Take Your Last Breath. Lauren Child

the water but could see nothing to explain it. She claimed her dog reacted to the sound too.’

      There was some sniggering in the audience that could have come from Agent Froghorn, but Kekoa took no notice.

      ‘The girl alerted the lifeguard, who swam out but found nothing to substantiate what Billie-May had told him.’

      Kekoa clicked through some more pictures that showed various fresh-faced-looking people and the location references.

      ‘The sounds have generally been heard when people are swimming a mile or so from shore, or on boats further out to sea. One person, Danny Fink Junior, heard the sound when fishing on a rock which juts out into the ocean, almost an island, but that’s the only example of anyone hearing the sound on dry land.’

      ‘Have you heard it?’ asked one of the agents.

      ‘No,’ said Kekoa.

      ‘And how many years have you been diving in those waters?’ asked another.

      ‘Seven,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I’ve been in Hawaii the last couple of months.’

      ‘Yet you yourself have heard nothing?’ said the first agent. ‘Even since you got back?’

      ‘No,’ said Kekoa.

      A rippled whisper went through the audience.

      ‘So have you considered that these accounts could all be bogus? I mean some of the people who reported it are just little kids,’ continued the first agent.

      ‘Yes,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I consider it unwise to disregard them just because I, just because you, have no personal experience of them.’

      Ruby couldn’t agree more strongly with this statement. There were people who made wild claims about spotting aliens and spacecraft, and there were other people who claimed that this was nonsense and aliens and spacecraft didn’t exist, but either way what you had to accept was that these people had seen something. RULE 5: REMEMBER, THERE IS MORE TO LEARN THAN YOU CAN EVER KNOW.

      ‘In conclusion,’ said LB, stepping back in front of the screen so the smiling face of Danny Fink Junior was projected across her white suit, ‘I want this case wrapped up all neat and tidy AS…’ she rapped the perspex file with her fountain pen, ‘AP.’ She couldn’t have looked more serious.

      ‘One of our agents is dead. Spectrum need to know if it was foul play or just plain bad luck. The coastguard need to know if all this disruption to the cargo shipping is incompetence or something a lot more serious. The fishing industry need to know where all the fish have gone. I want to know if I have a team smart enough to give me some answers. I don’t get the right ones and I’m not happy; I’m not happy and some of you are going to have to take a walk.’

      ‘Yikes,’ whispered Ruby. ‘What’s LB like when she’s unhappy, I mean really unhappy?’

      ‘You don’t want to see it,’ said Hitch.

      Ruby was glad she had taken Hitch’s advice and zipped her jacket up. LB was in one very bad mood.