaining about it?” said Clancy.

  “They apologized on the show, and Talk Radio said it might be due to asteroid interference.”

  “So maybe that’s it,” said Clancy. “Maybe it’s just some old asteroid.”

  Ruby didn’t say anything, but Clancy recognized the look in her eye. “What are you thinking it is?” he asked.

  Ruby sighed. “I’m thinking there are a lot of strange things all going on at once, and it’s hard to imagine they aren’t all connected in some way.”

  They were deep into this animated discussion when Red and Del showed up. They slid into the seats next to Clancy and Ruby.

  “So Coach is pretty over the moon,” said Del. “Says he hasn’t had so many great swimmers all in one grade for at least a decade. He can see big opportunities for the Twinford swim team — wants to make sure old Crew here joins up. Says he’s a great ocean swimmer, which means he wants you coming to swim practice. You ready for that, Crew?”

  Clancy put his head in his hands.

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Del.

  “He’s just feeling lucky to be alive,” said Ruby.

  “And this is how he expresses it?” said Del.

  “You mean something happened out there?” asked Red.

  But Clancy didn’t want to talk about it.

  “He thinks there’s something out in Twinford Bay that might nibble him,” said Del.

  “You know what?” said Red. “I think he might be right. I heard something when I was swimming. Something not normal.”

  “How could you?” said Ruby. “You were wearing earplugs.”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” said Red. “I lost them.”

  Ruby wasn’t surprised to hear that; Red lost things a lot. She was a dropper, a breaker, and a loser of stuff.

  “When I was almost out to the buoy,” said Red, “I heard this kind of singing.”

  Ruby sat up. “Really? What do you think it was?”

  “Could have been a mermaid or something. It was kind of sad-sounding,” said Red.

  “Oh, geez!” said Del. “Trust you to believe in mermaids.”

  “I’m not saying it was one,” said Red. “I’m saying it coulda been one, if there were mermaids, I mean. I’m not saying there are, but if there were.”

  “There aren’t,” said Del. “Not even slightly, you can take my word for it.” Ruby agreed with Del on this point. Red’s mermaid theory was unlikely, but it was kind of strange that she claimed to have heard a voice in the ocean. Ruby was thinking back to Agent Kekoa’s briefing — the strange sounds people had been hearing in the bay. Could Red have heard the same thing?

  Clancy was feeling a little cheered by this conversation; he didn’t mind talking about mermaids because, as far as he understood it, all they did was sit around brushing their hair. They weren’t particularly threatening as sea creatures went, and what’s more they didn’t exist, so it wasn’t really something he had to worry about.

  “Hey you guys, I’ve been looking all over for you!” said Elliot, spotting them at their table. “Do ya wanna come to my place later this afternoon? We’re having a barbeque . Mouse’ll be there.”

  Clancy looked at him warily. “Seafood?” he asked.

  “Burgers,” said Elliot.

  “Sure,” Clancy smiled. “That would be great.”

  However, it turned out not to be so great because Elliot’s mother’s friend Tilly Matthews dropped by to update the world and his wife on the latest rumor going around Twinford. Tilly Matthews had a lot of time on her hands, and most of it was spent telling folks other folks’ business; this time, though, she had some real news.

  “Apparently, fourteen-foot sharks have been spotted moving along Twinford Bay. And not one or two either, a whole batch of them.”

  Ruby was considering correcting Tilly on the collective for sharks, but was interrupted by the clattering of Clancy’s salad fork as it fell from his hand onto his plate.

  “Are you OK, sweetie pie?” asked Elliot’s mom. “You look like you might actually faint.”

  “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Finch, I don’t feel so good,” replied Clancy earnestly.

  His imagination had instantly supplied him with an image of him being swiftly devoured by a fourteen-foot-long shark, and he couldn’t think of anything a whole lot worse than being eaten by a fourteen-foot shark. Perhaps being eaten by a whole batch of fourteen-foot sharks would be worse, but it was marginal.

  “Would you mind if I called a cab and went on home?” he asked.

  “Well, now I’m really worried Clancy. Do you want to lie down?” asked Mrs. Finch.
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br />   “No, I’ll be fine,” said Clancy, who then promptly fainted.

  WHEN RUBY WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, she called Clancy right away, but he wasn’t answering his phone. In the end she had to call the main line and ask Drusilla, the housekeeper, to get him to pick up.

  “Hello,” came a weak voice from the end of the line.

  “Clance? What are you doing?” demanded Ruby.

  “I feel lousy,” said Clancy. “Real sick.”

  “You’re not sick, you’re just freaked out. Yikes, Clance,” she said. “I mean, I knew you were shark phobic, but I didn’t think that just talking about them could actually be terminal.”

  “That’s not it,” said Clancy. “It’s just that I knew I shouldn’t swim in the ocean. Now, it turns out I was right. I came this close to actual death.”

  Ruby, of course, didn’t see it this way. To her it just went to prove what she had always known: that sharks were not man’s predators. She had read countless books on the subject, and no one worth their marine biologist salt thought sharks were out to eat people.

  “You’re OK, Clancy,” she said. “Stop freaking out.”

  “I’m sick,” insisted Clancy. “Super sick.”

  Ruby sighed. “I’m coming over.”

  She went downstairs and found Mrs. Digby sitting talking to Hitch — unusual only because Mrs. Digby rarely sat down. She usually drank her morning beverage while vacuuming, but this was a Sunday — a day on which she allowed herself a little luxury. She was poring over the papers as she swigged a cup of strong-looking tea that had been stewing in a large silver teapot, the sort of teapot a dormouse might live in. Mrs. Digby was discussing with Hitch the gossip that made up every local news headline that day.

  SHARKS SPOTTED IN TWINFORD BAY

  SWIMATHON KIDS SWIM FOR THEIR LIVES

  MARINE LIFE OUT OF CONTROL

  MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE

  PANIC!

  The Twinford Mirror went on to say: Local fisherman very fortunate not to drown when a pod of dolphins rocked him out of his boat yesterday evening.

  “I thought dolphins were meant to be man’s best friend,” said Mrs. Digby.

  “No, that’s dogs,” said Ruby.

  “Well, I never heard of dolphins trying to drown folks. What in high heaven is going on, for Jiminy’s sake?” Mrs. Digby asked the papers.

  “Well may you ask,” said Hitch. “It says here that three fishermen sent out distress signals, but no one registered their alert.”

  Ruby made a mental note to add these latest events to her sheet of paper — she was going to have to extend it. But not right now — right now, she had to go buck up Clancy.

  She fetched her bike and rode over to the Crew home. The front door was opened by Drusilla, who informed Ruby that Clancy was feeling “under the weather.”

  “If you can get him out of that bed, I’ll give you a medal,” Drusilla added.

  “I’ll give it my best shot!” called Ruby, running up the three flights of stairs that led to Clancy’s room.

  She opened the door.

  Clancy raised his head from the pillow. “Rube, that you?”

  “Give me a break, Clance, and quit the feeble routine, would you. You didn’t get attacked by fish yesterday, and there’s no chance of it happening while you’re lying in bed.”

  “I don’t feel so good, you know,” said Clancy. “I think I’m going to stay here. I need to recuperate.”

  They argued for nineteen minutes before Ruby threw in the towel.

  She wasn’t about to waste her entire Sunday sitting at Clancy’s bedside listening to total horse manure; instead she would check out what Del was up to.

  It was late Sunday afternoon, and Ruby had been playing Del Lasco at table tennis for more than a few hours. They had come out even, winning seventeen games each. By the time she climbed on her bike, Ruby was flat-out tired and finding it a struggle to turn the pedals, but as she reached the corner of Amster, she saw the stranger again; he was getting into a car. Maybe it was time to turn the tables, tail him for a change and see how he liked it.

  The car’s engine started, and the car pulled out from the curb and drove north up Bleaker. Her heart was beating pretty fast and adrenalin pumped through her.

  What do I do when I catch him?

  But this wasn’t going to be a question she needed an answer for.

  Ruby kept up OK until he turned onto Flower, which was a pretty steep hill, one of the steepest in Twinford. Her legs, after thirty-four games of Ping-Pong, were never going to chase a car up a hill, and as the gap between them grew, she accepted defeat and freewheeled back down, gliding on home to Cedarwood Drive.

  On Monday, while Ruby was brushing her teeth, she switched on the radio, turning the dial until she reached Twinford Talk Radio. There was a jingle playing, some commercial about the benefits of eating cereal with raisins in it if you wanted to have a productive day at school. Ruby couldn’t see it herself; she had always felt that raisins had no business being in breakfast cereal. Who wants to eat a shriveled grape floating in milk?

  The commercials over, the voice of Greg Witney, the TTR anchorman, came back on the air.

  “SO, SHELLY, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED TO THESE GREAT OCEAN PREDATORS?” “IT’S HARD TO DRAW ANY FIRM CONCLUSIONS, GREG, BUT THEY DO SEEM TO HAVE BEEN SAVAGELY ATTACKED BY SOME OTHER PREDATOR. JUDGING BY THE STATE OF THEM, CERTAINLY SOMETHING FEARSOME.” “BUT JUST WHAT CREATURE COULD TAKE ON A TIGER SHARK? IT DOESN’T BEAR THINKING ABOUT, HUH, SHELLY?” “IT CERTAINLY DOESN’T, GREG. TWINFORD FOLK MIGHT WANT TO KEEP OUT OF THE WATER UNTIL THIS VERY STRANGE MYSTERY IS SOLVED. NOW BACK TO YOU.”

  Jeepers. Clancy is never going to get out of bed again.

  Ruby got dressed: today’s T-shirt kept its insult short and simply said bozo. She stamped her feet into her well-worn Yellow Stripe sneakers and skittered downstairs.

  Hitch was sitting at the kitchen table, polishing some silverware and looking for all the world like an actual butler.

  “I think you may be getting too into your cover story,” said Ruby, her nose in the refrigerator, searching for the juice.

  Hitch shrugged. “Mrs. Digby runs a tight ship.”

  “Yeah, but she already believes you’re a butler; you don’t need to make out you’re the best entire one to ever polish forks on this earthly universe of Twinford.”

  “And I don’t want her thinking I’m a lousy one either. My life wouldn’t be worth living, kid.”

  Ruby shrugged and sucked on her drinking straw. When she came back up for air, she said, “So did you hear the story about the attacked sharks?”

  Hitch looked up from his polishing. “Yes, that is strange. Sounds almost supernatural.”

  “Yeah,” mused Ruby. “Almost like there’s some kinda giant sea monster swimming about offa the Twinford coast.”

  “You telling me you believe in sea monsters, kid?”

  “Not really, but stranger things have happened,” said Ruby.

  “This city’s going to the dogs,” said Mrs. Digby, walking into the room, bucket in hand. “The dogs, I say.”

  Bug registered the word dog and looked at her hopefully.

  A tiny glow came from Hitch’s sleeve, and he furtively looked at his watch.

  “Well, this is all very intriguing,” he said, swiftly putting the silverware back where it belonged. “But I really better get going — that laundry won’t drive to Crisp ’n Clean by itself.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Mrs. Digby. “Some of it looks like it’s crawling with life. Bacteria gone wild.”

  “I better step on it then,” Hitch called, and he was almost running. Despite the wisecracking, it was pretty obvious that Hitch actually was in a hurry, and Ruby was certain that it had nothing to do with laundry.

  “You need me to assist?” hissed Ruby, following him to the front door.

  “I appreciate the offer, kid,” said Hitch. “But I reckon Mrs. Drisco might be kind of disappoint
ed if she doesn’t see your bright and smiling face in class this morning.”

  Drat. She had forgotten that today was Monday, and therefore she was expected at school.

  “I could cut class,” Ruby suggested. “I mean, it would be no big deal, not if Spectrum needs me to work on something?”

  “Spectrum can handle this, kid,” assured Hitch. “I’ll radio you if things get tricky. Just concentrate on your cover story; act like a schoolkid for a while.” He patted her on the head and disappeared out the door.

  “Could you be slightly more patronizing?” muttered Ruby as she straightened her barrette.

  She walked back into the kitchen, swallowed the last mouthful of her cereal, and slung her satchel over her shoulder. “OK, Bug, I’ll take you for a sprint.”

  “I hope you’re not thinking of being late for class, you little insect,” said Mrs. Digby, fixing Ruby with the old Mrs. Digby X-ray stare. When the housekeeper looked at her like that, Ruby could almost believe that she could read her thoughts.

  “Course not, Mrs. Digby. I won’t go far, and I’ll send Bug back on his own. I’ll make it on time, I swear.” She gave Mrs. Digby her “trust me” look, but Mrs. D. wasn’t born yesterday.

  “Don’t give me those big eyes of yours,” she said.

  “OK,” said Ruby, spitting into her hands and pressing them together. “I promise in spit. Satisfied?” This was how the Digby family sealed their oaths; a promise sealed with spit was a promise to be kept.

  Mrs. Digby sniffed. “All right, but I better not be getting calls from that Mrs. Drisco. I haven’t got time to listen to her blathering; she’s a very disagreeable woman.”

  “You hear me arguing?” said Ruby.

  Mrs. Digby sniffed and switched on the radio, and out came that same strange sound.

  “Not again! Why are you spouting out this plainly diabolical earache? If I wanted to listen to this kinda terrible assault to my ears, I would have bought myself a cockatoo.” She banged it with her rolling pin. “That’s me and Chime Melody through. I warned you,” she said, snapping the radio off and marching out of the room.

  “Weirder and weirder,” said Ruby to herself.