Pick Your Poison. Lauren Child

      

      RUBY WOKE UP TO THE SOUND OF A CHICKEN CLUCKING INSIDE HER HEAD. Actually it wasn’t inside her head, it was sort of underneath her pillow, and it wasn’t an actual chicken, it was a novelty telephone shaped like an egg. Now the cheerful cluck of the Chicken Licken ringtone roused her from a series of forgettable dreams.

      ‘Ruby?’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘It’s Mouse.’

      ‘Oh, hey Mouse, did I oversleep or something?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Sorry … where am I meant to be?’

      ‘The Donut.’

      ‘Now?’

      ‘A half hour ago.’

      ‘Sorry.’

      Silence.

      ‘Do I need to be there?’

      ‘Kinda.’

      Ruby was trying to think.

      ‘Halloween costumes!’ She finally got it.

      ‘Yeah and I wish you would hurry up, the conversation has been wearing thin. Clancy has this new pen. He says it’s a space pen, you know, writes upside down, zero gravity …’

      ‘I know,’ said Ruby, ‘it’s meant to be like the most permanent permanent marker there is. Apparently you can write on a space shuttle and it won’t come off.’

      ‘Well, it’s causing permanent boredom, the kinda boredom that makes you wish you were in space.’

      ‘I’ll be there, Mouse, just give me ten minutes.’ Then she glanced at herself in the mirror: brother! Something weird had happened to her hair. ‘OK, better make that fifteen.’

      She walked to the bathroom, stepped into the shower, squirted shampoo on her head, rubbed it in, cleaned her teeth, rinsed her hair, combed it through, dried off, pulled on the clothes that happened to be lying on the floor, looked for her lenses, couldn’t find them so instead reached for her battered glasses, stepped into her Yellow Stripe sneakers and laced them up. Then she climbed out of the window and down the tree – she didn’t need to run into her parents; that would certainly slow things up.

      She walked the familiar route to the Donut Diner, feeling almost like a zombie. Man, she needed a waffle to perk her up.

      A guy in a baseball cap handed her a flyer as she approached the coffee shop. She barely noticed she had it until it was torn out of her grip by a gust of wind. She watched it whirl away across the street, the image of a kid biting into an apple landing on the windshield of a parked car.

      Finally she made it to the Diner, fourteen minutes and eleven seconds after Mouse’s call.

      ‘What happened to you?’ called Elliot. ‘Ever thought of getting a watch?’

      ‘Sorry, man,’ said Ruby, ‘I had a rough night, must have slept right through the alarm.’

      ‘Yeah, you look … not yourself,’ said Red. ‘What happened to your glasses? Did you sleep in them or something?’

      ‘Give her a break,’ said Del, patting Ruby on the back. ‘It doesn’t matter Rube, at least you’re here now. Have a waffle.’ Del passed her a plate and began sliding food onto it.

      Ruby looked around. ‘Where’s Clancy?’

      ‘In the restroom,’ said Elliot.

      ‘So you wanna hear the plan?’ said Mouse.

      ‘Shouldn’t we wait for Clancy?’ said Ruby.

      ‘He heard it already,’ said Mouse, ‘we’ve been here nearly an hour. So you wanna know?’ She was clearly going to pop if she didn’t say it.

      ‘Sure,’ said Ruby, ‘tell me the plan.’

      ‘OK,’ said Mouse, ‘the idea is that we go as the Rigors of Mortis Square.’ Everyone waited for Ruby’s reaction.

      The Rigors of Mortis Square had first appeared in a comic strip and then as books and finally as a TV show. It was a situation comedy about a bunch of people, or rather dead people: ghosts who lived in a strange apartment block named Mortis Square, situated in New York City. The Rigor family were the main focus of the show, but there were other characters too: Liv Inded for instance, who was always to be found rummaging in the trash, looking for bones, her cat constantly chided for running off with one of her fingers or occasionally hands. It was a very popular show and Ruby for one loved it.

      ‘But that would require pretty elaborate costumes,’ said Ruby. ‘Where we gonna rustle those up at this late hour?’

      They looked at her like she’d dropped a marble or two.

      ‘My mom promised to get us all costumes from the film studio,’ said Red. Nothing was registering on Ruby’s face so Red continued, ‘It’s kind of a birthday present to me, don’t you remember Ruby, the other night when you guys were all over at my place?’

      Ruby was kind of vague on this point; she really didn’t remember. Sure, she remembered dinner at Red’s place and she remembered Red’s mom being there, she even remembered catching the bus home, but beyond that, no. The problem was she just hadn’t been getting enough sleep and, as her mother was always telling her, teenagers need their sleep.

      ‘My mom said we could choose any six costumes on the lot – it’s a big deal because there’s gonna be a film crew there filming … you gotta remember that?’ said Red. ‘It was in the paper, the mayor putting on this big Halloween do?’

      No, still nothing was coming back to her, but the way Red was looking at her made her feel uncomfortable. So she said, ‘Yeah, sure I do.’

      ‘What have I missed?’ asked Clancy, sliding back into the Diner seat.

      ‘Red was just telling me about the Halloween costumes.’

      ‘So what do you think?’

      ‘I would say sounds genius to me.’ And it did; she really meant it. ‘So who am I going as?’

      ‘We, that’s you and me,’ said Del, ‘will be going as Hedda Gabble.’ Hedda Gabble was the Rigors’ nanny.

      Ruby looked at her with unease.

      Del continued, ‘I will be wearing a floor-length fur-trimmed velvet coat which covers me from head to toe – literally speaking.’

      ‘So what will I be wearing exactly?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘You, my friend, will be going as my severed head.’

      ‘Will it hurt?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Funny,’ said Del. ‘You will be under the coat with your head sticking out at the side, sorta tucked under my arm.’

      ‘Sounds very uncomfortable,’ said Ruby.

      ‘It’s not so bad,’ said Del. ‘Erica Grey did it for years.’

      ‘So why don’t you be the severed head and I’ll tuck you under my arm?’ suggested Ruby.

      ‘I’d be delighted but you’re way too short to carry off the coat part of the costume. I’d have to practically bend double to tuck my head under your puny little arm.’

      Del took a photograph out of her backpack – it was a TV still that showed the actress Erica Grey, her head tucked under the arm of who knew who. Her pretty face was made up to look very pale indeed, huge dark circles around vacant eyes, lips blood red and