Take Your Last Breath. Lauren Child

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      THE NEXT MORNING WHEN RUBY REDFORT turned the corner of Amster Street, she walked on past the bus stop, crossed the road and headed for the Double Donut Diner – she figured there was plenty of time to grab a shake and still make the school bus.

      It wasn’t that the Double Donut Diner particularly specialised in donuts – it was really because Marla, the owner, thought it was a catchy name and apparently it was because everyone in Twinford seemed to know the Double Donut.

      The diner was popular with all sorts of locals and Ruby liked to hang out observing the comings and goings of Twinford folk. It also did particularly good French toast – something Ruby’s mother was very much against due to the quantity of maple syrup her daughter drowned it in.

      Del and Mouse looked up as she came in. ‘Hey Rube, how you doing?’

      ‘Oh, you know, could complain, can’t be bothered.’ She looked around. ‘Clancy not here?’

      ‘He had to leave early,’ said Mouse. ‘Said he had to go and see Principal Levine, on account of flunking French, again – Madame Loup is furieux.’

      ‘How come he didn’t tell me about that last night?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘He only just found out. Mrs Bexenheath actually called the Crew household this morning,’ said Del. Del was the only person Ruby knew who could speak while at the very same time suck milkshake up a straw.

      Ruby winced. ‘A little trip to the principal’s office, huh? That’s gonna get old Clancy’s dad in a stew.’

      ‘Lucky for Clance he’s off sailing the high seas with your folks,’ said Mouse.

      Ruby nodded. Clancy’s dad wasn’t in the business of bringing up losers: at least that’s what he was constantly telling his children. Ambassador Crew liked to think of himself as a winner and that meant having children who were winners. Clancy, in this respect, often let the side down.

      ‘Poor old Clance,’ said Ruby, signalling to the waitress that she was ready to order.

      Just then, in stumbled a girl with long copper hair, golden brown skin and grey eyes. It was the impossibly pretty but strikingly clumsy Red Monroe.

      ‘Hi Red, what happened to your leg?’ asked Del.

      ‘Oh yeah,’ replied Red, looking down at her scuffed knee. ‘I tripped over a dog.’

      ‘That reminds me,’ said Del. ‘My Uncle Charlie, you know, the one who’s with the coastguard? He was saying how this shipment of dog food ended up in Argentina when it was meant to be delivered to Mexico, and how this shipment of bananas was meant to arrive in San Francisco, but ended up in Chile. I mean how about that!’

      ‘So?’ said Mouse. ‘What’s the big deal? Mix-ups happen.’

      ‘Yeah, but my Uncle Charlie was saying it’s been happening a lot, I mean a lot.’

      Del tried to emphasise what ‘a lot’ was by leaving her mouth hanging open when she had finished speaking.

      ‘Oh, how interesting,’ said Ruby, yawning an exaggerated yawn.

      ‘I’m telling you guys, this is a big deal,’ Del insisted.

      ‘Give us some examples then,’ said Mouse, who was concentrating hard on her milkshake.

      ‘Like a bunch of sneakers that ended up in Antigua instead of Seattle and a whole load of corncobs that showed up in Miami.’ She paused before adding, ‘Uncle Charlie told me a troupe of Indian elephants on their way to Baltimore still hasn’t shown up at all.’

      Ruby looked at her with a tired expression. Del had quite a reputation for turning fiction into fact and this just sounded like the usual garbage that she regularly spouted.

      ‘For a start it isn’t a troupe of elephants, it’s a parade or herd,’ said Ruby, ‘and for seconds that has to be untrue.’

      ‘Ask anyone,’ said Del.

      Ruby turned to Mouse. ‘So Mouse, did you hear about the shipment of elephants that went missing between India and Baltimore?’

      ‘Nope,’ said Mouse.

      Del sighed – she knew when she was beaten. ‘Hey, how about some French toast? I mean there’s time, right? We just need to eat quick; we can still make the bus.’

      Del Lasco could talk a cow into milking itself and before they knew it they were all sitting eating a Sunday-style breakfast as if school was not even on the menu. When the hands of the clock got dangerously near pointing out eight o’clock, the friends slipped down off their stools and headed in the direction of Twinford High.

      The bus had long gone.

      * * *

      ‘Late again! What a surprise,’ said Mrs Drisco, without one chime of surprise in her voice. ‘So what was it this time – the cat ate my homework?’

      ‘Oh, we don’t have a cat Mrs Drisco,’ said Ruby.

      The teacher pinched her lips together sourly. ‘Well, that’s a detention then,’ she said, writing a D in the register.

      ‘I have a note,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Well, unless it’s from the mayor himself, then I really don’t think I’m interested.’

      ‘Oh, it is,’ said Ruby.

      She reached down to her satchel, opened it and rifled through her notes and excuses section. There were notes inside for any occasion, arranged alphabetically. She selected the one she needed.

      Pulling out a piece of paper from the bag, Ruby handed it to Mrs Drisco. Mrs Drisco looked at the piece of paper most carefully. She put her glasses on and took them off again, then sat down. The note was most definitely signed by the mayor himself – it wasn’t a copy.

      Just how Ruby Redfort had come by this note is another story, but suffice it to say, Ruby kept a lot of things up her sleeve or, more precisely, in her satchel – who knew when they might come in handy? The Boy Scouts had it right: be prepared – it was front and centre in the Boy Scout handbook, a little bland in its delivery but a good rule. Ruby had chosen it as her RULE 11: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED AND BE READY FOR ANYTHING.

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