‘So what you gonna do Rube?’
‘I’m gonna order a big plate of French toast and forget about it.’
Clancy smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.’
‘Let’s go to the Donut, get the skinny on what happened with Marla and the cops.’
THEY CLIMBED BACK DOWN THE TREE and were sitting at the diner bar counter two minutes later. The place was full of talk; everyone was discussing Marla’s heroic defence of the cat lady. No one had pressed charges and the cops were a lot more interested in the driver’s untaxed Cadillac than they were in the damage a shopping cart and a fire hydrant might have done to it.
Ruby ate fast, barely saying a word.
‘You skip breakfast or something?’ asked Clancy.
‘Nah, I had breakfast,’ she replied, ‘just can’t stop feeling hungry I guess.’
‘Maybe you got worms,’ suggested Clancy.
‘I doubt it,’ said Ruby. ‘I didn’t eat anything that could give me worms.’
‘There are other ways to get worms,’ said Clancy.
‘I don’t wanna think about those other ways, thanks buster.’
‘I was only saying,’ he muttered.
Silence again and then he asked, ‘So I’m guessing you did some fun stuff too. I mean you must have, right?’
‘If you count parachuting from a great height, rustling a horse from a ranch and riding it bareback across a river and then making your way in pitch-black to a valley, finding a ditch and sleeping in it, then yes, I guess it was exciting.’
Clancy’s eyes widened. ‘I do count that as exciting, well, all but the part about your sleeping arrangements.’
‘Yeah, I coulda done without the ditch myself, to tell you the truth, and the getting lost part wasn’t so cool either, nor were the rapids and the having my foot stitched without anaesthetic.’
‘I didn’t know you could ride bareback,’ said Clancy.
‘Neither did I – it wasn’t planned exactly – it was sorta necessary.’
‘So what kinda things are they testing you on?’ he asked.
‘Survival more than anything, dealing with everyday wilderness conditions, extreme wilderness conditions and some incidental challenges, like forest fires, getting caught in rapids, attack by wild animals – any in-the-wilds emergency I guess.’
Clancy liked the sound of this; as a casual observer, he liked drama even if he didn’t exactly like to be in the middle of it himself. The forest fire challenge was only rivalled by the fear of attack by wild animals. Both sounded to Clancy like things to be avoided.
‘So what have I missed?’ asked Ruby. ‘I mean something must have happened these last three days.’
‘Our neighbour Mrs Gilbert’s spaniel, Gilbert, went missing.’
‘Mrs Gilbert’s spaniel is called Gilbert?’ said Ruby.
‘Yes, Gilbert Gilbert is what she calls him,’ said Clancy.
Ruby pondered this information with an expression of puzzled pity.
‘He was on his leash,’ continued Clancy, ‘tied to the fence, you know, so he could run round the backyard, but not actually get out of the yard – anyhow, he did.’
‘Did what?’ said Ruby.
‘Get out the yard, and the weird thing is he musta slipped outta his collar somehow ’cause Mrs Gilbert found it down the street, but there was no sign of Gilbert Gilbert.’
‘Quite the mystery,’ said Ruby.
Clancy smiled. ‘Isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Maybe you should alert Spectrum.’
‘Who’s Spectrum?’ said a voice.
They both jumped – Spectrum was not a word to be breathed in public and was not a word that Clancy was supposed to know, let alone utter.
Ruby looked up and saw the eager face of Elliot Finch.
‘TV show,’ she said.
‘Never heard of it,’ said Elliot.
Ruby shrugged.
‘But then you guys watch a lotta TV,’ said Elliot. He slid into the diner booth. ‘Where’ve you been anyway?’
‘Oh, here and there,’ replied Ruby.
Elliot eyed her. ‘You don’t look so good, kinda scrawny – what’ve you been eating?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘Just grubs and maggots, but I’m done with that diet.’
Elliot looked at her, unsure if she was joking.
‘You want a donut?’ said Ruby.
Elliot looked at his watch. ‘Sure, I could eat.’ He studied the menu. ‘You seen Mouse? I’m meant to be meeting her here; we were gonna play table tennis in Harker Park.’
Harker Square, or Harker Park as kids and locals often referred to it, was the smart square in the centre of town. It had clipped hedges and ornamental apple trees as well as huge dappled plane trees, rose beds and several fountains – some traditional, some very modern and surprising (surprising in that they suddenly spouted water high into the air when people walked by – a lot of people had complained).
The square was surrounded by smart shops and office buildings, all built in the art deco style. Harker Square was popular: it was pretty, sunny with plenty of benches and shaded areas, and had just acquired a permanent outdoor table tennis table and Elliot was making the most of it. Mouse was a pretty good table tennis player, championship good actually, and Elliot was getting her to teach him some moves.
When Mouse eventually showed, she had come with news.
‘Strangest thing – I got to Harker Park, but the ping-pong table is sort of gone, at least half of it’s gone, I mean totally wrecked; looks like something actually took a bite out of it.’
‘I bet it was that Flannagon kid,’ said Elliot. ‘I saw him and those boys he hangs out with hitting a baseball around the back alley behind the department store. I’ll bet they wrecked the table tennis table and then went to find something else to destroy. They broke a window with their baseball too. That Flannagon kid is some hitter.’
‘You saw them do that?’ said Ruby.
‘As good as,’ said Elliot. ‘I heard the sound of a ball hitting a bat and then I heard the sound of glass breaking, so it had to be them, right? I mean it’s always them.’
‘You got a be careful accusing people without being a hundred per cent sure,’ said Mouse. ‘People end up in the big house every day, locked up for crimes they never even committed.’
Mouse’s grandfather was a campaigner – he worked hard to protect ‘John Q. Public’s’ civil rights and so Mouse had grown up with strong feelings about fairness and justice. She didn’t much like Dillon Flannagon, but that didn’t mean he was guilty of every act of vandalism in Twinford County, though he did seem to be responsible for most of them.
In any case, it didn’t much matter if it was Dillon