Pick Your Poison. Lauren Child

      ‘I can read you like a book, baby.’

      Clancy frowned. ‘Let’s hope a more interesting book than the one about how leaves turn red.’

      ‘So what’s the news?’

      ‘I’m going to the Environmental Explorer Awards,’ said Clancy, smiling the smile that he would be wearing on the night.

      ‘You’re going to that?’ Ruby felt like she might fall off her branch.

      Clancy nodded. ‘Yes, I am.’

      ‘Since when?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Since my dad had this extra invitation.’

      ‘How did he manage that?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘My mom’s not keen on some of the live exhibits.’

      ‘I guess you got lucky,’ said Ruby.

      ‘I know,’ said Clancy, ‘it’s this year’s big money-can’t-buy ticket. It must be one of the few perks of being the Ambassador’s favourite son.’ (Clancy was also the ambassador’s only son.)

      ‘What about your sisters? They not wanna go?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘Minny’s banned due to some misdemeanour or other, Lulu’s not into that kinda thing, and since I’m the third oldest the others don’t actually get a look in.’

      ‘I must say, for once I envy you my ambassadorial pal,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Are your mom and dad going?’ said Clancy.

      ‘Need you ask?’ said Ruby. The Twinford Environmental Explorer Awards was a three-yearly event held in the Twinford Geographical Institute, a grand modernist building near the Twinford City Museum. A large cheque was presented by a local dignitary to the environmentalist deemed to have made the biggest impact on some area of world ecology. It was a big deal event. Of course the Redforts were going. Ruby’s parents were Twinford’s premiere socialites, attending on average two major functions per week along with a sprinkling of private parties, launches and fundraisers.

      ‘You couldn’t, like, wrestle a ticket?’ asked Clancy.

      ‘It’s a sell out,’ said Ruby, ‘everyone wants to be there. I guess I will be left watching it on TV.’

      ‘It’s because of the exhibits,’ said Clancy, ‘that’s what makes it so popular. They said there’s going to be moon rock there and probably one or two astronauts floating around.’

      ‘If you get to speak to one of them you gotta ask, which is the more comfortable space suit: the G4C, or the A7L?’ Ruby thought for a moment and then added, ‘Also, does the moon really smell like wet gunpowder?’

      Clancy said, ‘I’m going to ask them how they can sit in a rotating spacecraft without getting dizzy? I mean my sister Nancy would puke all the way to the moon.’

      ‘Which isn’t saying a lot since your sister Nancy looks like she’s about to puke every time she climbs aboard the school bus. No, the real question to ask is – “Aren’t you concerned about all that space junk you’re littering the galaxy with? Sooner or later someone’s going to bump into a lump of it …” – that’s what I wanna know,’ said Ruby. ‘That and what Virgil Hipkip does in his spare time.’

      ‘Can you even imagine?’ mused Clancy. ‘I mean how does a guy like that relax?’

      ‘Ah, he probably knits,’ said Ruby.

      Virgil Hipkip was a survivalist and explorer of hostile terrain, and known for many hair-raising feats, but the most notorious was when he swam beneath the Arctic ice with a polar bear.

      ‘He’s the reason my mom doesn’t want to go,’ said Clancy. ‘She thinks he may have insisted that jungle grubs be served as canapés.’

      ‘A not entirely unreasonable worry,’ said Ruby.

      ‘I’m hoping to meet him,’ said Clancy. ‘As they say, he hangs out with the rare and dangerous, or is it the dangerously rare?’

      ‘Well, talking of dangerously rare, if you get a chance, ask him if he’s run into the Blue Alaskan wolf recently – I’ll betcha he hasn’t.’

      ‘Yep, we must be the only two kids alive today who have seen that old wolf,’ said Clancy. They were talking about a creature thought to be extinct until August that year. Ruby and Clancy had cut it loose. Had they left it caged up there on Wolf Paw Mountain where Lorelei von Leyden and the mysterious Australian woman she was working for had trapped it, then its fate might very well have been the same as that of the dodo.

      ‘So who do you figure is going to get the big cheque?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘My money’s on the woman who discovered that new snake species.’

      ‘Why’s that?’

      ‘I don’t know, just a hunch,’ said Clancy. ‘I just got a good feeling about her. It’s the sort of discovery that takes a hold on people’s imaginations.’

      ‘That’s because people are scared of snakes,’ said Ruby. ‘People like to be thrilled.’

      ‘True, but more than that, this snake has an amazing yellow skin, I mean, fluorescent yellow,’ said Clancy. ‘On top of that, it has a really weird venom, interesting weird.’

      ‘What does it do?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Well, it doesn’t kill you,’ said Clancy. ‘At least, not immediately. First of all you sweat, like a lot. I mean you basically sweat to death unless you drink about a gallon of water; if you don’t, you end up like a raisin. The worst of it is, you find you can’t close your eyes – they are sort of pinned open, which is very unattractive and unrelaxing.’

      ‘You think you would be able to relax with symptoms like those?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘It also gives you really bad breath,’ added Clancy.

      ‘Gross. How come you know all these reptile facts?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘My dad was given the literature on account of him being on the awards committee. I read up on it. It’s top secret though; I shouldn’t even be telling you,’ said Clancy. ‘I hope you’re not going to blab.’

      Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Give me a break.’ Hearing about the snake made her wish more than ever that she could make it to the Explorer Awards; snakes were of particular interest to her.

      She had spent an awful lot of her time watching the nature channel and had seen more than a few programmes about deadly snakes and their habitats. It was a subject that fascinated both her and Clancy, and one that they had often argued about.

      They were always trying to figure out which was the most deadly snake of all. Clancy would usually argue: ‘It has to be the hook-nosed sea krait because it requires the least venom to kill.’

      ‘Come on, it has got to be the Russell’s viper,’ Ruby would answer. ‘I mean, it has to be considered the more dangerous on account of it being a more aggressive reptile and it packs more venom. You also have to consider that you are much more likely to cross paths with a Russell’s viper than our hook-nosed friend.’

      Clancy refused to accept this argument and merely countered that this was not the point – if one happened to meet the Enhydrina schistosa then the chances of making it back to the beach to enjoy a little more sunbathing activity were pretty much non-existent. This argument had been going on for the past five and a quarter years and a compromise had yet to be found. What they both did agree on was: ‘Whichever one you meet, just be sure you don’t upset it.’

      ‘This snake lady,’ said Ruby, ‘what’s her name?’

      ‘Amarjargel Oidov? Or as they say in Outer Mongolia, Oidov Amarjargel.’

      ‘That’s