Take Your Last Breath. Lauren Child
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with him?’ she said, pointing her thumb in his direction.
‘You know Clance, a boy with a fearful persecution complex – thinks the whole of marine life’s out to get him,’ said Ruby.
Del punched him on the arm. ‘Get a grip Crew, nothin’s gonna bother taking a bite out of your shrimpy body.’ She took a big chomp out of her sandwich and continued to talk. ‘I wish it was our grade taking part in the swimathon; too bad only the kids in 9th grade get to swim.’ Del was captain of the 8th grade swim team and she relished any chance she got to compete.
The 9th grade had been training for this for the past few months and, as a team-building exercise, Coach Newhart was taking them for a seafood cookout – not that he touched molluscs or crustaceans himself. Coach Newhart only ate real food and that meant food that walked on all fours on dry land – no fins, no feelers.
Elliot came and joined them. ‘Hey, where’s Mouse and Red?’ he asked, looking around as if they might be under the table.
‘Chess club,’ said Del.
‘Red plays chess?’ he said.
‘She’s good actually,’ said Del. ‘Well, when she’s not knocking the pieces all over the board, she tends to win.’
Elliot nodded, surprised but impressed. ‘So Rube, how was your vacation?’
‘You know, good,’ she replied.
‘So what did you do?’ he asked.
‘Swim,’ said Ruby.
‘Anything else?’ he enquired.
‘Cleaned the bathroom a few times,’ she said.
‘Well, thank you for that detailed account of your spring break,’ said Elliot. ‘That all sounds really interesting.’ He turned to Clancy. ‘So what did you do?’
‘Hung out mainly – with my sisters,’ replied Clancy through mouthfuls of fries. ‘My dad’s taking this Historical Society cruise; left on Friday, so he didn’t have time for us all to go away on a family vacation before – too busy.’
‘What’s the deal with that?’ asked Del. ‘He gets a vacation and you don’t?’
‘My dad says it’s not really a vacation; they’re learning about the legends and history of the Twinford coast. He says it’s good for the Ambassador to be seen on a trip like this,’ said Clancy. ‘Ruby’s mom and dad are on it too.’
‘Sounds like a riot,’ yawned Del.
‘Actually, the Sibling treasure legend is pretty interesting,’ said Ruby. ‘You should read up about it; as legends go, it’s a good one. Besides, it involves one of my ancestors.’
‘You’re kidding,’ said Clancy.
‘No way!’ said Elliot.
‘I don’t think you ever mentioned that before,’ said Del. ‘Well, maybe once or twice or perhaps three million times!’
‘Oh, ha ha,’ said Ruby flatly. ‘You guys just wish you had some kinda historical intrigue in your families; ain’t my fault that you got nothing to talk about.’
The legend was roughly this: Ruby’s great-great-great-great-grandmother, Eliza, was sailing to South America on the family ship, the Seahorse, with all her worldly goods (very valuable ones by all accounts), when the boat was attacked by pirates who slaughtered all on-board. However, Eliza’s four-year-old daughter Martha, who was a smart child, the smartest anyone could remember, escaped death by hiding in a barrel of apples.
When the pirates had finished raiding and murdering, they began collecting up the spoils from the Seahorse. But unfortunately for them, they hadn’t quite murdered everyone on-board – a few of the Seahorse crew who were still below decks took the remaining pirates by surprise and a violent battle broke out. Most of the pirates had already returned to their galleon, but those who were left fought to the death until the Seahorse, engulfed in flames, sank below the waves.
Miraculously, the child, Martha, managed to escape by floating across the seas in the apple barrel, before eventually washing up in Twinford.
The whole story sounded very far-fetched to Ruby, but she couldn’t deny its appeal. One intriguing part centred round something little Martha claimed to have seen. She was quite convinced of the fact that she had watched her mother carried from the boat by the pirates, kicking and screaming. Martha would not be dissuaded on this point – she was sure that her mother was still alive, although no one else believed it.
The postscript to the story was also intriguing since it became a tale told to children all over the region. It was said that not so long after the Seahorse was wrecked and plundered, a beautiful woman was seen aboard a pirate vessel, raiding any ships that dared to sail in pirate waters. Some said they had seen her brandishing a cutlass and slitting men’s throats, others that she was held captive, destined never to tread dry land again.
Clancy’s day was marred by his extra French tuition and, just to add insult to the occasion, a nasty run-in with his two least favourite Twinford Junior High pupils.
‘Oh, look who it is! Nancy Drew, Redridingfort’s little helper! Look, he’s just been to his “French for duh brains” tutorial.’
The girl jeering at him was Vapona Begwell (or Bugwart as she was known by most of the school), one of the few kids who did not like Ruby, but then Vapona didn’t particularly like anyone. Vapona Begwell was an unfortunate-looking girl, sour-faced and mean with it. Tall but strangely lumpen with a sort of leery stoop which made her look very much like a cartoon bully – which was sort of what she was. She hung out with Gemma Melamare, a total viper with cute blue eyes and a snub nose, who lurked at Vapona’s side and leaked poison into the schoolyard, spreading rumours and setting friends against friends. It never worked on Clancy and Ruby; they were wise to the Melamare menace.
‘So Clancy, I notice you and Ruby haven’t been hanging out so much lately. Was it because she said that thing about you being too dumb to be seen with?’
Clancy looked at Gemma blankly.
‘Oh, you didn’t know?’ said Gemma, her sugary voice feigning apology.
He smiled as he pulled his bike from the bike stand; saying nothing was his secret weapon – he knew it made Gemma Melamare crazy. Still smiling, he headed off towards the torture that was an hour’s violin lesson, his face not for one second belying the hell he was about to endure or how much he wanted to sock Gemma with the aforementioned instrument.
When Ruby arrived back from school, she found Mrs Digby singing along to the radio, which was tuned to Chime Melody. Chime Melody was her favourite station for tunes, Twinford Talk Radio for talking. Talk Radio she loved, but Chime Melody was her guilty pleasure. It played the old tunes, and Mrs Digby adored the old tunes, and what’s more she seemed to know every one of them.
She always said, ‘If I hadn’ta been so busy cooking you Redforts your every morsel, I would have sung for my supper and made a bundle on Broadway.’
‘Anything happen while I was busy learning stuff?’ asked Ruby, opening the refrigerator.
‘Only that the fish store was all out of fish. I ask you, we live practically in an ocean, but I swear there’s not one single sprat for sale. In my day fishermen knew how to fish; they could catch a catfish in a rain puddle.’
‘Don’t sweat it,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not in a fishy frame of mind tonight.’
‘I don’t care what frame of mind you’re in child, it’s what you need that counts and you need fish or that little brain of yours is going to shrivel up like a currant.’ Mrs Digby was a great believer in fish oil.
‘So what are we having instead?’ asked Ruby.
‘You will be having a spoonful of cod-liver oil and some cabbage soup,’ said the