Feel the Fear. Lauren Child

into quite a list over the years. Seventy-nine of them in fact. Now she had a new rule to add.

      DON’T STAND ON A WINDOW LEDGE IF YOU AREN’T COMPLETELY SURE WHETHER THE WINDOW OPENS INWARDS OR OUTWARDS.

      OK, it was quite a specific rule. But a useful one. She’d improve on it later, give it a bit more pizzazz.

      ‘You look better.’

      Ruby looked up to see Dr Harper, the Spectrum medic who had treated her when she was brought in from Wolf Paw Mountain.

      ‘Better than what?’

      ‘Better than what you looked like the last time I saw you.’

      ‘Yeah, well last time you saw me, I had the flu, plus an injured foot, a broken arm and I’d nearly died of being burnt to death.’

      ‘Yes, your hair doesn’t look so good,’ said Harper, making a face. ‘Still a bit. . . crispy. So is the arm giving you any trouble?’

      ‘Nah, not really,’ said Ruby. ‘But it itches like crazy.’

      ‘Yes, that’s healing for you,’ said Dr Harper. ‘Itchy.’

      ‘Anything you can give me for it?’ asked Ruby hopefully.

      ‘Yes,’ said Dr Harper reaching into her top pocket. ‘This.’ She handed Ruby a yellow pencil.

      ‘Thanks,’ said Ruby, ‘does it come with any directions?’

      ‘Yes, avoid the sharp end,’ replied Dr Harper.

      ‘How about my foot?’

      The doctor gave it the once-over and declared it ‘good to go’.

      ‘You sure?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor,’ said Harper.

      ‘And there I was thinking you might be a comedian. What about my arm?’

      ‘Oh,’ said Dr Harper, ‘that’s healed too. I’d cut you out of that cast right now but I got to be somewhere.’ She looked at her watch anxiously.

      ‘A medical emergency?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘A table for two at the Twinford Grand,’ said Dr Harper.

      ‘You won’t help me out of this thing because you got a lunch date?’

      ‘Did no one ever tell you lunch is the most important meal of the day?’

      ‘That’s breakfast,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Oh dear, I missed breakfast,’ said Harper. ‘So, I guess twice as important that I don’t miss lunch.’

      ‘I’m glad I’m not dying,’ said Ruby.

      ‘No one dies of an arm cast,’ said Harper.

      ‘And you say you’re not a comedian,’ said Ruby.

      ‘See you next fall,’ called Dr Harper as she made her way out of the canteen.

      Before Ruby had a chance to get back to her thoughts, a voice came through the cafeteria intercom system. ‘Redfort, Ruby, report immediately to Spectrum 8. Agent in charge, office situated on black and white level. HQ.’

      The voice belonged to the Spectrum information announcer, a person Ruby had never actually laid eyes on, but imagined would not be someone you would want to land up on a desert island with.

      She guessed the owner of this voice resided in the same general department as Buzz, the mushroom-like woman who manned the fifty-plus telephones in an office just off the central atrium. Why he couldn’t just say, ‘Ruby Redfort to LB’s office, pronto,’ Ruby didn’t know.

      She finished her drink and slowly got to her feet, then she sauntered off to find LB.

      ‘Howdy,’ she said as she passed Buzz, who was as usual on the phone and talking to who knew what. Buzz blinked at her, pointed to her watch and continued her call.

      As Ruby approached LB’s office she could see the door was slightly ajar and as she got nearer she could hear fragments of a discussion; the voices semi-hushed, she could only pick up words at intervals so they were separated from their meaning:

       ‘apparently removed without authorisation. . .’

       ‘. . . from the department of defence?’

       ‘that’s what we’ve been told’

       ‘highly classified?’

       ‘affirmative. . .’

       ‘but how could anyone make it in?’

       ‘entered via an air vent. . . I know it seems impossible’

       ‘nothing else tampered with?’

       ‘No sign of anything else missing, no sign of anyone or anything anywhere else in the building.’

       ‘You worried about our security?’

       ‘Always. I’m. . .’

       ‘. . .but only an idiot would attempt—’

      She knocked and the conversation stopped dead.

      ‘Come in,’ said LB, her voice sounding even more gravelly and drawn-out than usual. ‘And close the darned door Redfort.’

      Ruby pushed it shut behind her and walked over to the empty seat next to Hitch. He tapped his watch and gave her a look to say, why in the world of reason can’t you follow orders? She slung her satchel across the back of the chair and slumped down. Then she looked from LB to Hitch.

      Hitch’s brow was ever so slightly furrowed; LB seemed not quite as composed as usual. In her hand was an object which she was turning over and over in her palm: a smooth rectangle of clear plastic or Lucite, the shape and size of a key tag perhaps. But the thing attached to it was no house key, or at least if it was, it was a pretty state-of-the-art locking device. When LB caught Ruby’s gaze she frowned, and slipped the thing into the pocket of her white jacket.

      ‘What’s with you guys?’ asked Ruby. ‘Did your kittens get run over or something?’

      Hitch raised an eyebrow. ‘I wish the problem were a simple case of a couple of flat cats,’ he said, ‘and I speak as a cat lover.’

      ‘Must be serious then,’ said Ruby. ‘So you gonna tell me about it?’

      ‘No,’ said LB.

      Ruby shrugged. ‘OK. So anything you do wanna share?’

      LB gathered her papers into a neat pile and then peered at Ruby through her large white-rimmed soft-tinted glasses. Today she looked tired. Working late? Or is she not sleeping so good?

      ‘So. You did well Redfort. It’s a pity that you couldn’t manage to secure the wolf, but you prevented the suspect acquiring it and that is something.’

      LB was referring back to the previous case Ruby had been assigned to, when she had indeed done well, albeit in a messy, skin-of-her-teeth sort of way. She had used her code-breaking and detective skills to figure out who had let loose a load of rare and wild animals from a zoo owned by a private collector. She had discovered the zookeeper was to blame, though he had later been murdered by those who had commissioned the crime.

      The perpetrators had been a young woman, believed to be a perfumer, named Lorelei von Leyden, and her mysterious sponsor about whom they knew nothing other than that – from her accent and the location of her initial coded message – she was Australian. Both were prepared to kill more than once to get their hands on the Cyan scent – an intoxicating perfume extracted from the near extinct Cyan wolf. The scent was the stuff of myth and legend; a few