Take Your Last Breath. Lauren Child

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      THE NEXT DAY WAS A SCORCHER – it came out of nowhere and the whole of Twinford seemed to have unfolded their sunloungers and lit their barbeques.

      Ruby Redfort and Clancy Crew were sitting on the roof reading comics. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still warm and Clancy was sporting a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses; they were his sister Lulu’s. Nothing wrong with a thirteen-year-old boy wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, nothing at all; plenty of hip boys his age might want to express their sense of style and individuality by wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. But Clancy wasn’t wearing them as a style statement: he didn’t know what a style statement was; they were simply the first thing in the form of eyewear that came to hand. No one could accuse Clancy Crew of vanity – he always wore exactly what he felt like wearing. Didn’t matter how ridiculous he looked – it was one of the things that Ruby liked most about him.

      ‘Hey Rube,’ he said. Ruby was concentrating hard on the RM Swainston thriller she was reading and didn’t respond.

      ‘Rube! Can you hear me?’ He prodded her with a stick.

      ‘Huh?’ She peered up at him. The large red floppy sunhat obscured most of her face and she managed to appear at the same time comical and stylish – neither look, however, was intentional. Like Clancy, she wore what she liked; unlike Clancy, she had an innate sense of style. Style was just something she had. She even managed to lend a certain chic to her T-shirt, which bore the less than elegant words shut your pie hole. Most of Ruby’s T-shirts were emblazoned with upfront messages of this kind; her mother, in particular, loathed them.

      ‘So?’ said Clancy.

      ‘Huh, what?’ said Ruby.

      ‘You were gonna tell me about your training – in Hawaii – remember?’

      ‘Oh, that,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s kinda confidential, I’m sure you understand.’

      Clancy started flapping his arms. ‘What are you saying, confidential? You promised me you were gonna tell me, you promised Ruby, you weasel.’

      ‘I’m just kidding with you, don’t get your underwear in a bunch,’ said Ruby.

      She put the book, The Strangled Stranger, under her chair, took a breath and paused; she did this not only for the sake of drama, but also because, well, everything she was about to tell Clancy was strictly confidential. Classified information. Spectrum had forbidden her to tell anyone, anything about the code breaking and undercover work she was doing for them, but then Clancy Crew was not anyone. Clancy Crew knew how to keep his mouth shut. Clancy Crew would rather die a painful death than betray a secret.

      Ruby sucked the last dregs of her banana milk up the clear curly straw sticking out of her glass, swallowed and said, ‘OK, the training basically involved scuba-diving.’

      ‘Really?’ said Clancy. ‘That’s kinda cool, so you actually went in the ocean?’

      ‘Yeah Clance, I went in the ocean. Where dya think I went, the paddling pool?’

      Clancy had a deep fear of the ocean: it wasn’t just the sharks, it was everything.

      Though it was mainly the sharks. He had once read a book when he was younger, a novel, that had given him cause for many sleepless nights. Admittedly, the book had been one his mother was reading and not recommended for fourth graders – he had spotted it on her nightstand and was lured in by the image of the huge shark’s head shown on the front cover, its dead eyes staring up at a lone swimmer. It had made quite an impression. Clancy had found it to be unputdownable and read the whole 649 pages in four sittings, locked in the bathroom. He had paid for this every night of his life for the next 1,366 days – his dreams invaded by this great white monster.

      Ruby always did her best to reason with him.

      ‘Clance,’ she said. ‘Sharks are not interested in human flesh – most attacks happen by accident. The shark spots a swimmer, mistakes it for a seal and goes over to investigate. The problem comes because sharks explore with their teeth – more often than not they take a bite and think better of it.’

      ‘That’s very reassuring Rube – I feel a whole lot better – just wait while I go dive into the ocean.’

      ‘What you gotta do,’ continued Ruby, ignoring her friend’s sarcasm, ‘is try not to pee – they take this as a sign of vulnerability. Failing that, if he’s got you in his jaws, bop him on the nose with your fist. The nose is very sensitive on a shark. He’ll soon let go – on the whole sharks can’t be bothered to fight. They’re not used to it.’

      ‘Well,’ said Clancy, ‘that must be the only thing that sharks and I have in common.’

      ‘In any case, it’s very rare – I mean you probably have the same likelihood of being trampled to death by a rhinoceros.’

      ‘Yeah, well, the difference is I would see the rhinoceros coming – at least I could run for it.’

      ‘Well, you say that Clance, but rhinoceroses are awful fast runners – personally, I’d rather take my chances with the shark.’

      Perhaps because of his terror, Clancy also had a deep fascination for anything to do with the sea. He liked to read about all those things that kept him awake at night sweating with fear. Killer jellyfish, killer whales, poisonous coral, giant squid, killer squid, killer-giant-squid, tuna fish, anything aquatic. He was a bit of an expert.

      So he listened eagerly as Ruby told him about the stuff she had learned, the dives she had been on, the depths she had swum to and the things she had seen.

      ‘So did you – you know – come face to face with any of our toothy friends?’ said Clancy, his eyes all wide with anticipation.

      ‘Yeah, but they were only small ones – just little reef sharks – nothing to write home about,’ said Ruby.

      ‘You wanted to see them?’ said Clancy, flapping his arms again.

      ‘Sure I did, it’s all part of the experience of the ocean.’

      ‘Prehistoric things with razor-sharp teeth swimming toward you – yeah, I can see how you wouldn’t wanna miss that experience.’

      ‘Anyway,’ said Ruby, ‘I’m not a bad scuba-diver now – I’ve done my advanced training and I’m all set for nearly any underwater mission Spectrum choose to send me on.’

      ‘So your next mission will be underwater?’ Clancy shuddered.

      ‘Well, I would hope so,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m gonna look pretty dumb in scuba gear anyplace else.’

      ‘So you aren’t trained up for anything other than diving?’ said Clancy.

      ‘Give me a break Clance, I’ve only been in training a month – I guess I’ll be covering other things soon. I mean I’m not sure when they’re gonna teach me skydiving, but I imagine jumping out of a plane is off limits until they have.’

      Clancy fanned his face with the comic he had been СКАЧАТЬ