Catch Your Death

  ‘No, no need to guard him. He’s not going anywhere and some little girl will never find her way through this mountain forest; not even Hansel and Gretel themselves could make it here.’

  Mistake two: underestimating the resolve of a very loyal friend.

  It was while she was standing in the dark, dark forest, not knowing which way to turn, left or right, that Ruby thought of Connie Slowfoot. She could almost hear her rasping old crone laugh. ‘You got brains girl, you just gotta stop relying on them, use your gut like nature intended.’

  Ruby stopped panicking and considered what she should do; she could feel the grooves in the hard-packed earth, tyre tracks. Vehicles had made great ruts in the ground from travelling this way back and forth. The other track looked used but less so; the odds were that the kidnapping wolf stealers had been up and down many times in the past month so she would opt for the well-worn track.

  As Ruby rode, she made a mental note of what the air smelled of, how it changed as she moved. The overwhelming scent was of pine, so strong she could taste it, but there was also wild garlic and moss and fungus and vegetation. And something strong and animal, the dung of deer maybe; she hoped it was deer, but who knew what lurked on Wolf Paw Mountain.

  She could feel the thick, soft bounce of pine needles and bark, the occasional sting of some tall plant or other. She heard sounds of night birds and insects. The bike bumped over a lump in the road, soft like a body, feathered and dead, a ground bird. Ruby stopped, took out her flashlight: this bird hadn’t died of natural causes; it had been hit by a car, not so long ago either because it wasn’t yet riddled with maggots.

  This surely was the road that the kidnappers had taken.

  She turned of the flashlight because, as Connie had so wisely told her, she could see more when she stopped trying to look with her eyes. All the flashlight did was to act as a spotlight, illuminating one small circle of blackness, thus preventing her from seeing the bigger picture and sensing what was around her.

  It wasn’t easy cycling a mountain path in the dark, but her bike, though beaten up and well used, was reliable and strong. Despite this, she would have to ditch it someplace soon; after all, she couldn’t exactly ride on up a mountain road and pull into the kidnappers’ yard. Before long she found a small turning and was able to abandon the track and her bike and make her way on foot.

  Very soon the narrow track became a dirt path and minutes later the dirt path disappeared completely and Ruby looked up to see the underside of a cliff jutting out from the mountainside.

  The house was built on top of this slab of rock and in order to reach it Ruby was going to have to climb up and over. On the one hand no one would spot her making her ascent as she tried to cling to the overhang, but on the other hand clinging to the underside of a rock ledge wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. In fact, it looked like it might be more or less impossible. But then she didn’t have a whole lot of choice – impossible, possible, she would have to take her chances.

  RULE 20: NINETY PER CENT OF SURVIVAL IS ABOUT BELIEVING YOU WILL SURVIVE or, as Sam Colt would say: the key to survival is keeping a positive mental attitude.

  She tied her laces very tight, pulled the dorky poppered tab across the laces just to be sure they didn’t come undone, then she began to edge out along the cliff, finding footholds where she could. The rock was solid, it wasn’t crumbling and it wasn’t slippy, but it was a little sheer to say the least.

  When Ruby was halfway along, she realised just how hopeless the task she had set herself was. Positive mental attitude or not, one would have to be Spider-Man himself to make it up this rock face. . . She clung on and kicked it angrily, knowing she was going to have to climb back down. She hated giving up.

  And that’s when a very strange thing happened.

  The Bradley Baker kid sneakers seemed to be actually clinging to the surface of the cliff. Somehow she had activated suckers in the soles, super strong suckers that meant she could very nearly walk upside down; all she had to do was to find handholds and it was a piece of cake. She was a human fly scaling the rock wall.

  So this was the ‘other benefit’ Dr Harper was talking about, she thought. These shoes weren’t just comfy after all: they made you superhuman.

  Minutes later, Ruby crawled over the top of the overhang and rolled into the shadow to the side of the house. It was cabinlike in style, but not in scale. The house itself was low, large and sprawling with a good many outbuildings surrounding a good-sized yard.

  Ruby reasoned that if these guys had the wolf then they would have some security. They wouldn’t mess that up – these people weren’t amateurs. Ruby crouched there, trying to work out just how many guards there were likely to be. She figured that there could easily be eight. There were three pickups and a couple of motorbikes. Lorelei would be there too with the young guy Ruby had seen in the department store. But where was Clancy? They weren’t going to be too worried about him escaping; he was probably tied up, and where exactly was he going to run to if he did escape?

  She edged round in the shadows of the buildings, but everything was quiet, no one about. No one was expecting a visit from a lone thirteen-year-old girl.

  Chapter 59.

  CLANCY CAME TO WHEN HE HEARD A STRANGE YET FAMILIAR SOUND. It was the call of the tawny owl, a bird not found in the United States, but yet a bird call he had heard many times in Cedarwood Drive, Twinford. It was the Ruby Redfort rescue call* – she had found him, she was outside the door. He was saved.

  When Ruby heard the response call coming from the small low building on the far side of the yard, she immediately set about finding a way in. It didn’t take long: as she had predicted, they weren’t too concerned about the possibility of escape or rescue.

  He smiled up at her weakly. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

  ‘Oh, you know me Clance. I’m not always punctual, but I always show up eventually.’ She took his hand and managed to gently stand him on his feet; he wobbled a bit, but he didn’t fall. ‘Look Clance, we’re gonna have to run for it – you think you can do that?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  She opened the door. ‘Stay close to the building, OK? If you stay close, it won’t trigger the security light. . . at least that’s what I’m hoping.’

  They had travelled about twenty yards when Clancy started to look decidedly unstable.

  ‘Are you OK?’ whispered Ruby.

  Clancy said nothing, he just breathed all the harder.

  ‘OK,’ hissed Ruby. ‘You’re gonna need to keep going.’

  He sort of nodded, but stood exactly where he was.

  ‘You don’t seem very OK,’ Ruby said. ‘Are you about to pass out on me?’

  Clancy shook his head and passed out.

  ‘Now that’s what I call timing,’ muttered Ruby. She caught him before he hit the deck, but there was no way she was going to be able to drag him down a mountain if he was unconscious and no way she was going to risk him fainting all over the place.

  ‘Darn it,’ she hissed.

  Ruby slapped him gently and he opened his eyes.

  ‘Am I still here?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, and unfortunately so am I.’

  ‘Do we have to go back?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t like it so much there.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ she said.

  She thought for a second or two. They were going to have to hide out someplace until he pulled it together; he was never going to make it down a cliff face in his condition.

  ‘OK,’ said Ruby, ‘this is what we’re gonna do.’ She had spied a disused-looking barn; there were no lights on and for now at least no one seemed to be patrolling around there. In utter silence they edged their way slowly round the yard, hugging close to the darkness of the outbuildings, and waited for the cloud to move across the moon and, when it did, took a deep breath before they ventured from the shadows across the open space between them and the barn. They made it without the ala
rm being raised. The door was bolted and looped with a heavy industrial-sized padlock. Undeterred, Ruby took the barrette from her hair, inserted it into the lock and wiggled it this way and that until the padlock clicked open. A little trick Mrs Digby had taught her one rainy winter’s day.

  Ruby pulled the bolt and pushed Clancy inside where he slumped down onto the sawdust floor. He looked bad, eyes all droopy and unfocused.

  ‘Sorry Rube, I haven’t eaten in a while. I saw them drugging the food and I didn’t want to be unconscious in case I got a chance to escape.’

  ‘Kinda ironic, don’t you think, considering you are pretty much unconscious anyway?’

  Clancy smiled weakly. ‘Yeah, I guess it is kinda funny.’

  ‘Glad you can still laugh about the little things,’ said Ruby. ‘Would be a shame to lose your sense of humour on top of everything else.’

  ‘You know I have a feeling they aren’t too concerned about my general state of health,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Yeah, I’m guessing you’re right about that,’ Ruby agreed.

  ‘You know it’s a real shame Lyla turned out to be a psychopath,’ said Clancy. ‘She promised to get some of that Marie Antoinette perfume for my mom’s birthday, made out like she could get it cut-price.’

  ‘Well, don’t feel too sore about it Clance, that perfume ain’t quite as authentic as Madame Swann claims it is.’

  ‘It’s a fake?’ asked Clancy.

  ‘Kinda is,’ replied Ruby.

  Clancy sighed. ‘I feel a whole lot better knowing that. I mean who wants fake Marie Antoinette perfume, right? Only problem is, what do I get my mom now?’

  ‘I might be able to find you a bottle of wolf scent,’ said Ruby, looking back towards the house.

  ‘I didn’t tell them about you, at least I didn’t mean to,’ said Clancy, ‘and when your name sorta slipped out I shut right up.’

  ‘Don’t give it a second thought,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I’ve been feeling kinda bad,’ mumbled Clancy. ‘Not about that, at least not so much about that – more about how I’ve been acting.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Clance,’ said Ruby.

  He looked at her.

  ‘I really don’t,’ she said, her face betraying nothing that would suggest this wasn’t the whole truth.

  ‘Anyhow,’ she shrugged, ‘it’s me who should be grovelling for forgiveness. I nearly got you eaten by a tiger, not to mention old Madame Loup on your tail.’

  ‘And that’s the other thing,’ said Clancy. ‘I wanted to say thanks for passing French for me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean Clance, what French?’

  He was staring at her now, looking up at those amazing green eyes. How could he ever have misjudged Ruby Redfort, the best friend anyone could ever have?

  ‘By the way bozo,’ she said, ‘I’m not about to apologise for Wichitino Camp, since here you are all kidnapped instead of toasting marshmallows and singing “Kumbaya” with a bunch of dorks – luck musta been on your side.’

  ‘What exactly are these guys after?’ asked Clancy.

  ‘It has something to do with a wolf,’ said Ruby, ‘a wolf and a vial of wolf scent.’

  ‘Jeepers,’ mumbled Clancy, ‘I do seem to remember someone mentioning a wolf.’

  ‘Where dya think they keep it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Clancy. ‘I was hoping not to be introduced.’ He shut his eyes again. ‘So what dya think they’re planning next?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re gonna kill you for sure,’ said Ruby.

  ‘You say the nicest things Rube,’ he said dreamily.

  ‘They’re gonna kill me too if that’s any comfort.’

  ‘Nah.’ He looked up like he was considering the thought. ‘That doesn’t really help.’

  ‘I’m just being straight with you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, would you mind lying a little? The truth is beginning to hurt.’

  ‘Dya think you can run, even a little bit?’

  ‘I feel real dizzy.’

  ‘You do look a little drugged Clance,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I’m a whole lot drugged,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Well, I guess it hasn’t worn off yet.’ She looked at Clancy’s pupils: they were still big.

  Ruby gave the situation a few seconds’ thought before coming to the inevitable conclusion that Clancy needed to eat. He probably hadn’t eaten a morsel for at least twenty-four hours and that wasn’t going to help the situation any.

  ‘Stay here, OK?’ said Ruby.

  ‘Just where dya think I might go?’ croaked Clancy.

  ‘I’ll go find a snack or something. Meanwhile, dya want some bubblegum – would that help?’

  ‘That’s gonna make it worse, gets the gut all bubbled up.’

  ‘Have it your own way.’ She shrugged and popped a piece in her mouth; it would help keep her focused. ‘I’ve been up since the crack of dawn.’ She yawned. ‘And I’m pretty much running on empty. Wish me luck,’ she said with a smile. She slipped through the doorway, pulling it tight behind her.

  ‘Luck,’ whispered Clancy Crew before his eyes shut.

  Chapter 60.

  RUBY SCOUTED THE CARS, looking in glove compartments and under seats, but saw nothing, not a morsel. All the buildings were locked as far as she could make out and she could see nothing lying around, no candy wrappers, no soda cans.

  Bears, she thought. These guys were careful: they didn’t want to attract bears so they did not leave food lying around, not even so much as a pack of mints. This left her with one option: get into the house and make for the larder.

  The first thing she did was disable the vehicles, just in case. She wasn’t intending to attract the attention of ruthless killers, but on the other hand better safe than sorry. She let the air out of the tyres and stabbed the spares just to be sure. She had no idea if they had other trucks hidden away – probably – but she didn’t have time to check.

  As she crept towards the house, she thought, This is ridiculous; no one talks about this scenario in survival training. Then she muttered under her breath, ‘Am I really risking my life to get my pal a Twinkie?’

  Somehow the foolishness of the statement made it feel more possible that she would wake up and realise she had been having an absurd dream. She found a trapdoor at the side of the house; it was a sort of vent, too small for most humans, but a mere squeeze for someone of Ruby’s size.

  It opened up into a basement which spanned the width of the house with a rickety wooden staircase on the far side. She moved as noiselessly as she could towards the stairs; when she reached them, she realised that she must be directly below the room that housed the kidnappers since the floor creaked heavily and sprinklings of dust fell, disturbed by the movement of their feet. She heard the scraping of chairs, loud conversation and the sound of cups being placed on a wooden surface. She guessed that there were perhaps five or even six of them all sitting at a long wooden table.

  She tiptoed up the stairs, each step betraying her progress with a traitorous creak. She stopped on the very top step and waited for someone to fling open the door, but they didn’t. She peeped through the keyhole, but couldn’t see much, a ladder perhaps and maybe shelves. There was no sign of people, no sound of anything living.

  She opened the door a crack and discovered a tall room lined with tins and packets: the pantry – she had actually got lucky. She scanned around for something that might take the edge off Clancy’s dizziness. Then she saw the perfect thing, Hunger Bites, packed with dried fruit, nuts, sugar and goodness – i.e. calories.

  Well, they weren’t Twinkies, but they were a snack.

  She stuffed them into her satchel and checked out the refrigerator. It held a lot of food and canned drinks, butter and cheese, milk, bacon, those sorts of things, but it also held some other stuff, stuff that looked like it had nothing to do with nutrition. Ruby reached in, pushing aside jars and metal containers, until her eyes rested on an item that
really caught her attention. It was a small blue bottle, about two inches tall, with a label. She twisted it round and read the words Alaskan Cyan, the date printed next to it – it was freshly extracted.

  This was the scent of Flemming Fengrove’s very last Blue Alaskan. She couldn’t believe her luck; here it was, the very thing she had wanted to search for, but wasn’t expecting to find. She carefully removed it from its shelf and placed it in her bag.

  Ruby was about to close the refrigerator door when she remembered soda; she ought to take Clancy something sugary to drink. She grabbed one of the cans, but in her haste to get going she unbalanced the whole stack, the cans toppled from the shelf and crashed to the floor, spraying soda in all directions. For a split second there was silence from the next-door room, but this was swiftly followed by shouting.

  ‘What the Sam Hill was that?’

  ‘I’ll check it out.’

  ‘Rats. It’ll be rats.’

  ‘I told you we shoulda laid traps.’

  ‘I’ll go check it out, see if I can’t shoot a couple.’

  Ruby had not waited to see what would happen next, but had practically flown up the rickety steps that led up out of the pantry to the storeroom above. There was nowhere to go from there so she hunkered down, lying flat on the bare wood floor behind a stack of boxes, her eye to the crack in the boards, and she hoped with all her might that they would not imagine these rats would climb a ladder.

  The door creaked open.

  ‘It’s rats for sure,’ said the rough-sounding guy. ‘I’m gonna go set some traps, I can’t abide vermin.’

  He left the room, but Ruby stayed very, very still for she could hear the sound of breathing. Someone was directly underneath where she lay, a woman she thought. The sound of her breathing was almost imperceptible, but Ruby sensed it, the breathing of someone delicate and light of foot, someone confident, without fear. She was moving slowly, carefully, but Ruby could sense her getting nearer. Then:

  ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an American.’ The voice like cut glass. ‘Correction, I smell the bubblegum of an American.’