Feel the Fear. Lauren Child

counting the hours. Life as it had been before Spectrum recruitment now seemed humdrum. Sure, she could happily live a week or two without the thrill of Spy agency work; her friends were amusing, her family likeable, there were books, there was music, museums, galleries, cinema, diners, rollerskates, the great outdoors, the great indoors, and then there was TV, and of course, ping-pong – all available to entertain, occupy and stretch her curious mind. But Ruby was no ordinary thirteen-year-old; her mind needed a lot of stretching and occupying.

      As Ruby set about looking for things to wear she noticed a note, clearly pinned on her door by Mrs Digby. It said:

       DON’T FORGET THE DO TONIGHT! 6.30 SHARP. MAKE SURE YOU’VE WASHED BEHIND YOUR EARS (WITH SOAP). PS YOUR MOTHER HAS BOUGHT YOU

      A DRESS (YOU’RE NOT GONNA LIKE IT).

      Ruby rolled her eyes and began the search for her Yellow Stripe sneakers and a fresh T-shirt. Her eyes settled on one – red with black text, the words pleading: please tell me I’m not awake.

      Ruby had many T-shirts, all pretty similar in tone, all bearing slogans, statements or questions, some funny, some impolite, some funny and impolite. They caused her mother great consternation but Ruby wasn’t the sort of kid to let someone else’s opinion get in the way of her wardrobe, particularly not her mother’s.

      ‘You’ll appreciate me one day,’ Sabina would often say.

      ‘Mom, I appreciate you now,’ was always Ruby’s reply, ‘it’s just these outfits you keep buying me are causing me to appreciate you less than I would if you didn’t buy them.’

      The intercom in Ruby’s room buzzed. ‘Yuh huh,’ said Ruby into the speaker.

      ‘This is your housekeeper, you know, the wretched old lady who attends to your every need?’

      ‘Hullo Mrs Digby, what can I do for you?’

      ‘Just reminding you about tonight,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Your mother and father want you hosed down, dressed, shoes shined, standing at the front door by six-thirty sharp.’

      ‘You already told me that in your note – anything else you wanna repeat?’

      ‘Yep, six-thirty sharp – be there or be in peril.’

      Mrs Digby had been housekeeper to the Redforts for just about ever and she knew Ruby inside out and back to front. And one thing she was sure as eggs is eggs about was that Ruby Redfort would never be winning any punctuality award. She was a terrible time-keeper.

      The buzzer buzzed again. ‘There’s a note from your father, stuck to the refrigerator.’

      ‘And?’ said Ruby.

      ‘And what?’ said Mrs Digby.

      ‘And what does it say?’

      ‘If you got your lazy self down here you could see for yourself.’

      The housekeeper hung up and Ruby went downstairs to find something to eat.

      The note was still fixed to the refrigerator. It read:

       Dr Shepherd has found time for you in his schedule. Be at the St Angelina hospital at 1.15 pm. My chauffeur Bob will collect you from the house at 12.30 and return you home. Do not take the subway. And seriously, honey, don’t be late, the guy is doing me a big favour here. Love Pop.

      Ruby looked at her watch; she had more than a couple of hours before she needed to be there. Time enough to check out the vintage store on Amster and find a dress she might want to wear to the evening’s event. Obviously she wasn’t going to wear the dress her mother had picked for her. But maybe if she wore a dress it would make Sabina happy.

      She got lucky – the dress she particularly liked fitted perfectly, or at least would once she applied a little sticky tape to the hem. She also found a cool-looking old paperback thriller that she thought might be an OK read. Her dad would doubtless have booked his chauffeur to pick her up way early and she would rather read her book in the sun than in an air-conditioned waiting room. She would make a call.

      As she was leaving she caught sight of the payphone in front of the store. She dialled her father’s number and was put through to his personal assistant.

      ‘Hi Dorothy, Sabina Redfort here. Look I’ve decided to drive Ruby to the hospital myself, you know how it is with kids, I just want to ensure she gets there on time and I know Bob’s a wonderful chauffeur and all but can he wrestle a teenager into a car on time? I doubt it. . .’ (Ruby laughed in exactly the way her mother would.) ‘Yes Dorothy, I hear you! So if you could cancel Bob, I would be very grateful, oh and don’t tell my husband he will think I’m being a worry worm. . . It’s wart? Really? Worry wart?’ (She laughed again.) ‘Bye, bye, bye.’

      Ruby’s impersonation of her mother had got so good over the years that not even her mother could tell the difference.

      Ruby sat down on the bench, leaned her back to the wall, and smiled to herself. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get to the hospital with no bike, but she’d solve that problem later. She opened the vintage-store book, No Time to Scream, leaned back against the wall and began to read.

      Ruby quickly lost track of time; the book was a lot more engrossing than she had expected it to be. She had almost read the whole 275 pages while she sipped on her slushy when she sensed someone’s gaze and looked up. The kid from yesterday evening, the one standing outside the minimart with the styled-unstyled hair, was standing on top of the payphone, as if no one was going to mind, or perhaps he didn’t care either way.

      Ruby thought about him on his skateboard, hitching a ride from that truck; she really should try that. He was one of those kids who knew he was good-looking – only today he looked awkward and was fiddling with his key-chain which he had looped to his pocket, a self-conscious tough-guy look which wasn’t really working for him. He seemed to be preparing to smile, to say something even.

      ‘Hey,’ he said.

      ‘Hey back,’ replied Ruby. She had put down her slushy and was busy trying to find her hat; it was somewhere in her satchel. ‘By the way, I think that lady wants to make a call.’ She indicated the elderly woman who was clearly working up the courage to ask the boy to step off the payphone. He shrugged and jumped down.

      ‘So what’s your name?’ asked the boy.

      ‘I believe it’s traditional to introduce yourself first before asking a personal question like, what’s your name.’

      ‘What’s your name is a personal question?’ said the boy.

      ‘It is to me, unless of course you are a law enforcement officer, or person in a position of ultimate authority, and if you are I guess what’s your name would be a demand.’ She paused without looking up. ‘Are you in the whole law enforcement business?’

      The boy sounded flustered when he replied, ‘Am I what?’

      ‘In law enforcement?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Uh, no,’ said the boy uncertainly.

      ‘Didn’t think so,’ said Ruby. She resumed her satchel rifling. ‘So what is it?’

      ‘What’s what?’ said the boy.

      ‘Your name buster.’

      ‘My name?’

      ‘What? You got amnesia? Or you in the police protection programme?’

      The boy actually smiled at this, surprised, like he had never met a girl before who wasn’t falling over herself to get his attention.

      ‘My name. . .’ announced the boy. He was about to disclose this piece of information when Ruby caught sight of something alarming – it was the clock above the pharmacy door.

      Darn! The hospital; her appointment. She was late.

      ‘Look,