Catch Your Death

  ‘It’s a long way off,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Depends how fast you can run,’ said Ruby. ‘Fire moves quick and there’s been a drought so the grasses are all tinder dry.’

  Clancy stared at her. ‘So why are we stopping here? We gotta go!’ He gripped the handlebars, but Ruby stood still.

  ‘What are you doing Ruby? We have to go! Get on!’ But she didn’t move a muscle or blink an eyelash. ‘Now!’ insisted Clancy.

  ‘Clancy, could you just take a deep breath and keep your hair on.’

  He looked at her and tried to remain calm. Ruby was thinking and if she was thinking she was sure to come up with a plan and, knowing Ruby, it would be a good one. So Clancy didn’t speak; he just let go the bike and flapped his arms, a reflex action when faced with a situation beyond his control.

  ‘Clance, if you have to flap, then could you maybe do it quietly? I’m trying to think here.’

  Clancy stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the dirt instead.

  SURVIVAL RULE 17:

  Forest fires can travel at great speed and once upon you cannot be outrun.

  ‘Fire travels uphill a whole lot faster than it travels downhill and, if the wind’s behind it, can travel at up to fourteen miles per hour.’

  She checked to see which way the wind was blowing.

  Clancy began to kick the earth harder. He didn’t like what he was hearing; after all, they were halfway up a mountain here.

  SURVIVAL RULE 18:

  Look for areas of hardwoods. Deciduous trees take longer to ignite than conifers.

  Ruby scanned the trees; all were pine trees and firs, and all made for perfect forest fire fuel.

  She made a 360° turn, taking in the landscape. What she was looking for was a break in the trees: water, road, rocky escarpment. Something to put a barrier between them and the fire. She spotted a river, wide with only a few trees around it; they might make it, depending on the wind, but it was a long way off from where they were standing, and it was likely the fire would reach them first. Then Ruby had a better idea.

  First they needed to aim for the ribbon of road that ran round the base of the mountain and if they were lucky they might meet a passing car, otherwise. . . well, otherwise, they would have to fall back on plan B.

  Finally, Ruby spoke. ‘OK Clance, so here’s the plan: we have to get back down the mountain super fast; we need to get to that road. When we get there, we can try and find someone who’ll drive us onto Little Bear, we need to warn the Wichitinos, and if the fire is too close we can all go jump in the lake.’

  ‘What?’ said Clancy.

  ‘OK, maybe not jump, but we’ll paddle out to the middle of Emerald Lake. They have canoes, I saw them; we’ll be safe there, but first we need to get to that road.’

  Clancy peered down. ‘You mean that road as in the road at the bottom of this sheer drop?’

  ‘It’s not sheer exactly,’ countered Ruby, ‘it’s steep.’

  ‘Yes, steep is a word for it, as in no footholds and no way of getting down without falling.’

  But Ruby wasn’t listening; she was walking towards the edge and she was determined to get down that cliff face any way she could.

  ‘Come on Clance, it’ll be OK and you know that pyrocumulus cloud might bring about something good.’

  Clancy peered over the edge and didn’t feel super convinced about either statement.

  ‘Ruby, can I just remind you that I am thirteen years old and way too young to die.’

  ‘So don’t bozo. Hold on tight and get climbing.’

  ‘You aren’t exactly the most understanding person, you know that Ruby?’ Grumbling helped Clancy to forget that he was on a thin ledge perched several hundred feet above a mass of sharp looking rocks.

  ‘You know I don’t like heights,’ he complained.

  ‘So don’t look down,’ replied Ruby.

  ‘How does that help?’ hissed Clancy.

  ‘Because if you try to imagine you’re only a foot off the ground then you won’t worry about falling and if you stop worrying about falling then you most likely won’t, OK? Plus, you need to hang onto me; you might not believe it, but I’m wearing Spider-Man’s shoes.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Clancy.

  They began to make their descent.

  ‘So what was the good thing you were going to tell me about these pyro-whatsit clouds?’ wheezed Clancy, trying to catch his breath.

  ‘It doesn’t always happen,’ said Ruby, ‘but it does occasionally. Just sometimes the pyrocumulus cloud gets so heavy with moisture that it turns into torrential rain and puts the fire out, though other times. . .’

  Clancy waited for her to finish her sentence.

  ‘. . .other times it becomes a thunderstorm and the lightning created starts further forest fires.’

  Chapter 65.

  THEY MADE IT DOWN THE ROCK FACE WITHOUT FALLING; now all they had to do was get down this final section and make it to the road.

  Then, as they stumbled and slipped and skidded down the steep mountainside, they saw what might be their salvation. A camper van pulled into a siding off the tarmac road.

  Ruby began to shout, waving like crazy, trying to get the driver’s attention. She’d lost her shoes somewhere along the way, but she didn’t care: she had her heart set on home. Clancy, who wasn’t about to leave these miracle sneakers behind, was desperately trying to retrieve them from a nasty-looking thorn bush, but Ruby just kept going. The last few feet she practically rolled like tumbleweed, arriving grazed and bleeding in a heap at the base of the mountain.

  The door to the van opened and a woman clambered out; she was perhaps in her fifties, her face weathered, friendly, she looked concerned but unpanicked; exactly the kind of person you wanted to meet when you were in this kind of trouble.

  ‘Hey, are you all right there sweetie?’ She hurried over to where Ruby was sprawled.

  ‘I think so,’ Ruby replied. She got to her feet and made a half-hearted effort at dusting herself off.

  ‘What happened to you?’ asked the woman.

  ‘I don’t think you’d believe me if I even began to explain,’ said Ruby. The woman looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘Try me,’ she said.

  Ruby felt relieved looking into her twinkling eyes. The woman was reassuringly ordinary in her pretty floral dress; she looked kind of motherly, not like Ruby’s mother, but sort of how a mother was meant to look.

  The woman smiled. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, ‘you were almost captured by a band of kidnappers?’

  ‘Kinda,’ said Ruby slowly.

  ‘But you escaped with the help of the last Cyan wolf? Is that about it?’

  The woman’s eyes were no longer twinkling: they were steely blue. ‘Tell me sweetie, just how did you do that?’

  Ruby looked back into those cold eyes and said, ‘The usual way.’

  The woman nodded. ‘And how did you figure it out?’

  ‘I pay attention,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I guess you do sweetie, so I hope you’re paying attention now because I sort of have the upper hand, don’t I?’ As she said this, she pulled the gun from her purse, then she shrugged. ‘You see how life turns on a dime.’

  Ruby did see this. Just a minute ago she was imagining making it back, surviving.

  ‘So how about you hand me that little blue bottle? Since you lost me my wolf, I reckon you owe me that – a lot more actually, but I’ll settle for what I can get, no point being a sore loser. I can’t abide a bad sport, can you?’

  Ruby took the blue vial from her pocket and placed it in the woman’s palm. ‘All this so you can make some money out of some stupid fragrance,’ said Ruby.

  The woman laughed. ‘Is that what you think this is about? No sweetie, this is not about some high-end perfume counter cluttered up with rich folk wanting to waste their money. This is about something important, more important than you could ever imagine.’ She examined the bottle just to be sure it w
asn’t a fake – she was no amateur.

  ‘No, this is not about perfume – you’re getting me confused with Lorelei, not the same kettle of fish at all.’ The woman smiled again as if a nice thought had just flitted through her mind.

  ‘Lorelei is a clever girl, but silly with it. She thought that she could double-cross me by stealing some of the Cyan for herself, but a mother always knows her child, whatever the disguise. She has never fooled me and never will. I see through every lie she tells.’

  ‘She’s your daughter? Lorelei von Leyden?’ said Ruby.

  The woman laughed. ‘Lorelei, she thinks her mother is dead, wants to believe it, but I know different.’

  The woman aimed the gun at Ruby’s heart and Ruby instinctively stepped back, one pace, two. . . and into thin air. She didn’t fall far, ten feet, maybe onto a small ledge about six foot square, a sheer drop behind her, a sheer rock face in front, and the way she felt the pain shoot through her, a possible broken arm.

  Now injured and without her Bradley Baker shoes, how was she ever going to climb up or indeed down? The woman peered over the cliff edge to where Ruby lay sprawled and then looked beyond to the approaching flames.

  ‘You don’t want to be here sweetie, don’t you know? There’s a forest fire heading this way, it’s gonna get real dangerous real quick.’ She reached into her purse and took out a box of matches. ‘And you know what fires are like: once one gets going, they sorta spring up everywhere.’ She struck the match and dropped it into the long grasses by her feet.

  ‘I guess I better get going if I’m to make it out of here unscathed; there just is no predicting nature.’ She smiled sweetly at Ruby. ‘You don’t mind if I save my bullets, do you sweetie? Ashes to ashes and all that.’ She turned and Ruby watched as she disappeared; heard the engine rev and the car speed away.

  Ruby looked into the flames and saw her number was up.

  Chapter 66.

  CLANCY HAD SEEN IT ALL, the woman and Ruby, but he had watched enough thrillers to know to wait until the villain has left the stage. Ruby had a rule about it, one she’d shared with him and which he often thought about: RULE 10: NEVER REVEAL YOUR HAND TO A PSYCHOPATH (this rule worked for adversaries of all kinds).

  He scrambled down from where he had been hiding and ran over to the cliff edge; he began stamping on the burning undergrowth, but the fire was already out of control. Ruby was stuck on a cliff ledge too far down to reach, on the wrong side of a flaming barrier with a forest fire advancing fast behind her.

  ‘Clancy, someone’s got a warn the Wichitinos about the fire! They’re up at Emerald Lake – tell them to get out a there!’

  ‘What about you?’ yelled Clancy.

  Ruby shook her head. ‘You gotta get out of here, you hear me?’

  But Clancy didn’t move.

  ‘Run Clancy, run!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you Ruby!’ Clancy had his face set firm and his feet had become like roots in the ground. ‘I can’t.’

  Ruby Redfort knew that face; she knew that no amount of begging, no amount of ordering would change his mind so instead she said, ‘I’m gonna be fine Clancy, I gotta plan. What you gotta do is to get over to Wichitino Camp, warn them about the fire, tell them to get themselves into the middle of that lake in their canoes. You paddle out with them, OK?’ She was shouting now above the roar of the flames.

  Clancy didn’t move.

  ‘I’m telling you Clance, you’re the only one who can save them. You’re the fastest runner in Junior High, way faster than me, and you’ll get there in time, I know it, and when you do you get into that lake with them. I don’t care how dorky they are. And you remember, I’ve got a real good plan B so don’t run off worrying about me.’ And she smiled at him just for a split second and with the flash of that smile Clancy believed her.

  ‘You’ve gotta warn the Wichitinos! OK Clance? Now scram, would ya? You’re gonna mess everything up.’ He turned on his heel and he ran; he ran like he was running for Twinford Junior High, he ran like Vapona Bugwart was after him, he ran like he had a forest fire at his back which of course he did.

  He ran and he ran until he reached Emerald Lake and when he made it to the Wichitino camp he found the troupe leader and he made sure he understood just how fast that fire was moving.

  He helped round everyone up and he got them out on their canoes and paddled out right into the middle of that Emerald Lake and only when he had organised every one of those Wichitino kids and only when he was sitting on Emerald Lake, safe in the middle of it, did Clancy Crew take a breath, and that’s when he knew he had been fooled.

  Ruby Redfort was not going to make it.

  No one could survive a fire like that.

  She might be tough, but she was no superhero, she was just a schoolgirl, a kid from Twinford Junior High. He turned and looked at the inferno blazing around him, snapping, spitting red-hot ash and flaming sparks, tongues of fire, devouring trees; he watched on as he saw the forest he had come from turn red and knew that was the last he would see of the friend he cared for more than any other living soul, the girl who was Ruby Redfort.

  Chapter 67.

  RUBY RAN THROUGH THE FOREST FIRE SURVIVAL RULES and came to Survival Suggestion 11, the one that dealt with emergencies.

  SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #11:

  Emergencies

  1. FIRE

  The last resort: when all other options have run out, dig a shallow trench in the earth, take off your coat or jacket, cover it in leaves, get into the trench face down and pull the coat over your head.

  Ruby looked at the ground: no earth to dig, it was solid rock. The fire in front of her was blazing, the fire behind was nearly with her. She had done one good thing and that good thing was worth a thousand others: she had saved Clancy Crew, the best friend a person could have, and that was a thought that made her smile.

  She reached into her pocket for a cube of bubblegum and pulled out the mini locator. Not even that could save her now.

  She shifted the tiles just for old times’ sake; she looked down at the word HELP and thought what a tiny word it was.

  Chapter 68.

  RUBY REDFORT WAS NOT EXPECTING TO SEE ANY LIVING CREATURE EVER AGAIN, not an ant or a beetle: every breathing thing was dying, consumed by the fire.

  She looked to the sky, gasping for one more lungful of air, and what she saw was a giant fly hovering overhead directly above where she crouched. Then the strangest thing happened: a man appeared, dangling on a silver rope.

  Batman? she thought.

  Her mind was giving up on her.

  He spun down and down until he was beside her on the ledge, head to toe in silver.

  It must be way more than 106 degrees on that ledge and the air had clearly reached the temperature of insanity.

  Not Batman, she thought, Batman wears black. So which superhero wears silver?

  The silver figure removed the mask And Ruby squinted up through the shimmering heat.

  Hitch.

  Those brown eyes belonged to Hitch.

  ‘You look like you could do with a little rescuing kid.’

  She stared up at him and smiled. ‘Boy, do you know how to embarrass a kid.’

  ‘Just sometimes, Redfort, looking cool is not the number-one rule of survival.’

  He pulled her up and over his shoulder, the fire cape covering them both, grabbed the cable and they rose through the dragonlike flames that were licking up towards the sky, right up to where the helicopter hovered. And then they flew through the clouds of smoke and the burning forest and up into blue, to where the air was fresh, and on home to Twinford.

  * She is surprised because this sounds a whole lot like Nancy Drew, a very famous girl detective who featured in a long series of successful American children's books from the 1930s right up to the present day.

  CLANCY CAME DOWNSTAIRS IN THE MORNING, three days after the forest fire rescue, to find a card from his father sitting on the hall table. It said:

  In recognit
ion of your quick thinking in rescuing your fellow Wichitinos. Well done son, I’m proud you survived.

  Fondest regards,

  your father

  Wow, this was something! A well done from Ambassador Crew was not so easy to come by, but an I’m proud was rare indeed. Ambassador Crew might have been less proud had he known Clancy hadn’t actually been on camp with the Wichitinos, but thankfully no one was going to enlighten him on the matter.

  Next to the card was a small box. Clancy opened it and took out a bicycle bell engraved with the words hard work will get you what you want in the end. The words struggled to fit round the bell and in any case what good was a bell without a bike? How much hard work was it going to take if rescuing a whole bunch of kids only earned you a bicycle bell?

  Clancy was just about to dip into a sort of resigned despondency when he was yanked back out of it by the buzzer; someone was obviously leaning on it. He went to the intercom and saw a blurry figure he recognised well.

  ‘Rube?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me. Let me in.’

  ‘How come you’re out of bed?’ he asked. ‘I thought Mrs Digby would keep you locked up for at least the next two months.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I gave her the slip. Now open the gate, would ya?’

  He buzzed her through and went out to meet her. She looked both terrible and wonderful, but Clancy Crew could only see the wonderful.

  ‘You look pretty good for someone who was almost burned to a crisp.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my hair’s not the same, but it’s nothing a good conditioner and six months’ growing time can’t fix.’ Ruby was standing by the huge iron gates, her arm in plaster, her foot all bandaged up and a nasty bruise on her cheek.

  ‘So how’s your cold?’ asked Clancy.

  ‘Completely gone,’ said Ruby. ‘I woke up this morning and I could smell the roses. . well, Wildrose shampoo anyway.’