Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath

Author:Lauren Child [Child, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6357-5
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2012-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

It was nice to join her friends for breakfast, just like always.

“So,” said Clancy, “my record is unblemished. I told you I had a hunch your folks were alive, and I was right.”

“Yeah Clance, I’ll give you that — you were right,” said Ruby.

“As always,” said Clancy.

“As always,” agreed Ruby.

Yes, life was good. The specter of death having receded for now, far into the future. Laughing and yacking like worries were a thing of yesterday, which they sort of were. . . . Well, except for the ruthless pirates and the weird shark action, dead divers, and ransacked pleasure cruisers — apart from those things, everything was rosy.

The trees looked greener, the sun felt warmer, school seemed a tad more fascinating, and Vapona Begwell . . . well, she was as objectionable as ever.

“So, Redridingfort, I hear your parents almost got chomped by sharks,” she hollered across the cafeteria.

Ruby decided not to tell Bugwart where to stick it, it was too nice a day, but as it happened, Del stepped in, and then things got kind of ugly anyway.

Del’s food fight with Bugwart sort of escalated. At one point Ruby saw several chicken wings fly across the dining hall. These were followed by a considerable number of pizza slices — and resulted in several detentions for a number of students; the ringleaders spent the afternoon cleaning the school cafeteria.

Apart from that, nothing much truly happened school-wise.

Ruby had to drop her plan of hanging out with Clancy at Del’s house, but as it turned out, that was just as well. The Bradley Baker rescue watch flashed green in music class, and that meant no hanging out with anyone. Ruby made a promise to Clancy that she would catch up with him on Friday, and as soon as the school bell rang, made her way back to the pool, back to Spectrum.

She rode swiftly, shortcutting through quiet residential streets, zigzagging through back roads. When she got to the main square, she saw the stranger again.

This guy is starting to bug me, Ruby thought.

He was sitting reading what looked like a map, a large yellow carryall at his feet. Where had she seen a yellow bag like that before? By the time she made it to the Twinford City pool, she had it: Little Bay Beach; this guy was a diver. Was it relevant to anything? Why should it be? It was just that she had this feeling. She slipped through the door of the maintenance room, making sure it clunked shut behind her, and took the elevator down to HQ.

On arrival, Buzz informed Ruby that LB wanted a word, and she was to wait outside her office. Ruby stared at the huge optical painting that hung on the wall in the waiting area. She didn’t hear the soft padding of her boss’s bare feet, not even when they were just two steps away.

“Pleased to hear your parents aren’t dead, Redfort.” And that was about as touchy-feely as the head of Spectrum 8 was ever going to get.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.