The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection

by Lauren Child

  Just to add insult to the whole bitter disappointment of the day, when Clancy stepped back inside the house, he saw a note from his father; it was written on one of his ambassadorial note cards and a metallic blue ballpoint pen lay on top of it.

  Clancy,

  In recognition of your struggle to finally complete basic French.

  Best regards,

  your father

  PS Enjoy.

  Clancy looked around; he couldn’t see anything to enjoy. Maybe his father was going to present him with it later. He wondered what it could be. He picked up the pen; there was gold writing etched down one side. It said: Try and you wont fail.

  There was something miserable about these words, as if to say, if only you would actually put in some effort, you might actually succeed. Also it was clearly untrue: plenty of people tried and failed and so trying was no insurance. Plus, it was disappointing to have a missing apostrophe when the pen guaranteed a perfect outcome.

  All in all, it was shoddy.

  Then, just to make matters worse, it dawned on him: this was the thing to be enjoyed; a cheap ballpoint pen was his gift.

  ‘Oh brother,’ he sighed. ‘This even beats the alarm clock.’

  Ruby was sitting up the tree in Amster Green, wondering where in tarnation was Clancy Crew. There was no message hidden in the branches and no missed call on her answer machine. She wanted to talk to him – she needed to talk to him, darn it. She was potentially facing one of the biggest disappointments of her life, the biggest failure, and he wasn’t there.

  She scribbled the coded words fhrvos shf auspbrs bfhs down on a piece of origami paper and folded it carefully.

  The paper now resembled a rat. If she had had the time, she would have gone over there then and there if only to tell him what a lousy friend he was being, but she had bigger things on her mind, a whole lot bigger than Clancy Crew.

  Chapter 50.

  A highway to nowhere

  CLANCY WENT TO SPEAK TO HIS SISTER MINNY. Minny, after all, was the one who never did anything she didn’t want to do and, despite being caught numerous times, never seemed to buckle. If she had no good advice for Clancy, then at least she would be a sympathetic ear.

  Clancy sat in Minny’s room, giving her the low-down on everything that had happened and how their father had reacted to it. Minny sat on the edge of the window sill, arms folded; her mouth was set in a firm pinch like she was really considering all Clancy’s options. Finally, she spoke.

  ‘It would serve him right if you just ran away.’

  Clancy didn’t like the sound of that; it was the kind of thing people said they were going to do before they thought about exactly what they were running away to.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Lulu. ‘I mean what are you gonna do out there?’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Clancy.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Minny. ‘It’ll teach Dad a lesson; he grounds people way too much.’

  ‘You’re the only one who gets grounded,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Clancy’s grounded,’ Minny argued back.

  ‘Yeah, now he is, but that’s once and only because Olive ratted on him.’

  ‘Did not,’ said Olive from behind the door.

  ‘Yeah you did,’ said Clancy, ‘and, by the way, this is a private conversation.’

  ‘Well, I still think you should run away, just for a few days,’ said Minny.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Clancy, turning to Lulu.

  ‘Go on the dumb camp, save yourself the trouble.’ Lulu found trouble boring; it interfered with her social life and brought more trouble.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Clancy. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in the Wichitino uniform.’

  ‘All I’m saying is that if you hadn’t trashed your bike then none of this woulda happened.’ Lulu tended to see things for what they were.

  ‘I didn’t trash my bike, Minny did.’ He was flapping his arms.

  ‘Yeah and you covered for her which means you took the blame which means you have to suffer the consequences.’ There was no arguing with Lulu’s logic. ‘You have a choice here: rat her out. . .’

  ‘Hey!’ said Minny.

  ‘In which case you’ll still be in trouble for lying,’ continued Lulu.

  ‘You will,’ agreed Minny.

  ‘Or,’ said Lulu, ‘run away, who knows where for who knows how long, and, when they send a search-and-rescue team for you, expect to be grounded for the rest of your life. My advice, go on the dorky camp.’

  ‘Oh brother!’ groaned Clancy.

  ‘Like I told you,’ said Minny, ‘you gotta get out a here. I mean all you need to do is pack up a rucksack; you can take a tent and some food and stuff. You won’t even need to go far, just to Boulder Valley.’

  The idea was now growing on Clancy; he knew Boulder Valley really well, Ruby and he often hung out there, and he wasn’t scared or anything. He knew where the underground creek was so he would have a good supply of fresh water and he could light a campfire, no problem.

  ‘I’m telling,’ said Olive from behind the door.

  ‘If you do,’ warned Minny, ‘it’s goodbye teddy.’

  ‘I won’t tell,’ said Olive. Olive always took Minny’s threats seriously because Minny usually meant what she said, at least when it came to things like this.

  ‘You got to get out of here Clancy and you gotta go real early or it’ll be Wichitino Camp for you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said.

  Still Clancy worried, even as he packed up his rucksack he worried, even as he set the alarm for 5 am he worried. Running away was a dramatic gesture, it could even sound heroic, romantic, escaping to freedom, but when the dust settled it was going to be him on his own in the middle of nowhere. It was going to get depressing.

  Chapter 51.

  A change of heart

  CLANCY AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING to the sound of his alarm clock. The first thing he saw was his backpack; it was stuffed to bulging and sitting there next to his bed, like a fat little guard.

  He groaned; he felt kind of stupid now in the bright light of day. What was he thinking of, running away? How far did he think he’d get? What a bozo. Lulu was right. Lulu was often right.

  The room was stuffy, the sun slanting in from the east; he went to open the window and there he saw the bike. The dazzling blue of it. He stood just looking for a while and then the flip-flop girl appeared.

  Boy, was she an early riser. She started busying herself, adjusting the handlebars and generally checking the thing over. He longed to go take a closer look; maybe she might even let him take it for a ride – just up the street and back.

  It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her.

  And if he was quick no one would notice he had slipped out, no one meaning Olive, the only one likely to tell his father who was still fast asleep upstairs.

  There was no one around, not even Drusilla. Yes, he would go and talk to the girl; after all, he was only stepping out of the gates for a few minutes.

  Clancy stuffed his backpack on top of his closet out of sight. He didn’t want anyone to see it and figure out what he had been planning. He tiptoed downstairs and quietly left the house. The heat of the sun hit him and he had to shield his eyes from its rays.

  The girl was still tinkering with the bike, setting the saddle a little higher. He walked nearer to the gates and he thought she caught sight of him, but she didn’t acknowledge him with a wave or smile, she just carried on doing what she was doing. He didn’t want to bug her, but he wanted to see the Windrush up close, ride it round the block, just see how it felt.

  He watched as she climbed on the bike and rode very slowly up the road. She called behind her to someone he couldn’t see, her mom, Clancy guessed. ‘I’m just gonna do a few circuits of the bike park up by Fir Forest Edge. I’ll be back in an hour.’ She clearly hadn’t been living here long because no one from Twinford called Fir Forest Edge, Fir Forest Edge, they all called it Fir Edge.<
br />
  He wondered what school she attended, certainly not Twinford Junior High; she was older than him.

  And as he thought these thoughts an idea came; he would cycle up there, introduce himself and get talking to her; she would probably be glad to make a new friend in the neighbourhood. He would ask her if he could take a turn on the Windrush. She wasn’t going to say no; at least he hoped she wasn’t.

  He ran around to the garage where the bikes were kept. Nancy’s bike had a flat, Lulu’s bike wasn’t there, Minny’s bike was in the wrecking yard and so the only thing available to him was Olive’s bike with its little pink basket.

  ‘Oh brother!’ he muttered. But it was that or a pogo stick and he wasn’t going to get far jumping up and down like a bozo.

  He grabbed the bike and there in the basket he saw a pack of bubblegum and a tube of mints – the ground glows, that’s where she put them!

  He slipped both items in his sweat-top pocket and wheeled the bike though the iron gates and off he set on the tiny bike like he was practising to become a circus clown.

  Ruby was staring out of her bathroom window, watching the neighbourhood toings and froings. Nothing much had happened. It was early and apart from Niles Lemon (who had already been out jogging), the dog walker and the grocery van no one was really doing much. This gave Ruby a lot of time to think and what she was busy thinking about right now was Clancy.

  It didn’t sit right with Ruby, being mad at Clancy. Sure, he could really be a major pain in the behind, but when all was said and done there was no friend like Clancy Crew. It was stupid feeling like this about someone she liked so much; it was a waste of time and wasting time was a foolish activity. If he wasn’t going to pick up the phone to her, then she would go over there in person. She would climb in the window if necessary, though to be honest she would rather use the stairs.

  By the time he arrived at the bike park, Clancy was sweating more than a little; it was quite a distance from the Crew house. The park was on the edge of things, where the road met the pines and the pines met the desert valley. Beyond it were the mountains.

  When he skidded to a halt on Olive’s tiny bike, Clancy thought perhaps the girl had changed her mind: she didn’t seem to be there. Perhaps he had taken too long and she’d already gone, but as his eyes adjusted he saw her there sitting in the shadows under a large spreading tree, drinking a soda.

  ‘Hey!’ he called.

  The girl looked up.

  ‘I like your bike!’

  ‘Yeah?’ she said.

  ‘I’m thinking of getting one myself,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Really,’ said the girl.

  ‘Probably,’ said Clancy, ‘I haven’t made up my mind.’

  ‘You wanna try it?’ said the girl.

  Yes! thought Clancy.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, like he wasn’t bothered.

  It sort of felt like he was flying, like he was flying, not the machine but him. The Windrush was as amazing as he had imagined, better in fact. How was he going to get one of these things? As he passed the girl for the fifth time, he caught her looking at her watch; she obviously had to get home, and so he reluctantly came to a stop.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I mean, really, that bike is something else.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said the girl. ‘Do another circuit if you want to.’

  But he was staring at her now and thinking how she did look kind of familiar.

  ‘Have we met someplace before?’ asked Clancy.

  The girl shrugged and smiled; she had a really nice face. ‘If we have, I don’t remember,’ she laughed. ‘Twinford’s a big place.’ She looked at her watch again.

  She was twitchy – what was that about?

  Ruby was greeted by Olive, who was idly swinging on the banister. Drusilla gave Olive a disapproving look as she crossed through the hall, but it didn’t seem to bother Olive.

  ‘Hello Ruby,’ said Olive, ‘do you like my shoes?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say like, but they are interesting,’ said Ruby. They looked like tiny toadstools. ‘Clance around?’

  ‘Uh uh,’ said the little girl.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Gone,’ said Olive.

  ‘Gone where?’ said Ruby.

  Olive shrugged. ‘He’s run away from home.’

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ said Ruby, making for the stairs.

  ‘I saw him packing,’ said Olive, ‘and now it’s gone.’

  ‘You’re saying his backpack’s gone?’ said Ruby.

  ‘Uh. . . huh,’ said Olive, cleaning some dust off her shoes with her thumb.

  Ruby raced up the stairs.

  ‘You won’t find him,’ called Olive, ‘because he’s run away.’

  Clancy’s room was a mess; lots of drawers had been left open, their contents spewed out onto the floor. There was no sign of his backpack. It looked very much like the room of someone who had left in a hurry. Maybe Olive was right, or then again it could just be the untidy room of a thirteen-year-old boy.

  RULE 17: ALWAYS CHECK THE EVIDENCE BEFORE JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS.

  She climbed up on a chair and looked on top of the closet; there was the backpack. She wrenched it down and it fell to the floor with a thump. Olive was right about the packing: it was full of lots of stuff one might take if one was running away. So, if he had run away, then why hadn’t he taken it? There was no sign of a note in the room, no coded message for her.

  Ruby walked slowly down the stairs and bumped into Minny coming the other way.

  ‘Hey Ruby,’ she said.

  ‘Hey Minny, do you know where Clancy’s got en to?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? Dad made him go on the Wichitino Camp. He left early this morning, I heard him go.’

  Ruby was dumbfounded. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I know,’ said Minny, ‘dorky, huh?’

  ‘How come he left his stuff?’ asked Ruby. ‘I mean it’s all packed up like he was planning on taking it.’

  ‘I guess he changed his mind about making a run for it.’

  ‘So why not take it on camp?’

  ‘He wouldn’t need it on camp,’ said Minny. ‘Camp Wichitino provides everything, right down to your undershorts. Believe me, I know!’ Minny had evidently done time at dork camp herself.

  ‘Well, that explains where he’s gone, but why didn’t he tell me about it?’ said Ruby.

  ‘He’s grounded,’ said Minny. ‘No phone calls, no nothing and then worst of all Dad told him it was either Camp Wichitino or he could say bye bye to his summer vacation. I guess he chose camp.’

  ‘He’s taken my bike with him,’ said Olive.

  ‘Why would he take your bike Olive?’ said Minny.

  ‘Because it’s got a basket,’ said Olive. ‘It’s really useful if you’re running away.’

  Chapter 52.

  A long hard look

  CLANCY KEPT HIS EYES TRAINED ON THE GIRL and noted how the smile was a little off, more fake than real. Her eyes didn’t sparkle either: she wasn’t interested in him, she wasn’t interested in the bike, so why was she there? She was young, but she was no teenager, he was pretty sure of that now that he looked at her carefully.

  For the first time in a long while Clancy started listening to the voice he usually relied on. His instincts were coming back to him, his warning system switched on – something was not just a little bit wrong, it was a whole lot wrong, that’s what his gut was telling him. A breeze blew in from the desert, just enough to stir the air. It lifted the fragrance from the girl and carried it past Clancy. He breathed it in; the smell was Turkish delight.

  He remembered the woman outside the department store. The woman who had been ‘helping’ her neighbour.

  Get out of there! said the voice in his head.

  Clancy let the thoughts race through his mind, one after another. Run? No way, no point, the girl would have backup, someone was bound to appear from somewhere and however good a runner he might be (and he was g
ood) he wasn’t going to get away from these guys; they would have a plan.

  But the thing to consider was would they have banked on him having a bike? A bike like this?

  He doubted it; they were probably far too certain, too sure of themselves to imagine Clancy might twig that he had been lured into a trap.

  He was thinking: I have a bike, there’s a track, and if this machine is all it is cracked up to be then I have an escape route out of here. The girl had no idea all these thoughts were lining up in his head. He was smiling (Clancy Crew was good at smiling when he didn’t particularly feel like smiling, he’d had a lot of practice); he was sitting on the saddle, his fingers gripping the handlebars. The girl looked pleased: he was a fly trapped in her web.

  He could hear a vehicle on the dirt road, a truck of some sort. His instincts told him that this vehicle was coming for him, that he had to get out of there before it got too close.

  ‘I’ll just take the Windrush round the track one more time. Is that OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘enjoy.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ called Clancy and as he gathered speed he suddenly veered off the bike circuit and took off, down the rock path towards the forest. He rode fast like every ogre in every book of fairy tales was on his tail.

  He could vaguely hear the girl shouting; her voice sounded deeper, older suddenly. But then of course she was no girl, she was a woman: Lyla, the woman from the perfume counter, and he had a growing suspicion that Lyla, despite her beauty and her sweet fragrance, was anything but the nice woman she pretended to be. In fact, now he let his instinct take over, he was pretty sure that what she was, was a murderer. She had killed that man and Clancy was pretty sure she would murder him if she caught him. He could hear her shouting, screaming at him, but he didn’t take it in; his only thought: to put as much distance between him and her and the truck full of murderers.