Blink and You Die

by Lauren Child

  They all stood looking at her like she had just beamed down from the planet Zuton.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mouse, ‘the point is, your mom’s got a point. There are an awful lot of stars at this party.’

  The group made their way up to the 33rd floor, taking one of the eight elevators.

  When the doors opened they were greeted by a woman in a gold dress and elaborate hairdo, a tiny satellite sticking up out of her brunette curls. She checked their names against her list and directed them to the cloakroom where they shed their coats and wraps before moving into the main ballroom. The ballroom opened into a whole series of other rooms, which in turn opened out onto balconies and terraces. It was ‘some party’, as Brant Redfort correctly remarked.

  Ruby was not surprised that the first person she ran into was not exactly the kid she was looking to spend the evening with, but that of course was the whole thing about parties – they were unpredictable.

  ‘Hi, Ruby!’

  Ruby looked round to see a slice of Emmenthal smiling at her.

  ‘It’s me! Quent! I’m moon cheese.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Is that your dog?’ asked Quent.

  ‘Well, it’s not my grandmother,’ said Ruby.

  ‘He’s got a broken leg,’ said Quent.

  ‘Yeah, I noticed that too,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I wanted to bring my dog, Dorothy, but my mom said it was strictly humans only, which is a shame because I was going to dress her up as Laika, the first dog in space.’

  ‘Well, that’s tragic,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Why?’ asked Quent.

  ‘Because Laika never made it back to earth.’

  Quent’s face fell. ‘No one told me that.’

  ‘Sorry to burst your bubble, Quent, but it was no fairy-tale ending for that poor dog. Laika just went round and round in space until …’

  Ruby stopped mid-sentence when she saw that Quent’s lip was beginning to tremble.

  ‘You know, Quent, maybe I got that wrong. Maybe I’m thinking of something else … you know what, it was probably that film Moon Mutt, or Space Spaniel or something space-dog related.’

  Quent dabbed his eyes with his cheese sleeves, and smiled. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He took a closer look at Bug. ‘So what has your dog come as?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Ruby. She glanced down at the husky. ‘Pluto, I guess.’

  ‘Doesn’t Pluto have big droopy ears?’ said Quent.

  ‘OK, the dog star,’ said Ruby.

  ‘But then shouldn’t he be silver – like a star,’ suggested Quent.

  Ruby shrugged. ‘So he’s a Martian.’

  ‘He doesn’t look like a Martian,’ said Quent.

  ‘How would you even know?’ said Ruby. ‘Have you ever been to Mars?’

  ‘Uh uh, but I’m pretty sure Martians are green.’

  ‘Why? Why are you pretty sure they’re green?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Because that’s what people say,’ said Quent.

  ‘Do you listen to everything that people say?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Not everything,’ said Quent, ‘but a lot of people seem to think Martians are green.’

  The conversation was going nowhere and Ruby was relieved when Red joined them. She was dressed head to toe in green with a radio antenna waving about on her head.

  ‘So what are you?’ asked Quent.

  ‘I’m a Martian,’ said Red. She tried to catch a look at herself in one of the many mirrors. ‘Don’t I look like a Martian?’

  ‘You look exactly like a Martian,’ said Quent.

  ‘I should do,’ said Red. ‘This is the original costume from the film The Missing Martian of Manhattan.’

  Quent looked at Ruby. ‘You see! I told you they were green.’

  ‘Oh brother! Look, talking of Missing Martians, has anyone seen Clancy?’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Quent. ‘He arrived the same time as me, and all these gazillion girls were with him.’

  ‘His sisters,’ said Ruby.

  ‘They looked kinda grumpy,’ said Quent.

  ‘His sisters,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Hey, look, that’s them.’ He was pointing at the Crew family, who had a whole bunch of cameras pointed at them, and photographers were rattling off shots while the ambassador’s family attempted to say ‘cheese’ and look like they meant it. The only people who seemed truly happy about it were Ambassador and Mrs Crew. Amy had pulled the fakest smile it was possible to pull, Nancy was looking weird, Minny looked cross and Lulu looked bored, while Olive had her cardigan over her head – there was no sign at all of Clancy.

  ‘Excuse me, Quent, I’ll leave you to orbit on your own for a light year. I just need to check in with ground control.’

  Ruby weaved her way through the crowd to where the Crew girls stood. ‘Hey Minny, is Clancy around?’

  ‘He was,’ said Minny, ‘but Olive dropped her stupid Buttercup doll when she got out of the car and Clancy volunteered to go down and fetch it.’

  ‘That’s cos he’s nice,’ said Amy.

  ‘He’s not being nice,’ argued Nancy, ‘he just didn’t want his picture taken is all.’

  ‘Who can blame him,’ said Lulu.

  ‘I don’t see why he should get out of it,’ said Minny.

  ‘I’ll bet he’s gone looking for that astronaut guy, what’s his name?’ said Lulu.

  ‘Dave Scott Mackintosh,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ said Lulu, ‘he’s kinda obsessed with this whole space thing. I’m telling you, he can be quite a bore about it.’

  ‘Well, he’s come to the right party,’ said Ruby. She could see Del waving at her. ‘So Lulu, when your brother finally decides to make it back to the 33rd floor, can you tell him to come find me? I’ll probably be over by the chocolate fountain.’

  ‘There’s a fountain of chocolate?’ said Lulu.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Don’t tell Nancy,’ said Lulu, ‘she’ll stick her face right in it.’

  Clancy was beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t prefer to be smiling for the cameras after all. This whole Buttercup errand was taking him a lot longer than he had anticipated, and he was keen to get back to the party – it looked like fun. Plus he wanted to see Ruby, and if he was honest more than anything he wanted to see Dave Scott Mackintosh. He had specially brought along his silver indelible pen, the one that worked on pretty much any surface or any fabric. Clancy was going to ask Dave Scott Mackintosh to write something on his shirt. He had decided against his Jupiter costume and instead worn black: black shirt, black suit, black everything – it felt more spacey. It was a most un-Clancy-like thing to do to have his shirt signed, but this was Dave Scott Mackintosh, and having him sign one’s actual shirt was the best space-themed outfit one could wish for. His mom would naturally be livid, but how often do you find yourself in the same room as a real-life spaceman? Actually, for Clancy that would be twice.

  Rats, he thought, I’m wasting valuable minutes.

  He just hadn’t foreseen that he’d have such a hard time locating his father’s limousine, but it wasn’t an easy task: the underground parking lot was crammed with limousines, and one limousine really looked pretty much like another. When at last Clancy found the Crew car and the doll lying on the tarmac next to it, he grabbed it up, stuffed it in his jacket pocket and lost no time wending his way through the lot towards the elevators. He was a few yards away when he got the funniest feeling, like there might be someone else lurking in this underground place, someone or something. He got down low and crouched behind one of the shiny black vehicles, holding his breath and trying to determine what this thing he sensed might be. There was a sound of a car door opening just a couple of rows over, and then the sharp tap tap tap of good-quality shoes walking purposefully across the lot. What was it about that sound that suggested something bad? What was it about the waft of cologne that caused goosebumps to appear on his arms? Clancy kept very
, very still. He didn’t twitch so much as an eyelash until he heard the elevator’s ping as the doors opened and then the soft thunk as they closed. He watched the numbers light up as the elevator car reached level 1, 2, 3, and kept on going, 14, 15, 16 and on until it reached 34.

  The next thoughts that went through Clancy’s mind were very conflicted.

  Get out of here Clancy, get out of here right now, go home …

  You have to follow him …

  You know what, it probably wasn’t actually him …

  Are you crazy? Of course it was him …

  Let someone else deal with the problem, I’m just a boy …

  Don’t be a coward, Clancy Crew, you have to find out what he’s up to, just follow him, would you!

  Oh brother, I hate myself …

  Clancy of course had a sixth sense for this kind of stuff, he’d always had it.

  And now a voice told him: Something bad is going to happen and it’s Ruby that it’s going happen to.

  Sometimes he really wished he didn’t get these hunches; it would save him a whole lot of grief if he was more like Del, no intuition and no sensitivity … If you were Del, you saw trouble, you met it head on, and you punched its lights out. But unfortunately for Clancy, he wasn’t Del, so instead he hurried over to the elevator and stepped inside, thumped the button for floor 34 and when the doors closed he leant back breathing hard.

  What to do, what to do?

  He watched as the numbers blinked up: 30, 31, 32, 33 …

  34.

  Ping.

  SABINA AND BRANT WERE SIPPING GREEN MARTIANTINIS and chatting with the Humberts.

  ‘I only wish they had managed to finish the roof garden in time; the view’s spectacular from the top of the building.’

  ‘They won’t let you up there,’ said Freddie.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Marjorie.

  Sabina looked longingly at Brant. ‘Oh, but I had my heart set on popping a few corks while we sipped champagne in the light of that giant eye.’

  ‘I know you did sweetheart,’ said Brant.

  ‘Why the roof of the eye hospital?’ asked Marjorie.

  ‘It’s where we got engaged,’ said Sabina. ‘We sat on that eyeball and knew we were for keeps.’

  ‘How did that come about?’ asked Freddie.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Brant.

  Clancy was standing face to face with Victor von Leyden, Count of all darkness.

  ‘How sweet of you to make it all so easy, Master Crew. I must confess I thought it was going to be so much more difficult, but now I can enlist your help to bring Ms Redfort to me, most of my work is done.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ stammered Clancy. ‘What’s Ruby to you?’

  ‘What is she to me?’ mused the Count. ‘She’s bait, a little fly tangled in a web. She will bring the spider out of its lair; if I dangle her from the roof it will come,’ he smiled. ‘You see, she holds a secret right there in her eyes and I know someone who wants it.’

  ‘What someone?’ asked Clancy.

  ‘I must say, he had me guessing,’ said the Count, ‘but once I saw it, I knew it had to be true, it’s so wickedly perfect.’

  ‘Who?’ whispered Clancy, fearing the answer.

  ‘Her so-called guardian angel,’ said the Count. ‘Trust makes you vulnerable, leads you into trouble, the same sort of trouble you have just walked into, but at least you have a way out – bring Ruby Redfort to me and I will spare your life.’

  ‘Never,’ said Clancy. ‘I would never do that! You can throw me to a pack of wolves or feed my toes one by one to a bunch of crocodiles, but I will never do that!’

  The Count fixed him with his black shark eyes. ‘It would be my pleasure, if only wolves or crocodiles were to hand, but alas there are none, so please know that I will without qualm drop you from this rooftop, if you refuse me.’

  ‘Then that is what you’ll do,’ said Clancy, looking back at him. Without a blink or a tremble, he held the man’s gaze. ‘But I will not betray Ruby Redfort.’

  The Count smiled at that.

  ‘I do believe you speak the truth.’ He circled the boy, stepping round him, his eyes fixed firm on Clancy’s. ‘You know, it is rare that I admire another human soul – you almost move me. What loyalty, what a friend, what a waste.’

  And from his black coat he took a vial of indigo, exquisitely inky blue, and unscrewing the top he took the dropper and squeezed it full.

  ‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked, holding it to the light.

  Clancy kept his mouth firmly shut because he did know what it was and it frightened him more than crocodiles, more than wolves.

  ‘The serum of honesty,’ announced the Count. ‘It will make you talk, and whatever you say will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you, wretch.’

  ‘Open wide,’ he said, his hand pressed hard on Clancy’s windpipe, forcing him to gasp for breath, and when he did the Count dropped six pretty tears of indigo-blue on Clancy’s tongue. He slid his gold watch from his pocket and waited for the hand to tick round once and then he sighed.

  ‘Now, you tell me how I bring your pal, your friend, your kindred spirit to my little party.’ The words were hissed out, full of hate. ‘You’ll tell me now because you have no choice.’

  Clancy shook his head and the Count laughed.

  ‘Get ready to blab.’ He made a snapping motion with his hand. ‘And look,’ he said, ‘not a crocodile in sight and all your toes intact.’

  The party was going very well, and it seemed everyone was having the time of their lives, except for Ruby who was anxious. Where was Clancy? He couldn’t still be down in the parking lot. She and Bug did a quick circuit of the main room and then went back to ask the coat check girl if she had seen him, and then the party greeter, but they shook their heads.

  Ruby and her husky circled back and rejoined the friends by the chocolate fountain, Elliot transfixed by the bubbling gloop.

  ‘No sign of him?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mouse, ‘but I just saw Hitch.’

  ‘When?’ said Ruby. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He said he was going to see a man about a dog,’ said Red.

  ‘I have no idea what that means,’ said Del.

  ‘It’s English for mind your own business,’ said Elliot.

  ‘I thought the English were meant to be so polite?’ said Mouse.

  ‘It’s a myth,’ said Elliot.

  ‘Is Hitch English?’ asked Red.

  ‘Where did he go?’ said Ruby. ‘Can anyone tell me?’

  ‘Hey, look there he is,’ said Mouse.

  He was making his way through the party people, his face serious and his stride purposeful.

  Where are you going? thought Ruby.

  She called out to him but he didn’t hear her, and continued snaking his way through the crowd.

  She hurried after him, but he seemed to evaporate into the mass and she was left zigzagging this way and that in an effort to spot him.

  ‘Darn it!’ she muttered. ‘I need you.’ And then she had an idea.

  ‘Bug! Go find Hitch.’ She reached to stroke the husky’s neck, but found he wasn’t there. ‘What? You gotta be kidding me.’

  The Count pointed to a telephone. ‘All I’m asking you to do is make a call to the front desk, and tell the greeter that you urgently need to speak to Ms Redfort, that she must come to the phone, and when she does and she asks you where you are, you say, ‘I’m dangling out of a window on the 34th floor, please come to my assistance as fast as your little legs will carry you.’

  ‘But I’m not dangling out of a window on the 34th floor.’

  ‘Give me a minute, it’s easy to arrange,’ said the Count, and he smiled. ‘So what do you say?’

  ‘OK,’ said Clancy.

  ‘OK, what?’ asked the Count.

  ‘OK, I’d be happy to,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Why?’ said the Count, furrowing his brow. ‘Why would you
be happy to tell her that?’

  ‘Because,’ said Clancy truthfully, for there was no other way for him to tell it, ‘she’ll know right away that something is up. She’d know I’d never put her life in jeopardy like that; she won’t believe me not for a second, she’ll assume I’m kidding around.’

  The Count frowned as he considered this hiccup in his plan and then he said, ‘So Master Crew, tell me, what will bring Ms Redfort running? Tell me what is her so-called Achilles’ heel when it comes to the tugging of her little heartstrings?’

  ‘Bug,’ said Clancy without hesitation.

  ‘Bug?’ said the Count. ‘Who is Bug?’

  ‘Her dog,’ said Clancy. ‘If Ruby’s here tonight then Bug’s sure to be here too; she wouldn’t leave him home on New Year’s Eve, and if Bug wanders off, she’ll go find him.’

  ‘And why should she care about a dog, pathetic creatures that they are?’

  ‘Bug is not pathetic. Ruby is crazy about that dog, she would do anything for him, plus he’s injured, so she’s feeling very protective, won’t let him leave her side.’

  The Count clapped his hands together. ‘Music to my ears! So let’s get that hound to come to us.’

  ‘If we do, she’s sure to follow,’ said Clancy.

  Ruby had hoped that the dog would have moseyed back to the group, but there was no sign of him.

  ‘Mouse, have you seen that dog of mine?’

  ‘I thought he was with you,’ said Mouse. ‘He’s probably sniffed out the buffet room.’

  ‘You better not let Mrs Hassensack see him,’ said Elliot. ‘She’s not so crazy about canines.’

  ‘It’s because she has allergies,’ said Quent. ‘I have allergies, but I love dogs so much I don’t care.’

  ‘Actually, she is phobic about dogs,’ said Red.

  ‘Is there such a thing as a phobia of dogs?’ asked Elliot.