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Why do we fear fear?’
DR JOSEPHINE HONEYBONE, founder of the Heimlich Good Emotion Institute, from her thesis, The Worthy Emotion.
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ONE BRIGHT SUNNY DAY IN OCTOBER, a woman looked up to see a five-year-old girl wriggle out of a tiny fifteenth-storey window. As far as the woman could make out, the child was lured by the desire to reach a yellow balloon that had become snagged on the ironwork of the building’s fire escape. The girl seemed unaware of the life-threatening drop that yawned beneath her and, without concern, edged forward on hands and knees. She paused when she encountered a hole in the rusting metal walkway – then put her hand through it as if to make sure the gap was real.
The woman on the sidewalk held her breath.
The child reached out across the void but could not quite grasp the long pink ribbon that tethered the balloon, and it gave a mocking nod, turning to reveal its printed smiley face. The girl, who was attending her cousin’s birthday, wondered if the balloon had floated in from some other celebration. Because this balloon was different from most: attached to its string was a brown paper tag, like an old-fashioned luggage label. The child began to wonder if the tag was a message, a greeting from some far-away place.
What was it trying to tell her?
All at once the little girl stood up quite straight – then she confidently stepped onto the metal beam that had once supported the fire escape floor, her fingers almost within touching distance of the balloon now, but not quite. For one whole minute the child stood completely still and then, very slowly, she took her hands from the safety rail, spread her arms wide like a tightrope walker might, and continued to pursue the balloon by stepping one foot exactly in front of the other along the narrow iron strut that jutted from the building.
The woman on the sidewalk gasped, unsure if she should call out, or if her cry might cause the girl to lose her balance and fall. She could neither run for help nor warn the child – so she just stood there rooted to the ground, waiting for tragedy to play out.
The girl, unaware of the woman’s dilemma, was interested only in the label tied to the balloon’s string. What did it say?
She grabbed for it but as she did so her foot slipped, she toppled forward and, with yellow balloon in hand, fell towards earth.
The woman on the sidewalk covered her eyes and screamed and a man walking his dog froze.
As the child fell she thought about Agent Deliberately Dangerous and his amazing floating cloak – a gravity-defying garment that always brought him safely back down to earth. She thought about what she had eaten for breakfast: a bowl of Puffed Pops and two whole glasses of banana milk. Was this enough to make the difference between floating like a leaf and plummeting like a stone? She thought about what noise she would make when she hit the sidewalk. Would it make a boing sound like that Looney Toons dog, or would she land, cat-like, on her feet?
And just as it seemed she was going to smack down hard on the tarmac, something amazing happened. A truck drew up – it belonged to the Twinford featherbed company – and the little girl landed with a puff, plumb-square in the middle of it. Of course all of this happened in the space of 3.2 seconds but it played out in cartoon time.
A couple of blocks away, when the truck stopped at a red light, the child climbed out unnoticed and walked back to the party, balloon in hand.
When she got to the street corner she paused to examine the tag. Disappointingly, there was no message; it was entirely blank, save for an image of two eyes tightly shut. Still, she untied it from the balloon’s string and tucked it in her pocket. She had gone to a lot of trouble to get it and in any case who knew when a brown label might come in handy?
She let go of the smiling balloon and it climbed back into the sky until it was so high it was no longer visible.
The woman from the sidewalk searched and searched but there was no sign, no visible trace of the girl who had fallen from the sky.
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WHEN RUBY REDFORT WAS EIGHT SHE TOOK PART IN AN EXPERIMENT. She and thirty-three other participants were asked to watch a piece of film which showed six people – three in white T-shirts and three in black T-shirts – throwing basketballs to each other. The task was to count the number of times the players in white passed the ball.
Ruby counted sixteen passes.
This was the correct answer.
She also noticed the gorilla.
Or more accurately, the man in the gorilla suit who walked across the basketball court, stopped, beat his chest and strolled out of shot.
Fifteen of her co-watchers noticed this too.
Ruby also noticed that one of the three players dressed in black departed the game when the gorilla appeared.
Five of her co-watchers noticed this too.
Ruby noticed the curtain in the background change colour, from red to orange.
Zero of her co-watchers noticed this.
The psychologists conducting the experiment declared that Ruby was a remarkably focused individual, but also had an extraordinary ability to see everything all at once.
Aside from the things Ruby had spotted in the content of the film, she had also noticed one of her co-watchers (the one with the mole on her left cheek) sticking a piece of chewing gum (the brand was Fruity Chews) under the adjacent seat, another (the guy with the hayfever) knocking over his glass of water, and a third (a woman with a Band-Aid on her fourth finger) anxiously twisting her earring (she was wearing mismatched socks, very slightly different shades of green).
Not that any of these three observations had anything to do with the experiment Ruby was taking part in.
Some several years later. . .
Chapter 1. (#ulink_1fffe229-5c5e-5a1a-91c9-c9b37404c5f9)
RUBY REDFORT LOOKED DOWN.
She could see the traffic moving like little inching bugs, far, far beneath her feet. She could feel a hot breeze on her face and hear the muffled sounds of car horns and sirens. It was a day like most of the days had been that summer – too hot to be comfortable; the sort of heat that brought irritability and rage and left a sense of general malaise.
Ruby surveyed the whole beautiful picture that was Twinford City – all detail gone from this height, just the matrix of streets and building blocks; huge skyscrapers punctuating the grid. Outside the city, the big beyond: desert to the east, ocean to the west and mountains marching north. From up here on her ledge she could see the giant blinking eye that was the logo of the city eye hospital, with its slogan beneath it: “the window to your soul”.
The eye-hospital sign had been there since 1937 and was something of a landmark. People actually travelled downtown to have their picture taken with the neon eye winking above them.
As Ruby sat there on the ledge of the Sandwich, she was contemplating recent events, and the various ways she had almost met her death – the past couple of months had offered a range of possibilities. Death by wolf, death by gunshot, death by exposure, death by cliff fall, death by fire. In one way it didn’t make for happy reminiscing, but in another it sort of did. She was alive after all, because somehow she had dodged bullets – metaphorical and literal – and was now sitting calmly watching the world go by. It was unlike Ruby to dwell on things, but Mr Death had come so close to knocking at her door that she found herself fascinated by the very thought of it.
Now here she was sitting on the window ledge of a skyscraper, with news of an approaching storm on its way. Some would regard this as a risky activity. Ruby did not. Disappointingly, as far as she was concerned, at this exact moment there were no gusting winds, no adverse weather conditions, not even a stray pigeon looking to take a peck out of her. She judged her spot on Mr Barnaby H. Cleethorp’s windowsill to be no more dangerous than sitting on a park bench in Twinford Square. Well, that wasn’t quite true; there was the danger that Mr Cleethorps would finish his meeting with her father early and they would both give her grief for parking her behind on the ledge of his seventy-second-floor window and playing fast and loose with gravity. But it was hardly the high-octane excitement Ruby had become used to during the past five months as a Spectrum Agent.
Ruby was in the Sandwich Building – or rather sitting on the outside of it – because her father had insisted on bringing her to work with him.
‘Until that cast comes off your arm honey, I’m not letting you out of my sight.’
Her father had become rather over-protective since Ruby’s accident, and he would now only trust her care to his equally jittery wife, Sabina, or the housekeeper, Mrs Digby. A broken arm, an injured foot, singed hair – how close his only child had come to being burnt to a cinder!
Forest fires are very unpredictable, what was she even doing out there on Wolf Paw Mountain? Brant Redfort had asked himself, and indeed anyone and everyone who had walked through the door in the days after the incident.
Brant, as a consequence, was now plagued by fear: he was waking up at four am contemplating the horror of life without his girl. The thought was making him crazy. His fearfulness spread to his wife like a contagious disease and now for the very first time in Ruby’s thirteen years her parents wanted to know exactly where she was and exactly what she was doing at all times. Ruby was going ‘nuts’ as she so delicately put it.
‘Let them worry,’ advised Mrs Digby, a wise old bird who had been with the family since Mrs Redfort was a girl. ‘They’ve never had the sane sense to worry before, it will do them the power of good to employ a little imagination.’
‘Why?’ asked Ruby. ‘What’s the point of them getting all torn up with terror. What benefit is it gonna do them?’
‘They’re too trusting,’ replied Mrs Digby. ‘They don’t see the bad in things like I do.’ Mrs Digby was a big believer in seeing the bad in things – think the worst and you will never be disappointed. It was a motto that had stood her in good stead.
So for now Ruby was doing what her parents wanted; she was biding her time and looking forward to the day when she could lose the arm cast and get her parents off her case.
Ruby’s father was in advertising – the public relations, meet ’n’ greet, shake-you-by-the-hand side of the business. Being friendly to the big important clients was an important job and Brant Redfort was very good at it. Typically, therefore, Brant searched for a tie that might appeal to the client – in this instance, Barnaby Cleethorps, a conservative fellow but a jolly sort. Brant had picked out one that was patterned a little like a red and white chequered tablecloth, scattered with tiny picnic things. Just the ticket, he had winked at himself in the mirror.
As Brant came down for breakfast that morning, he caught sight of his daughter, lounging on the patio table, banana milk in one hand, zombie comic in the other, her T-shirt bearing the words what are you looking at duhbrain?
He sighed. It seemed unlikely that Ruby would be following him into a career in public relations.
‘Now be careful Ruby,’ warned her mother. ‘There are some unsavoury types downtown.’
‘You do know I’m going to Dad’s client’s office, don’tcha?’ said Ruby, sucking down the dregs of her banana milk.
‘Say no more,’ muttered Mrs Digby, who had a notion that the advertising business was rife with unsavoury types.
Brant kissed his wife on the cheek, ‘I’ll keep an eye on her, honey, never fear. What possible harm can come to her in the Barnaby Cleethorps offices?’
Sabina kissed her daughter and hugged her as if a month might pass before seeing her again.
‘Mom, you gotta chill,’ said Ruby, disentangling herself from her mother’s embrace and stepping into the chauffeur-driven, air-conditioned car.
They arrived on 3rd Avenue and took the elevator up to the seventy–second floor. Mr Cleethorps greeted them – ‘nice to meet you young Ruby’ – and he pumped Ruby’s good hand so hard she thought it might come loose from its socket. ‘I see you have been in the wars, but I understand from your father that you’re quite the brave little lady.’
Ruby smiled the smile of a five-year-old, which was obviously what Mr Cleethorps had mistaken her for. ‘How about a drink for our small guest,’ he said. He turned to his assistant, who nodded and smiled and went off to find something suitable – Ruby suspected milk.
As it turned out she was right. She rolled her eyes. Ruby was not a fan of milk, unless flavoured with strawberry, chocolate or her particular favourite, banana.
Once alone Ruby set about finding a good place to dispose of her beverage. There were no plants in the reception area and it didn’t seem good manners to tip it into one of the ornamental glass vases. She scanned the room further and that’s when she noticed that a section of the window in the waiting area could be opened. She stood on a stool, reached up and pulled on the latch. She pushed the window open and a fresh breeze blew in and Ruby couldn’t help wondering how nice it might feel to sit out in that pollution-free air . . .
And that’s how Ruby came to be sitting on the ledge of a very tall building, six hundred feet above street level, wiggling her toes and contemplating the whole big picture. She felt truly calm sitting here on the edge of nowhere. Ruby Redfort had no issue with heights; she’d never suffered vertigo, never felt that strange desire to let herself fall. Fear had never dominated Ruby’s actions, but now fear wasn’t even playing a part. It seemed she had reached a state of fearlessness.
Ruby picked up the glass and flung the milk from it, watching it disperse into tiny droplets that disappeared into the air. She placed the empty glass carefully on the ledge and decided she wouldn’t mind taking a little wander round the building, see her dad schmoozing Barnaby Cleethorps – why not?
The ledge was relatively wide and it was easy to walk to the south corner window and peek into Mr Cleethorp’s office. A slide presentation was obviously in progress, since the slatted blinds were all pulled down, and Ruby could only observe what was going on by peeking through the gaps. A number of the Barnaby Cleethorps team were gathered round looking at designs prepared by the creatives at her father’s agency. There, projected onto the screen, was the slogan the ad agency had spent weeks fine-tuning: “You Have to Feel it To Believe It!”
Ruby could see Mr Barnaby Cleethorps’ face and it was not a happy one. She adjusted her position on the ledge so she could see her father’s expression. As always, he looked remarkably cool, not in any way flustered, but she knew he must be feeling the strain because he was heading towards the window, and when her father was feeling tense his response was usually to let in some air. Tension brought on a sort of claustrophobia – too much stress in one room made it difficult for him to breathe.
Ruby ducked down, making herself as small as she could. Not that Brant could have seen her through the Venetian blind, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
The opening of the seventy-second-floor window might have helped Brant Redfort regain his calm, but for his daughter it had entirely the opposite effect. The problem was that Ruby had not anticipated how the window might open; she was expecting it to hinge in the middle when in fact this huge window was of the pivoting variety, and as her father yanked it open Ruby was flung out into thin air. She landed in – or, more accurately, dangled from – one of those window-cleaning cradles that travels the length and breadth of skyscrapers, allowing maintenance guys to squeegee the acres of glass. Luckily there were no maintenance guys in it now, though unluckily it meant there was no one to pull Ruby back in.
Now, suspended six hundred feet above the downtown traffic which crawled and tooted beneath her, she could see the irony of the situation – her father, intent on keeping her safe, had almost brought about her demise.
But at this precise moment she was struggling to see the funny side.
Chapter 2. (#ulink_52c92a05-750d-5811-a76b-622db2e8f35f)
HANGING THERE BY HER FINGERTIPS, Ruby looked down at the map of streets. She could see the city’s famous old movie theatre, the Scarlet Pagoda; the Japanese garden in front of it, the lampposts decked in bunting and lights to celebrate this year’s Twinford Film Festival: A Date with Thrills.
The festival was to be a celebration of romantic thriller movies of the kind that she and Mrs Digby loved, and the situation Ruby currently found herself in was no doubt one seen in many of these pictures.
Only for Ruby this was no stunt, there was no safety net, and she needed to get a grip before someone raised the alarm. She heaved herself into the window-cleaning cradle and found the controls that would carry her back to her original window. She knew which one it was because it had an empty milk glass sitting in front of it.
She was just clambering out of the cradle when she heard a voice.
‘Hey kid, would you come in from there?’
Ruby looked up to see a tall, well-groomed man in a well-cut suit standing in the room. He appeared moderately anxious.
‘Am I making you nervous?’ asked Ruby.
‘The only person making me nervous is the meter maid on 3rd Avenue where I’m double-parked.’
‘Geez Hitch, why don’t you just find a parking spot like a normal person?’
‘You think it’s easy parking in this city?’ Hitch replied.
Ruby sighed, swivelled herself round and dropped back in through the window. She landed on the long elegant coffee table, the main feature of the sleek reception room. Pens went skidding across its surface and a bowl of marbles upturned, contents spinning in all directions and disappearing under furniture.
Hitch rolled his eyes. ‘Good going kid.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Ruby gathering up the pens and plonking them back in their pen pot. ‘Don’t have a total baby about it, man.’
HITCH:‘It’s not me who’s going to have the “baby”. Mr Barnaby H. Cleethorps is a very particular man.’
RUBY:‘What’s he gonna do, dangle me out of the window by my toes?’
HITCH: ‘Probably.’
RUBY:‘Boy this guy must really like his pens tidy!’
HITCH:‘You better believe it Redfort.’
RUBY:‘So what are you doing here? You back from summer vacation?’
HITCH:‘Something like that.’
RUBY:‘Where have you been anyway?’
HITCH:‘It’s classified.’
RUBY:‘Your vacations are classified?’
HITCH:‘I wasn’t on vacation.’
RUBY:‘But you just said you were.’
HITCH:‘No I didn’t, you did.’
RUBY:‘Boy, have I missed small-talking to you. So where are we going?’
HITCH:‘Elevator.’
RUBY:‘You know I can’t leave, my dad won’t let me out of his sight.’
