The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

he was about to oblige, but then he grinned.

      ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Here’s the water; good luck finding the soap.’

      And with that he picked her up and threw her overboard.

      Brant Redfort, horrified, bellowed, ‘Honey, don’t think of drowning, I’m coming to save you!’

      And he swan-dived from the bow of the boat and disappeared beneath the waves. The pirates, sensing they had in some way failed to create an atmosphere of blind terror, began shooting into the water. They continued to shoot for some minutes, wanting to be sure that these two have-a-go heroes would never resurface.

      ‘We won’t be worth much to you if we’re all dead!’ screamed Mrs Sylvester. ‘Hostages have to be alive, remember.’

      ‘Who said anything about hostages?’ snarled the pirate.

      This had the desired effect and all the remaining passengers trembled and awaited their fate.

       Chapter 15.

      Clutching at straws

      RUBY WOKE ON WEDNESDAY MORNING to hear her radio making an unpleasant noise, like an orchestra tuning up. She lifted her head wearily from the pillow and through the blur of her poor eyesight saw a grey furry shape.

      ‘Bug,’ she groaned. ‘You wanna switch that off?’ It was a trick of his to step on the set, turning it on – it usually got Ruby out of bed.

      The dog bumbled over to where she lay and licked her nose.

      ‘Cut it out, would you Bug?’

      She dragged herself up, and tripped over the happy husky and landed on her behind. Darn it! She crawled over to the set and blindly fiddled with the dial.

      ‘If you’re gonna switch the radio on, at least tune it to something that sounds like a tune.’ To her surprise she found it was tuned. Mrs Digby had obviously been in with the vacuum since the dial was set to easy-listening Chime Melody. However, the track that was playing was anything but easy listening: it sounded like a whole bunch of grasshoppers were playing badly tuned violins.

      Jeepers, is that enough to give anyone a sore head.

      Ruby looked at herself in the mirror.

      ‘I guess I’m up,’ she muttered. She showered and dressed and fixed her barrette in her hair, and looked at herself in the mirror.

      Better, she told herself. She pulled on a T-shirt that said wake me if things get interesting.

      School that day basically involved trying to coax Clancy out of packing his bags and heading for the hills.

      ‘I think I should just get outta here, make a run for it,’ he said. He seemed to mean it. ‘I won’t survive two minutes in the ocean, not two minutes.’

      ‘Clance, you’re overdramatising – the worst that could happen is you get stung by a jellyfish.’

      ‘A jellyfish!’ squealed Clancy, by now flapping his arms furiously. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. No, I’m gonna head for Colorado – it’s landlocked. I could camp out for a few months until this whole thing blows over.’

      Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Clance my friend, you’re beginning to lose it. It’s just a school swimathon.’ But Clancy Crew could not be calmed.

      ‘You know how I am about jellyfish; if I get stung, I’ll most likely have an allergic reaction and sink.’

      ‘You can borrow my Spectrum anti-sting canister, how about that? That’s gotta reassure you,’ said Ruby.

      By Thursday, Clancy was worse – he was hardly able to speak and in physics class when Mr Endell asked him what he would do if an asteroid struck earth, Clancy replied, ‘Thank my lucky stars.’

      Elliot tried to jolt him out of it by making him laugh, but most of his jokes seemed to revolve around some poor bozo meeting a gory end and so his efforts resulted in Clancy Crew sinking lower into his sweater. He actually looked like he was shrinking.

      By Friday, Clancy had adopted the demeanour of a condemned man. He had stopped wrestling with his fate and seemed to accept that there was no way out; he was going to have to swim that swimathon even if it meant swimming heroically – or perhaps weeping like a coward – towards certain death.

      After school, just as Clancy was leaving for home, Ruby caught up with him.

      ‘Hey Clance, do you want me to come over?’

      Clancy shook his head. ‘Nah, that’s all right Rube, I gotta get my sleep; it’s my only chance.’

      ‘You know you’re not gonna die Clance; you’re being awful pessimistic.’

      ‘Can you guarantee that?’ asked Clancy, searching her face for assurance. He wanted to believe her, he really did.

      ‘I gave you my anti-sting; there’s no way you can die of a jellyfish attack,’ said Ruby.

      ‘I know,’ said Clancy. ‘But there’s worse than jellyfish out there.’

      As she looked into his desperate eyes, she thought of that old saying – a drowning man will clutch at straws. Clancy needed a straw right now, one that he could put all his faith in: RULE 20: NINETY PER CENT OF SURVIVAL IS ABOUT BELIEVING YOU WILL SURVIVE.

      Ruby reached into her inside jacket pocket and unclipped something from the lining.

      ‘Here,’ she said, ‘why don’t you take this? It’s the luckiest thing I got.’ She handed him a tiny tin badge. It seemed to be totally plain, just an ordinary white pin-badge, until you held it in your hand and felt something embossed on its surface. Ruby had found it when she was just a little kid, next to the sidewalk on Cedarwood Drive. She had kept it all these years – she wasn’t exactly sure why. She usually had it pinned to the inside of her jacket, a habit started when she was a toddler aware that her mother would consider a pin-badge a hazard and so take it away. Now she was grown there was of course no need to hide it, but it had become a ‘thing’ – something she did – and so the badge remained out of sight. ‘Just don’t lose it and give it right back, OK?’

      Clancy looked at this small object lying in his hand. He believed her about the luck, Ruby could see that in his eyes. This tiny object might just save my life. That’s what he was thinking. ‘Really?’ he said and his face looked brighter. ‘I can borrow it?’

      ‘Yeah, take my good luck why don’t you.’

      He smiled. ‘Thanks Rube.’

      She walked off, then stopped and called out, ‘So remember, if anyone’s gonna get chomped tomorrow, it’s me!’

      Ruby was slowly cycling her way home when she noticed the stranger standing on the corner of Bamboo and Rose. She had seen him a few times now without really taking notice, but this time she was taking notice: Twinford was a big place, but this guy seemed to be frequenting a lot of the same places Ruby did.

      Is he tailing me?

      She had first seen him soon after the dolphins took up residence in Twinford harbour. This weathered-looking guy. Last week she had spotted him on the corner of Amster, drinking small cups of rich black coffee. He wore a hat and sunglasses (even though the sun had already sunk low in the sky). He was tanned and lithe, but the hair that stuck out from under his cap was grey and he looked like he had seen many a scorching summer’s day, his skin leathery and worn. She had spotted him in the middle of town too, outside the library and then again down near the harbour.

      Nothing to be suspicious about, you could say, but Ruby had picked him up on her internal radar and once she had seen him a couple of times, she realised she was seeing him over and over. She had never observed him with anyone nor had she heard him speak, not even to the waiter at the coffee shop. When he ordered, he pointed; when he thanked, he nodded;