Pick Your Poison

by Lauren Child

  ‘Come on Archie, I think we should tail him.’

  It was easy tailing a person when you had a baby in tow; no one expected to be followed by someone pushing a pram. ‘You know what Archie, I suddenly get the point of you.’

  They had been walking for around fifteen minutes when the man stopped, turned around, took maybe ten steps and walked into the Little Seven Grocers store.

  What is he doing?

  Ruby quickened her pace, almost to a run. Archie liked that and was making those gurgly happy noises babies make. When she reached the store, she peered in through the window. She saw the man’s red hat; the guy seemed to be looking for something. Soon enough he found it and, bottle in hand, walked to the counter. The boy at the till looked at the price, rung it up, then the man handed him some coins and headed for the door.

  Ruby squatted down next to the stroller and pretended to be securing the rain cover over baby Archie.

  From this vantage point Ruby was able to clearly see what happened next.

  The man prised the metal cap from the bottle and sniffed the contents, as if he wanted to know exactly what was in the drink – as if reading it – then once he was done, he raised the bottle to his mouth and sipped the contents. Again, not like a person who was thirsty but like someone who needed to understand something.

  He placed the bottle on the wall, scribbled something in his book and then – just like that – hailed a cab, stepped inside and was moving off into the traffic.

  There was no way Ruby was going to get Archie, stroller and all, into a taxi in time to tail him.

  Darn it!

  Now what?

  What she did was walk into the store and search the refrigerator, but they were all out of Taste Twisters.

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t even know we stocked it,’ said the young man behind the counter, ‘but then I only usually work Saturdays so there’s a lot I don’t know.’

  ‘OK, well thanks,’ said Ruby.

  ‘We have Fruitzees, have you tried them? They come in lots of flavours and aren’t bad, not too sweet.’

  ‘Thanks but no thanks.’

  Ruby pushed Archie back out of the store and eyed the Taste Twister drink still sitting there on the wall.

  She walked over to it and picked it up. Then, with great caution, she brought it to her nose and sniffed. It smelled of lemons, perhaps a hint of mint, but mainly lemons. She considered tasting it but stopped short.

  What if it’s poisoned, she thought. But how could it be? The man drank some, didn’t he? Well, you thought he drank some but what if he was bluffing? What if it was all an elaborate trick to get people drinking some deadly drink and next thing you know you drop to the floor like some swatted fly?

  She examined the bottle. Same twisty shape she had dimly seen when Sheriff Bridges was picking her up. The label with that same picture of the kid and the winding words coming out of its mouth like a twisty straw and the name, TASTE TWISTERS. And in smaller type below: LOOK OUT FOR THE WHOLE RANGE OF TASTE TWISTER DRINKS!

  She looked through the bottle at the reverse of the label. There was no company information, no address, just a strange logo. It was like something from the wall of the dojo Hitch had taken her to – a mandala, or a prayer wheel.

  Under this were the words: FOUR GREAT TASTES SINCE 1922.

  That was peculiar phrasing, Ruby thought. You’d expect it to say four flavours, not four tastes.

  Ruby reached for the little metal bottle top, but just as she did so, Archie sneezed, Ruby jumped and the lid went spinning across the street and rolled inconveniently down a drain grate.

  ‘Thanks, buster.’

  So instead Ruby took the bottle and stuffed one of Archie’s clean sucking rags into the neck of the bottle to stop the drink spilling out.

  ‘Why do you suck these things anyway, Lemon? It’s kinda gross, you know that?’

  Archie just stared back at her. ‘And didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to dribble?’ said Ruby. ‘You do that a lot, you know?’

  She began walking fast, heading for the subway station.

  ‘Should I dump you back? No, you’re not due home for a while yet. You’re gonna have to come with. You’re not authorised, but I don’t see you blabbing.’

  The baby smiled, like he understood.

  ‘You gonna keep that tiny little mouth shut?’

  Archie gurgled.

  ‘I’ll take that as a “yes”.’

  RUBY BUMPED THE STROLLER DOWN THE SUBWAY STEPS, through the turnstile, onto the train, seven stops to Crossways, and off again, up the steps into the brightly lit Dime a Dozen supermarket, and headed to aisle 17.

  Buzz’s usually blank expression gave way to one approaching mild alarm.

  ‘Is Blacker in?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘No,’ said Buzz.

  ‘Can you get a message to him?’

  ‘No,’ said Buzz. ‘Agent Redfort, you can’t bring that in here.’

  ‘Are you referring to the baby or the stroller?’ replied Ruby.

  ‘Both, neither are permitted, it’s against protocol,’ said Buzz.

  ‘So it’s come up in the past? Agents asking if they can bring a stroller in?’

  ‘No,’ said Buzz.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘What do you want me to do, abandon a baby in a supermarket?’

  Just then the elevator doors drew open and out stepped Hitch. He looked at Buzz, at Ruby, at the baby, and said, ‘There you are kid, I wondered where you had got to, we’re going to need to get the small guy’s prints, just so we can eliminate him from our suspect list,’ he turned to Buzz. ‘Sorry for the inconvenience, if you wouldn’t mind printing a pass for our tiny guest, Buzz, I will escort Ruby, baby and all, to my office.’

  Buzz nodded, and three minutes later a pass was printed and handed to Hitch. Once the pass was firmly in Archie’s small grasp, Hitch ushered them both into the elevator.

  ‘Kid, just what do you think you are doing?’ asked Hitch.

  ‘I got something to show SJ,’ said Ruby.

  ‘You think she hasn’t seen a dribbling baby before?’

  ‘Not him, this,’ said Ruby holding up the bottle of Taste Twister.

  ‘OK,’ said Hitch slowly, ‘but what is it?’

  ‘Lemonade I think,’ said Ruby, holding it up to the light.

  ‘Lemonade?’

  ‘I think it is, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘You are asking one of our laboratory experts to take a look at what you think is a bottle of lemonade?’

  ‘I just want her to make sure that it is lemonade, no funny business I mean.’

  ‘What would the funny business be?’

  ‘I don’t know, poison maybe.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m seeing the big picture here so why don’t you save it for SJ and I’ll go and see if we can find someone to watch the small person. I have to stop by the gadget room first.’

  ‘So you are authorising me to seek assistance from the lab technician?’

  ‘I’m giving you clearance. Now hand over the little guy.’

  Ruby looked concerned. ‘You’re gonna need to make sure he doesn’t get his teeth into anything that can’t stand chewing, ’cause believe me everything ends up in his mouth and I don’t want to be held responsible.’

  Ruby walked on down to the laboratory, knocked on the purple door and entered the shiny white lab. SJ was looking down a microscope at a small something in a glass Petri dish.

  ‘Hey,’ said Ruby, ‘do you have a minute?’

  ‘You have something for me?’ called SJ, not looking up.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Ruby holding up the bottle.

  ‘Is that lemonade?’ asked SJ.

  ‘Could be?’ said Ruby.

  ‘OK, I’ll take a look and you can explain why I should be interested,’ she said.

  So Ruby explained about the man in the scarlet hat and the billboard and SJ went about her tests.

  ‘I still don’t exactly see why this i
s of interest to Spectrum,’ said SJ.

  ‘Call it a hunch,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I think LB would call it a waste of resources,’ said SJ, ‘but I won’t mention it.’

  ‘I appreciate your discretion,’ said Ruby.

  An hour later and Ruby had her answer. ‘Nothing in this but some sugar, some lemon juice and a little carbonated water.’

  ‘And no poison?’

  ‘No poison,’ nodded SJ, ‘unless you count the sugar.’

  ‘You sound like my mom,’ said Ruby. ‘She’s got it in for sugar.’

  ‘Well, she has a point,’ said SJ. ‘Sugar has a profound effect on the brain, the whole body actually. You should see what it does to the liver. I can show you pictures?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Do you want me to store this?’ asked SJ, pointing to the bottle.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ said Ruby. ‘Maybe it’s nothing but I might wanna have another look at the label, just to be sure, thanks anyway.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said SJ, turning back to her Petri dish. ‘See you next time.’

  And Ruby went off in search of her charge. He wasn’t difficult to find. There was a lot of noise coming from the gadget room and it seemed Hitch had decided to leave Archie with Hal, the innovations man. What Ruby saw when she walked in were a lot of agents of varying ranks all gathered and peering at baby Lemon who was now wearing someone’s hat.

  Everyone was so distracted that no one spotted her walking between the glass gadget drawers, peering in at the high-tech hardware. She stopped when she noticed a tiny video camera. The label said it was motion activated, had a long battery life, was easy to operate and very reliable. Ruby could think of someone who would most certainly appreciate it.

  This is a dumb thing to do, Redfort. She knew it, but then she thought about Clancy’s face and how happy he would be; she could already see his arms flapping. Quickly she palmed the little surveillance device, then slipped it into her pocket.

  Ruby collected the baby, much to Hal’s disappointment. ‘He’s kinda entertaining, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Are you for real?’ said Ruby.

  As she was wheeling Archie back towards the elevator bank, she saw a familiar figure coming towards her. ‘Is this the latest recruit?’ said Kip Holbrook.

  ‘Could be,’ said Ruby. ‘I don’t think he would do too well on foraging though, boy is he ever a fussy eater.’

  ‘I don’t think you exactly excel at that either,’ said Holbrook.

  Holbrook was a fellow field agent trainee and he and Ruby had first met when on dive camp. Since then they had teamed up for survival training, working well together building shelters, canoes, camp fires, rescue fires, and cooked up plenty of roots and berries. They had shared some pretty unappealing undergrowth, whether it be to sleep in or to chew on.

  ‘Hey,’ said Ruby. ‘You working on anything?’

  Holbrook shook his head. ‘Nope. I just had my interview with Agent Delaware.’

  Ruby pulled a face. ‘I sympathise.’

  ‘Yeah, it was pretty brutal. He gave me a super hard time for using the emergency function on my Spectrum contact device when, as he put it, “it was not strictly an emergency”. Believe me, I won’t make that mistake again. So where are you headed?’ he asked.

  ‘Gotta return the Lemon,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I hope you have a dingy, it’s pouring down out there,’ he said. ‘You should see Froghorn – he just stepped in and looks like a rat that drowned.’

  ‘He always looks like a rat,’ said Ruby, pressing the elevator button.

  ‘See you around,’ said Holbrook.

  When the elevator doors opened, there was the rat himself, soaking wet and dripping everywhere.

  ‘Hey, there Froghorn,’ said Ruby, ‘is it raining out there or did you shower in your clothes?’

  Froghorn gave her a thin smile and stepped out of the elevator. He glanced at the baby. ‘I see you finally brought one of your kindergarten friends in to meet us. Must be nice to have someone on your own intellectual level to talk to,’ he said.

  Ruby stepped into the elevator. ‘Yeah,’ she yawned, ‘I was missing good conversation.’ The doors closed, opening again two floors up on atrium level where she was surprised to see Blacker standing talking to another agent Ruby had never seen before. He had thick black eyebrows that met in the middle. When he noticed her, he neither smiled nor said hello, but instead gestured a goodbye to Blacker and hurried off.

  ‘Hey, I was told you weren’t in today – you just get here?’ Ruby asked Blacker.

  ‘Just this minute,’ said Blacker. ‘Who’s the little guy?’

  ‘Archie Lemon,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s stopped raining?’ His coat was bone dry.

  ‘I got lucky for once, just missed it,’ said Blacker. ‘So you wanted to see me?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought I had something but I was wrong,’ said Ruby. She held up the bottle. ‘It’s not a mystery drink after all – turns out it’s just lemonade.’

  He looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about and said, ‘OK, so call me if you do get something, any time at all, you know where I am.’

  ‘I will,’ said Ruby. ‘I better go, gotta get the Lemon home before bedtime.’

  It was as Ruby was crossing the vast atrium that baby Lemon decided to screw up his eyes, open his lungs and howl. The sound rang out loud and alien in this usually quiet hive of agents, and LB’s voice could just about be heard from behind the white walls of her office saying, ‘Is that a baby I’m hearing?’ but Ruby pushed the stroller through the heavy steel door and up and out of Spectrum HQ before there was a chance she might have to explain what in tarnation a baby was doing in HQ.

  ‘Jeepers, Lemon, could you not have waited ten more seconds?’

  Ruby took the subway to Flaubert Street and stopped by the billboard. She wanted to take another look, to try and see what the man had seen. But it seemed it was just a billboard.

  Are you going completely crazy Redfort?

  She walked back up Flaubert, crossed Bleaker and turned into Amster, almost walking on past the little green before she remembered her meeting with Clancy.

  I’m never gonna make it for 6.45am, who was I kidding? She parked Archie’s stroller, found a piece of paper in her satchel, wrote a note using the code she and Clancy always used for notes like this. It said:

  W vvza mzcm psln rsiwl oyfy jvgy zdzv.fn1

  She folded it into an origami butterfly shape. Then she climbed the tree and pushed the paper butterfly into one of the knots in the bark. It was while she was clambering down that she found another note tucked into the bark, it was of course from Clancy and said:

  Apmo qs lb ols Owiyh. Xifi we azzsy ndjhpmi.

  ‘You think you’re so smart Crew,’ she muttered.

  RUBY SLEPT BADLY AS USUAL. She woke several times in the night: the wind was almost hurricane force and it sounded like every dog in the neighbourhood was going crazy. The howling of the wind combined with the howling of the hounds forced her to pull her pillow over her ears.

  Almost as soon as she finally fell asleep, her alarm woke her up.

  She was brushing her teeth, bleary-eyed, when the soap phone rang.

  She grabbed it in her left hand and continued to brush her teeth with her right.

  ‘Mmeah,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ said a voice.

  ‘Rornin Wrancy.’

  ‘Where are you?’ demanded Clancy.

  He sounded angry. Ruby removed the brush from her mouth.

  ‘What do you mean, where am I? Where do you think I am? I’m in the bathroom.’

  ‘So why aren’t you here, bozo?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Watch who you are calling bozo, bozo.’

  ‘OK, so why aren’t you here, pal?’ said Clancy.

  ‘As in now?’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yes, as in now,’ said Clancy.

  ‘I left you a note,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I didn’
t get any note,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Well, I left you one,’ said Ruby.

  ‘In the tree?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Yes, in the tree,’ said Ruby.

  ‘There was no note,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Well, I left you one,’ said Ruby.

  ‘But I looked,’ said Clancy.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Ruby.

  ‘So why didn’t I see it?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Clancy, did you take a look at the weather recently? It’s kinda windy out there, a wild guess, my note ended up in some other tree.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Clancy.

  ‘I found yours by the way.’

  ‘What did you think?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Ruby flatly.

  ‘So what did it say? Your note, I mean?’

  ‘Meet me at the Donut.’

  ‘When?’ asked Clancy.

  ‘7.15,’ said Ruby.

  ‘That’s now,’ said Clancy.

  ‘So I’m late,’ said Ruby. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the Donut,’ said Clancy.

  ‘So what are you complaining about?’ said Ruby. ‘You’re already there and nice and cosy, I’ll be with you in ten minutes, weather permitting.’

  When Ruby arrived she had to scour the room for a minute or two before she spotted Clancy. He was in one of the booths by the far window and he was wearing a large hat with earflaps.

  ‘What exactly are you wearing?’ asked Ruby as she slid into the booth.

  ‘I found it on the street,’ said Clancy. ‘I asked in a few shops but no one was claiming it.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ said Ruby.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Did you take a look in the mirror yet?’ said Ruby.

  Clancy ignored her. ‘This wind is giving me earache so this headgear’s gonna be a total life-saver.’

  ‘And possibly a red flag to any bullying types hanging around out there.’

  ‘They don’t get style and individuality, that’s the problem with bullying types,’ said Clancy. ‘They’re social sheep. Simple behavioural science.’