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Take Your Last Breath
Lauren Child
Hey, buster! Normal life is a total yawn. So break out boredom with multi-million-copy bestselling author Lauren Child, and meet your new favourite heroine… Ruby Redfort: detective, secret agent, thirteen-year-old kid.Everyone’s favourite kid detective is back for a second mind-blowing instalment, packed with all the off-the-wall humour, action and friendship of the first book. This time, though, it’s an adventure on the wide open ocean, and Ruby is all at sea…Can she crack the case of the Twinford pirates while evading the clutches of a vile sea monster as well as the evil Count von Viscount?]Well, you wouldn’t want to bet against her…
Copyright (#ulink_7d2ea654-b411-5082-9721-b4590165ed99)
First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2012First published in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2013This electronic edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge StreetLondon SE1 9GFThe HarperCollins Children’s Books website address iswww.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Visit Lauren Child on the web atwww.milkmonitor.com (http://www.milkmonitor.com)www.rubyredfort.com (http://www.rubyredfort.com)
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Text copyright © Lauren Child 2012Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015, Cover photography © Sandro Sodano
Lauren Child asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Based on an original series design by David Mackintosh
Inside illustrations by David Mackintosh
Find out more about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/green)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source ISBN: 9780007334094
eBook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007487509
Version: 2015-06-05
Rave Reviews for Ruby Redfort
“Redfort is one of the best things to happen to ten-plus British fiction… these are modern classics.” The Times
“Lauren Child has put imagination and fun back into the real worlds of childhood.” Julia Eccleshare, Guardian
“Clues, gadgets, secret HQs, a heist, explosions… T-shirts with cool slogans and a supply of jelly doughnuts. What more could adventure-loving girls want?” Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times
“Cool, punchy, stylish.” Sun
“I like the way Ruby is not a girlie girl and has lots of adventures.” Amazon
“Totally amazing… a book you can’t put down!” www.goodreads.com (http://www.goodreads.com)
Contents
Cover (#u84c5224d-fb90-5993-898c-5625ef60441f)
Title Page (#u66d6b823-7f5c-53c7-9799-08b6540162bb)
Copyright (#ulink_99d36cbe-36f9-5d8c-bb28-3178458acf04)
Dedication (#u141bea2e-84dc-5fcc-b207-754db2dfc45f)
Coming up for air (#u14a62dec-d2c1-5110-8ee5-aff8ff3b713d)
An Ordinary Kid (#u5d827252-def8-59ec-a951-9b309a42746b)
Chapter 1. Don’t back away or they will see you as prey (#uf6ef8649-6110-5150-8ecf-9e38341328fe)
Chapter 2. One drop could save your life (#u749e38e4-062b-5126-8ad4-3f0e5c13f019)
Chapter 3. Plankton and sea cucumbers (#u573a4a61-4c47-548b-9871-e3952553b0dd)
Chapter 4. The recurring dream (#u93eb4d9b-c785-5c58-895a-c0930f54dae2)
Chapter 5. The shape of a condor (#ua261f8ce-2a3d-561d-875a-51f06d6e9c98)
Chapter 6. An ocean of fear (#u73fc69b2-715a-55a3-a800-951b9569a4c3)
Chapter 7. Dolphins, sharks - they’re all the same (#ud6630538-f9ac-5aab-b237-13e08250bee9)
Chapter 8. D for detention (#uc9c3ef4f-559a-5305-b8bf-5bd05d2be56c)
Chapter 9. All out of fish (#u9d7b1772-74a0-51e6-9c3b-a974eacf27f9)
Chapter 10. Sea Division (#u087b5a67-9b58-5a0b-af51-d2116533d8bb)
Chapter 11. Seriously strange (#u318cb0aa-21c2-5056-9fc6-ddb04f81c4e8)
Chapter 12. Consequences (#u327a4f3f-ef6d-5ad8-aef5-82d6cd3990f2)
Chapter 13. -... . .- - / .. - --..-- / -. --- ... -.-- / .--. .- .-. -.- . .-. (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14. Another Twinford Bay casualty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15. Clutching at straws (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16. Don’t look back (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17. Something fearsome this way comes (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18. White noise (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19. Strange and old-fashioned (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20. A real potato head (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21. Get Zuko (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22. No news is good news (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23. Love without words (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24. Just plain lucky (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25. Once in a blue moon (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26. Cerebral Sounds (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27. An unblemished record (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28. I speak the truth (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29. A schoolboy error (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30. The toes of the sisters (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31. A seahorse and a golden bird (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32. From the jaws of death (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33. Time for some answers (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34. Laugh all you like, sucker (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35. Connecting the dots (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36. Stranger things have happened at sea (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37. A cloud of indigo (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38. Just static (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39. Your mother’s jewel (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40. Looking for trouble (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41. Swimming blind (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42. Whatever happened to plan B? (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43. A stitch in time (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44. Playing for time (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45. You can count on me (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46. M is for Martha (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47. Where’s an apple barrel when you need one? (#litres_trial_promo)
Not a dream (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48. The truth is indigo (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49. The truth will out (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50. Hard to explain (#litres_trial_promo)
A real emergency (#litres_trial_promo)
A note on the Chime Melody musical code, with help from Dr Thomas Gardner, Music Consultant to Ruby Redfort. (#litres_trial_promo)
A note on Count von Viscount’s static code by Marcus du Sautoy, Super-Geek Consultant to Ruby Redfort. (#litres_trial_promo)
A note on Arvo Pärt (#litres_trial_promo)
Read More from Ruby Redfort (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
THE SUN FLICKERED ON THE OCEAN, cutting bright diamonds of light into the surface of the indigo water. A three-year-old girl was peering over the side of a sailboat, staring down into the deep. The only sounds came from her parents’ laughter, the sing-song hum of a man’s voice and the clapping of the waves against the yacht.
Gradually the sounds became less and less distinct until the girl was quite alone with the ocean. It seemed to be pulling her, drawing her to it… confiding a secret, almost whispering to her.
She barely felt herself fall as she tipped forward and slipped into the soft ink of the sea.
Down she twisted, her arms, her legs above her like tendrils. The water felt smooth and perfectly cold; fish darted and silver things whisked by – her breath bubbled up as transparent pearls.
Then suddenly, like a snap of the fingers, all the fish were gone: it was just the girl in the big wide ocean.
But she wasn’t quite alone.
There was something else.
Something calling to her, but she couldn’t see what. It saw her though, with ancient eyes, unblinking as it steadily pulsed its way through the blue. Something with long, long snaking arms hovering between her and nothing.
And then, vine-like, the thing coiled a limb round her ankle and tugged her firmly in the direction of infinity. Down to who knew where?
Ooops, thought the child. And on she spun. Bubbles fizzed about her and her head began to throb, her breath almost gone.
And then yank! Something grabbed her arm, someone grabbed her arm. The strangling-thing released her; suddenly she was coming up for air, breaking through the surface of the ocean.
She found herself slapped mackerel-like onto the hot deck of the boat, coughing saltwater from her lungs. Her green eyes blinked open and she smiled up at two troubled faces. She felt the water dribble from her ears, and heard the sound of the gulls screaming in the sky above.
