Blink and You Die
Say goodbye to Ruby Redfort: every smart kid’s smart kid. The mind-blowing conclusion to the thrilling series by award-winning author Lauren Child.Ruby Redfort: undercover agent, code-cracker and thirteen-year-old genius – you can count on her when the ice starts to crack.All good things come to an end… Ruby Redfort is running scared, a whole bunch of people want her dead and worst of all one of them is on her team. But just who is this agent of doom?You can run, Ruby, but you can’t hide…
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First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books 2016
HarperCollins Childrenâs Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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For Ruby Redfort games, puzzles, videos and more, visit:
Visit Lauren Child at www.milkmonitor.com
Copyright © Lauren Child 2016
Series design by David Mackintosh
Illustrations © David Mackintosh 2015 Illustrations of characters in end material © Lauren Child
Map layouts by Martin Brown
Map illustrations © Emily Faccini
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780007334285
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008190156
Version: 2017-04-04
Contents
Chapter 1. A window on the world
Chapter 5. Snakes and mushrooms
Chapter 7. One bad apple or two?
Chapter 13. Sprayed and delivered
Chapter 14. The wrong kind of snow
Chapter 15. Thirty Minutes of Murder
Chapter 22. Something remembered
Chapter 23. A manâs best friend
Chapter 24. Hypocrea asteroidi
Chapter 25. Mushrooms from Mars
Chapter 26. The trolley problem
Chapter 28. Nothing but glamour
Chapter 34. I remember nothing
Chapter 43. What to do if You are Caught in an Avalanche
Chapter 49. We wish you a merry Christmas
Chapter 50. Even the mundane can tell a story
Chapter 53. Nothing is completely safe
Chapter 54. All systems are down
Chapter 60. Hanging on by an eyelash
IT HAPPENED ONE BRIGHT APRIL DAY when the child, then barely five weeks old, was sleeping. The world crashed down and the baby opened its eyes, but there was only darkness to see. The walls were packed around it, almost touching, and the doors and the windows all gone. The baby cried out, but no one came. It screamed and clenched its furious fists, trying in vain to push at the tomb of rubble, but nothing happened. Its little mind began to panic, its eyes closed shut and its heart began to hurt.
She was alone and no one would ever find her.
The baby had been left in the care of the housekeeper, who had just put some cookies to cool on the porch when, without warning, the ground began to shift and the buildings began to shake, trees creaked and then cracked. Some of them â the big oak on Amster Green â stood firm, others â the giant cedar of west Twinford â fell.
Sidewalks buckled and streetlights toppled. The earth tremor lasted just a few seconds and Twinford City escaped by-and-large unscathed â a few buildings needed repair, but remarkably no one, not a soul, lost their life. The townsfolk mourned their fallen trees, but counted their blessings: no one had died. There was only one real casualty; the Fairbank house on Cedarwood was completely destroyed. After 200 years of standing just exactly where it was, looking out across the ever-changing townscape of west Twinford, this historic house was gone.
It was the housekeeper who dug the child out with nothing but âthe hands God gave herâ. This woman had endured more than earthquakes in her time and no mere earth tremor was going to have her standing by while an infant lay buried, perhaps dead, perhaps alive. By the time the babyâs parents returned to their home, now a wreckage of wood and brick, their daughter was lying in the housekeeperâs lap quiet as a lamb and smiling up at them. Everyone was very relieved, their little girl saved, not a scratch to her perfect face, no damage done.
