She let go.
She wasn’t even close to making it.
RUBY’S LEAP WAS AN AMBITIOUS MOVE – the kind of stunt that needed practice.
And Ruby had had very little practice at swinging from buildings on wires.
So where did she land? In true comedy style (not that Ruby was close to laughing), her fall was broken by a flagpole, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, she was lucky enough to grab the flag as she began her descent to sidewalk level. Now she was hanging on with one hand and looking down at the red and white lights of the tiny cars on Ink Street. More movies than she could recall titles to had a scene like this. She gripped the tough fabric and worked her way steadily up the cloth until she was finally grasping the flagpole it was attached to.
Ruby thanked her lucky Redfort stars that her death-defying window-ledge encounter at the Sandwich Building had in some way prepared her for this moment.
It wasn’t easy to edge her way back to the building, the flag was billowing and enfolding her in its massive stars and stripes but, undeterred, she gradually manoeuvred herself closer to the building’s ledge, where she hoped there might be an open window.
She heard a voice.
‘Kid, where exactly are you, my radar has you placed at 300ft above street level, please don’t tell me you are on some rooftop?’
‘I’m not,’ Ruby replied in the rather strangled voice of one who is hanging by two hands over a 300-foot void. She couldn’t have been more surprised to hear Hitch’s voice crackling out of the fly barrette and she couldn’t have been more grateful either.
‘You don’t sound all right, are you all right?’ Hitch asked.
‘Um,’ said Ruby, ‘kinda. It depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
‘Whether there is a window open on the fiftieth floor of the Hauser Ink Building.’
‘Jeepers Redfort, do you ever obey orders? I’m coming to get you – just stay there!’
‘I’ll try,’ said Ruby, her strangled voice betraying the strain of her predicament.
By the time Ruby reached the building, her fingers were feeling the strain. She let herself down onto the ledge, finally daring to let go of the flagpole. There was no window. So she pressed her body firm against the Hauser’s bricks and prayed the wind would not change direction while she waited for Hitch to come get her. She looked up when she heard her name being called. ‘Grab this and I’ll haul you up.’
He sounded ticked off and Ruby had half a mind not to catch the rope but instead sit the night through and figure out another way down.
But, she thought, whatever storm was coming her way she was going to have to face it sometime or other, and besides, it was cold up on that ledge. She grabbed the rope, slipped her foot into the foot loop and was pulled back to safety.
She was met by a very unhappy-looking Hitch.
‘So why were you tailing me?’ she asked.
‘I wasn’t, I was just testing the transmitter function on my watch and guess who pops up on my radar?’
Stupid Redfort, you should have left the fly barrette at home!
‘I can probably explain,’ said Ruby.
‘You always can.’
‘I think someone just tried to kill me.’
‘You’re looking at the next guy in line – I just happened to be having dinner two blocks away with a very charming meter maid.’
‘Look, the thing is. . .’
‘Let’s be clear on one thing Redfort, don’t say one more word.’
Ruby nodded.
Hitch was winding the rope back. She waited for him to gather up his rescue kit and then, in complete silence, she followed him back in through the roof-hatch door, and all the way down the stairs to street level.
Ruby said nothing, not in fact because Hitch didn’t look like he had lifted the no-talk ban, but because she really couldn’t think of anything worth saying.
She picked up her skateboard from where she had abandoned it outside the Luper Building, but Hitch had already hailed a cab, and was directing her into it.
‘Go home Redfort,’ he said. Then he slammed the cab door and walked off in the direction of the restaurant and his no doubt rather cold supper.
The voice cooed
down the line. . .
‘I’ve been following you.’
Silence.
‘That’s right, and not in the papers.’
‘But you don’t know what I look like.’
‘Why would that matter? You make a real spectacle of yourself. I’ve got to hand it to you, it’s quite a show you put on.’
Silence.
‘I’ve seen you walking on air, I’ve watched you disappear, but I’m right behind you and getting closer.’
‘I told you, you’ll get what you want when I’ve completed my task.’
‘Too late Birdboy, I don’t like to wait and I’ve been waiting a long time.’ Laughter spilled down the line. ‘But you know what, it’s more fun this way, like a little old game of hide-and-seek, and I’m coming to get you buddy, you can be sure of that.’
CLANCY WAS IN SURPRISINGLY GOOD SPIRITS THE NEXT MORNING when he arrived at Twinford Junior High. He had been concentrating on his invisibility all week and it appeared to be working – he was certainly less visible than he had been the day before or the day before that. He had toned down his ‘look’ and had become ‘regular’ – neither eccentrically obvious, nor eccentrically bland.
Red and Elliot walked right past him at the bus stop and Del stood two places ahead of him in the canteen queue without noticing he was there. Vapona Begwell didn’t even hurl one insult his way for the whole entire basketball game and Vapona never missed a chance to bait him. He was feeling confident and relaxed, at one with the world.
In contrast, Ruby was in a complicated mood that morning. She barely spoke a word before leaving the house and headed for school without breakfast. Rare for Ruby not to feel hungry, rare for Ruby not to feel like talking. Clancy, a sensitive kid, tuned into her awkward state of mind at once and decided it might be wise to give her some space. He didn’t mind. Things were going his way and Clancy had not encountered the gorilla boy once since his first day back at school. He had seen the guy plenty of times outside the gates hanging with his crowd, but the gorilla had never spotted him. However, this good feeling was not to last and things took a turn for the worse in the afternoon.
Clancy walked into his history class, a little late due to a problem with his locker combination, and by the time he reached class, all the desks near the window and the back of the room had already been taken. In fact only two places remained,