The Ruby Redfort Collection: 4-6: Feed the Fear; Pick Your Poison; Blink and You Die. Lauren Child

up. ‘So where were we?’

      ‘You were running up a wall,’ said Ruby.

      ‘So I was,’ said Hitch. ‘Any questions?’

      ‘Yeah, are you going to teach me how to do that or what?’

      ‘Are you going to stop behaving like a numbskull at least some of the time?’ asked Hitch.

      ‘It’s a strong possibility,’ said Ruby.

      ‘OK, that’ll have to do,’ said Hitch, rolling his eyes heavenwards. ‘I’ll teach you.’

      Ruby didn’t go to school on Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday. Hitch had written a very convincing letter explaining that Ruby had suffered a road traffic accident (which wasn’t actually a lie) and was suffering psychological trauma (which may have been a tiny one). Instead of sitting at her desk in Twinford Junior High, Ruby spent her time in parking lots, shopping malls, alleys and low-rises, devoting the days to parkour, to practising the skills and getting into the mindset. Parkour was about moving in harmony with the city. It was about challenging the self – mind and body adapting to the urban environment, rather than competing with anyone else. Running and climbing, jumps, drops and vaults, fluid balanced moves and above all staying in the now – something that fear actually helped with.

      Ruby understood why Hitch had wanted her to learn the principles, because it was all about dealing with obstacles in the most efficient way possible, never taking unnecessary risks. She found, training with him, that she could drop great distances – further than she would have thought possible – by perfecting a move called a “roll”, turning downward force into forward momentum. She learned the importance of building strength and working towards the more challenging jumps, drops and vaults. Without training and proper preparation you could injure yourself badly, possibly permanently, and for Ruby that would mean kissing goodbye to her dream of making it as a field agent. She listened to everything Hitch told her; she did not want to blow this chance.

      Soon she was leaping from building to building, rolling when landing, running up walls and swinging herself round stairwells, using her agility and momentum to traverse the city. Her vocabulary now included wall runs, swinging lachés, feet first underbars, monkey vaults and tic-tacs.

      The more she focused on keeping herself in the moment, the more she began to tune into the rhythm of the city, to see the buildings and parks as spaces she could interact with. No longer were the buildings separate from her, they were her domain, an urban landscape she was now connected to. The amazing thing was that the more Ruby practised parkour, the clearer things became. The fragments were coming together; she was beginning to see things as a whole again.

      It was when she jumped from the Beyer Building, landing neatly on one of its several flagpoles, allowing herself to drop from it and catch the flagpole directly below, spinning herself around it like a gymnast might, using the momentum to somersault herself down and land gracefully on the sidewalk, that she looked up and saw it.

      It was an old faded sign on the side of a building, a ghost sign, with an address and a phone number at the bottom. But it wasn’t those that caught Ruby’s eye, it was the letters above. They spelled out:

      Suddenly, Ruby had an idea about the numbers she’d given to Hitch, the numbers from the cards.

      The poetry book was the key to it all.

Chapter 42.

      RUBY ARRIVED AT SPECTRUM, her mind free of the fog it had been clouded in. She grabbed a drink from the canteen and made her way to her desk. She took out the four sets of numbers and the book of poems and then she began to work.

      She looked again at all four cards, the numbers of each clear to her.

       3 14 1 10 14 8 15 14 13 17 14 15

      And now she thought the meaning was clear too.

      The paperweight, the shoes, the book of poems, the tie-clip. Of these the poetry book had been the most mysterious item. It was a book written to hold secrets; the poet had designed it that way – there was the missing poem 14 for one thing, or rather the hidden poem, which Ruby had found as soon as she’d figured out that the title gave the clue.