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‘Yeah and I wish you would hurry up, the conversation has been wearing thin. Clancy has this new pen. He says it’s a space pen, you know, writes upside down, zero gravity …’
‘I know,’ said Ruby, ‘it’s meant to be like the most permanent permanent marker there is. Apparently you can write on a space shuttle and it won’t come off.’
‘Well, it’s causing permanent boredom, the kinda boredom that makes you wish you were in space.’
‘I’ll be there, Mouse, just give me ten minutes.’ Then she glanced at herself in the mirror: brother! Something weird had happened to her hair. ‘OK, better make that fifteen.’
She walked to the bathroom, stepped into the shower, squirted shampoo on her head, rubbed it in, cleaned her teeth, rinsed her hair, combed it through, dried off, pulled on the clothes that happened to be lying on the floor, looked for her lenses, couldn’t find them so instead reached for her battered glasses, stepped into her Yellow Stripe sneakers and laced them up. Then she climbed out of the window and down the tree – she didn’t need to run into her parents; that would certainly slow things up.
She walked the familiar route to the Donut Diner, feeling almost like a zombie. Man, she needed a waffle to perk her up.
A guy in a baseball cap handed her a flyer as she approached the coffee shop. She barely noticed she had it until it was torn out of her grip by a gust of wind. She watched it whirl away across the street, the image of a kid biting into an apple landing on the windshield of a parked car.
Finally she made it to the Diner, fourteen minutes and eleven seconds after Mouse’s call.
‘What happened to you?’ called Elliot. ‘Ever thought of getting a watch?’
‘Sorry, man,’ said Ruby, ‘I had a rough night, must have slept right through the alarm.’
‘Yeah, you look … not yourself,’ said Red. ‘What happened to your glasses? Did you sleep in them or something?’
‘Give her a break,’ said Del, patting Ruby on the back. ‘It doesn’t matter Rube, at least you’re here now. Have a waffle.’ Del passed her a plate and began sliding food onto it.
Ruby looked around. ‘Where’s Clancy?’
‘In the restroom,’ said Elliot.
‘So you wanna hear the plan?’ said Mouse.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Clancy?’ said Ruby.
‘He heard it already,’ said Mouse, ‘we’ve been here nearly an hour. So you wanna know?’ She was clearly going to pop if she didn’t say it.
‘Sure,’ said Ruby, ‘tell me the plan.’
‘OK,’ said Mouse, ‘the idea is that we go as the Rigors of Mortis Square.’ Everyone waited for Ruby’s reaction.
The Rigors of Mortis Square had first appeared in a comic strip and then as books and finally as a TV show. It was a situation comedy about a bunch of people, or rather dead people: ghosts who lived in a strange apartment block named Mortis Square, situated in New York City. The Rigor family were the main focus of the show, but there were other characters too: Liv Inded for instance, who was always to be found rummaging in the trash, looking for bones, her cat constantly chided for running off with one of her fingers or occasionally hands. It was a very popular show and Ruby for one loved it.
‘But that would require pretty elaborate costumes,’ said Ruby. ‘Where we gonna rustle those up at this late hour?’
They looked at her like she’d dropped a marble or two.
‘My mom promised to get us all costumes from the film studio,’ said Red. Nothing was registering on Ruby’s face so Red continued, ‘It’s kind of a birthday present to me, don’t you remember Ruby, the other night when you guys were all over at my place?’
Ruby was kind of vague on this point; she really didn’t remember. Sure, she remembered dinner at Red’s place and she remembered Red’s mom being there, she even remembered catching the bus home, but beyond that, no. The problem was she just hadn’t been getting enough sleep and, as her mother was always telling her, teenagers need their sleep.
‘My mom said we could choose any six costumes on the lot – it’s a big deal because there’s gonna be a film crew there filming … you gotta remember that?’ said Red. ‘It was in the paper, the mayor putting on this big Halloween do?’
No, still nothing was coming back to her, but the way Red was looking at her made her feel uncomfortable. So she said, ‘Yeah, sure I do.’
‘What have I missed?’ asked Clancy, sliding back into the Diner seat.
‘Red was just telling me about the Halloween costumes.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘I would say sounds genius to me.’ And it did; she really meant it. ‘So who am I going as?’
‘We, that’s you and me,’ said Del, ‘will be going as Hedda Gabble.’ Hedda Gabble was the Rigors’ nanny.
Ruby looked at her with unease.
Del continued, ‘I will be wearing a floor-length fur-trimmed velvet coat which covers me from head to toe – literally speaking.’
‘So what will I be wearing exactly?’ asked Ruby.
‘You, my friend, will be going as my severed head.’
‘Will it hurt?’ said Ruby.
‘Funny,’ said Del. ‘You will be under the coat with your head sticking out at the side, sorta tucked under my arm.’
‘Sounds very uncomfortable,’ said Ruby.
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Del. ‘Erica Grey did it for years.’
‘So why don’t you be the severed head and I’ll tuck you under my arm?’ suggested Ruby.
‘I’d be delighted but you’re way too short to carry off the coat part of the costume. I’d have to practically bend double to tuck my head under your puny little arm.’
Del took a photograph out of her backpack – it was a TV still that showed the actress Erica Grey, her head tucked under the arm of who knew who. Her pretty face was made up to look very pale indeed, huge dark circles around vacant eyes, lips blood red and black hair piled elaborately in some kind of historical do.
‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ said Del. ‘It’s you that gets the glory, I just get to stand about under a coat all night.’
‘So choose a different costume, why don’t you?’ suggested Ruby, biting into the waffles. ‘Boy, these are good.’
‘That would spoil the whole deal,’ said Red. ‘We are meant to be going as the Rigors and there are five principle characters.’
She waited for Ruby to click.
‘You and Del will be one person, so that works out well with the six of us,’ said Red, slowly.
‘What about the baby?’ asked Ruby.
‘We don’t have a baby, obviously,’ said Mouse.
‘But the baby is a big part of the comedy,’ argued Ruby.
‘Well, it’s too bad because we don’t have one,’ said Red. ‘But we can get a headless dog ’cause that can be Bug.’
‘Pardon?’ said Ruby.
‘No, not really,’ said Red. ‘What’s with you? There isn’t a headless dog in the show.’ That was true; the dog in the show was called Toadstool and he floated. That wasn’t going to be easy to pull off either.
‘Bug will be on skates,’ said Del.
‘Skates?’ said Mouse.
‘Maybe a skateboard,’ said Del.
‘But toadstool is a pug,’ said Ruby. ‘Bug is a husky.’
‘We have to make compromises,’ said Red.
‘Yeah, ’cause where are we gonna get our hands on a pug?’ asked Del.
‘I’ve always wanted a pug,’ said Elliot.
‘How does that help?’ asked Mouse.
There then ensued a long discussion about who might have a pug they could borrow and this led to another discussion about the pros and cons of owning a pug. The overall conclusion was having a pug would be a good thing, the main reason: because it would be very useful if one wanted to dress one’s pug up as Toadstool Rigor.
When the noise level had died down, they tuned into another sound: it was coming from Ruby Redfort who had her head on the table, one arm stretched out towards her milkshake. The straw had never made it to her mouth.
‘She’s sleeping like the dead,’ said Mouse.
‘Boy, should she get to bed earlier,’ said Del. She looked at Ruby, sleeping so soundly and then she picked up Clancy’s special permanent space pen and wrote on her arm:
‘Del, you do realise that’s a permanent marker,’ said Red.
‘Not just permanent but super permanent,’ said Clancy. ‘They use these pens in outer space.’
‘If you repeat that one more time I’m going to end up outta my mind,’ said Mouse.
Del rolled Ruby’s sleeve down. ‘Maybe she won’t notice.’
‘What’s going on?’ said Ruby, scratching her arm. ‘I fall asleep or something?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Elliot, ‘do you snore when you’re awake?’
‘Huh?’ said Ruby.
‘What’s with you today?’ said Mouse. ‘It’s like the lights are on but no one’s home.’
‘She’s preparing for the part,’ said Elliot, beginning to snicker. ‘Her head is somewhere else.’
(#ulink_5e4c683c-89e1-5ac3-8d2a-feed1765cd48)
MRS DIGBY WAS IN THE KITCHEN trying to manoeuvre a large pumpkin into the pantry when Ruby walked in.
‘Child, you shouldn’t be out in this weather without a hat, you’ll catch your death. I swear this wind will blow your mind away and your good health with it.’
‘You’re sounding very Halloweeny, Mrs Digby.’
‘I just tell it like it is,’ said the old lady. ‘Your lips are blue and your nose is running and it is a most unattractive combination.’
‘Well, thanks for your honesty, it really is refreshing.’
‘You won’t thank me when you’re dead.’
‘But I might come back to haunt you,’ said Ruby.
‘Of that I’m certain,’ said the housekeeper. ‘You haunt my every waking hour, why give up the habit when you’re dead?’
Ruby opened the refrigerator, took out a carton and poured herself a glass of banana milk, then headed up to her room.
Inspired by the breakfast conversation about The Rigors of Mortis Square, Ruby flicked on the TV, tuned to channel 17 and waited for the next episode to begin. They were rerunning the entire series to coincide with Halloween fever.
The Rigor family was having trouble with the plumbing and Cordelia Rigor, who had died in a drowning incident, was wading through the kitchen wearing water wings. Toadstool was hovering in swimming goggles and barking a lot.
The telephone rang and Ruby reached out for the receiver.
‘You rang?’ she said.
‘Look Rube, can I come over? My sister Olive is driving me crazy.’
‘What’s she doing?’ asked Ruby.
‘The usual,’ said Clancy. ‘She’s eaten all my Spy Scoundrel figurines.’
‘Actually eaten them?’ said Ruby.
‘Chewed their heads off,’ said Clancy.
It was when Ruby heard things like this that she was relieved that she didn’t have a little sister or in fact siblings of any age.
‘Sure Clance, come on over, but you better make it quick, the weather guy just said the rain’s coming in.’
‘I’ll bring my galoshes,’ said Clancy.
An hour later, Ruby and Clancy were sitting on her rooftop looking at the sky. They were both wearing their parkas, hoods pulled up over woollen hats to protect them from the wind.
‘Boy, this is about as stormy as I can remember,’ said Clancy. ‘When do you suppose the rain’s gonna hit?’
They could see the lightning way off over the ocean, but it was moving their way.
‘Maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen,’ said Ruby.
