The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

shark. Perhaps being eaten by a whole batch of fourteen-foot sharks would be worse, but it was marginal.

      ‘Would you mind if I called a cab and went on home?’ he asked.

      ‘Well, now I’m really worried Clancy. Do you want to lie down?’ asked Mrs Finch.

      ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ said Clancy. Promptly fainting.

       Chapter 17.

      Something fearsome this way comes

      WHEN RUBY WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, she called Clancy right away, but he wasn’t answering his phone. In the end she had to call the main line and ask Drusilla the housekeeper to get him to pick up.

      ‘Hello,’ came a weak voice from the end of the line.

      ‘Clance? What are you doing?’ demanded Ruby.

      ‘I feel lousy,’ said Clancy. ‘Real sick.’

      ‘You’re not sick, you’re just freaked out. Yikes Clance,’ she said. ‘I mean I knew you were shark phobic, but I didn’t think that just talking about them could actually be terminal.’

      ‘That’s not it,’ said Clancy. ‘It’s just I knew I shouldn’t swim in the ocean. Now, it turns out I was right. I came this close to actual death.’

      Ruby of course didn’t see it this way. To her it just went to prove what she had always known, that sharks were not man’s predators. She had read countless books on the subject and no one worth their marine biologist salt thought sharks were out to eat people.

      ‘You’re OK Clancy,’ she said. ‘Stop freaking out.’

      ‘I’m sick,’ insisted Clancy. ‘Super sick.’

      Ruby sighed. ‘I’m coming over.’

      She went downstairs and found Mrs Digby sitting talking to Hitch – unusual only because Mrs Digby rarely sat down. She usually drank her morning beverage while vacuuming, but this was a Sunday – a day on which she allowed herself a little luxury. She was poring over the papers as she swigged a cup of strong-looking tea that had been stewing in a large silver teapot, the sort of teapot a dormouse might live in. Mrs Digby was discussing with Hitch the gossip that made up every local news headline that day.

      SHARKS SPOTTED IN TWINFORD BAY

      SWIMATHON KIDS SWIM FOR THEIR LIVES

      MARINE LIFE OUT OF CONTROL

      MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE

      PANIC!

      The Twinford Mirror went on to say: Local fisherman very fortunate not to drown when a pod of dolphins rocked him out of his boat yesterday evening.

      ‘I thought dolphins were meant to be man’s best friend,’ said Mrs Digby.

      ‘No, that’s dogs,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Well, I never heard of dolphins trying to drown folks. What in high heaven is going on for Jiminy’s sake?’ Mrs Digby asked the papers.

      ‘Well may you ask,’ said Hitch. ‘It says here that three fishermen sent out distress signals, but no one registered their alert.’

      Ruby made a mental note to add these latest events to her sheet of paper – she was going to have to extend it. But not right now – right now, she had to go buck up Clancy.

      She fetched her bike and rode over to the Crew home. The front door was opened by Drusilla, who informed Ruby that Clancy was feeling ‘under the weather’.

      ‘If you can get him out of that bed, I’ll give you a medal,’ Drusilla added.

      ‘I’ll give it my best shot!’ called Ruby, running up the three flights of stairs that led to Clancy’s room.

      She opened the door.

      Clancy raised his head from the pillow. ‘Rube, that you?’

      ‘Give me a break Clance and quit the feeble routine, would you – you didn’t get attacked by fish yesterday and there’s no chance of it happening while you’re lying in bed.’

      ‘I don’t feel so good, you know,’ said Clancy. ‘I think I’m going to stay here. I need to recuperate.’

      They argued for seventeen minutes before Ruby threw in the towel.

      She wasn’t about to waste her entire Sunday sitting at Clancy’s bedside listening to total horse manure; instead she would check out what Del was up to.

      It was late Sunday afternoon and Ruby had been playing Del Lasco at table tennis for more than a few hours. They had come out even, winning seventeen games each. By the time she climbed on her bike, Ruby was flat-out tired and finding it a struggle to turn the pedals, but as she reached the corner of Amster, she saw the stranger again; he was getting into a car. Maybe it was time to turn the tables, tail him for a change, see how he liked it.

      The car’s engine started, and the car pulled out from the kerb and drove north up Bleaker. Her heart was beating pretty fast and adrenalin pumped through her.

      What do I do when I catch him?

      But this wasn’t going to be a question she needed an answer for.

      Ruby kept up OK until he turned into Flower, which was a pretty steep hill, one of the steepest in Twinford – her legs, after thirty-four games of ping-pong, were never going to chase a car up a hill, and as the gap between them grew, she accepted defeat and freewheeled back down, gliding on home to Cedarwood Drive.

      On Monday, while Ruby was cleaning her teeth, she switched on the radio, turning the dial until she reached Twinford Talk Radio. There was a jingle playing, some commercial about the benefits of eating cereal with raisins in if you wanted to have a productive day at school. Ruby couldn’t see it herself; she had always felt that raisins had no business being in breakfast cereal. Who wants to eat a shrivelled grape floating in milk?

      The commercials over, the voice of Greg Witney, the TTR anchorman, came back on the air.

      ‘SO SHELLY, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED TO THESE GREAT OCEAN PREDATORS?’‘IT’S HARD TO DRAW ANY FIRM CONCLUSIONS GREG, BUT THEY DO SEEM TO HAVE BEEN SAVAGELY ATTACKED BY SOME OTHER PREDATOR. JUDGING BY THE STATE OF THEM, CERTAINLY SOMETHING FEARSOME.’‘BUT JUST WHAT CREATURE COULD TAKE ON A TIGER SHARK – IT DOESN’T BEAR THINKING ABOUT, HUH SHELLY?’

      ‘IT CERTAINLY DOESN’T GREG, TWINFORD FOLK MIGHT WANT TO KEEP OUT OF THE WATER UNTIL THIS VERY STRANGE MYSTERY IS SOLVED. NOW BACK TO YOU.’

      Jeepers. Clancy is never going to get out of bed again.

      Ruby got dressed: today’s T-shirt kept its insult short and simply said bozo. She stamped her feet into her well-worn Yellow Stripe sneakers and skittered downstairs.

      Hitch was sitting at the kitchen table, polishing some silverware and looking for all the world like an actual butler.

      ‘I think you may be getting too into your cover story,’ said Ruby, her nose in the refrigerator, searching for the juice.

      Hitch shrugged. ‘Mrs Digby runs a tight ship.’

      ‘Yeah, but she already believes you’re a butler; you don’t need to make out you’re the best entire one to ever polish forks on this earthly universe of Twinford.’

      ‘And I don’t want her thinking I’m a lousy one either. My life wouldn’t be worth living kid.’

      Ruby shrugged and sucked on her drinking straw. When she came back up for air, she said, ‘So did you hear the story about the attacked sharks?’

      Hitch looked up from his polishing. ‘Yes, that is strange. Sounds almost supernatural.’

      ‘Yeah,’ mused Ruby. ‘Almost like there’s some kinda giant sea monster swimming about offa the Twinford coast.’