Catch Your Death. Lauren Child

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СКАЧАТЬ wriggled slightly in her seat; for all her research, one of her least favourite things about survival training was the whole eating deal. She wasn’t particularly crazy about chowing down on roots and foliage, nor did she like the idea of resorting to grubs when desperation struck. During the hours of training, she longed for her CheeseOs and her Slush-pops, but what she yearned for more than anything was her banana milk, hard to find in the wild.

      Today she had spent several hours foraging and several more trying to work out what to do with this unappetising harvest. Now the meal was as cooked as it was ever going to be, she closed her eyes and raised her fork to her mouth.

      ‘Redfort, I’m guessing you don’t know the difference between a toadstool and a mushroom. . . or perhaps you’re done with surviving?’ The voice was one Ruby recognised from her dive training in Hawaii.

      ‘Holbrook, if you’re trying to get your hands on my chow, you’re outta luck buster.’

      ‘You call that supper Redfort? I’d sooner boil up my socks than chow down on what you’ve cooked up.’

      ‘I’m sure they’d taste good ’n’ cheesy,’ said Ruby.

      Despite the way they spoke to each other, they actually got on like a forest fire.

      Ruby didn’t poison herself with her stew, though she couldn’t help feeling that Holbrook’s socks indeed might have been less disgusting. Even the cube of Hubble-Yum she spent the next hour chewing on couldn’t quite eradicate the taste of that stew.

      She was relieved when the helicopter dropped her home late that night and she could raid Mrs Digby’s larder. She found a tray of fresh-baked cookies with a note from the housekeeper that read: hands off kid.

      The following day’s challenge was to build a shelter. Colt spent the morning trying to impress upon his recruits just how important it was to keep warm and dry when out in the wilderness.

      ‘You get yourself soaked to the skin, and cold as an iced-up river, and you’re exposing yourself to all kinds of trouble. You need to build a shelter and get dry. The act of building the shelter will keep you warm. You don’t get warm and dry and you’re nigh on likely to get sick, and if you get sick in the wilds that makes you vulnerable and when you’re vulnerable you have a pretty fair chance of dying.’

      His manner was gruff, no frills, which didn’t matter because survival didn’t require frills.

      ‘Knives, flashlights, matches, waterproofs, they’re all frills,’ was something Colt might say.

      Holbrook and Ruby teamed up for the shelter building; they also worked together on the canoe hollowing: both disciplines took a lot of concentration, not just energy but skill. Once they were done, they took the new canoe out on the lake to see if it would float; it did.

      ‘You know what Redfort? I take my hat off to you – you’re not the sap I thought you were gonna be,’ laughed Holbrook.

      ‘I guess that’s lucky Holbrook, because you’re a deal more feeble than I’d expected and I hadn’t expected much.’

      This was when Holbrook decided to roll the canoe and dunk them both in the lake. It rolled without any trouble and though Ruby was kind of mad at him for getting the better of her she couldn’t help being sort of proud that this incredible boat had been created with her own two hands – with the help of Holbrook of course; she had to concede that.

      Ruby Redfort had always been sure of her mental abilities, but had not realised she could turn her hand to other more practical skills. Right now, sitting soaked through in her hand-carved canoe, she felt like the world was her oyster.

      It was a good feeling. But not one that was going to last.

Chapter 3.

      

      RUBY HAD BEEN OUT AT MOUNTAIN RANCH CAMP on and off, travelling back and forth, for approximately a month and her survival skills were coming along. She and Holbrook passed all their practical tests without a hint of trouble.

      Ruby was determined to excel and in a few short weeks had got as knowledgeable as Holbrook ever was, and Holbrook was no slouch. She felt satisfied that she knew the theory of survival, back to front and top to bottom; she was competitive and she was a hard worker, but no matter how much work she put in, Sam Colt would always say the same thing: ‘Redfort, you’re getting stuck on detail and it’s making you miss the whole big picture.’

      Skills that involved patience were not a problem for Ruby Redfort: patience was a virtue she had been born with. She could contentedly sit and wait for single drips of rainwater to fill a drinking glass if this was what it took. She could build a shelter that was really pretty comfortable and light a fire within about ten minutes. With all these tasks, she understood the need for patience and perseverance. This determined attitude was of great benefit to her since patience and perseverance were pretty essential virtues when it came to the tasks of survival.

      Strength wasn’t a big problem either; sure, she wasn’t as strong as some of her co-trainees – she was, after all, only thirteen – but what she might have lacked in sheer brute strength she made up for with her technique, learning how to move heavy logs and branches, rocks and earth by rolling, balancing, pivoting. All this theory she stored in her head, confident she had the information squirrelled away for that time when it might save her life.

      However, as good as Ruby was at these practical tasks, and although she had read and stored about as much knowledge as any survivalist, she couldn’t seem to convince Sam Colt that she was able to tune herself into the wild itself.

      ‘There are some things that ain’t in any book Redfort.’ He paused. ‘It’s like my pal, Bradley Baker, used to say: “Sometimes the best way to think about a problem is not to think about it.”’

      Talking to any outsider about Spectrum was strictly forbidden, but despite this hard and fast rule there was one person who did know about Ruby’s double life and his name was Clancy Crew. Clancy was Ruby’s closest friend and most loyal ally; he could sniff out a secret at a hundred paces and it had taken him no time at all to discover something was up and even less time to get Ruby to spill the beans.

      Ruby had broken a pretty big Spectrum rule here, Spectrum rule number one being keep it zipped, but on the other hand, telling Clancy Crew she was an undercover agent was like confessing to a priest or a doctor: the information would go no further. Clancy Crew never, ever told: he was like a human vault. Dangle Clancy over a river full of piranha and he would never say a single word; every last finger would have disappeared before he even began to open his mouth.

      Ruby wished she could talk to Clancy at length about what her trainer considered a gap in her ability, but Clancy was away with his father on some lengthy ambassadorial tour and so they had only managed a few snatched phone conversations. It wasn’t enough time to go into any detail, to really explain to Clancy how she felt, how puzzled she was that her trainer thought she was in some way lacking in understanding. In any case, it wasn’t easy to explain anything on the phone and they mainly ended up discussing how mad Clancy was at his ambassador dad for getting him all dressed up in stupid blazers and ridiculous polished loafers.

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ