Catch Your Death

by Lauren Child

  Everyone went home that night and tried to get as much sleep as they could, aware that for the next few days sleep might not be found so easily.

  The next day the trainees were each issued their mission briefing, handed their survival packs and offered a last chance to back out.

  No one backed out.

  A Spectrum agent, one Ruby didn’t recognise, had appeared from nowhere and was now handing out brown envelopes containing their instructions. Ruby pulled the tag which ran down the side of the envelope and pulled out the brown paper contained inside.

  On it was written a code.

  Ruby looked at it, frowning, for a few seconds. Then she smiled. Whoever had created the code had divided the message into six-letter chunks to make it seem more complicated than it was, but she soon saw what she was dealing with.

  The clue was the frequency of certain letters.

  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.’

  Chapter 5.

  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:

  Stand still. Take stock. Orientate. Plan.

  STAND 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.

  TAKE 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.

  ORIENTATE.

  She shone her mini-flashlight on the basic map she had been given. She had to make straight for the hill, or was it a small mountain? In the dark it was hard to tell. In any case, straight up and over was the only way to go.

  PLAN.

  Ruby made the decision to keep moving. It was too dark to make a shelter and in any case the trek would serve to keep her warm. She judged that there was little of the night left, since the sky already appeared to be getting lighter, and navigating was no real problem since up was really the only way to go, plus, with the help of the moon, which every now and again slipped from behind the clouds, there was little chance of getting lost.

  The dawn came when she was about halfway to the top and she was glad she had made the decision to climb – an hour later and the sun was already beginning to make the ascent hard work. She covered her head to prevent the chance of sunburn and drank the water contained in the survival pack. She needed to make sure she kept herself hydrated.

  SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #13:

  Keeping Healthy

  SURVIVAL RULE 12:

  Keep glugging water. Staying hydrated helps you stay alert, control appetite, and maintain concentration and energy levels.

  Once she made it to the summit, which was really a ridge, Ruby rested in the shade of a large rock and ate one of her energy bars. From this mountaintop vantage point she could see the ranch below where she was expected to rustle a horse. She could even see the snaking ribbon of the first river twinkling in the distance, the same river she would need to cross on horseback. Far beyond that was a whole terrain she had no chart for: just markers, features of the landscape that would serve to guide her.

  She called up the list of tasks in her mind.

  Task one:

  Make your way to the ranch unseen.

  Once she had regained her strength, Ruby looked for a spot to camp out in, making sure it was on the north-east side of the mountain well out of view of the ranch; she didn’t want them picking up the scent of a campfire.

  The woodland was perfect, allowing for cover and plenty of materials from which to construct a shelter. There was a small creek and a clearing nearby and this was the area Ruby chose. She gathered slim fallen branches which she lashed together with creeper plants to create an A-frame, and then she clad the whole structure carefully with fir branches which she cut using her Spectrum-issue knife. She was pleased with the result. She then made a platform to sleep on, raised a little off the ground to prevent the cold getting into her bones – this she covered in dry pine needles and leaves.

  SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #1:

  Basic skills

  1. SHELTER

  SURVIVAL RULE 7:

  Make your shelter as watertight and draught free as possible. If you do not create a secure and stable shelter, you could end up in an unnecessarily dangerous situation, exposed to the elements.

  Once she felt happy with her shelter, Ruby began collecting fuel for a fire and got it going without any trouble. Then she spent some time searching for food and successfully gathered some edible plant life.

  SURVIVAL RULE 13:

  Don’t forget to eat. Without food, you are putting yourself at risk of fatigue and sickness.

  Everything went according to plan and Ruby soon had water boiling and a little while later a root tea stewing. Once she had cooked and eaten her gathered ingredients (not delicious though nourishing), she picked up her binoculars and headed up to the ridge again and down the south-west side of the mountain, keeping the ranch in her sights. When she felt she was near enough, but still at a safe distance not to be observed, she hunkered down.

  Ruby spent the next few hours surveying the ranch, watching the ranch hands coming and going, working out when they were on duty and when they were off, and how often they stepped outside the building to check on the livestock or to have a smoke. When she was entirely satisfied that she knew all she needed to know, she went back to her shelter and turned in.

  She slept well for several hours and woke at exactly the time she had planned to. It was good and dark, but with enough light to see what she needed to see. She gathered up her stuff and scratched camp so she would leave no trace.

  Task two:

  Rustle a horse from the corral.

  Ruby Redfort was light on her feet and had no trouble moving without sound. As she approached the corral where the horses were held, she got down low and moved into the shadows.

  If she had timed everything accurately and was correct with her observations, then there would be only one man patrolling the ranch and he would be walking round clockwise until the next guy’s shift began. As far as she could judge, he must be on the far side of the ranch house by now. He would linger there and brew himself another pot of coffee in the tin pot that sat on the porch. Then he would pour a cup and slowly sip his coffee before reappearing perhaps eight minutes later. This meant Ruby had precisely seven minutes to select a horse, saddle up and get out of there without being spotted.

  She took no time choosing a horse: she picked the one that seemed most trusting, most docile. Her choice of horse was a good deal better than her choice of saddle for, as it turned out, the one she had taken had a broken girth.

  ‘Nice going buster,’ Ruby muttered to herself. She registered this error in her head.

  Mistake one: neglecting to check.

  It was too risky to go back to the lean-to where the saddles were kept, select another and hope to make it out of there before the ranch hand reappeared. No, she would just have to ride bareback. Ruby led the horse by the reins, climbed onto the corral fence and mounted. It was agony to have the horse walk so slowly, but the sound of galloping hooves would no doubt alert the guard. Once she was into the trees and far enough away from the buildings, she picked up speed and flew through the night.

  It was an exhilarating feeling, not just the ride, but the rustling itself: to get away unnoticed was the big deal. She felt like an agent – she was an agent – she was going to ace this test. Now for the next part of her assignment:

  Task three:

  Swim the horse across the river.

  She gulped a little when she saw how wide it was, but there was no time for nerves; she needed to keep going if she was to make her deadline. The water was cold, but thankfully not fast-flowing and the horse did not object to what it was being asked to do. When they reached the far side, Ruby slid off the animal’s back and felt the water squelching in her boots.

  Mistake two: failing to remove one’s footwear before crossing the river.

  Bozo, she thought.

  Part one of the mission was over and, as far she was concerned, this was the important part, the tough part.

  Mistake three: failing to take equally seriously every part of the mission.

  Chapter 6.

  SHE TETHERED THE HORSE TO A POST AND PATTED IT GOODBYE. It would not be long before someone would arrive to deliver it home, no doubt drying it down and offering it a nosebag for its trouble.

  If only Ruby had thought to give herself this same treatment, things might have worked out quite differently. But Ruby was ambitious; now all she cared about was arriving back at base camp early, really early. She was on a high, feeling pretty good about everything.

  Mistake four: getting too confident.
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  Task four:

  Make your way to the second river.

  She decided to keep going, ignoring the natural shelter created by a small dip in the hillside, ignoring the perfect tree with its drooping branches that grew from this hollow, ignoring the fact it created a dry and comfortable place to camp out and get dry. Instead she trekked on in her sodden clothes, each step harder than it should have been because of the weight of the water in her boots and the rest of her garments.

  Mistake five: failing to take care of one’s physical self.

  Ruby trekked for about two and three-quarter hours and the sun was now up and she was all but dry except for her poor feet which still squeaked in her boots. She stopped for a while and ate her last energy bar.

  It wasn’t enough.

  She walked for another six miles before she heard a distant rumble. She looked up, but there was little to see except cold, dark nothing. A few minutes later, a lightning fork split the sky and the thunder rolled behind it and, as she ran, she heard the wind begin to shake the trees. It would not be long before the storm reached her.

  SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #8:

  The Elements

  In times of crisis, storms, blizzards, hurricanes, it is always a good idea to seek sanctuary, get warm, get dry, conserve energy. Remember: get out of the deluge, hunker down, ride it out.

  OK, said Ruby to the handbook imprinted in her mind, that’s all very easy for you to say, but where do you propose I hunker?

  It was a good question – there was very little in the way of hunkering-down landscape. As far as the eye could see, it was just flat, rocky terrain.

  ‘Just keep thinking kid.’ She could hear Hitch’s voice in her head. ‘The ones that keep thinking are the ones that survive.’

  She walked across the flat rock slab and searched for any part of it that might overhang the ground beneath. Twenty minutes later, she got lucky. A small overhang, positioned out of the wind, shielded the earth from the slicing rain. She used the micro-chute as a tent, securing it to the overhang and pulling it down in front to create a sort of cave shelter.

  This isn’t so bad, she thought. She was careful to remember to pin down all the flapping parts of the chute, aware that it might be torn away by a fierce gust of wind or simply allow cold to circulate inside the shelter. Fire was more difficult because of the gale blowing outside and it was hard to keep the flames alive and the smoke from billowing into her dwelling. She boiled up a root tea and, having drunk as much as she could endure, she worked on getting some shut-eye.